Page 53 of The Wildest One

“What the hell do I even say at this point?Want to meet for ten minutes before we leave for our flight?”

He stuck his hand out. “Give me your phone.”

I chuckled. “Hell no.”

“Give it to me, Beck. I’ll show you the message before I send it.”

Reluctantly, I handed him my phone.

And within a second, he was groaning. “Dude, you’re a fucking idiot.”

“Why do you say that?”

He tilted the screen toward me. “Do you see the last message you sent her? How it’s in green?”

“Yeah.”

“That means it might not have been delivered. Do you notice how the other texts you sent to her haveDeliveredbeneath them? That means they went through. But this last one, not so much.”

My stomach was churning.

“What are you saying, Landon?”

His expression softened—his attempt at being sensitive. “I don’t think Jolie got your invitation to Africa—that’s what I’m fucking saying.” But then he stared at me like he didn’t recognize me. “You really didn’t know that a green message was always questionable?”

I shook my head. “I’m into hockey, not technology. I don’t even go on social media.” I pulled at the strands of my hair. “Do you know how many fucking times I looked at that text and wondered why the hell she hadn’t written me back?”

“Now you have your answer.” He tapped my shoulder and handed me my phone back. He walked to the showers, leaving me alone on our section of the bench.

This whole fucking time, Jolie had no idea that I wanted her to go away with me. She didn’t know that trip, in my head, was the start of something more. And this whole fucking time, I had thought she had blown me off.

But she hadn’t.

It was nothing more than an oversight, like not wiping your face well enough to get off all the barbeque sauce from breakfast.

A goddamn real moment.

And it was … all my fault.

TWELVE

Jolie

“Icould get real used to this,” Ginger said as she stood along the balcony of the second floor of the club, looking down at all the people grinding below. While she danced in place with the club’s signature pink drink in her hand, the straw bounced, and the booze sloshed against the sides of the glass.

“Get used to what?” I took a sip of the same cocktail, the mixture sweeter than I normally liked, but all the women in here were drinking one, and I’d wanted to see what the hype was about.

“This.” She twirled her finger in a large circle, and I could tell she was including the ceiling, which was as decked out as the rest of the interior, the VIP room we were in, and the dancers shaking their asses below. “Everything about this place is beautiful. Even the people—I don’t think I’ve seen a single one who isn’t gorgeous. It’s just”—she shrugged—“my vibe—what can I say?”

She was definitely right about the club. The entire inside was done in only black and white—a design as eye-catching and attractive as the people she had just described, especially theones who were dancing in cages that hung from above. There were mirrors everywhere, so I couldn’t tell if I was looking at a reflection or if there were really that many people in here.

She rubbed her shoulder against mine. “And I kinda love that we’re out, together, on a Friday night, having all the cocktails. It’s been a while since we did this. Things have been a bit … stressful.”

I sighed. “You can say that again.”

Now that I really thought about it, this was probably the first time we’d gone out, just the two of us, in about a month. Up until a few days ago, I’d been working nights and weekends to prep for all the change that was coming.

She wrapped her arm around my upper back and hugged me against her side. “But we’re over that stressful hump.”