Page 46 of Homewrecker

Blair: Have a good day, Caleb.

Caleb: I’ll take that. You too, Blair.

That was it. It was nothing that I could point at and call betrayal, and that was exactly why I let it continue.

Days became weeks. Weeks became a routine. Caleb sent me things. They weren’t romantic things. He’d send a ridiculous room he’d seen online or articles about design.

I sent things back like jokes about entrepreneurs.

It was harmless and then harmless learned my schedule.

Caleb: Big presentation today, right?

I stared at the message. I’d told him about it almost two weeks earlier, and he’d remembered.

Blair: In an hour.

Caleb: You’re gonna kill it.

Blair: You don’t know that.

Caleb: You convinced me that brown walls aren’t depressing. You can do anything.

Blair: I hate you.

Caleb: No you don’t.

I put the phone facedown because that was flirting.

A few days after was the first time Caleb called me at night, and I almost didn’t answer.

It was 10:40. I was in bed with my laptop open while watching a reality show I’d already seen three times because I kept missing the drama.

After the fourth ring, I answered. “Somebody better be dead.”

“That’s how you answer the phone?”

“At ten forty? Yes.”

“I didn’t realize it was that late.”

“You’re lying.” I closed my laptop. “What do you want?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why are you calling me?”

He paused. “Bad night.”

I sat up. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Caleb.”

“See?”

“What?”