Page 74 of Well Aware

Merrill sucked in a breath. “Do you want me to call your new man?”

I smiled at that.

She was right.

Beau was my new man.

But…

“No,” I admitted. “He’s taking Iris to school, and this is her first day back after she was hurt. I’m imagining that it’ll take longer than usual, and he doesn’t really need that distraction right now.”

She muttered something under her breath. “I’m calling back in ten minutes. If you don’t answer, I’m calling him.”

“You don’t have his number,” I pointed out.

“Sure, of course I don’t.”

Then she hung up, letting me know that she did have his number, and she’d probably had it for a while.

Did they ever talk about me?

Surely not…

“Ahem.”

I reluctantly looked up and found Eloy now completely in my room, looking chagrined.

It was too bad that he didn’t show up two hours from now. I was being discharged from the hospital, and I’d already asked Beau to pick me up in an hour.

He’d done the get-Iris-to-school routine today, so he wasn’t here when I’d gotten the news that I would be released soon. But he’d promised that he would be here as soon as he was done.

Not soon enough, though.

“Mag?”

I gritted my teeth at the nickname that only he’d called me.

Noli, which Beau sometimes called me, was okay. But Mag made me want to set things on fire.

I instantly wanted to ask him to leave, but something stilled my verbal reprimand.

“Hey,” he said.

“What are you doing here, Eloy?” I grumbled.

He surprisingly didn’t beat around the bush.

“I realized that I love you still.”

I blinked. “You could’ve texted me that.”

He shifted from foot to foot. “I think that’s something that needs to be said face-to-face.”

Was it?

“Then why did you break up with me over text message?” I wondered. “Same logic applies.”

He again started shifting from foot to foot.