“Soren, I’m fine,” I said after swallowing the ball in my throat.
He’d been worried about me last night. I should have called or shot him a quick text to let him know I was okay and spending the night with Jane and Ariel or something.
“Where were you? You never came home last night. I tried calling you a million times.” He rolled his neck, making it pop a few times.
“Can we talk about this later? I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes.”
He slid in front of me when I tried to move around him. “What the hell is going on?” His hand drilled into my stomach when I tried moving by again. “I was up all night, losing my shit that something had happened to you, and here you are this morning, just fine, and aren’t going to give me any kind of an explanation?” He moved his head so it was in front of mine. “You owe the guy who called every hospital and minor emergency clinic in this city an explanation.”
The ball was lodged right back in my throat. I guessed it wouldn’t go away for a while. “You called hospitals? Soren, I was fine.”
“But how in the hell was I supposed to know that? I get home last night, knowing we were supposed to have a serious discussion, and you’re not there. I try calling you, probably more times than one guy has ever tried calling a girl in a twelve-hour period. You don’t answer. I freak the hell out. What else am I supposed to do besides start calling every friend, family member, and hospital I can get a hold of?”
I couldn’t look him in the eyes. I thought that was making him more upset than my unwillingness to explain what had happened last night.
“No one knew where you were. No one had a fucking clue. Do you know what I went through last night?”
Something he’d said caught up to me. “Did you say my family?”
Soren’s head moved. “Yeah. I called them.”
“You called my family to ask if they knew where I was?” My voice elevated. “How did you get their number?”
“I looked up a Hastings, Nebraska, phone book online. It wasn’t hard.”
My hand shoved into my purse, searching for my phone to turn it on. My mom was already under the impression New York was full of thieves and murderers. “They’re probably freaking out.”
“Yeah, they probably are. That’s what people do when people they care about suddenly disappear.” Soren’s voice had risen as well, his face flushing from what I assumed was anger.
When my phone powered up, I found I’d missed a bunch of calls from my mom. I needed to call her to let her know I was okay—I wouldn’t put it past her to be on her way now, ready to search every dumpster and back alley if need be.
“Why did you do that?” I asked, feeling my own pulse of anger.
He blinked at me, his expression suggesting I couldn’t be seriously asking that. “Because you didn’t come home last night. Because I couldn’t get a hold of you. Because I fucking care.”
When I glanced at the time on my phone, I knew he was missing his first class of the day. He’d probably miss the second too. He’d gotten no sleep. He’d called hospitals, friends, and family trying to find me. He looked like he’d journeyed through the depths of hell and just made it out, barely alive.
Guilt poured over me. An endless stream of scalding, petrifying goop.
I hadn’t just made a mess. I’d crafted a catastrophe.
“We can talk later,” I said, pushing his hand away and trying for the elevators again.
I didn’t make it far. Soren’s hand formed around my wrist, stilling me. “Like we were supposed to talk last night?”
My chest ached, imagining what last night could have been. Then I forced myself to harden, encasing myself in impenetrable armor. “You were planning on something else last night.” My voice was poison in vocal form.
His jaw worked, his hold around my wrist staying strong. “I was planning on whatever you needed last night.”
I knew that. But I couldn’t admit that when I was trying to push him away. “Obviously, I needed to be alone,” I stated slowly. “That should answer your question.”
“And what about everything you said? Everything you admitted? What was that? Make-believe? Something I just conjured up in my imagination?”
People were staring at us as they moved by, but I didn’t care that we had an audience. Maybe a public setting was better than being alone with him because being alone with Soren was a bad idea. For so many reasons.
I stopped pulling against him, twisting around so I was directly facing him. Then I gathered up whatever wits I had left to get out the next part. “I was drunk.” My shoulders lifted as I crossed my arms. “That’s why I said all of that. And . . . did all of that.”
The corners of Soren’s eyes creased, his feet carrying him a few steps back. “You were drunk?”
Biting the inside of my cheek, I nodded.
“You had two glasses of champagne over the course of a few hours. That’s not drunk.” His hand went behind his head, adjusting the ball cap lower on his head. “Your inhibitions were lowered. You said and did exactly what you wanted to do. Exactly what you’d been too scared to say or do for weeks.”
My feet shifted. “I’m sorry, but you’ve got it totally wrong. I don’t see you like that at all.”
His head fell back into the cradle of his hands as he shook his head at the ceiling. Then he collected his backpack and baseball bag, his gaze sticking to me before moving toward the doors. “Fine.” The word echoed in the spacious lobby. “You want to play this game? You want to play the game? I’ll play along.”
My chest ached again as I watched him move away from me, realizing I’d successfully pushed him away. “I’m not playing a game.”
“Sure, you are. First point goes to you, but don’t get cocky.” He paused at the revolving doors, his mouth twisting into a dark smile. “I’ll win.”
In short, today had sucked. In detail, today had topped the charts of worst day ever, going back to ancient history, spanning into distant future.
Getting through a long work day with Soren’s confrontation at the front of my mind was next to impossible. I’d only made it thanks to copious amounts of caffeine and denial.
The first thing I’d done after Soren shoved out of the revolving door, was call my mom and assure her a thousand times that I was okay and apologize for “worrying her sick.” After fifteen minutes of repeating I was okay, she finally seemed to accept that no disaster had found me.
The next matter of business had been texting my friends who’d also been worried about me, letting them know I was accounted for and unscathed. I didn’t realize Soren knew who all of my friends were until I had to get back to just about every contact in my phone.