Best Dating Rules, Tamie Dearen [literature books to read txt] 📗

City. So she headed to the only place she could think to go… Grand Central Station.

She turned off her phone as she walked to the subway station. There was no one to talk to. The only people she knew to call—her mom, Charlie, Grace—would all side with Spencer. They’d defended him every time she talked to them. “Spencer loves you,” they’d said. “He just hasn’t told you. He won’t ever break up with you. He would never leave you.” How wrong they’d all been.

He’d obviously come to the apartment to break up with her, having just been with Becca. Her stomach churned as she pictured him kissing her. She remembered Becca’s words, “He always comes back to me.” She would never have believed Becca, now she knew the truth about her. But no matter how she tried, she couldn’t think of a single innocent scenario that would result in the picture she’d been sent.

He’d acted angry about Josh, but he was probably glad to have an excuse to break up with her. Maybe he was tired of her restrictive rules. Or maybe he realized he preferred a more voluptuous figure.

She rode the subway to Grand Central, and found an unoccupied bench to sit on. Unseeing, she stared at the people herding past her like busy ants, on their way to do important things. They exuded excitement and happiness, while she felt lonely and desolate. She reveled in her wretchedness, letting her tears fall freely down her face, amazed someone could be so alone in the midst of the New York City crowd. No one noticed her crying on the bench as they hurried past her to their destinations. She was as isolated as she would have been on a desert island.

After midnight, the crowds were thinning, and she needed to find a place to go. But she couldn’t go home. The only person who might be on her side was Josh. He’d understand her misery. On their walk home from racquetball, he’d actually broken down in tears over Charlie. He’d been angry and embarrassed over his loss of control, but she’d sworn never to tell anyone. Josh would understand, but he was scheduled to work in the emergency room all night. Still, instinct drove her to go to the hospital. She could talk to him when he got off work in the morning. She left the haven of her bench, and headed to the subway train.*****

Spencer knocked on the apartment door, shifting from foot to foot, knowing she’d look through the peephole before she opened the door. When she didn’t answer, he knocked louder. She was probably angry, refusing to open the door, denying him the opportunity to talk to her. He knocked again, louder still. “Emily!” he said. “Please! I just want to talk to you.” Still no answer. He put his ear against the door, but detected no sound from inside the apartment.

He pulled out his cell phone and called her, but it went straight to voice mail. She’d apparently turned her phone off, and she wasn’t home. With dread, he realized she must have gone upstairs to her mom’s apartment. He had no other choice but to find her and talk to her, even if it meant facing her parents.

He rang the bell at the Gherring’s apartment, wondering belatedly if he should have called first. When Gherring opened the door, his face was creased with concern. “Spencer? What are you doing here?”

“I’m... I need to talk to Emily. Is she here?”

“No, we haven’t heard from her tonight. She’s probably out with friends, although it’s late for a weeknight. She wasn’t with you tonight?”

“No, I was at a dance lesson. My last dance lesson.” He didn’t bother to hide his bitterness.

Spencer’s mind was reeling. Who would she go to? She didn’t have many friends in the city. Maybe she left with Josh. Or maybe she was with Grace. “Uhmm, okay. Sorry to bother you.”

Back at her apartment he knocked again, in a vain hope she would answer. Then he leaned his back against the door and banged his head against it in frustration before he let himself slide down to the floor. He pulled out his phone, and called Grace.

“Hey, Brother. What’s up?”

“Is Emily with you?”

“What? No. Why would—”

“Have you heard from her?”

“No. What happened? Did you have a fight?”

“No. Well, sort of. She was coming back from playing racquetball with Josh, and I saw them together in the lobby and kind of lost it. So I stormed out. But I came back thirty minutes later, and she was gone. And she’s turned her cell phone off.”

“She’s probably upstairs.”

“I checked already. I think she must have left with Josh.”

“I doubt it. Josh and Brad are on the night shift in the emergency room tonight. You could call, I guess, but he won’t answer his phone if his shift has started.”

“Where could she be?”

“I don’t know, but if you got her upset, she might be walking around on the street somewhere.”

“But that’s not safe.”

“Seriously? This is Emily we’re talking about. Since when do you think she wouldn’t do something hazardous? She’s cautious and afraid about things that are actually safe, and totally oblivious with actual danger, like she doesn’t have any common sense.”

He groaned at the constriction in his chest. She could be walking around in a daze by herself on the streets of New York City at night. “What should I do?”

“I take it she’s not answering her phone?”

“She turned it off, unless it’s dead.”

“You call Charlie and see if she has any ideas. And give Josh a call, in case he hasn’t started his shift yet. I’ll call Brad, too. And I guess you’d better wait there in case she comes back. She’ll probably walk back inside any time now, and you can straighten this whole thing out. But you better let me know the minute she comes back, because I’m really worried.”

He disconnected, attempting to tamp down the feeling of dread in his stomach. Gherring’s