Unfortunately, ending the conversation didn’t end the problem, because now I knew something. Jack had seen the photograph, and he knew I existed.
Again.
For the next week, I found myself thinking about him more than I wanted to admit. Not romantically. Not nostalgically. Just curiously. Like a puzzle I thought I’d solved years ago had suddenly come apart.
Then Maddy betrayed me.
At least that’s how I described it.
She called one evening and casually announced, “I gave Dad your number.”
I nearly dropped my phone. “You what?”
“Oh, relax.”
“Maddy.”
“He wasn’t going to stalk you.”
“That’s not helping.”
She laughed, then hung up before I could properly object.
Two days later, my phone rang. It was an unknown number. I almost ignored it.
Almost.
Instead, I answered. “Hello?”
Silence. Not dead air silence, breathing silence.
Then, “Audrey?”
For a second, I couldn’t speak, because some voices change. And some don’t. Jack’s had aged. It had deepened slightly, but it was still Jack.
