Chelsea

I’d seen the missed call and listened to the voicemail from Carp the night I came back from seeing my mom. However, after the vase and picture frame incident, Dottie had spent an hour picking glass out of my palm because I was unable to keep the tweezers steady. My nerves were shot, and I was exhausted. I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and chase the day away with sleep.

Then I’d worked three days in a row for the catering company doing different gigs and hadn’t gotten around to it. We’d texted a few times, but Carp had been busy with work since he’d gotten back to New York and a phone call just hadn’t happened. Still, I’d thought of him and wondered how things fared with his plight to win Cora back.

The phone rang three times, and just when I expected the voicemail to pick up, he answered, clearly winded. “Hello?”

“Hey, Carp.” I tried to keep my voice sounding optimistic. It took effort not to let the circumstances with my mom take over.