The look on Remi’s face would be worth whatever bullshit my sister doled out.
While I waited for her to arrive, I prepped the burgers and all the accoutrements and put them in the fridge to maximize my time with her once she inevitably got there late. I didn’t think much about it when three-thirty rolled around. I made myself busy, tidying the patio and rearranging the pillows on the swing outside while throwing the ball for the dogs in an attempt to tire them out.
Then four o’clock came and I sent her a teasing text asking if her client was giving her the run around.
It came with no response. Not even a text bubble bouncing at the bottom of the screen from a text message accidentally left unsent. And I knew that because I sat and stared at the message for over an hour, a sour unease settling in my gut.
At five o’clock, it started raining. And not just a drizzle or a spring shower. It was as though the bottom had dropped out of the sky. That was when I officially gave up playing it cool and started calling her. First her cell phone, then her office. It was entirely possible she was still with a client. But the trauma inside me launched my mind into every single worst-case scenario.
I didn’t even know who the hell this client was.
What if it was him?
What if he’d hurt her?
What if she needed me?
What if I failed the woman of my dreams—again?
Deep down, I knew that it wasn’t rational. She was habitually late, and it had only been two hours. But nothing about my life was rational.
I lived in the impossible. The unimaginable. The unfathomable.
For me, the absolute worst wasn’t just a possibility. It was the expectation.
And now it could cost me Remi.
Every single one of my calls went to her voice mail, which skyrocketed my anxiety.
With my heart in my throat, I paced my living room, loud waves of thunder rattling the windows as I tried and failed to slow my racing heart and mind.
She’d be there soon.
She’d laugh at me for worrying and then willingly dive into my shaking arms.
She wouldn’t know why I was losing my mind, but she wouldn’t ask questions or pass judgment.
She’d just be there.
Alive. Breathing. Smiling. Remi.
At six o’clock, I couldn’t take it anymore. I taped a note to my front door for her to call me ASAP and then set out on an all-too-familiar and terrifying search of the city.
White-knuckled and through a torrential downpour, I drove straight to her house, hoping and praying she’d gotten off early, taken a nap, and just overslept. No one was there, not even a car in the driveway.
Her office was locked up tight.
I used her website to find the house listed with the home theater, but she wasn’t there, either.
With every dead end, it became harder and harder to breathe. The past triggered memories I’d kept buried deep in my subconscious. So deep that it was the only way I survived at all.
By the time I looped back around to her house, there was a Lexus in the driveway. I didn’t want to be this guy. The boyfriend showing up all wild-eyed and panicked, freaking everyone else out too, but fuck, it was almost seven.
My lungs burned as I pounded on her front door. I was soaking wet, but I could have been on fire and still would have preferred it to the unknown swirling in my chest.
Aaron slowly cracked the door, his angry confusion turning to recognition the second he laid eyes on me. “What the hell, Bowen?”
“Where is she?” I rasped, barely able to form words at all.
His chin jerked to the side as he swung the door open completely. “What do you mean where is she? I assumed she was with you.”
“Well, she’s not.” I stabbed a hand into the top of my hair. “She was supposed to be at my house at three, but she’s not answering her phone. She’s not at the office. She was showing some guy houses today and now it’s radio silence.”
He shook his head as though he were trying to rattle into place all the puzzle pieces I’d thrown at him. “No. We talked at lunch. She finished with that guy early.”
That was but one horrific scenario I could cross off my brain’s mile-long list of impending catastrophes. “Then where the fuck is she?”
“I…” he stammered, but I didn’t let him finish.
“Call Mark,” I ordered. “See if she’s with him. Maybe her dad. Fuck, anyone.”
He blinked at me, my palpable fears quickly transferring to him. “Wait.” His face lit, and he snapped twice, immediately turning on a toe. He marched through the living room and snagged his cell off the coffee table. “I can track her phone. She’s good about checking in before and after she meets a new client, but we set it up when she started showing houses alone again.”
