Page 207 of What We Break
REID
The phone rings, cutting through the silence of the empty house.
I grab it off the coffee table, heart hammering.Laine.
"Hey, beautiful," I answer, forcing warmth into my voice, trying to sound like the guy who has it all together. "Everything okay?"
"Reid," she says. Her voice is tight. Strained. "We need to talk."
My stomach drops. Those four words. The universal signal for disaster.
"Okay," I say, sitting up straighter on the couch. "Talk to me. What's wrong?"
"Not over the phone," she says. "I'm... I'm coming over. I'm five minutes away."
"Okay. Yeah. Come over." The breath I didn't know I was holding punches out of me. She's coming over. That's good. That's — you don't drive across town at ten o'clock at night to dump someone. That's what phones are for. You show up to fix things. To cry on someone's couch. To make up. "I'll put the kettle on. Drive safe."
"Okay," she whispers. And hangs up.
I stare at the phone. We need to talk.
But she's coming here. She's coming to me.
I launch off the couch. The living room is — oh, god. Magazines fanned across the floor like I'm running a dentist's waiting room, empty pizza box sitting on the coffee table like a monument to my week. I grab the box, stuff it into the recycling bin, kick the magazines into a pile, fluff the pillows — do I fluff pillows? I'm fluffing pillows now. Cool. I need this place to look like a home. Like somewhere you'd want to stay.
I scrub a hand through my hair and catch my reflection in the hallway mirror. I look like I've been awake since Tuesday. The last week carved itself right into the skin under my eyes. Doesn't matter. I can fix this. Whatever's wrong — whatever Blake said or didn't say, whatever's been chewing at her — I can fix it.
I pace the kitchen while the water boils.Five minutes away.She likes tea. I'll make her a cup, and we'll snuggle on the couch, and everything will be okay.
Maybe she just had a bad shift. Maybe she's overwhelmed. Maybe she just needs me to hold her. I can do that. I'm good at that.
Headlights sweep across the front window.
She's here.
I head for the front door and open it before she can knock, stepping out onto the porch. The night air is damp and cold, smelling of wet pine.
She's parking the car. But she doesn't cut the engine immediately. She sits there for a long moment, staring at the house.
Come on, Laine. Come inside.
Finally, the door opens. She steps out.
"Laine?" I call out, starting down the steps. "Hey. I made tea."
She doesn't move toward the stairs. She stays by her car, one hand on the door like she's ready to bolt. The porch light casts long, harsh shadows across her face. She looks pale. Drawn. And she's wearing jeans and a sweater, not pajamas. She wasn't sleeping.
"I can't come in, Reid," she says. Her voice is flat. No warmth.
I stop on the bottom step. The relief in my chest starts to curdle into something else. Something too fucking cold.
"What do you mean? Of course you can come in. It’s freezing out here."
"No," she says, shaking her head. "It's not my house. It never was."
"Laine, what is this? You said you were sleeping."
"I lied," she says. "I was at Murphy's."
