Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,259

life rested on his reply, and this was the biggest pass-fail test of his life. And he was going to fail, he was sure of it.

Without going to the kitchen because he saw the light on and heard the voices, which sent him into even more panic, he went back to his room and closed the door ever-so-quietly. Leaning there, he let his gaze go up to the ceiling. This was insane.

It was one text.

One phone call.

One.

To Taylor of all people.

However, that thought brought up the shivers again and the beginning of a headache that he felt in the center of his brain.

He closed his eyes. “God, I can’t mess this up. Please, please, please, tell me what to do here. What’m I supposed to say to her?”

Stats wasn’t helping. Nothing was helping.

Taylor checked her phone yet again. Still nothing.

It was now after 11:30.

She had expected 10. 10:30. Even 11 would have been within the realm of reason, but now he was starting to worry her. Maybe she shouldn’t have texted. Maybe she should have waited and let him make the first move. It wasn’t that she’d wanted to step on his toes or anything, she was just so excited.

Checking her phone again, she beat back the horrible thought that maybe he had rethought the whole thing this morning. Maybe she had read it all wrong the night before. Maybe…

Just as the thoughts reached a fever pitch, the phone rang in her hand, and with one glance, her world slammed to a stop. Greg Everett

She slid off the bed and corralled everything in her with a long breath that stuck in her lungs. Closing her eyes, she hit Accept. “Hello?”

Instantly Greg knew it was bad. She sounded tired and wary.

“Taylor?” he asked, his concern getting away from him before he could stop it.

“Yeah?” she asked, and he heard a definite thread of sadness cross through her voice.

“Hey,” he said, and sitting on his bed, he put his head down as his hand drifted across the back of his still damp head.

“Hey,” she said, but there was no more.

His mind and heart took off in two different directions, and he couldn’t catch either one. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she said even softer.

“Uhm.” Wow, this was awful and awkward and painful. Worse than he had thought it would be even. He had crashed and burned this thing before they’d even had a chance to take off. “S… sorry I didn’t call sooner. I…”

“Th…that’s okay.”

But he could tell it wasn’t. Closing his eyes, he fought the frustration with himself

. It was his worst nightmare come true. He had told her and ruined everything. “Listen, about last night…”

The scene outside the window suddenly didn’t look cheerful or happy. Instead, it had turned gray and sad as Taylor stood there, looking out. She wrapped her arm across her middle and tried to brace herself for him to tell her it was all some sick joke or worse, all in her head.

Her thoughts were swirling so densely that she couldn’t even get a word out. If he broke her heart now…

Then, there was the softest of breaths from his side, and she realized he wasn’t talking either.

“Greg?” she asked, her concern shifting from herself to him. Stepping back over, she sat on her bed and curled her legs under her. “Hey, talk to me.”

This breath was softer still. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about all of that.”

“You’re… sorry?” she asked, worried but for a different reason. “Wh… why are you sorry?”

“It’s just… I never should have, you know, put you in that position. It was wrong of me.”

“Wrong…? Greg…?”

“No. Taylor. Seriously. You don’t have to act like this… like this is a thing… with us… or anything. If you don’t…”

He was bailing? Already? It hadn’t even been a whole 12 hours. “Are you saying you don’t want there to be… a thing?”

That pitched his side into utter silence.

Anger tried to get in, but Taylor yanked it back. For some reason, she knew he was really, truly struggling with this. “Greg?”

“Yeah?”

Taylor pulled up her strongest self—the one that would stand in the way of a bullet for her friends. She hadn’t been that Taylor in a very long time, but maybe it was time to remember how to be her. “Okay. What’s really going on here? Talk to me.”

The center of him started shaking unmercifully, and Greg thought it might never stop. “I just… I don’t want… what I said…”

“Okay. Wait. Hold up. First of all, why don’t you take a