LITMIR.BIZ

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didn’t take the call.

      So now he knew the reality of this new life. Accident or not, this would have happened anyway. He’d have finished that text and sent it, so the result would have been the same. She’d have been avoiding him. There’d be no contact.

      And accident or not, he’d still be this bruised. Yeah, it wasn’t those real cuts and bruises bleeding him, but that damn muscle in his chest. The injury that he had sole responsibility for and that radiated agony throughout the rest of him.

      He was an idiot. A powerless idiot. Stuck in a hospital bed with an IV needle deep in his arm and cracked ribs that meant an airline wouldn’t take him onboard. Not as far as Australia, so he couldn’t escape as he’d planned to. But he couldn’t escape anyway, aeroplane policy or not. He wanted to take it all back and start again. And while he might not be able to get on a plane, he could get into a campervan with a driver. He’d lie down most of the way, but he wasn’t living through another day without trying to make things right. He’d been acting the coward too long as it was.

      * * *

      Ellie had a new phone—a very cute new smart phone that she could download a zillion apps on. She was just deciding which music to set as her ringtone when it rang with a real call. She didn’t recognise the number. ‘Hello?’

      ‘Are you through punishing me?’ he asked bluntly. ‘Are you ready to talk to me yet?’

      All kinds of emotions tumbled through Ellie. For a moment she couldn’t cope with the spike in adrenalin that boosted the performance of every vital organ. ‘I’ve been busy,’ she finally breathed.

      ‘This is how you treat your friends? Why have you been ignoring my calls?’

      ‘I haven’t been. I lost my phone.’ Okay, so she’d thrown it in Wellington harbour. Not the most adult thing to have done but, hey, she’d got glum in the wee small hours after the chaotic clubbing scene of the awards after party.

      ‘Good of you to give me your new number.’

      How he’d managed to get it she didn’t know.

      He sighed. ‘Can you just be mad with me, please? Just yell or something.’

      She sat in a ball on the floor because her legs wouldn’t work any more. ‘There’s nothing to yell about, Ruben. I’m fine.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Sure,’ she said, pride surging. ‘I’m not in some kind of decline just because you didn’t turn up when you said you would. I had a really good night actually—it was quite a party.’

      ‘I saw the photos on the company’s Facebook page. I saw some others from the last tour too.’

      ‘Yeah,’ she reminisced with a fake smile that she hoped would sound real down the phone. ‘They were a bit of a wild bunch.’

      ‘And you had a good time with them.’

      ‘It’s my job to help them have a good time.’

      ‘More Scotsmen.’

      ‘What can I say? I seem to attract them.’

      In one of those pictures she’d been wearing a Scottish flag and very little else. They’d had a toga party. It had been fun. There’d been bare-chested men in kilts. Nothing had happened with any of them, of course, but just the flirtation had made her feel better, right? She’d been popular. No matter that it was only temporary—for the two-day tour duration. She knew how to please people. But she’d once told Ruben that she didn’t feel as if she had to please him. She wasn’t going to please him now. She drew in a breath, dug up that deep resolve. ‘You know this “let’s be friends” deal?’

      ‘Uh-huh.’

      ‘It’s not working for me.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Well.’ She screwed her eyes closed as she went for brutal honesty. ‘I’m not going to meet anyone else when I’m still being “friends” with you.’ She held her breath, heard his whistle in.

      ‘You really want to meet someone else?’

      ‘I think that would be the best thing for me, yeah.’ Her toes curled and her skin goosebumped in revulsion at the thought of it. But it was the best thing. Ruben didn’t want her beyond an occasional bed buddy and she didn’t want to be mooning over him for the next millennia. She had to be kind to herself and cruel at the same time, because sending him away was hard.

      ‘You’re not even going to say this to my face?’

      ‘Nope. I’m doing it over the phone. You’re lucky it wasn’t a text. It nearly was.’ His mere presence was enough to tempt her. One smile enough to keep her hope afloat for weeks. She wanted to fall out of love with him. The cold turkey approach was the only way that could possibly work.

      ‘Is this because I missed the show?’

      ‘Oh, wow, you think?’ Yeah, she’d just lost her grip on cool and capable.

      ‘Ellie—’

      ‘You don’t have to explain it. I understand. You don’t care for me.’

      Silence. Then he got snappy right back at her. ‘Our “friendship” isn’t a one-way street, Ellie. You haven’t been the best of friends to me either, you know.’

      Well, that wasn’t fair. But she was too hurt to argue. The last thing she wanted to face was the fact that she loved his calls, loved hearing his tales. She got more than he did from this and she wanted more still. ‘I don’t think we were ever truly friends, Ruben. I think all those movies are right—men and women can’t do platonic friendship. Let’s call it a day, okay?’

      She jabbed the end-call button, furiously blinking back the sting of rejection.

      Someone instantly started hammering down her front door. She swiped the trickles from her cheeks and stormed the stairs. The door was rattling in the frame. She yanked it open. ‘You were outside all this time?’

      ‘I’ve had enough of the phone call rubbish.’ He barged in, plucking her phone from her hand as he pushed past and flinging it across the room. His went with it.

      Stunned, she watched them smash on the floor. ‘You’ve probably broken both of them!’

      ‘Good. So we’re forced to speak face to face.’

      She turned back and stared at him. For the second time that night her knees went completely weak. ‘What the hell happened?’

      ‘Car crash.’

      Her lungs then failed too. ‘You’re kidding,’ she wheezed.

      ‘No. On the way to the airport the night of your awards.’

      That was why he hadn’t turned up? That was four days ago. ‘And you’re still this bruised?’ He looked awful. Not even the jeans and the favourite ‘Lucky’ shirt could lift his near death-mask look. ‘Why didn’t you try to get in touch with me?’ She was so shocked she shouted.

      ‘When I regained consciousness the next day I did try. Just went to your answerphone.’

      Oh, now she felt terrible. He’d had an accident—a horrible accident that could have been so much worse. And she hadn’t been there for him. He’d been alone and abandoned again. That just broke her heart. But how was she to have known if he didn’t tell her?

      Ruben had decided on the trip down that he was going to fight hard—and dirty. No matter how, he was winning this woman.

      ‘Friends are supposed to look out for each other,’ he snapped, belligerent. Mad with himself as much as he was with her. ‘Why didn’t you call me to see where I was?’

      ‘I sent you a text,’ she snapped, equally defensive.

      ‘One.’ His hurt spilled.

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