#chapter Four
The message pinged through her phone late enough that she knew he was hoping she’d already be asleep, but not so late it could be considered outrageous. Of course she’d left her phone on, with all the notifications set to alert her if he should contact her. And what had he said, after all this time?
Hey
That was it. Not even a fucking winky emoticon to give the single syllable any sort of tone of voice. Staring at it, Maura shook her head.
If you want to talk to me, she typed, you can call me. Remember?
She waited. The minutes ticked by while she busied herself with her bedtime preparations. Shower, shave, wash her face, deep condition her hair. Brush and floss. Moisturize.
He wasn’t going to call.
Bastard.
Well, fuck him then, Maura thought as she opened up her tub of scented lotion and began smoothing it over her legs and belly. Her breasts. Her breath hitched when she held the weight of them in her hands and thumbed her nipples taut.
Her phone rang. Ian. She answered right away, not interested in playing games.
“Hi,” he said. “Are you awake?”
“Depends. Am I dreaming this?” She settled against her headboard, knees drawn to her chest.
He laughed, but uncertainly. “I don’t think so.”
“I’m not sure. It doesn’t feel quite real.”
“I could convince you.”
His flirting tone forced a reluctant smile out of her. “How are you going to do that?”
“Uh…” Ian laughed again, a little more genuinely. “I don’t know. How are you doing?”
“Fine. You?”
“Good, I’m good.” Pause, an awkward chuckle. “I was going to wait a week before I texted you, but I just couldn’t hold out.”
God, she fucking hated games. “Maybe next time, you should. Or not bother at all.”
“I didn’t call to fight with you,” Ian said immediately. “Okay?”
She bit back another angry response. “Why did you call, then?”
“I missed you.”
Her anger and frustration drained away. She said nothing at first. Then, “I miss you every day.”
“I thought about you today when I was at the grocery store. They had Goldfish crackers on sale. I bought three bags.”
“…You don’t like Goldfish crackers,” she said around the rush of emotion threatening to make her voice waver.
“But you do.”
“Too bad I’m not there to eat them, then.”
“Right,” Ian said. “Too bad.”
There’d been as much silence as speech in their relationship, hardly any of it awkward. There’d been times when the only communication they’d needed was a smile. A touch. A kiss. The stroke of his fingers along the back of her neck and tangle of them in her hair.
“I guess I’m always surprised to know you think about me at all,” she offered after a half a minute and unable, this time, to keep her voice from cracking.
“I think about you all the time, of course,” Ian said and broke her heart all over again. “You should know that.”
“Why did you call me, Ian? Why are you doing this to me?”
“I don’t know.” It was an honest answer; if there was anything she knew about him, it was that he’d never lied to her. “I wish I could stop.”
Maura pressed her fingertips to her mouth for a second before being honest with him, too. “I don’t.”
“You should. You should tell me to stop. Never to call you again. You should tell me to go away.”
“I can’t do that, love.” She drew in a shaking breath. Stomach a little sick.
Up and down, back and forth, in and out. Everything changed and everything stayed the same. Who was the fire and who the hand that touched it?
“If I ask you to come over, will you?”
She wanted to say no. “Yes. You know I would. Are you going to ask me?”
“…No.”
More than once, when circumstances had meant they couldn’t be together, he’d told her he wished she were there. Now she could be, and now he wouldn’t ask. Together, they were a tapestry woven of complication and fuckery. But why couldn’t that change?
“Let me tell you a story,” Maura said.
“What kind of story?”
“Shhh,” she told him. “Just listen.”