Rock-a-Bye, Baby

“Quit making excuses.” She pulled my phone out of my apron and handed it to me. “I don’t know if it’s because this is the first time you’ve ever been in a relationship or what, but you’re not thinking clearly. Your emotions are all over the place, and you’re letting them build this up into something big when it could be any number of things that don’t have anything to do with breaking up with you.”

“Oh, yeah? Like what?” I sounded doubtful, but I really hoped she came up with about a million different reasons that I could hold onto.

“Things could be going bad with the album Rising Phoenix is recording, and it’s pissing him off because it means he’ll have to wait longer to see you again. One of his bandmates could be going through a rough time, and Griffith is preoccupied thinking about how he can help them. It could be as simple as him missing you, and like most guys he sucks at sharing his emotions.” She’d been ticking her points off with her fingers and waved her hand in my face. “There you go, that’s three ideas right off the top of my head. I could keep going, or you could just call the man and ask him.”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, looking down at my phone. “It’ll hurt so much if he really does want to end things.”

“If falling in love makes it impossible for you to use your brain, I hope it’s a long time before it happens to me,” she muttered. “Putting off talking to him isn’t helping anything. You’re already hurting enough that it’s messing with your sleep and appetite.”

Falling in love.

It hit me when Aurora said it; I wasn’t just falling. I was already in love with Griffith. Maybe that was why my emotions were all over the place lately.

Acknowledging my love for him gave me a much-needed boost of confidence. It was impossible to believe that my feelings were one-sided. Loving someone meant you trusted them...and talked to them when stuff was bothering you. “You’re right. I should call him.”

I pressed the button to power up my phone since I hadn’t bothered to turn it on this morning. My heart began to race, but in a good way, when I saw that I had two missed calls from Griffith. Then my text notifications popped up, and there were a few missed messages from him. I quickly scanned them, my lips curving up when I saw that he’d assumed I’d fallen asleep while we were talking last night since I hadn’t picked up when he called me back after he realized we’d been disconnected.

I suddenly couldn’t wait to talk to him, even if it meant waking him up. I clicked on his number, but the call went straight to voicemail, making me groan. He must’ve turned his phone off when he finally went to sleep, and it only served me right since I’d done the same to him last night.

I’d felt so much better after my talk with Aurora. Even though I hadn’t been able to get ahold of Griffith, I was sure when we talked, everything would be set straight.

I waited until the time he was normally up and tried him again, but it went to voicemail like last time. After another hour, I tried again. And so it went for most of the morning. Finally, in the early afternoon, he picked up.

“Hey baby, I can’t talk right now. I’ll have to call you back.” His tone was distracted, and it pricked at my insecurities.

“Griffith, I really need to talk—”

“Baby,” he cut me off impatiently. “I promise, we’ll talk later but right now, I just can’t.” I heard a muffled female voice and Griffith telling her to hang on. Tears gathered in my eyes. “I’m sorry, Belle. I’ve got to go.” Then he hung up.

Fear and sorrow welled up inside me, churning in my stomach. Had I been right? Had he…moved on already? Suddenly, my tummy lurched, and I slapped a hand over my mouth as I bolted for the bathroom in the back of the shop.

Chapter 9

Griffith

Shit. I hated having to practically hang up on Belle, but I was running to catch my connection and cut it so close that I had to sweet talk the flight attendant into opening the door back up with a promise of VIP tickets and autographed albums. I worried the whole way to Las Vegas but once I stepped off that plane, I felt like I could finally breathe again. I was so close to my love.

I grabbed my bags and headed to the area where I was supposed to meet the driver picking me up. When I got there, my name wasn’t on the list.

I was irritated but figured it was no big deal and headed out to the cab line. It was just my luck that I decided to travel on a day when there was not only one of the biggest MMA fights in the world happening, but also, the finals of the Poker World Series.