Page 21 of Wild Card

His jaw works. “Are you—?” He stops and averts his gaze from me, shaking his head tightly. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

His look of disbelief, as though he’s offended, washes over me, leaving me chilled.

“No,” I whisper, the sinking feeling that something is very, very wrong suffusing my body.

“No, you know what? Here.” He pulls out his phone and jabs the screen with his finger like he’s trying to break it. Then he hands it to me. “Youghostedme. So don’t bother playing dumb. I can handle the rejection but not being treated like I’m an idiot.”

I stare at the screen, showing a few texts sent a couple of weeks apart. Delivered but never responded to by me. A growing sensation of panic takes root in my gut.

“I never got these.”

I never got these. I never got these. I never got these.

He scoffs, and my eyes flit to the contact name.Gwen Margaritas.

Tears spring to my eyes as my shaking finger taps the icon. I read the number. 555-7669.

Six-six-nine.

“Honestly, you don’t owe me anything,” Bash rants on as realization settles in my bones. “But this is just fucking weird. And what’s worse is he’s out there disrespecting you to your face, and that makes me want to break something…”

Without thinking, I reach for him, my palm landing flat on his chest to still him. Every muscle in his body tenses. “Bash.”

“What?” He spits the word, glaring down at my hand like my touch offends him. But he doesn’t shake me off.

“The number is wrong.” He blinks as I hold his phone out, open to the contact card. “It’s six-nine-nine not six-six-nine.”

His sharp inhale launches the small powder room into silence. You could hear a pin drop. I don’t think either of us is breathing.

“I never got your messages, and if I had…” I swallow, trailing off and licking my lips. “I…” A frustrated groan lurches from my throat when I see the devastation etched on this man’s face as he looks beyond me, staring blankly at the perfectly white wall.

He’s gutted. I see it on his face. I feel it in his body.

Hell, I can feel it in my own. This is a cruel, cruel joke. Because I may not know him well, but I ache for him all the same. I would have chosenhim.

I curl my fingers, gripping his cotton T-shirt—trying to get his attention, to drive my point home. “Bash, I waited months for you to contact me. If I’d gotten those messages… You have to know I would have responded.”

My voice turns almost pleading as I repeat, “I would have.”

His eyes scour my face as though checking for any signs of deceit. He looks how I feel.

Sucker punched.

He takes the phone from me, gaze boring into the incorrectly entered number. An understandable mistake for someone who stayed up all night.

I should have taken his number.

We should have planned better.

His lips twitch, and his Adam’s apple bobs, but he doesn’t look back up at me.

Instead, without another word, he turns, yanks the door open, and storms out.

I stand there, frozen—shaken. And that feeling is only made worse when, several seconds later, I hear a loud, “Fuck!” followed by what sounds an awful lot like a fist going through a wall.

CHAPTER EIGHT

BASH