(The Virtuous Husband) In the name of Love

Chapter 32

Allison

"Hey," I replied hesitantly under everyone's watchful eyes with the phone on speaker. This was no longer my comfortable zone. I had no idea about what to say to him or how to talk to him.

"How are you?" he asked so calmly that I wanted to laugh at the irony that he had no idea about what was going around. More than that it was the fact that I hadn't replied to him at all besides that hey and he had to be the one to talk. If he had wind about the storm brewing here he might have just disconnected the call which I would have been grateful too. Even though I wanted to cut the call myself and hide somewhere in my apartment I knew I wouldn't have been able to do it because deep down I was doing this for Christa.

"I'm fine, I'm great," I gulped down the air as I replied. All my replies were coming out nervously. The scary stare Dolores was giving just made my anxiety grow larger and larger. I needed to get my emotions under control because there was no way I wanted Adam to get a hint that something was cooking up here. 

"How are you?"

"I'm pretty fine. Much better than I earlier was," I could hear the smile in his answer.  I wanted to enquire him about the latter part but I didn't because this was surely not the time and place for that.

"So how did you call?" he queried as I went silent for a minute once again. This was never going to be my element at all. I was not a person to do small talk. 

"Um, actually I called to know whether you were free today," I paused taking in a deep breath. "I wanted to meet you and talk about something face to face." My fingers were crossed for no reason. I mean if he said yes then he would become a liar and if he said no it was a downfall for me as I would have to tell a big lie to him. Though the second one was something I already knew but wanted to avoid it.

I was surely going to hide on an unknown island after this call. 

"I'm sorry but I can't," he replied straight forward no beating around the bush or false promises but why would he have done that at all? As I looked up at others I realized that they were really hoping that he would say yes to me. They knew him longer than I did but yet their hopes were on me. However, on the brighter side, this meant he was not lying, right?

"Why is that so?" I didn't take much of a pause this time. The reins of this talk were in my hands or I was hoping so. 

"Because I'm not in the states right now," I looked toward Christa and she sighed because he gave her the same kind of reply. 

"Haven't been since I walked out of your apartments since our date," he added. 

"Oh, it has been months since that. Where are you right now and when will you be back?" I just wanted to drop the bomb of my lie on him and hide. 

"Well that's a lot to ask," he chuckled. "Yes, it has been a few months. I'm in Germany right now and I have no exact date about when I will be back for now."

"What did you want to talk about though?" he questioned and I could hear the curiosity in his voice. That question just made my hands grow clammy and got my heart racing. 

"It is something that we should talk about face to face, Adam." My reply came a bit slow this time. The nervousness and anxiety I was trying to calm down, came back with full force. 

"What is it, Allyson? You saying something like that means that it is something really serious because as much as I know you, there is nothing you get feared of so easily," his words made my heart beat against my rib cage harder. Would he be able to see through the lie of my words?