I glanced at my phone again.

One missed call…Parker.

I turned my nose up slightly as my thumb hovered over the screen before I returned it back to the lock screen. I sat my phone back on the table face down as I tried to finish my meal. 

“She good?” Cherita asked. I ignored the smirk on her face as she stirred the ice around in her glass as if it didn’t matter one way or the other. 

“Yeah,” I rushed to answer. “She’s probably just checking in.” 

I leaned back against the cushion of the booth to try to relax and enjoy our time, but my chest was tight. It wasn’t out of the norm for Parker to call throughout the day with her random check-ins or her little “what are you doing” moments.

I exhaled as I ran my hand over my face to brace myself for the line of questions I knew Cherita was about to grill me with.

“She knows you’re here?” she asked, slightly lifting one brow. 

Now she knew damn well Parker didn’t know that I was here with her so I didn’t know why she would even ask me that. But I also knew how she made it her purpose to get a lot of details from any of my conversations with her, especially whenever I was lying to her. 

I gave her a half-smile, “She knows I had a meeting.”

It wasn’t a lie, it just wasn’t the truth. 

I stared at her as she deliberately took a slow sip from her glass while she still wore that silly smirk on her face, “How convenient,” she mumbled under her breath.

I ignored her smart ass comment and reached for my glass to sip instead. I didn’t normally drink but at times like this, I needed to get the edge off. It was a good distraction from the flicker of guilt I felt when I saw her name pop up on my screen earlier.

When my phone buzzed again, I didn’t pick it up right away. 

“Damn,” she huffed under her breath while glancing at my screen. “She blowing you up like that?”

I snatched my phone away from her and flipped it back over. “It’s nothing.”

She knew it wasn’t nothing, hell I knew it too. Parker wasn’t the one to call back to back unless…

Naw, I had to cut off the thought before it fully entered my mind. 

“She’s cool,” I said, more to myself than to her. I had to believe that because if I didn’t then that meant that while I was sitting here flirting and laughing over a meal with drinks, something was happening and I wasn’t there. 

“Relax bae,” she whispered. “You’re here with me now.”

Her attempt at flirting wan’t missed but I wasn’t in the mood for it. I looked at her real hard, for the first time. Everything about her was easy. There wasn’t any pressure or expectations. Our conversation was never heavy at all, in fact there wasn’t any stress attached to her. 

By time I looked at my phone again, I wanted to pass out. My chest tightened and I felt lightheaded. Two missed calls and a voicemail. Something had to be wrong for her to be blowing me up.

“Hold on for a minute,” I mumbled under my breath as I grabbed my phone. I didn’t waste any time call her back as soon as I got outside. Straight to voicemail. 

“Babe,” I said, voice strained. “Call me back.”

Something didn’t feel right. That same feeling I ignored earlier was nagging me even louder this time around. After I checked the time, scrolled through my call log and noticed the timestamp of her missed calls. 

“What’s the matter?” she asked when I returned to the booth. I picked up on the attitude in the tone of her voice but I didn’t bother feeding into it. 

“I gotta go.”

She probably deserved some sort of explanation since I was abruptly ending our date, but I wasn’t about to waste any more time explaining something that really didn’t need to be explained.

“Grey-,” she called out but I cut her off.

“I’ll hit you up later.” 

I didn’t wait for her to respond as I bolted towards the exit. I lightly jogged towards the parking lot, mind racing a mile a minute. On autopilot, I was on the freeway switching in and out of lanes rushing to get to my baby. I knew about her doctor’s appointment, so it made sense for me to go there. I kept calling her back to back praying that she would finally pick up but I kept getting her damn voicemail. 

As soon as I got off the freeway, it seemed like every light was red and each one lasted longer than the last. The drive felt longer than it should’ve. Every minute dragged.

The ringing chime came through my speakers loudly. Finally, a call back but it wasn’t Parker. My heart felt like it jumped into my throat.

“Hello?” My voice was quick and urgent.

“Is this Greyson?” 

“Yes, um yes it is.”

“My name is Lisa and I’m a nurse over at Stanford Hospital. Your wife-”

My stomach dropped. Words like complications, early and you need to come now blurred together in my ears. Everything after that was white noise as I gripped the steering wheel tighter and pressed my foot down on the pedal.

By time I got to the hospital, my heart was beating so damn hard it felt like it was coming out of my chest. I rushed through the doors, barely hearing the directions that the nurses were hollering out. I ran down the maze of hallways until I reached her room.

I stopped, just for a second. Something felt off. 

I took a deep breath and grabbed the knob to let myself inside. The air was thin and it was eerily quiet. Everything was still. 

My chest tightened at the sight of Parker just laying in the bed, staring into space. 

“I’m here baby,” I said way too fast, like the words could fix something. I rushed towards the bed to comfort her. “I came as soon as I-”

She didn’t react or respond. She didn’t even look at me when I grabbed her hand. That’s when reality hit me and that shit was heavy and suffocating. 

“You missed it.”

Her voice was so low, it was barely there. But whisper or not, I heard her loud and clear because her words landed like a blow straight to the face. The shame that slowly crept in was inescapable because I knew exactly what she meant and there wasn’t anything I could say or do to change it. I swallowed hard as my eyes dropped briefly as I thought about why I missed it in the first place. 

Right then and there, I knew I had fucked up. I wasn’t there and the truth was simple. I didn’t have an explanation that was good enough or an apology that was big enough to undo the damage caused. This was the first time “I’m sorry” didn’t feel like it would be enough.