“They came out with a new cookie one that your father and I really enjoyed.” Mom paused in the process of picking up her purse. “Actually, I enjoyed it. He used that insane amount of discipline to only eat a small bite of it, and honestly, I didn’t really want to give even that to him at the time. It was really that good.”
The plans that I wanted to do with Saint were slowly solidifying the more she spoke.
And by the time that she left, I’d already worked myself into a good excitement over the fact that I was going to get to do those things any time now.
Except, the hours rolled past, one minute after the other, until it was well past time that I thought he was going to come over.
When he didn’t, I started to get worried.
So worried, in fact, that I was nearly in my car and driving over to Cop Row, the line of duplexes where quite a few SWAT members lived, before I could even decide fully what I was doing.
Hell, I was halfway there when my phone started to ring.
Sadly, it wasn’t who I thought it would be.
Placing my finger against the answer button, I quickly pressed it and put it on speaker before continuing to drive.
“Hello?” I answered, sounding distracted.
I was.
Not only was I in a hurry to get to Saint now that I’d made the decision not to wait on him, but I was also being followed way too closely by the car behind me.
My eyes went to the rearview mirror where a man began to tailgate me.
“Carolina.”
It startled me to hear Saint’s voice coming out of my phone when I’d fully expected to hear Sierra, not a man.
“Saint, hey,” I gasped. “What’s going on? Why are you on Sierra’s phone?”
There was a long stretch of silence before he said, “Uh, I asked her if I could borrow it.”
I blinked. “Oh, okay. I guess that makes sense seeing as we never exchanged cell phone numbers, huh? Who would’ve thought that we’d need them?”
When you were practically living with someone in a one-room area, needing their cell phone number was rather overkill.
What was I going to do? Call him from the gym?
“Uh, yeah.” Saint cleared his throat. He sounded tired. “Listen, Caro. I’ve done a lot of thinking over the last couple of hours, and I think that what we had went a little too fast for me. I think that I’m going to take a couple of days to cool off.”
My foot drifted off the accelerator as I slowly searched for somewhere to pull over.
Was Saint breaking up with me?
“Ummm,” I said as I turned into the nearest parking lot, which hilariously happened to be the police station. “Are you… what?”
I likely sounded confused.
I was confused.
Where had that come from?
“Things are just really busy right now with it being Christmas. I have a shit ton of stuff to do since I’ve been off for twelve days. You’re likely backed up as well. I was hoping that we could revisit us after the holiday,” he explained.
He was breaking up with me.
If you could call what we had a relationship.
Maybe what we had really was all in my head. Maybe I had made it out to be more.
But it wasn’t like I went around giving my body to just anyone.
I’d had a thing for Saint for a very long time. And it wasn’t something that I would’ve gone into lightly.
“O-okay,” I said the only thing I could say. “Well, bye then.”
I hung up before he could say something else to make me feel like shit.
And, in the end, the stupid cookie ice cream sundae didn’t even cheer me up.
• • •
“I’m fine.” I blew my nose. “I’m healthy, and I’m home. There’s nothing else I could ask for at this point.”
Nothing else that I would debase myself to ask for, anyway.
I’d said my peace when it came to Saint Nicholson.
I couldn’t do anything else but what I’d already done—which was give him what he wanted.
And, to make matters worse, I was talking to myself.
The Hallmark movie that I was watching switched to a commercial, and it was then that I realized that even Hallmark cheesy Christmas movies wouldn’t be cheering me up today.
I was doomed.
If that didn’t work, I wasn’t sure what would.
That’s when I burst out crying, again, because of course I would do this.
I was a loser when it came to dating.
I’d had sex with all of two people in my life.
One, my short-term boyfriend that I’d been friends with for years before that, and Saint.
And boy, did I realize what I was missing now that I’d been with Saint.
Sex with my ex-boyfriend had never been that good.
Which, might I add, was likely part of the problem.
Saint was a great person. He was sexy as hell.