No Weddings (No Weddings #1)(61)

Mase leaned back in his chair, fingernails peeling back the corner of the beer label that he’d half removed. “I miss her.”

“So do I.” Ben sighed.

“Her, or the food?”

“Both,” they mumbled.

The lovesick saps in my kitchen were quite the sight, me included. We should call Big Brother. Reality TV would make a mint off the ongoing phenomenon.

Like a teenage girl, I’d put my phone beside me on the table, waiting for a text. I had it on vibrate, but it hadn’t moved all night. Occasionally, when too much time had passed, or I went somewhere in the house without my phone (because taking it everywhere, hoping not to miss a text would be lame), I’d hit the control button just to make sure the thing was still on. No alert showed on the screen.

“Yeah, I’m out. Gonna study.” The kitchen was more depressing than a funeral home, and I needed some air and time away from the mourners. Geez, you’d think a beloved dog had died.

While I dropped my plate into the sink, the guys dispersed as well. Mase cleared the table, and Ben left. I grabbed another beer out of the fridge and went back to my bedroom.

Debating whether or not I should make first contact, I tossed the phone onto the bed, needing to think things out. The room was stifling, heat blowing from the register, and I already felt like I couldn’t breathe. I went to the rarely used window and fumbled with the latch until the lock released. I had to shove twice before the frame unstuck with a loud pop! and slid wide open.

Cold air rushed in, blowing the curtains onto the back of my desk. Inhaling the crisp air, I closed my eyes, forcing myself to think about things from Hannah’s perspective.

Because all I could think about was everything I needed and wanted. Which was her. Here. Happy and laughing. In my arms. Us secure. No doubts.

I didn’t have that. What I had was uncertainty. Hannah wasn’t yet on stable ground with us. Yeah, she’d agreed to try, but I knew what spiraled through her head. I’d walked the frightening path. I was further along in this than she was, in our healing after the devastation, but I needed her to catch up. Badly.

Pacing, I rubbed my chest. The more I thought about Hannah, the more I worried about what she was or wasn’t thinking. Then I hoped she wasn’t overanalyzing the situation. Until I realized I was doing just that.

“Fuck.” I sat on the edge of my bed, scrubbing my hands over my face. I shoved my fingers into my hair and gripped it, dropping my head onto my knees.

Lost in a state of panic with no easy way out, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. This was ridiculous. Given our pasts, I had good reason to worry, but making myself sick wouldn’t help.

And of the two of us, Hannah needed me to be stronger. She was the one who’d gone through recent trauma. She was also the one who’d gone farther into a relationship before her world crashed down around her. She’d been in that white dress she had burned. It hadn’t been only hope and belief that had been shattered like mine—promises and dreams had been destroyed.

So I needed to calm the f*ck down. If I couldn’t toe the line, how could I ever expect her to?

Glancing at my phone once more, I picked it up. I needed some kind of sign from her that she was doing okay. For her. For us.

It was the only way I would get any sleep tonight.

I fell back onto the bed, tapping the phone on. After typing the passcode with my thumb, I went into my text app, hoping maybe I’d missed a text from her. There was nothing there. But I sighed in relief that I hadn’t missed a message with her worrying why I hadn’t replied.

Fuck, grow some balls, Cade. I shook my head. All the time I’d spent being raised by females had clearly altered my makeup. Tomorrow, I needed to pump testosterone through my veins—lift a car or pull a tree out of the ground.

I typed a message. Then erased it.

Something less deep.

I typed again. Backspace, backspace, backspace. I held it down, trying to clear my thoughts.

In my mind, I battled between texting what I wanted to say and sending words I thought she wanted to hear. Christ, I seriously need therapy.

Going balls out, I typed what I really needed to say and hit send, forcing myself not to second-guess my instincts. Then I reread the message from her perspective.



The guys missed you tonight. Me included. Me most of all.



I waited. Nothing came. Five minutes passed. Ten. I gave up looking for the text bubble to show her actively there on the other line.

Really needing to study for an upcoming exam, I put the phone on the nightstand and grabbed my laptop and research notes. With tremendous focus, I buried myself into all things Consumer Behavior, even though I would’ve rather spent the night theorizing business with Hannah like I did every Monday after dinner.

Still, even with the study distraction, I couldn’t concentrate and kept looking over at my phone. As a matter of pure discipline, I refused to check the damned text box more than once an hour. But did so religiously, every hour.

Each time I put the phone back down, I hoped she was okay. That none of the nightmares from her past were haunting her. That she thought of me too, even if she couldn’t bring herself to text me back. Even if she’d turned her phone off to give herself space.

Hours blurred together until the words on my screen did. When my eyelids drooped and my head fell forward, I snapped both back, startling to awareness.