Chapter 21
21
I had the following two days off, so I decided to tackle my long-neglected bills. The task wasn’t as stressful as it used to be, now that I had a little money. Funny how that worked.
Everything was going smoothly—I’d made payments on two credit cards so far—until I tried to complete an online payment for my student loan. For some reason, my account page had been frozen so that it would not process a payment no matter what I tried. I’d never had such a difficult time giving money to a business in my entire life, almost as if they didn’t want it.
Worried that the bank had finally made good on their threats to turn me over to collections, I located their number on the website and gave them a call. With an exasperated sigh, I sat through about five minutes of a robotic voice telling me to press this and that number until I was finally able to speak with a real, live human. Once the customer service representative picked up, I explained my situation as succinctly as possible.
Still, she had questions. “I’m not understanding what it is you’re trying to do,” she said a little too tersely for my liking.
“Like I said, I’m trying to make a payment, but the website—”
“I heard you the first time. What I’m asking is why you’re making a payment?”
Is she an idiot or what? I thought. “Because I’d like to pay down the balance,” I said slowly. Why else?
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. There is no balance.”
I shook my head, though she obviously couldn’t see me. “As much as I wish that were true, that’s not right. It should be showing that I owe—”
“You’re not understanding me,” she cut in. “Your balance was paid in full yesterday. You can’t make a payment because there’s nothing left to pay. We’re processing your account closure now. It should take about seventy-two hours, and then we’ll send a letter showing—”
“That can’t be!” I said, frustrated and confused. “Who paid it off, then? It wasn’t me; I can tell you that.”
I could hear her fingers tapping a keyboard on her end. “Says here that someone named Robert Bramson called in and made the payment around noon yesterday.”
My mouth dropped open. How . . . why . . . I couldn’t keep my thoughts straight. Over a hundred grand of debt wiped out with a single phone call from a vampire.
I ended the call and sat in my room staring at the wall, uneasy. I didn’t know how I felt about what Robert had done. A huge weight had been taken off my shoulders, that was undeniable, but did that make me smarmy for letting a man take care of my debt simply because he had an interest in me? And he must have had an interest, right, to do something so grandiose—unless it was his way of offering charity? Perhaps I’d gone on a little too long about my impoverished childhood, and now he found me pitiful.
Though it was irrelevant to what was right or wrong, a hundred grand likely signified very little to someone as wealthy as Robert. To him, it was probably chump change, the sort of coin he might drop on a vacation or an afternoon shopping spree. Still, I had to wonder what his expectations were from me in return.
What would happen now if I tried to put the moves on him? He might think I was merely returning his good deed with the only currency I had readily available, my body. He, too, might become more reluctant than he already was to get physical with me, fearing that I was only going along with things out of obligation. I cursed myself for not making my feelings about the vamp known sooner, but how was I to know he was going to do this?
While I wished Robert had consulted me before charging ahead and doing what he’d done, some part of me was glad he hadn’t. I doubted I would have been able to turn down the offer, as it would have been too tempting. At least this way the choice had been made for me and was out of my hands.
To add to the growing list of things that were outside of my realm of control, I now had Nick calling me. Fantastic. Groaning, I nearly hit ignore on his call, but then swiftly concluded it was high time I ended this nonsense once and for all.
On the bright side, he wasn’t bawling when I picked up. Thank goodness for small miracles. “What is it now, Nick? You’ve really got to move on and stop calling me,” I said in my most reasonable voice. I could see no point in kicking off the hopefully short conversation angry, since he’d only match my energy.
You could have knocked me over with a feather when he said, “You’re absolutely right.”
“You think so?” I sensed a trap.
“I do. But here’s the thing: we both could use some closure.” He sounded so calm that I suspected he’d finally sought the therapy he needed. I opened my mouth to remind him that our lack of closure was his doing, but he beat me to it. “I know I behaved like a real shit at the end of our relationship, and I know you don’t owe me a thing.”
“Damn right, I don’t.” I couldn’t help myself.
“I deserved that. But I’d still like the opportunity to apologize to you in-person.”
I thought a moment. “And then what, you’ll stop calling me? The harassment will end?”
“The only thing I want is for us to move on.”
He hadn’t really answered my question, but I’d take what I could get if it meant he’d finally leave me alone. I agreed to meet him for coffee that night, hoping I wasn’t making a huge mistake. I figured I could endure fifteen minutes of idiocy if it meant extracting Nick’s thorn out of my side forever.