Chapter 4
4
G eena rested her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes. She took a few cleansing breaths before returning her attention to the unoaked chardonnay in her hand. With a small swirl of the glass, she hovered her nose over the rim, taking in the aroma of tropical fruits.
Ricky preferred red wine. Which was fine with Geena. They didn’t have to like the same things.
But their taste in wine was just the canary in the coal mine of their relationship. Any time he bought a bottle for them, it was always a red, even though he knew red wine often gave her migraines.
Her phone buzzed beside her. She looked down to find a text from Taylor.
Heading home. You sure you don’t want to meet me and Austin for dinner?
Geena smiled at the invitation. Taylor was relentless. She had to give her sister that. The whole way back to the shelter, Taylor had peppered her with questions, digging for more information about Geena and Cody’s date.
Geena couldn’t have known the two of them had been friends in school. Actually, she could have known if she’d paid any attention to her little sister’s life back then. But she’d had her own packed life to deal with, and they’d never been particularly close. Not until the last few months.
The biggest surprise about her impending divorce was the realization of how much space Ricky had taken up in her life. Now that he was gone, she was reacquainting herself more with the things and people she’d grown apart from.
As different as they were, Geena had to admit she’d been enjoying her time with Taylor. Geena had always been annoyed by her sister when they were growing up. Taylor’s positivity was a sharp clash to Geena’s realistic nature. But working together at the shelter every weekend highlighted how good a team they made because of those differences.
Geena was even enjoying her photography subjects. She’d never been much of an animal person, but when she could play with them and leave the cleaning to someone else, she actually enjoyed hanging out with the cats and dogs at the shelter.
In the past, she’d mostly done more artistic or candid photography, long before Ricky had taken over her life, calling the hobby a frivolous waste of her time. But taking photos for the shelter had turned out to be immensely rewarding. The first time someone fell in love with an animal based on one of her photos—a particularly photogenic lab mix—Geena was hooked.
Nope. Rain check. Will edit the photos from today and send to Liz. Tell Austin I said hi.
Any other week, Geena might have been tempted to take her sister up on the offer. But she would see them both next weekend for her parents’ anniversary dinner. She was never sure why they insisted on having everyone over for their anniversary, but somewhere along the line, it became a thing. Their dad would grill in his outdoor kitchen and chat with their significant others, while their mom grilled them about their lives.
At least Geena had something interesting to talk about that wasn’t Ricky or her job. Her parents were proud of her, but accounting wasn’t exactly riveting dinner conversation. And Ricky, as a topic, was even more dull.
Geena was enjoying her time at the shelter on the weekends, and everyone liked to hear pet adoption anecdotes and stories of unruly photo subjects. Even if she didn’t know how long this volunteer gig would last, she was appreciating the joy it brought to her weekly routine.
Her sister sent one more text.
We still need to talk about Cody…
While she wasn’t entirely sure where her future was leading post-divorce, Geena was certain of one thing. She never would have gone out with Cody if she’d known who he was.
Dating her sister’s friend? Kind of cliché.
Plus, the guy was a mess. Literally and figuratively. Geena was soon-to-be-divorced, not desperate.
Although… she had to admit he was nice to look at in those zookeeper shorts.
Zookeeper shorts?
That was what turned her on these days?
Sheesh. Time to accept things were worse off than she’d realized.
She put her wineglass on the coffee table and grabbed her laptop. After connecting her camera and transferring the photos she’d taken earlier that day, she began narrowing down the best ones.
Geena laughed at the kitten in his lion pose. This one was a keeper.
After a bit of editing, she emailed the photos to Liz. Then she went back to the folder containing today’s batch of images and opened the first of the bird.
Gary the Grey popped up on her screen in all his puffed-up glory.
She smiled at the image, equally tickled with the bird’s stance as she had been with the kitten’s pose.
A quick look through the photos confirmed her previous suspicion that she’d need to do some editing to compensate for the crappy lighting in that room. But Gary was definitely a photogenic subject. Finding someone who could handle him would be difficult for the rescue, but they’d for sure get engagement on his posts.
Her phone dinged again, and it wasn’t Taylor this time. It was Ricky, responding to a question she’d sent two days ago.
Will send those as soon as I get to them.
Ugh.
She’d have thought Ricky would want to move through the paperwork and finalize this divorce even faster than she did since he’d been the one to initiate the separation. But Ricky was dragging his feet through every step. Sometimes he was too busy. Sometimes it slipped his mind. Sometimes he was taking his new girlfriend out of state for the weekend.
Either way, he was treating the legal filings with as much importance as he’d treated Geena during their marriage.
Geena wanted to remind him of the deadline and how he’d told her he would send the latest round of paperwork to the mediator two days ago.
But she’d had a long day and was in no mood for his inevitable condescension.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow Geena would remind him of the deadline.
Today’s Geena needed a good night’s sleep.
I t was Thursday morning before Ricky turned in his paperwork, and the mediator shared copies with her.
She had tons of work to do, piles of paper and endless emails, but she couldn’t focus on anything except the persistent alarm bells those financial disclosures were sounding in her brain.
“Can you look at this for me?”
She extended the printout in front of her coworker, James, who was enjoying his usual lunchtime routine at his desk. He held a half-eaten chickpea salad sandwich in one hand while the other hand zoomed his mouse back and forth, looking for a new carpet cleaning video to watch. Expert cleaners would remove what looked like nuclear waste from a carpet, and James loved to guess what color the rug beneath would turn out to be. He claimed they were soothing, but the videos were absolutely disgusting.
Geena never understood how he could watch those videos while eating. Then again, she couldn’t watch anything while she ate her rice bowls at work. She preferred to eat while listening to a lo-fi playlist, something to give her eyes and brain a break.
James put his sandwich on the empty plastic bag and wiped the crumbs from his hands before taking the papers from her. His black hair was slicked back in its usual style with so much product that it didn’t move as he tilted his head side to side, examining the forms.
“What am I looking at?”
“Ricky finally turned these in.” Geena frowned. “I can’t put my finger on it, but something doesn’t seem right.”
She’d decided against emailing the request to James and instead printed it out and walked it over. Something about sending a digital copy of their financials didn’t sit well with her risk-assessing brain, even if she did trust James.
They’d met when he started working at the firm three years ago. He was several years younger than her, but they’d bonded over being the only people under fifty at the accounting firm. Since then, they chatted every day and would meet for the occasional post-work drink.
He’d been her only confidant besides Taylor since her separation from Ricky. And she had been his one-person cheering squad when he was considering proposing to his long-time girlfriend a few months ago.
Ricky had never approved of their friendship. He’d called it inappropriate. As a result, Geena spent far too long avoiding spending time with James outside of work.
Then again, Ricky had never approved of anything she did.
Thankfully, James never held her avoidance against her. Now that Ricky was out of her life, she could fill some of the space he’d left by hanging out with James, just like she’d filled some of that space with Taylor.
Taylor and a certain zookeeper who’d turned out to be more than a onetime date.
Ricky definitely wouldn’t have approved of Cody. Even if their only interaction had been at the zoo discussing that bird.
She almost wanted to ask for a second date just to piss off Ricky, even if he never knew about it.
Almost.
“What am I looking for?” He squinted at the paper. “I’m assuming you triple-checked the math. You’re even more thorough than I am.”
Is my rat bastard ex hiding assets?
She couldn’t flat-out ask that. Well, she could. But she wouldn’t. She didn’t want to influence his analysis.
Geena couldn’t tell if her intuition was being clouded by her annoyance and disgust. Normally, she could stay detached when analyzing numbers like this, but she felt it would be smart to get a second opinion.
Her gut was telling her something was off. But her gut had also told her it would be a good idea to marry the man who’d submitted these forms.
Or had it?
Truthfully, she couldn’t remember what she’d felt or what her gut had been telling her before she married Ricky. All she remembered was that it seemed like a sound decision. It made sense on paper, and that was how she based most of her decisions.
“I just want to know if anything looks… off.”
“Off, huh?” James inspected the document for a few moments, then frowned. “Looks right to me. Technically. But something does seem weird. Like, the math is right, but…”
The feeling in her gut churned. “But what?”
James handed her the papers back. “Are these all of his assets? Are you sure he isn’t hiding something?”
“I’m not sure of anything.” She took the papers from him. “But thanks. I appreciate the extra set of eyes.”
She wasn’t sure what to do with James’s corroboration, but she would at least take the hunch to her attorney. They were trying to keep it all simple by going through a mediator, but nothing said Geena couldn’t pay someone to double-check things.
Maybe her attorney would have a better angle on this. Geena was sure the woman had seen plenty of shady stuff cross her desk. If Geena pointed out her own suspicion, her attorney might be able to identify what was going on beneath the numbers based on something else she’d dealt with in another divorce situation.
“Not so fast,” James said when she turned to leave. “My turn for a favor.”
“I would have done you a favor for free. You didn’t have to wait until I filed for divorce.” Geena smiled at him. “What do you need?”
Their job wasn’t exactly something that required collaborative work. So she assumed it was personal. Whatever it was, she’d be glad to help. And not just because he’d looked over her form. She’d never turn away someone who needed help.
And she could use the distraction from obsessing over whatever Ricky was up to.
“I know you don’t do studio-type stuff, but could we hire you to take Chelsea’s bridal photos?”
He was right. This wasn’t a thing she’d normally do. Not for anyone else, at least. But since Geena had started taking photos for the rescue group, she’d gotten hooked on that feeling of having an impact. And much like she was refilling her life with the people she cared about since Ricky was gone, she was happily filling those now-empty spaces with photography as well.
She’d have to brush up on her wedding photo skills, but that would be easy enough.
“I would love to,” she said. “But you aren’t hiring me. I insist on giving them as a gift. You’ll only need to pay for any prints you want.”
“Oh my gosh, you’re a lifesaver.” He put a hand to his chest. “I would normally fight you over this, but I had no idea how expensive wedding stuff was. We’re up to our eyeballs in debt already. I’m half-tempted to run off to Vegas and get this all over with, but Chelsea wants the whole big wedding thing. I think her parents are pushing her, guilting her to invite everyone who’s ever invited them to weddings over the years. Not that they can afford to help us out with paying for it. But I want Chelsea to be happy. I want her to have the wedding of her dreams. At this point, I don’t know if that’s even possible.”
Geena felt a stab of sympathy for him. She’d gotten to know him and Chelsea well enough to believe he’d give that woman the world if he could. He probably wasn’t even revealing to her how much the whole thing was costing them.
“Then I’m glad I can help.”
James released a heavy sigh. “I don’t think you understand what a relief that is.”
“Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.” She nodded toward the door. “I’d better get back to work. Ask her when she’d like to do the bridal shoot, and we’ll schedule a time.”
“You’re the best!” he shouted as she left.
Geena walked down the hallway, then placed Ricky’s forms on her desk with a sigh. She’d send her attorney an email later that afternoon.
Or maybe real quick.
Her mind wouldn’t let her concentrate on anything else until she got a pair of qualified eyes on whatever Ricky was trying to pull over her.