33. Chapter 33
Chapter 33
Paige had literally just planted her ass in her office chair the next morning when Andrea called her.
With an aggravated groan, Paige picked up her phone. “Whatever it is can wait until I’ve had a cup of coffee—”
“‘Houston, we have a problem’,” Andrea said, delivering the quote in her best talking-someone-off-a-ledge voice.
“What?”
“‘Houston, we have a problem’. It’s from—”
“I know what movie it’s from.” Jesus, the day had barely started and Paige already wanted it to be over. “Andrea, here’s where you cut to the chase and tell me what’s going on. And it better not be bad news, or a real problem I have to fix, because I’m not in the mood for either of those scenarios right now. And why are you whispering?”
“A man claiming to be your ex-husband is here, demanding to see you. And I’m whispering because I don’t want him to hear me.”
“What the fu—” Paige barely stopped herself from swearing out loud at hearing that unwelcome nugget of information and had to make do with swearing in her head. Fuckfuckfuck.
“Paige? Are you—”
Paige hung up the phone, somewhat clumsily. David was here?
Reluctantly, she called Andrea back.
“Did you just hang up on me?” Andrea asked.
“No, I accidentally dropped the phone. So, what did he say?”
“He said he needed to see you. I told him you were busy, but he’s not having it. And right now, he’s staring at me like a serial killer.”
Paige thought about doing her breathing exercises, but she didn’t have time; plus they probably weren’t going to do jack shit in this situation. “All right. Send him back.”
On slightly unsteady legs, Paige stood up and squared her shoulders and a moment later, David stepped into her office.
He was dressed in olive green cargo pants and a white button-down shirt, and his hair was pulled mostly back in a man bun; never in her wildest imaginings would she have thought that would appeal to her, but he made it look good.
Asshole.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, striving to sound calm and business-like. “I have an appointment in thirty minutes.”
David, who had been on the verge of just laying into her, faltered, and instead drank her in for a moment. Since the last time he’d seen her, she’d had her hair cut to her shoulders and she looked even better than she had at Bender’s.
He was further struck mute by the sight of her in a black pencil skirt that stopped several inches above her knees. It was paired with a long, white tunic made of jersey fabric that draped softly over her curves, gathering tightly at her hips. The wide, rounded neckline and short sleeves were adorned with tasteful bling—patterned rows of black, silver, and crystal beads that gave the blouse an expensive, high-end look.
His eyes seemed to want to naturally gravitate to her chest and he had to make a concerted effort to re-focus on why he was in her office, which had nothing to do with what she was wearing. Or how great she looked in it.
“I’m sorry that I just showed up here,” he apologized, even though he wasn’t really sorry at all. “But you’re not returning my texts or my calls and—”
“That’s because I blocked you.”
He blinked at her in shock. “You what?”
“I blocked you.”
“What the fuck, Paige? You blocked me?”
“What the fuck, to you, too, David. I figured turn-about was fair play.”
“What do you mean?”
She wanted to punch him, first in the throat and then in the balls. “Well, you blocked me first. That’s what I mean.”
He frowned at her. “What are you talking about? I didn’t block you.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Jesus. I didn’t block you.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t have done that.”
He seemed so certain that he hadn’t, which made Jules’s theory of a drunken block actually seem plausible. She folded her arms under her breasts. “Maybe not sober. But sometimes things happen after a few drinks, and—”
“You think I got drunk one night and blocked you?”
“I didn’t at first, but now I do.”
“Thanks.”
“Look. To be honest, it’s better to know that you blocked me in a drunken moment, rather than to keep thinking you were blatantly ignoring me and being an uncaring asshole.”
“When, exactly, was I ignoring you?”
“June 17, 2014.”
The whole conversation was starting to feel surreal to David. “You remember the exact date?”
“Yes. That was the night I had to put Spook down.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in and then his expression fell. “What? Spook’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“He’s been dead for … four years?”
She nodded, thinking that’s what she must have looked like when she realized David had been with Ashley for that long. Slightly different grief factor, but still the same kind of shock.
He abruptly sat down in one of the chairs she had for clients. “What happened?”
She sat down as well and shifted a stack of paperwork to the side, before resting her forearms on her desk. “I got home from work that night around nine and found Spook laying on the living room floor and I could tell something was wrong. He was meowing and trying to get up, but it was like he was paralyzed,” she said, the backs of her eyes prickling at the sad memory. “I called the nearest emergency vet and they told me to bring him in immediately, so I did. On the way there, I called you and when I got your voicemail, I left a message saying I needed you and to please call me back—I’m sure I sounded like a hot mess because I was crying so hard. Anyway, after Spook got examined at the clinic, I was told his kidneys were failing and there wasn’t anything that could be done for him, except to put him to sleep. So I called you and got your voicemail again and left another message.”
She stopped and took a deep breath. “I must have left half a dozen messages, total. And texts. I sent a few of those, too,” she said, her voice sounding clogged, even to her own ears. “Yeah, I pretty much blew up your phone, but I thought you would want to be there to say goodbye. And to be honest, I really needed you there with me, because it was really awful.
“I put off having him put to sleep for almost two hours, waiting for you to get in touch with me. But I never heard from you, so in the end, I couldn’t wait any longer and had to go through it with Spook alone. I held him while they gave him something to make him fall asleep and then gave him the shot that stopped his heart. And afterward, when it was over, I bought a bottle of wine at a sketchy liquor store, went home, and drank the entire thing.
“It was after midnight by then and I was thinking that maybe you’d just slept through my calls, or your phone was off, or on ‘do not disturb’, or your battery was dead, or something. I figured I would hear from you the next day, when you checked your phone in the morning, but I didn’t. That really hurt. And a week later, when I picked up Spook’s ashes, I still hadn’t heard from you, but despite being incredibly pissed at you, I texted you to see if you wanted half of them. Again, I heard dick.”
She raised her head and looked at him. “That’s what happened.”
A heavy silence filled the room as he leaned forward and rubbed at his eyes. She knew for him, Spook had just died and he was obviously grieving, so she just sat there and waited.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I never got any calls or messages from you. If I had, I would’ve been there for you. And Spook. I swear it.”
She nodded. “You didn’t get any calls or messages from me because you had already blocked me by then. Which is also why you haven’t gotten any of my recent texts.”
Picking up her phone, she opened up her texting thread with him. “These are from the past few months—since the night at Bender’s. I’ve replied to your texts, as you can see. All of them. Well, all of them up until I blocked you last night,” she told him drily, then held her phone out to him.
David took it and simply stared at the thread, which looked much different from his. Frowning, he started reading her responses, starting with the earliest one that thanked him for taking care of her hospital bill by paying it.
“I didn’t pay your hospital bill,” he told her. “Ashley did. Well, she is.”
“What?”
“She’s the ‘outside party’. I made her work out a payment plan with Holy Trinity for the next twelve months to pay for it.”
“How much was it?”
“Fifteen hundred and change.”
Paige sat there, stunned. On the one hand, she was horrified at the cost, but on the other hand, she was extremely thrilled to hear Ashley was on the hook for it.
David turned his focus to her phone once again, reading more of her replies to his texts inquiring about her health. “You know, when I never heard from you, I figured you were ignoring me because of what happened that night. And honestly, I didn’t blame you. I was worried, though. I’m glad to know you’re feeling all right. Better late than never, I guess.”
A moment later, he raised an eyebrow. “Dickface?”
“The last two are from Jules. She was annoyed and had a few drinks in her,” she explained, leaving out the graphic voicemails that had also been left.
He handed her phone back. “I thought you said you were on a date.”
Crap. She blinked at him and didn’t say anything.
David blinked at her in return a few times before turning his attention to his own phone and started swiping and tapping. He was pretty sure he knew what he was going to find and when he saw that Paige’s number was blocked, he sighed heavily. “Fuck.”
“I told you so.”
The words were uttered softly, without any snark, which David appreciated. “I swear I didn’t do this. Drunk or not,” he told her, looking down at the blocked number again and quickly unblocking it.
His adamant tone and hardening expression were enough to convince her he hadn’t, and she pondered this new development.
“But someone obviously did,” she pointed out softly. “Someone close to you … with access to your phone.”
“I know,” he returned, knowing that someone had to be Ashley.
A heavy silence was beginning to descend over them when her office phone rang.
While she talked to whoever was on the other end, David used the time to change his passcode, his anger growing as he pictured Ashley getting into his phone. He couldn’t remember ever being this pissed off—and that was before he considered the possibility that she might have gotten into it and done anything else.
After confirming his new code, he looked up to see Paige watching him.
“My appointment’s here,” she told him.
David slowly got to his feet and she did the same; in silence, they walked to her office door.
“I unblocked your number,” he said. “If you could unblock mine, I would appreciate it.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be in touch. I still need to talk to you.”
She nodded. As she watched him leave, she wished she could be there when he talked with Ashley, because it was probably going to be a real ass-ripper. She hoped so, anyway.
Her phone rang again, disrupting her rather pleasant daydream. With a sigh, she returned to her desk and answered it with an impatient, “Andrea, I know my appointment’s here—”
“Was that really your ex-husband?”
Paige rolled her eyes, even though Andrea couldn’t see her. “Yes, that was my ex-husband, David.”
There was a moment of silence and then Andrea said, “That’s why no ‘Davids’.”
“That’s why.”
“I didn’t know you’d ever been married.”
“Yes. For seven years.”
“Well, that’s … really interesting.”
“Yeah. Interesting’s the right word.”
“He’s even hotter than Ed Sheeran. And I don’t say that lightly.”
“I totally agree with you,” Paige said with amusement, then disconnected the call. God, she loved Andrea.
Then, deciding her clients could wait another minute, she grabbed her cell phone and texted Jules.
PAIGE: Guess who just ambushed me at work?
JULES: David?
PAIGE: Good guess.
JULES: He’s coming dangerously close to having a hit put out on him.
PAIGE: Take it easy, Dan Corleone.
JULES: It’s Don Corleone, not Dan. Because he’s a ‘Don’, which is the head of a crime family.Capisce?
PAIGE: Jeez, Icapisce.
JULES: So what happened?
PAIGE: Too much to text. Why don’t we talk after work?
JULES: Over a drink?
PAIGE: Better make it two.