“Gwen, calm down, if he’s into you, which he obviously is, he’ll get over this,” Camille pointed out.
I lifted my head. “I called him at one-thirty.”
“Maybe he’s busy,” Tracy suggested.
“He’s busy,” Elvira confirmed. “I wasn’t let in on what he’s workin’, top secret and he selected his top boys to work with him but he’s been incommunicado all day.”
A ray of hope.
“I thought he forwarded his phone to you,” I said.
“He didn’t today, he went off-line,” Elvira told me.
“Why didn’t he forward his phone to you?” I asked.
“Why does the earth go ‘round the sun? Because he’s Hawk. You don’t question Hawk. He just does what he does when he does it and you go with the flow,” Elvira answered.
“Is this operation so intense he can’t call back?” I pressed.
“Don’t know, hon, sorry to say,” Elvira replied and sounded like she was.
“Should I call him again?” I asked. “Does he check his voicemail?”
“Sure, if I’m not takin’ messages for him,” Elvira responded.
That ray of hope died.
I’d said I was sorry. I didn’t know much about his operations but anyone had a moment in their day to check their voicemail and mine said I was sorry. If I cared about someone and they told me they were sorry in a voicemail, I would call them and put them out of their misery. It had been seven hours and he hadn’t put me out of my misery.
Maybe the giggling pissed him off.
I dropped my head to the table again.
“Gwen,” Cam said softly.
“I was falling in love with him,” I told my lap and I heard three, quick, feminine intakes of breath. “Deep,” I finished on a whisper then lifted my head, “and I f**ked it up.”
“He’s busy, babe, don’t jump to conclusions,” Cam stated.
“Every time I see him, every time he touches me, I get butterflies,” I whispered.
“Oh boy,” Elvira murmured.
“Scott didn’t even do that to me,” I shared.
“Who’s Scott?” Elvira enquired.
“Her ex-husband and Denver’s Patron of Dickheadedness,” Tracy answered.
“Ah,” Elvira replied, that one syllable full of understanding.
“You didn’t tell me about the butterflies,” Cam whispered.
“I denied them,” I whispered back. “They scared me.”
Cam’s face gentled. “Oh babe.”
“He’s bossy and annoying and intrusive and lives a narrow life and demands emotional closeness but keeps distant but that last part is because he lost his wife and his little daughter,” I went on. “And she was cute. He showed me a picture. She was wearing pink. She looked like him. She had the best of both of them in her.” Cam, Elvira and Tracy kept gentle eyes on me and I kept on. “But he thinks I’m funny and Dad and Meredith adore him and we banter and I like it. It’s fun and it’s safe, though I didn’t know it at the time, and he holds me while we sleep and he’s an unbelievably good kisser and even better in bed. He gave me four orgasms in thirty minutes and I didn’t even know that was physically possible.”