🥊 Hate or Fate 💕 {Enemies to Lovers}

.5.

I blew a shaky raspberry while staring at the contact information on my phone. The chipped powder blue nail polish on my right thumb hovered over the call button, literally unable to complete the task in my hand.

Calling Gray was never fun, but confronting him about his little outburst was going to really suck.

At least I'd done the dishes and the laundry and vacuumed the entire condo as a way to work through my anxiety, so our place was sparkling. 

Sadly, there was nothing left to do but sit on the couch and worry about making the call I'd been both avoiding and dreading.

Finally, I tapped the button and steeled myself for more of Gray's churlish attitude or maybe just a curt hang-up (you could never tell with him).

"Yeah," the call barely completed before he answered.

"Oh, hey, Gray," I cringed at my unintentional rhyme. "It's Isla."

"I know," I could practically hear the smug look on his face.

"Great," rolling my eyes to the ceiling, I mouthed the special four-letter words that I really wanted to scream. "Um, I wanted to talk to you about what happened last night?"

The line went quiet. 

It went so quiet, in fact, that I pulled the phone away to see if he hung up on me. Sure enough, the seconds were still ticking by on our call.

We really should have been having our conversation in person, so I could read his expressions. Then again, that was pretty difficult with Gray's stupid supercilious face. It was obvious that he took pleasure in acting like some kind of reclusive gremlin, stirring up trouble whenever went.

"Why?" his tone flat when Gray eventually broke the silence.

I drove a clenched fist into one of our decorative pillows to sucker punch a handstitched kitten right in its belly.

"Because it seems like you have a problem with me," I insisted, trying to keep my voice as even as possible. "And I want to know what it is."

Another pause. Which was somehow both passive-aggressive and antagonistic. My grandma used to tell me to look for the good in everyone, but I was having a hard time seeing past Gray's sizable ego and big-fat-man-baby behavior.

"I don't have a problem with you," his unaffected tone, as if it were ridiculous that he even had to address the issue with me, sent a flash of anger up my spine.

"Really?" I challenged, forcing back a bitter laugh and forgetting my manners. "Is that why you told Elijah you didn't want him to bring me around anymore?"

"That was-!" The other end of the line went silent, save Gray's heavy breathing. Then, he made a strange grunting noise that was followed by a loud, POP, like he threw something heavy. The tormented growl in his voice was almost chilling. "I wasn't talking about you."

I was beyond shocked. I'd made Gray angry enough to throw things? That was new.

"Fine, if you're going to be a child about this, then, I'll be the adult," I switched into my calmest, most professional voice. The one I developed over years of client meetings full of haughty ad agency executives trying to undermine my ideas. "I won't come out to Earl's anymore. I will try and avoid gatherings that you will be at, just so you don't have to look at my face."

"Isla," Gray's response was quieter, nearly contrite, but with a lingering hint of irritation.

"What?"

Yet another pause. He was driving me bonkers!

Blood roared between my ears, pumping with my resentment. I was trying to end our immature feud for Elijah's attention. And he'd won. He should be ecstatic!

"I'm sorry you overheard that," his words came out hollow.

"Wow, Gray," my lip curled into a quiet snarl. "You're a class act, you know that?"

I ended the call and chucked my phone at the battered kitten pillow to watch it bounce onto the area rug, face down, where it was going to stay for a while.

There weren't enough chores to keep my hands busy and I didn't have any work to occupy my mind.

With all the grace of a robot, I shuffled into the kitchen to fix myself some tea that I probably wouldn't drink. 

On the way, I passed by our built-in shelves and ran my fingernails over the well-worn spines of my favorite books. They were the stories that got me through growing up.

Absentmindedly, I pulled Jane Eyre from its place to flip through the pages. A forgotten Polaroid fluttered to the ground, catching my eye as it glanced off the polished glass of our dining room table. 

It was one of the few pictures I had of my mom.

Her clear blue eyes had faded to glass in the yellowed image, and I'd since grown a pair of front teeth and breasts, but we had the same rich chestnut hair and a smattering of freckles. 

After the divorce, my dad moved me to Seattle, a whole coast away from my mom and her new lover. I never heard from her again. The rejection still stung a little, if I thought about it too much.

The gentle hum of my phone against our plush rug drew my attention and I shoved the photo back into the book to replace it on the shelf. Like packing away a seasonal sweater, I was setting it aside for another day.

I sauntered down our short hallway toward the living room, expecting to find Elijah's picture beaming up at me on the caller ID.

Instead, I saw that it was an Unknown Caller, so I sent it to voicemail and checked the time.

It was way past noon, but Elijah hadn't called or come home. 

I was itching to warn him about the terse conversation I just had with his best friend, so he wasn't blindsided by Gray's inevitable temper tantrum.

The phone buzzed again, startling me enough to jump. 

I checked the screen to find that it was an Unknown Caller. 

Again, I sent it to voicemail.

"Telemarketers!" I huffed, stuffing the phone into the pocket of my worn jeans.

The urgent buzz on my hip was the final straw. I whipped out the phone to punch the accept button.

"Hello, who-?" I was ready to unleash on the pesky salesperson who dared interrupt my Saturday.

"Is this Isla Brodeur?" An official-sounding female voice interrupted me.

In the background, there were all sorts of discordant sounds, like clattering and muffled shouting and crackly rummaging. Then, a computerized voice called out an announcement for someone named 'Doctor Davis' and my pulse skyrocketed.

I knew those sounds.

"Who is this?" I barely managed to whisper.

"Ma'am, I'm calling from the University of Washington Trauma Center," the woman said, very matter-of-fact. "And I'm trying to locate Elijah Wagner's emergency contact, Isla Brodeur."