A Kiss For You

Kimber sighed heavily again. “Well, charge it, and give him a call. He was here earlier, looking for you.”

“He was?” I asked, sobering up a bit at that revelation. “Why?”

“He wouldn’t say, but he seemed concerned. And, since I just saw you with his brother and your ex-boyfriend, I could see his concern.”

“Whoa! Wait a second, Kimmy. Reel that mom voice back in. There’s so nothing going on with me and Landon. He just apologized to me for blowing up on me when he found out about Jensen. He played pool with Heidi. We had a few drinks. He drove us both home. No big.”

“All right. What do I know? Just happily married with no drama in my life.”

I giggled. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. Now, go. Charge. Now.”

I nodded at her and gave her a quick salute. Then, I meandered the way to the stairs like I was walking through a hedge maze, and I more or less crawled up the stairs. I found my charger resting on the nightstand and plugged it in, waiting for the signature beep, beep to let me know it was ready to use again.

Then, it beeped and beeped and beeped.

Kimber had not been joking. Jensen had definitely texted me. And called. And texted some more.

Holy text messages!

They were very blurry though and kind of all melded together. I didn’t know what he was so desperate to tell me, knowing that he’d shown up here after I didn’t answer, but I might as well call him. Probably not the best idea I’d ever had, considering the amount of alcohol I’d consumed.

Imbibed. Drank. Drunk.

I flopped back onto my bed and stared at the spinny ceiling, contemplating which word was the best. Probably drowned in. Because I felt like I was on a boat adrift in the water, bouncing up and down and up and down on the waves.

Oh God, I was going to be sick.

I sat up in a hurry and tried not to think about vomiting. That was better. Now, I could call Jensen.

I dialed his number and let it ring about a million times before it got to his voice mail.

Then, I tried again. No luck.

I stared down at it in confusion. Why would he call and message me so many times and then not answer my phone calls?

I tried one more time and then gave up. I was too drunk for this.

Maybe he’d call me back tomorrow morning. He was probably already asleep or something. And I clearly needed to do the same.

Stripping out of my clothes, I crawled into bed naked and promptly blacked out into oblivion.

After puking my guts out all night, I remembered that I had to open the Buddy Holly Center today. I’d switched my schedule around so that I could get away to Austin for the weekend and had given myself the morning shift. I felt like shit and looked even worse. My face was pasty, and my hair was limp. I brushed my teeth three times to get the taste of throw up out of my mouth.

And then I checked my phone.

Again.

Still nothing from Jensen.

I’d called him in between bouts of vomiting and texted him before I hopped into the shower. I double-checked that I’d contacted him as I put on clothes for the day.

I was royally confused. Beyond confused. And sick as a dog.

Why call and text and show up, only to ignore me when I tried to get in touch with him again? Is he trying to punish me or something for not answering?

That didn’t sound like Jensen. That sounded petty.

With a heavy sigh, I grabbed my keys and cell, which was fully charged, and left the house.

The Buddy Holly Center was empty. The construction crew from Wright Construction wouldn’t show up for another ten minutes, which meant I had a few extra minutes to try to recuperate and not to throw up again. I didn’t have anything left in my stomach. I’d packed a few snacks that would be easy on the stomach, but the thought of doing anything but sipping on water made me feel nauseated.

A knock on the door broke me away from staring aimlessly at my phone, hoping for a text message. I couldn’t think that Jensen was sleeping. He didn’t sleep unless we were together. The insomniac would rear its ugly head when we were apart. I couldn’t imagine that he was ignoring me.

I unlocked the door and allowed the crew to come inside. Once they were all inside, I could go back to the office and dick around until someone else came to take over at lunch. We really didn’t have to stay the whole time, but some of the artifacts were pretty priceless, and no one liked to leave the place empty. Even if we’d hired the people.