Chapter Thirty
M y phone had me sprinting down the stairs to the coffee table. Please be Stephen . I slipped and smacked my hip against the corner of the wall as I came down. Fuck! That hurt. I made sure the bandage was still intact, then picked it up just as it stopped ringing. It was my mom. I’d call back in a bit.
I plopped down on the couch, wishing I knew what was going on. I couldn’t believe how much I missed him. I mean, come on. I had that right, didn’t I? It was already five in the evening on Sunday. The weekend was almost over, and he’d been gone nearly thirty-six hours. What the hell?
I placed my hand on my side and smiled. I couldn’t wait until he got home so I could show him my new tat. I couldn’t wait until he got home, period.
When I’d asked Dre who his artist was, he didn’t just tell me. He went one better. He met me at the shop early this morning and set me up, even got me a good deal. He called it his parting gift to me. Things couldn’t have felt more resolved between us. And while he did ask one last time if I was sure we’d never start up again, he really did seem to get it when I confirmed no. My past was finalized, leaving me to focus on the present and future. It was a great place to be.
I scrolled through my texts, making sure I hadn’t missed any. Like I hadn’t done that a gazillion times already. There were only the two from the night before, and one of them was mine.
Hey, how’s it going? I had a very unexpected (but good) day and a lot changed for me. I’ll explain it all when we talk. Hopefully soon.
Then an hour later, his text arrived from an unknown number:
It’s Stephen. Phone’s dead and using someone else’s. Don’t reply. Stuck in war room with no ETR. Talk as soon as I can.
I tapped the phone on my chin. His text was curt, but I guess that made sense since he wasn’t using his own cell. I didn’t even know what he meant. What the hell was a war room?
The ring startled me and I jolted back. Adam?
“Hello.”
“Hi, Perry. I don’t suppose I could bribe you into working a few extra hours tomorrow? I’ve been making the rounds and not having much luck. They put me in charge of calling the operators and it sucks.”
“Yeah, all right. I guess that wouldn’t be a big deal.”
“Awesome. I owe you. I can stop making these fucking calls now.”
“No problem. You could’ve just got a hold of me first, you know.”
“I’ll remember that next time. I was hitting up the people that annoy the crap out of me first. Why make the people I like suffer?”
I laughed. “Oh hey, do you know anything about that major outage they had yesterday morning?”
“Just that it was a nasty CPU failure. I don’t have the details because I wasn’t part of the resolution. Why do you ask?”
Resolution? “It’s fixed now? ”
“Since about six this morning. Why’re you so curious?”
Nausea rolled over me. Almost twelve hours ago? Was he hurt? Car accident? “Can you please not ask why I want to know, but can you tell me if Stephen was one of the ones working on this?”
“I’d assume so, considering the issue. You know, I saw him today.”
“What?” I hoped it hadn’t come out as a scream.
“Yeah, a few hours ago at Ground Creek.”
“What was he doing?”
“Drinking coffee.” He laughed. “You wouldn’t expect him to be eating a steak, would you? It is a coffee shop.” I didn’t laugh back. “Why the sudden interest in the boss’s recreational activities? Oh wait. I forgot I was talking to you. You’re probably interested in the brand of floss he uses.”
He was making a joke out of this, but I. Was. Not. Amused.
“Remember I asked you not to ask me why? Just one more question…. Was he alone?”
“No, there was a woman with him.”
Swallow it down, Perry . “By chance did she have blonde hair and look a lot like him?” Please, please, please .
“Nope, light brown.”
“Um, not sure if you caught her voice, but did she have an annoying, pompous accent?”
“No, but she had a cute, sexy one. Never heard anything like it before.”
Fuck! “Okay, thanks, Adam. I have to go.” The rolling nausea had turned into an ocean pulling me under. Fucking drowning me.
I tried calling Stephen’s allegedly dead phone—no answer—then typed out a quick text: Call me!
Then I scrolled through the call log on his house phone, finding Stefanie’s number. I was redialing before I’d even given a thought of what to say. It didn’t fucking matter; she didn’t pick up anyway. Fuck, fuck, fuck .
I was struggling to breathe, but I wouldn’t let this suffocate me. I had to get out of there. I needed to confront him, but it wouldn’t be on his home turf. I couldn’t do it in the place where he’d lied to me. He’d told me he wasn’t hooking up with her this weekend!
I went to pack my bags for the third time in three months. What a fucking joke. I couldn’t even look at Stephen’s room when I passed by. All those beautiful memories had turned to ugly trash. I’d even asked him to come inside me. What the hell was I thinking? I’d so badly wanted him to be different.
Well, he turned out to be different, all right. Congratulations to him. Out of all the guys I’d been with, he was the only one who had ever made me feel used. I felt lower than dirt. Discarded refuse. I believed wholeheartedly that our friendship had been genuine. Our night together was not.
Cold fucking. That’s all it was. I was the stupid one who had romanticized everything, turning it into something meaningful. He’d made promises, I’d fallen for them, and then he lost interest. Challenge conquered. See ya.
I threw my shit into the car, then booked a room. I snickered. Hey, at least I had one already picked out and ready to go. Sixty bucks a night. Can’t beat that.
It wasn’t until I was checked in, lying in the sterile empty bed and staring up at the peeling, dingy ceiling that I allowed myself to feel something other than anger.
And that’s when I cried myself to sleep.
I bolted upright to an obnoxious sound. My first thought was the fire alarm. I stumbled out of bed as my surroundings slowly came into focus. Dammit, I was in a cheap motel. It all hadn’t been some bad trip after all.
I slammed my hand down on the little radio alarm clock to shut it up. I had to get ready for work. I seriously— seriously —considered calling in sick, but I promised Adam that I’d not only be there but also put in extra hours. Fantastic.
After taking a crappy shower with the head the size of a thimble, I decided to turn on my phone. I’d shut it down right after he’d tried calling around midnight, waking me up. That must’ve been when he’d finished with her . I never answered. The pissed-off me had wanted to confront him, but the hurting me wanted to hide in a hole and lick my wounds. And I thought what had happened with Dre and Christa had been heart-rending. Ha. Turned out that was just practice for the main event.
He’d never left a message, but there was a short text following the missed call: We need to talk .
Sure thing, buddy. We’d do that just as soon as I got angry again.
By the time I made it into work, I was a complete mess of tangled nerves. It was painful. I wasn’t sure how I’d react to seeing him behind those glass walls, acting business as usual. I hoped he didn’t even notice me. I hoped he did. I hoped he wanted to sever our friendship. I hoped he begged for my forgiveness so I could knee him in the balls.
I hoped that someone would create a time machine in the next thirty seconds so I could go back the way we were before The Mistake.
My heart jackhammered harder as I came closer to the room. I swiftly strolled past the office. Don’t look, Perry. Don’t look . Dammit. Wait… wait just a frickin’ minute.
Mr. Krismer was back.
I did a double take before going to my station. This was almost worse. No, there was no almost about it. It was definitely worse. I hadn’t wanted to see him, but now that he was gone… I didn’t know what the fuck I wanted .
He’d never said goodbye.
That weasel probably got the news during his meetings on Friday, but had failed to mention it. Not that we had a lot of time for chitchat considering the events, but… had all this been premeditated? He knew he was leaving and wouldn’t have to face seeing me on Monday. He probably planned to get me into his bed even before everything went down with Stu.
I plopped hard into my chair. This was good; I could feel a raging spark coming on. Shit, it was gone already. I was back to feeling dragged through the mud. Stephen was one of the best people I’d ever known. How could he do this to me?
“Good morning.”
I looked over at Kate. “Hi.”
“Ready for Monday?” she asked.
“Yep. Ready as I’ll ever be.” I busied myself with logging on.
“Hey, too bad Bossman’s gone, right? Just when I was getting used to having him around.”
A bubble of laughter shot out my mouth, and she looked at me strangely. “I’m glad… that Krismer’s wife is better,” I said.
“You okay?” I shrugged. I didn’t even bother lying to say that I would be. Her line rang then, and right before she answered she leaned over and whispered, “This isn’t over.”
Too bad the day was busy enough so she couldn’t make good on her promise. She’d always teased me about Stephen, saying we had some secret tryst going on, but I’d waved her off. Yeah, I’d loved him, but there’d never been anything clandestine about it. Until Friday. Damn, I wished it were Friday again.
How odd that less than twenty-four hours before I was on such a high, and now I was swimming in muck. Life was fucking hilarious that way.
The bright spot of my day was lunchtime. I’d put down my deposit on the apartment and could start moving in anytime. That’d keep me occupied for a while.
Stephen never called or texted again, and I’d never called or texted him back. It was a wash. Did I want him to try reaching out to me? Only so I could reject him. I at least wanted that option.
I gave myself a pat on the back when my longer day ended. The overtime would come in handy since I had a ton of furniture to buy. I should ask if I could do it more often.
I just had to keep busy. That was the magic formula. If I never let myself stop to think, I’d never figure out that all I was really doing was fooling the shit out of myself.
At the end of the week, I received my diploma for Master Pretender. Everything was pink jellybeans and life-sized gummy bears. If I’d auditioned for the role, I could’ve won the adult video award for best fake orgasmic scream. Life was fucking great.
Except it wasn’t.
Stephen had called exactly once midweek. One call, no message, no text afterwards. I hadn’t returned it. He’d never even sent an interoffice e-mail referencing policy nonsense or anything equally stupid. If it weren’t for that one missed call on my cell, it would’ve been like he’d ceased to exist. I was okay with that.
Except I wasn’t.
My tat was healing nicely. Unlike other recent choices I’d made, I hadn’t regretted that one in the least. Every time I looked at the ink on my skin, I felt optimistic. Happiness was waiting for me as soon as my heart righted itself from inside out. Which should be any day now.
Except I was full of shit .
Little by little, I was getting settled into my apartment. I’d purchased an inexpensive bed that was way too small but comfortable enough, especially if I curled into a ball, and a secondhand dresser. My sister had given me an old table and chairs she had in the basement without Paul knowing, and I was still working on getting a couch. It was coming along slowly, but considering I’d started at zero, I was pretty proud of myself. This was the first time in my life that I was one hundred percent on my own without a roommate to fall back on. I’d even held a job for four months with no impulse to jump ship. I finally felt like a fucking grown-up.
I’d also realized how much of a blessing it’d been that Stephen had gone back to the corporate building when he did. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. If I would’ve had to continue seeing him every day, there was no way I’d have been this well-adjusted.
Right.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
A woman who is so delusional her eyes would be brown if they weren’t already.
“You are going out next Friday, right?”
I glanced over at Kate, scrunching up my face. “Friday?” They usually shot for Thursdays.
“Yes, Friday! Do not tell me you forgot.”
I quickly scanned my brain. Friday, Friday…. Oh shit, that’s right. “Um.”
“Don’t ‘um’ me. There is no way you’re missing my going-away party.”
“Nope. Of course not.” I put on my best smile. “Just try to keep me away.”
Kate had gotten the job. Her last day was in a week. I was incredibly bummed to see her go, but how could I not be at her party to help her celebrate? I tried to weigh the possibilities of Stephen showing up. He was no longer her boss, or even worked in the same building, so that was a check in the no category. But he’d gotten to know her well enough in the months that he was here, making that a check for yes.
No worries. Whether he was there or not would have no impact on me. It was inconsequential. It definitely wasn’t anything to keep me up at night.
Except it was.