Eternal Longing ✓

38. Heartburn

FINLEY

The Present

Is there a more pitiful sight than a man pining over a woman who is more or less unaware of the hold she has on him?

If so, I don't know what it is.

I take in a deep breath and try not to let images from last night blur my focus. I have plenty of work that sits right in front of me, accounts that my father wants me to go through and report back on, but my mind finds the task too difficult at the moment.

I make it three more seconds before I'm sitting back in my chair and tapping my phone and navigating to my gallery until Jaya's infectious laugh and bright smile fill my screen once more.

"Are you seriously recording me right now?" her gravely, sleepy voice questions in the video.

"Yes, I am," I hear myself tell her, mirth in my tone at the sight of her on the floor. "You look adorable sprawled on the floor like that."

"Asshole."

I only laughed and kept recording her like a smitten fool as she struggled to get up, grumbling about how small my king-sized bed is, which is why she fell off of it while taking a nap.

"I came to check on you and there you were, on the floor."

Her dark eyes, narrowed and fatigued, fill my screen, and despite how much I try not to, I lean closer to my fucking phone as if I'd be able to smell her through the phone.

"Know what, Finley?" I zoomed into her face with my phone's camera, loving the aggravated look with which she watched me. "Go fuck yourself."

In the video, I start laughing at her utter adorableness, chuckling even harder when she huffed and puffed in search of her missing bonnet. Smiling to myself, I rewind the video to the point when she's staring at me as if she wants to kill me.

I pause it there, when her brown eyes are dead set on me, and the tiredness is evident in her expression, but her beauty shines through nonetheless, and something in my chest burns.

Fuck. I think I might be coming down with something. The flu, maybe? Heartburn?

Pressing down on my chest with my hand, I mutter to myself in the empty office, "Must be something I ate."

I try to pinpoint what it could be, ticking through my meals this week since the heartburn has been quite pressing for several days now. Nothing stands out, and I'm about to Google my symptoms when my phone rings with a call.

"Yes?" I answer it and put it on speakerphone, eyes on my computer's monitor as I search up bouts of burning and chest pain. The results materialize and I use my mouse to scroll down the page.

"You always answer the phone as if I'm pestering you, man," Jacob's taunting voice greets me. "It's kind of off-putting and hurtful if I'm being honest."

Clicking on a site that looks promising, I ignore him and ask dryly, "I take it Amara is hanging out with her friends and you're lonely?"

He laughs full-on laughs like the world is one big ol' merry place. "No, fucker. We're both out together."

I exit the useless site. "And you're calling me?"

There are loud voices in the background, they sound like women laughing and bickering. "She's getting her hair done and I thought I'd catch up with you in the meantime."

"How nice."

"I know, right? Very nice of me, indeed." I hear more noise, his voice calling out to his girlfriend that he'll be right outside, then silence. "So how are things in New York?"