Adore: A Special Event (BOOK 4 VOL. 1) || PRN

4

I wake up in a heavy haze, dazed and beyond confused. Looking around my dark room, I have to question if I ever made it off of this bed. My alertness is delayed but when I do find it, all I know is panic. I crawl across the bed to the phone. When I pick it up, I am met with a sticky note featuring Ike's handwriting.

He called at 3. He's waiting.

My eyes shoot to the digital clock next to the phone and my stomach bubbles when I see that I'm five hours late. The numbers can't punch themselves any faster as I poke every digit I need to get my lover on the line. My manicure scrapes the crust from my eyes and dried drool from the corners of my lips as I try to wake myself up. The phone on my ear doesn't make it past half of the first ring before it is picked up.

"Nelly?"

"Hi, I'm so sorry. I fell asleep trying to get dressed to go see Liyah and now I missed Thai so I'm gonna have to go over there tomorrow when she gets out of school but I was supposed to—" My rambling cuts itself off when I run out of breath. I forgot to breathe. Exhaling, my back caves in as I lose touch with perfect posture. "I can't believe I slept for that long..."

Amusement coating his voice, he soothes my anxiety with a simple joke. "The flight was a little bumpy at the end but, other than that, everything was all good. Thanks for asking."

What starts off as a scoff becomes a chortle. He's got his own way to bring me back down to Earth and it hardly ever takes much. I don't know if he's that good or I'm that easy.

"Sorry," I sigh, falling over on the bed. "I just had so much planned. I was trying to distract myself from waiting on your call and next thing I know..."

I hear him take a sip of what is likely to be water before he says, "Narcolepsy." My eyes roll. As if he can see me, or is some kind of a freaky psychic, he takes his teasing up a notch. "How many times I gotta tell you they'll get stuck like that?" I sprawl back out across the bed and he decides it's time to make conversation. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to wake up so I can go back downstairs and finish what I was doing."

"Hm." Another sip, this one drawn out a little longer than the first. "Maybe I should go do the same..."

His lack of news or urgency in the way he talks takes me back in time. As busy as he was, as busy as we both often were, he sure did make it a habit to call me and say nothing. I think he likes having me around, even if it has to be through the phone. When we lived in no more than ten minutes away from each other, he'd swing by and sit on the opposite end of my couch, doing his work while my ex-boyfriend was in his office. Then, when we knew he was on his way back from the office, we'd go over to Galpin and repeat our acts in the presence of Susannah. Not much has changed. The biggest difference is the elimination of our third parties.

When forced to be away, he calls me and asks what color the moon is in my state or how many stars I can see. You know, anything just to feel a little less alone. I know what he does and why he does it. I'd never call him out on it. We can sit on the phone doing nothing for as long as he'd like.

"We got in the car today and they were playing Dorothy Parker. I ever tell you where that came from?"

"No..." Caution creeps up on me in the moment of realizing I have no idea where this conversation could go. "Is it something weird?"

He exhales as if his eyebrows have lifted while he thinks my question over, a sound attached to that specific act. "No, not really," he says. "I've never told you this either. I didn't tell you for a reason." His forewarning makes me more interested than I already was. "So, Dorothy Parker came from a dream."