Worse for Hope- Book #2 in the WF Series

Chapter 27: Speech

✿Bethane's POV:✿

The sound of my alarm wakes me up from laying on my desk. I must've fallen asleep while working which explains why my papers are stuck to my cheek.

I get up and get ready for work.

Once I'm done, I go make myself some breakfast.

A few minutes later, Rider walks in and doesn't even spare me one glance as he strolls for the kitchen while I'm seated at the breakfast table.

"Morning," I try to test out of curiosity to see if he's actually not speaking to me, or if he just won't speak unless I start the conversation.

He doesn't respond.

Not talking it is.

I watch him making breakfast for himself in silence. My brain can barely focus on my own breakfast because it's too occupied thinking if I might've gone a little far with him. Maybe I did, and even though he one hundred percent deserved it, I don't want to stoop down to his level. I'll admit, the guilt has been eating away at me since the awful words left my mouth, but I've been attempting to ignore the gnawing thoughts, failing miserably.

"Rider." I stand up and walk over to him.

He turns his body the opposite way and quietly strolls over to the pantry.

"Rider," I sigh, pushing myself off the counter when he walks back towards the stove. "You can't seriously be mad at me. What did you expect?"

He puts his scrambled eggs into a container and grabs a protein shake.

As I'm about to can call his name again, he's out the door and the silence increases, but he doesn't leave before tossing down a folder full of papers on the counter. My heels click over angrily because it's unfair of him to do this to me after what he did.

I see that the papers he set down are the lease. I never asked why he was taking so long since he wasn't talking to me, but it seems like he put effort into the file.

When I look through it, I see it's just normal things that you would put in a lease. There's no "no sex rule", no jokes, or anything unprofessional to put in a contract.

I grab the pen from beside the papers and write my signature in all the right places.

Once I'm done, I slap the pen down and grab my purse angrily, my blood boiling with frustration. I don't know what it is, but him being angry at me when I'm only supposed to be the one who feels resentment toward him irks me in a way I never thought it could.

~~~~

My day is spent working my ass off to make sure I go above and beyond to satisfy my need for perfection, and when I get back, I attend my online classes and do my assignments. Thankfully, today was long, so I didn't have time to think about you know who until around seven o clock.

Rider still hasn't gotten home, and it's getting me a little worried since he usually gets back by now. I know on Fridays he has practice and it's been more time-consuming for the game next week before Thanksgiving, but I only know that because Roman told me, not because I know Rider's schedule. That would be weird.

I make a split-second decision and decide to call Roman.

"Rider, if you're fucking prank calling me," he starts off with annoyance in a threatening tone.

"It's not Rider, but speaking of him, do you know where he is?" I question while shutting my laptop.

"He didn't tell you about his speech?"