Page 75 of Only After We Met
Ginger…calling me…
My heart sped up.
“Hey?” she whispered. “Hey,” she repeated. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry for calling… Oh, Rhys, I just realized the time difference. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it. It was just…an impulse. I woke you up, didn’t I? Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Is everything okay?”
I looked over my shoulder at the girl sleeping in my bed and slipped away, barefoot and shirtless. I started walking. First down the porch’s wooden steps, then onto the warm sand and toward the sea.
“Yeah, everything’s okay. Sorry, I can’t talk very loud. James is asleep. I’m just nervous. I don’t know why, I felt like calling you.”
“Did he do something to you? What is it, Ginger?”
“No, no. It’s nothing like that. It’s just, I don’t really know what to do now. I mean, I can’t sleep. Not with him. It’s impossible. Believe me, I tried. It’s not just that he snores; it’s that I keep tossing and turning and I feel weird here.”
I sat on the sand. The sun had just started coming up. Soft light was swelling on the horizon, but the sky was dark. Cloudless. I took a deep breath and concentrated on the sound of her voice, the way she pronounced her words in the English accent that I loved, even though it made her sound stiff. I tried to think of anything but touching her, kissing her, sinking inside her…
“You want to go, right?” I guessed.
“Yeah,” she confessed. And she whispered, “I just felt so many things all at once. I need to be alone to process everything, you know? And I need my bed.”
I remembered how she fell asleep in my arms at the end of December…
“Well, you should do it then.”
“But I don’t want him to get mad.”
“I see…”
“He was really…considerate.”
“What doesconsideratemean?”
“You know. With everything.”
I could almost see her blushing. “Leave him a note. That’s the best option.”
“Yeah, that sounds good, right? LikeThanks for last night, James. Call you tomorrow.No one would get mad at that, would they?”
“No, and if he does, he’s an idiot. So that way you’ll know.”
“Okay. I think I have a piece of paper in my purse.”
“Do you have your clothes nearby?”
“Almost all of them.”
I could barely hear her. “What does that mean?” I held my breath.
“Don’t make me say it out loud…”
“No fucking way. You lost your panties?”
“Rhys! Dammit! You’re going to make me wake him up.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. I did it loudly, amused, and fell back in the sand, sighing as I gripped the phone to my ear, staring up at the slowly brightening sky. I could hear her mumbling protests.
“I’ve looked everywhere, and they’re not here. I took my dress and my tights off downstairs when we were on the sofa after dinner, but the rest of the stuff is in his bedroom, where he is now. It’s totally dark in there; I can’t see a thing. I’ve run my hands all over the floor, and there’s nothing there. What do I do?”