Page 192 of Spicy Ever After

---

When I get off the bus, I do something unimaginable.

I run.

I run down the block, around the corner, and through the gates at Summit House. I even run up the front steps.

I do walk through reception. Huffing and puffing.

But I take the stairs to my room like my feet are on fire.

It’s my lungs that are smoldering, but I don’t care.

Oxygen deprived, I slam my door behind me, collapse against it, and call Beck.

He answers on the second ring.

“Hattie.” His voice is rough, hard. My struggling heart plummets. And then—“Thank fucking Christ.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

BECK

Finally. Fucking finally.

I stalk out of the main store shed, putting distance between me and the crew loading deliveries. I don’t want to be overheard, and I’m not sure I can keep from shouting.

The restraint it’s taken the last five days not to text Hattie back—not to call her and demand that she trust me—has nearly shredded my sanity.

But it’s one truth that’s kept me from caving.

You can’t demand someone’s trust. They have to give it to you.

That’s the biggest issue in front of us and the main reason I haven’t responded to her after-hours text dumps.

But the other reason is how angry I am that she ghosted me for so long.

Angry in a way that I’ve had to cling to it. Because it’s not really anger at all.

It’s pain.

It’s heartbreak.

It’s devastation that the woman I’ve fallen for could shut me out so completely.

And I’m about to make her swear never to do it again when I hear her rapid, ragged breath.

“Beck—”

She’s panting. Breathless. Like she’s fleeing an attacker.

In a flash my anger jackknifes to worry.

“Hattie? What’s wrong? Are you?—”

“I-I’m fine…” She huffs and puffs. “I… was running… to… call you.”

“You… were running?”

But she hates running.

---