4. Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Paige blinked rapidly against the sudden burn in her eyes. Holy shit. They’d been together four years? She did the math as quickly as her napalmed brain would allow and the math said that they’d gotten together six months after the divorce.
Six. Motherfucking. Months.
Six months after the divorce, while she’d still been on an alcohol diet, David had been boning Ashley. And getting morning blowjobs.
What a betrayal. What an asshole.
David’s expression clouded with anger, making Paige realize she’d said that last part (at least she sincerely hoped it was only the last part) out loud. Instead of apologizing—because hell no—she doubled down. “You’re an asshole,” she said, succinctly and clearly.
David’s voice was sharp as he scrubbed a hand over his mouth and chin. “You shouldn’t have asked.”
She probably shouldn’t have, but that wasn’t the point. “You sure didn’t wait very long,” she told him, hearing the pain in her voice. “Wow.”
Ashley’s perfect eyebrows drew together in a frown that managed to convey both confusion and amusement at the same time. “Um. How long was he supposed to wait?”
Paige’s answer was directed at Ashley, but her eyes remained on David. “Maybe longer than a hockey season.”
“Well, too bad. He didn’t,” Ashley said with exaggerated sympathy.
There were so many hidden layers of hell in this encounter and they just seemed to keep unfolding. Paige remembered how determined and focused David had been with her, because he hadn’t wanted to wait to get engaged, or married, and it had made her feel special. But now that was all disintegrating as she was faced with the unwelcome knowledge that he had been the same way with Ashley—
Her heart tripped in her chest. Jesus Christ, were they married? And why was this only now occurring to her? Trying to get her shit together, she schooled her features and then as discreetly as possible, looked at both David and Ashley’s left hands. To Paige’s relief, neither one was wearing a wedding ring, nor was Ashley sporting an engagement ring, despite the fact that they’d been together for four years.
Paige could work with this.
Clearing her throat, she looked from David to Ashley. “So … four years and no ring? That’s interesting. By the time David and I were together four years, we’d been married for almost three.”
Paige felt a moment of pure happiness when she saw her arrow strike a weak spot and Ashley’s expression flattened for a moment. Her reaction told Paige a lot. It told her that Ashley wanted to be married, but David hadn’t pulled the trigger yet and she didn’t like it.
Good. Paige liked that Ashley didn’t like it—in fact, hopefully it had been eating at the woman’s insides like a malignant cancer. And if that made Paige a bitch, it was something she could live with.
David’s expression mirrored Ashley’s, but for a different reason. He knew Paige was stirring shit up on purpose—just like Ashley was—and he honestly didn’t know which one was pissing him off the most; at the moment, it was pretty much a dead heat. “Damn it, Paige.”
“It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
At her use of Ashley’s previous words—more stirring—David’s expression flattened even further. He now truly knew what it felt like to be between a rock and a hard place as the animosity between the two women continued to escalate, with him standing in the middle.
“Whatever.” Ashley shrugged the shoulder not covered by her sweater. “I don’t need a ring on my finger.”
Paige released a short laugh. “Please. You should see your face right now.”
“How did having a ring on your finger work out for you, Paige? Hmm? Not so well, I think.”
“Maybe not,” Paige conceded, doing her best to pretend Ashley hadn’t scored a direct hit. “But at least I had the privilege of being David’s wife for seven years.” Her lips turned up in a hint of a smile. “But you know what? Good for you, that you’re happy being nothing more than just his girlfriend—”
“For fuck’s sake, Paige,” David barked, glaring at her. “Stop.”
For a moment he was shocked that he was speaking to her like this. With Ashley, it wasn’t uncommon, because she would start fights about almost anything and fought like a New Jersey housewife, but he’d hardly ever raised his voice when he and Paige were married. However, she was clearly no longer the woman he’d been married to, which changed the rules.
That didn’t make him feel any better, though.
At David’s side, Ashley smiled at Paige, seemingly pleased with his sharp reprimand. “Oh, I’m a lot more than just his girlfriend—”
“That’s enough, Ash,” David cut in quickly, feeling a trickle of unease at her words. “We’re done here.”
“We’re almost done.”
“No, we’re done.” He took her arm and pulled her close, the trickle of unease turning into Niagara Falls. “And we need to leave.”
“Not before we finish this—”
“Not. Another. Word.” David’s voice was cutting and he squeezed Ashley’s arm in added warning, hoping it would be enough. Because short of really manhandling her and potentially causing a scene (the three of them had already received a few curious glances from people as they walked past them on their way out of the restaurant), David was pretty much neutered. And unfortunately, Ashley probably knew this. “This isn’t the time, or the place.”
Ashley’s words, as well as David’s response, made Paige frown. As she watched, something unspoken and heavy seemed to hover between the couple for a long moment and Ashley appeared to be backing down, to David’s obvious relief. Then, almost immediately, she seemed to change her mind and said, “I disagree.”
“Ash.”
David actually sounded—and looked—like he was on the verge of full-blown panic. That alone was enough to cause a sense of foreboding to race up Paige’s spine and she instinctively braced for an impact of some sort.
“I might not be David’s wife,” Ashley said with a gleam in her eye, “but I’m the—”
“Don’t you—”
“—mother of—”
“—fucking dare!”
“—his child.”
The word child hung in the air, hovering like a cloud. It took a long moment for it to really register and when it did, Paige actually felt like she’d been hit in the face with ‘Lucille’, the barb-wire covered bat from The Walking Dead.
David and Ashley had a child?
“And at the end of the day,” Ashley continued with a big smile, “having David’s child is better than having his ring on my finger. Way better.”
David shoved his hands in his hair and released an agonized sigh full of regret and rage. “Fuck,” he ground out, staring up at the ceiling.
Paige literally felt like she couldn’t breathe. Her chest was so tight that even shallow breaths were a challenge, making her breathing exercises impossible.
Ashley took a step toward a paralyzed Paige. “A ring sometimes only binds you to someone for seven years, isn’t that right?” She spoke softly, so David couldn’t overhear. “But a child binds you to someone forever,” she added, looking at Paige with supreme satisfaction, clearly enjoying the moment. “He gave me something better than a ring, so you can take your fucking ring and shove it up your ass.”
Paige didn’t know if she’d ever hated anyone more than she hated Ashley in that moment, until she turned to look at David. “You have a child,” she semi-wheezed and then pointed at Ashley. “With her.”
“Paige—” David began, only to stop, knowing what had started the moment he saw her was going to play out all the way and he couldn’t stop it; Ashley had made sure of that. “Yes.”
“His name is Jacob,” Ashley said. “He just turned three in January—”
David took Ashley by the arm, cutting her off and pulling her close; she was probably going to have a bruise, but at this point he didn’t care. It probably made him an asshole, but Ashley was being a total bitch and because of her, everything had turned to shit. “Shut the fuck up,” he hissed, his voice deadly. “You’re done talking.”
Then, none too gently, he let go of her so he could turn back to Paige. The look on her face was gut-wrenching and in that moment, he actually felt nauseous.
“You have a three-year-old named Jacob?” The words sounded like broken glass in Paige’s throat.
After a painful pause, he nodded.
“Jesus holy Christ,” she whispered, slightly dizzy, as she realized Ashley had apparently gotten pregnant three months into the relationship. Again, David hadn’t waited very long.
“Paige—”
She held up a hand to stop him, horrified to see it was trembling. She had one more question and it took everything she had to ask it. “It’s not Jacob David, is it?”
Ashley’s head jerked in Paige’s direction. “How did you know that?”
Paige’s breathing almost stopped, even though her heart was now thundering away like Secretariat on the final stretch at Churchill Downs. “No,” she brokenly implored David. “Please tell me you didn’t.”
Ashley turned suspicious eyes on David. “How did she know that?”
He ignored her and took a step toward Paige. “It’s not what you think.”
“What do you mean, it’s not what she thinks?” Ashley demanded.
“It’s not what I think?” Paige glared at David in disbelief. “So, you didn’t hijack the name we picked out for our son and give it to the son you had with Ash? Because that’s what I’m thinking, you son of a bitch!”
Ashley frowned, her gaze bouncing between David and Paige. “What is she talking about?”
“Fuck you, David, for putting me and our son behind you so quickly!” Paige said, her voice rising a little at the end.
“It wasn’t like that,” David protested.
“Fuck you,” she repeated and then turned to Ashley. It gutted Paige to think about Ashley experiencing the joy of a full-term pregnancy and the birth of a healthy baby boy, all with David at her side. Bestowing on her a look full of every ounce of hatred Paige felt for the hell that had been unleashed on her tonight, she told Ashley, “And fuck you too, you cunt.”
Utterly and completely done with both of them, Paige started to turn away.
“No one calls me a cunt. Especially not a fucked-up bitch like you,” Ashley bit out.
A second later, Paige felt Ashley’s hand on her shoulder, but before Paige could react in any way, Ashley was shoving her with surprising force. Thrown off balance, Paige tried to right herself by stepping back, but she was slightly twisted and her feet got tangled in the process. At the realization that she was falling, her arms went wide, but with nothing to grab onto she went down.
Hard.