Guy Hater (Fisher Brothers 2)

His tone was cocky and annoying, and his shit-eating grin made me want to hit him or hug him. I wasn’t sure which.

“Get out of my office,” I growled before staring at my phone, wondering what the hell else I could do to get Claudia to talk to me before I completely fell apart.

I dialed her number one last time and waited.

Messages and Confessions

Claudia

I pulled up Frank’s contact in my cell phone as I prepared to send him a well-worded, albeit pissed-off, text message. As I wrote it, the words flew from my fingertips like magic, but then a notice popped up when I hit Send.

“You didn’t even let me see what you wrote before sending it,” Britney complained as I stared at my phone in confusion. “You should always get approval first.”

My cell phone informed me that in order to send the text message, I needed to unblock Frank’s contact. It wasn’t until then that I noticed the small circle with a line through it next to his name, and my throat instantly thickened.

“Britney,” I choked out, hardly able to speak through my surprise and confusion.

“What? What’s wrong with you?” She leaned closer so she could see what I was staring at.

“His number’s blocked.”

Her jaw dropped. “What? When did you block him?”

My head spun, my thoughts swimming around before drowning. “Did you block it?”

“Me?” she sputtered. “Why the heck would I block his phone number? Give it to me.” She grabbed the phone from my hand and stared at it. “Crap. It’s definitely blocked.”

Duh. I searched my memory, trying to remember when I could have possibly blocked him. I couldn’t remember doing it, the same way I hadn’t remembered shutting my phone completely off that first night. Maybe I’d done it then in some sort of angry, sad, sleep-deprived haze?

Then it hit me. I had blocked him quickly in the moments after I left the bar, but once I was in my car, I’d unblocked him just as fast.

“Oh my God, I did it. I blocked him, but I thought I undid it right afterward. I must not have.” I shook my head in disbelief. “He’s been blocked this whole time.”

“You know what this means, right?” Britney tossed my phone back and I glanced at his name, noticing that she had unblocked him.

“That if he has tried to reach me, I’d never know it,” I said.

When you block a contact, all their text messages are sent into a void in the universe, never to be delivered or read. Their phone calls never get through either. But someone could leave you a voice mail, and although you’d never be notified that one was left, it still existed on the server and could be accessed.

I frantically dialed my voice mail, putting my cell on speaker so Britney could hear the messages, if any even existed. Sending up a silent prayer to the relationship gods that there would be at least one message from Frank, I waited. After everything he’d done, I still held out hope. I still wanted Frank to care that he had hurt me, and I still wanted him to want to fix things between us, or at least explain just what the hell he was thinking.

What kind of person does that make me?

“You have eight new messages,” the robotic voice finally said, and I did nothing to hide my shock as my jaw dropped.

“Eight!” Britney shouted as the first message started to play.

“Claudia,” Frank said as a breath escaped into the phone. “I’m so sorry. It’s not what it looks like. Well, it is, but there’s more to it than that. It’s complicated. My situation is just really complicated. Fuck. This isn’t coming out right at all. Please, please, call me back. I know you probably hate me and never want to see me again, but please give me a chance to explain. I really am sorry.”

I looked at Britney as she covered her mouth with her hand, waiting in silence as I pressed Save on the message and the next one played.

“Claudia.” When he said my name again, my entire body chilled. He said nothing more for a moment, and I almost thought he’d hung up until he spoke again. “There’s so much I need to tell you. Please call me back.”

Saving that message as well, I let the next one play as Britney and I both stared wide-eyed at the device in my hand like it was magic.

“Your silence is killing me.” He took an audible breath and I waited, holding mine. “And I get it, I do. I just really want to talk to you. Can you at least text me back if you don’t want to call?”

Everything shifted inside me as I listened to the messages. Frank sounded so desperate, so sad. Normally, that would have turned me off, but when it came to him, I was anything but.