Cuddle therapy worked wonders for our marriage.
After that night, Rafe stays home—or takes me with him when he leaves—and he has Trent put me back on the schedule at the restaurant. I guess I didn’t think about it, but it makes sense that he struggled to trust me, feeling like I had struggled to trust him. Once he learned I had bad experiences with it in the past, I guess he understood and realized it wasn’t really about him.
It’s easy to take things personally by mistake.
Trent doesn’t put me on the schedule for as many shifts as I worked before, but Rafe said he wants to slowly transition my co-workers out of depending on me so much. Given I’ve formally picked a side, I’ll be going back to school in the fall. Now that $35,000 isn’t a financial strain, I’m going to spend the extra year brushing up on gambling law. Then when I’m finished, instead of a position at Rafe’s restaurant, I can do much more stimulating work at Rafe’s casino.
Even if it’s only 3 to 4 shifts a week, I’m happy to be back to work in the meantime. Working six nights each week, I didn’t have much spare time, but my schedule now is perfect. Now I can help Laurel with her wedding, play with the babies, and still serve Rafe like usual after making his dinner in the home we share together. Much better than spending all day looking forward to the hour I might see him in his booth with some other girl.
I thought it might be weird at the restaurant when I came back. Given the way people gossiped about the possibility that Rafe was sleeping with me, I assumed showing up with his ring on my finger would result in a lot of knowing smirks. Yeah, we knew it, they would say without words. Instead, it earned back any measure of respect I might have lost by sleeping with him in the first place. I’m not saying they were right to feel that way, but I do understand why they thought I gave in to a streak of stupidity by banging a Vegas playboy, legendarily unwilling to commit. Now instead of a weak-kneed dumbass who foolishly fucked the uncatchable Rafe Morelli, I’m the enigmatic goddess who managed to capture his attention and hold it. How the hell did I do that?
Well, they never need to know how I did that. Let them think I must be a sexual tornado the likes of which even Rafe Morelli couldn’t resist.
The awe wears off after a few weeks and things get more or less back to normal. The difference is that no one makes fun of me for my blatant crush on Rafe, and the lack of mocking makes me realize how much people poked at me about it before. I glossed right over it when it was happening because I didn’t care. No amount of mocking would ever make me stop looking at Rafe with hearts in my eye, but now that the mocking is suddenly absent from the environment, it’s like looking at two “find the difference” pictures once you’ve found the differences; you can’t not see it.
It doesn’t matter. I don’t hold a grudge.
I do kinda miss Felix. I did file through my memories against my better judgment, searching for anything helpful. I realize now he did drop the occasional clue that he might be more than a bartender, but nothing blatant, and nothing that could help Rafe.
As I’m rushing from the bar to my table tonight, I feel a buzz in my pocket. I draw it out and see a message from Laurel. “Are you free for a DIY project tomorrow? I’M GETTING MARRIED IN THREE DAYS.”
This is her current thing. I can’t help smiling. Every day when she texts me for the first time, she tells me how many days until the wedding, like it’s even feasible I might forget.
“Sure,” I send back. “Your house or mine?”
“Mine. Carly gets in tonight, so we’ll all be here.”
“Sounds good,” I text back, before sliding my phone into my apron.
Or, I mean to drop my phone into my apron, but I miss and it drops to the floor.
“Oh, shit,” I say, mildly alarmed because I know it isn’t protected. When Adrian fucked with my phone, he damaged the cover, and it ha
sn’t fit right since, so I’ve been leaving it off. Ordinarily I don’t drop my phone like a fucking idiot, so it hasn’t been a problem. “Shit.” I bend down and grab the phone. Sure enough, the screen is cracked from the top left where it hit all the way down the center.
The screen lights up and I tap the home button, but nothing happens. The screen glitches like the phone is malfunctioning, so I try to power it down. I should really do that more often, anyway. I never power the damn thing down unless something goes wrong.
The power down screen pops up and I slide my finger across it, but nothing happens. The screen lights back up on my lock screen.
Great, I broke my fucking phone.
It’s still an old habit to stress about the expense—I haven’t even paid this one off, and I didn’t pay for the insurance, so now I’ll have to come up with money for a replacement—but then I remember I’m married to Rafe, and he won’t bat an eye at having to buy me a new cell phone.
The screen becomes distorted again and I frown, trying again to power the damn thing off, but it won’t shut off. It goes right back to my lock screen, like it’s been programmed to respond to a shutdown command by redirecting me—
I freeze, staring at the brightly lit screen.
Adrian.
Fucking Adrian.
Instead of trying to shut my phone off, I slide it open and scroll through it like I ordinarily would. It works just fine. Only now that I think about it, I’ve only been at work for two hours, so why is my battery already so low?
I got a call from a wrong number earlier. Not unusual—I’m constantly winning free cruises—but now I tap it and call back, just to see what happens. An automated message answers, but that’s not what I’m focused on.
There’s a click in the background when the call connects.
Sitting back on my haunches, I pull the phone away from my face and look down at it. I end the call, but I’m not sure what to do.