The silence from Denzel's end was beginning to gnaw at Juniper. By the time she stepped out of the office building, evening had fully settled over the city, and the lack of a reply felt like an indictment of her clumsiness.
"I should have just called and explained," she murmured, her thumb hovering over the screen. "It was a mistake."
Sighing, she tucked the phone into her bag and stepped to the curb, determined to hail a taxi and get home to clear her head.
But the city was in the grip of peak rush hour. Every cab that approached was either already occupied or speeding past.
After several futile minutes of flagging down passing cars, she gave up.
She trudged toward the bus station, where a dense crowd of tired commuters already waited. It wasn't ideal, but she resigned herself to the wait; it was the fastest, most reliable way to get home.
