Page 52 of Knot Her Beta

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I’ll add amphibian rehabilitation to my schedule when I get back.”

“There you go.” She pauses. “See? Already making promises.”

When I don’t respond, uncertainty comes through the line.

“You are coming back,” she whispers. “Right?”

My throat tightens. “Course I am. All my stuff is still there.”

More silence fills the line, and I can sense Chloe restraining herself from pushing for a more solid commitment.

My eyes drift to the tall windows that overlook the dark grounds beyond the Finch estate. Manicured hedges. Stone pathways. Nothing left to grow out of order.

“I didn’t think it’d be this hard,” I admit.

“No?”

I shake my head before remembering she can’t see me. “I’ve traveled before.”

“This isn’t traveling.”

“No.” The word leaves me on a breath. “This is the first time I’ve been back since I started university.”

Chloe’s breath catches. “I know.”

I swallow hard.

“It’s too quiet here during the day,” she continues. “I keep thinking of things I want to tell you, then remembering you’re three time zones away.”

“You live with four other people,” I remind her. “You have plenty of people you can talk to.”

“But none of them are you. They don’t understand,” she says. “Like, I just finished chapter twelve.”

“So you’re stuck in the murky middle of your manuscript?”

“See? You know what the problem is right away!”

“You always start questioning yourself around this point. “

“We hates the murky middle.” She lets out a dramatic sigh. “Every third sentence starts with ‘She’.”

“You should fix that.”

“Why do you hate me?”

“I love you.”

She blows a raspberry through the speaker. “Your love is insufferable when it comes to edits.”

I close my eyes. “I miss you guys.”

On the other end of the line, Chloe sniffles. “We miss you, too.”

Another pause.

“Grady?”

“Yeah?”