Chapter 17
Harding~
A fter seeing where all Paige was willing to go with all of this, I’d chosen to get a new number for work, and the plan was to eventually transfer all of my contacts over. However, since I needed to separate her from my work as much as possible, I’d gotten a new phone last night, then had spent the rest of the evening sending all my work contacts my new number.
I also wasn’t worried about preventing Paige from being able to get a hold of me. As long as I had a social media account, she could always message me through that. Plus, if it got to the point where I had to block her there also, she could always email me. I just really needed a new number to distance the people that I knew from the Paige that was showing her face.
So, armed with my new number, I’d been able to leave my old phone in my truck while at work, and that had brought on a feeling of peace that had made my morning a decent one. However, now that lunch was upon us, I decided to check the phone just in case.
What had surprised me was a text from Gil, asking me to call him when I had the chance. Now, while I considered Gil and I to be friends, we didn’t hang out much outside baseball season. We were both teammates for a county league that we played in, and if we got together for beers, it was usually after a game. Still, if he was texting me, it was probably because Paige had gotten to the Gs in my list of contacts.
However, that came before a barrage of texts from an unknown number, and even though everything in me told me to wait until after work to open the messages, I couldn’t. With Paige out of control the way that she was, I needed to know what she was up to, so that I could inform the police if nothing else. I also had no doubt that the texts were from her and her text messaging app.
The first text was a picture of her with a dick in her mouth, and with my appetite now gone, my lunch was immediately forgotten. Stunned, I could only stare at the photo and pray that it wasn’t my dick that she was sucking on.
Suddenly, my mind quickly raced through the past five years, trying to remember if we’d ever filmed anything, and panic was threatening to make an appearance when I couldn’t remember. However, as I got a better look at the picture, I didn’t recognize the room, though it was obviously a motel room of sorts, and a rather nondescript one.
When I began scrolling through her messages, it became clear what this was. Paige was trying to make me jealous, so she’d obviously hooked up with someone recently, and this was the result. The pictures were all coming from the same angle, so my guess was that she had recorded the event, then had edited what she could. The man’s face was nowhere to be seen, but my mind immediately went back to Gil’s sudden need for me to call him.
Jesus Christ.
All in all, the pictures had them in different positions, but nothing out of the ordinary. They looked like private photos that you could find on any couple’s computer, but it also had me wondering if the guy even knew that she had recorded them to send this shit to me.
The last text had a video attached, and a part of me wanted to immediately delete it all, but I needed this evidence for the police. Yeah, the texts had all come from an unknown number, but there was no mistaking that it was Paige in the pictures, and while she could argue that the messages had come from her partner, no one was going to believe that.
I set the phone down on the seat of my truck, not being able to identify what I was feeling. While most people would be feeling hurt and jealous, I was feeling neither. I felt upset and nauseous that things had come to this, but that was about it. Maybe I would have felt more if I believed that she was actually involved with the guy, but I knew that she wasn’t. She had orchestrated this just to get even with me, though it didn’t work. I cared about Trista, and so that was what made the difference here. I hadn’t cheated on my wife for a quick piece of ass. I hadn’t betrayed Paige just to get my dick wet with someone new and exciting. Feelings had come into play way before the sex, and that was what was at the heart of my mistakes. It was easy to turn down pussy, but feelings for another person not so much.
There was also Gil to consider if he really was the man in the pictures. Was he aware that Paige had recorded them? Had he been a part of this from the beginning? It was hard to believe that he’d done this purposely to hurt me, and after seeing what all Paige was capable of, I could easily see her manipulating him to go to a motel room with her. Gil Clemens wasn’t a bad guy, so it was going to be hard to fault him, knowing what I knew.
Taking my chances, I grabbed my old phone, then dialed Gil’s number. Though it was in the middle of the day, I was hoping that he’d answer. He worked as a delivery driver for UPS, so it was possible that I could catch him on his lunch.
He answered after only two rings. “Hey, Harding.”
“I got your message,” I said in lieu of a greeting.
“Look, man,” he sighed. “I’m not sure how to tell you this, but…well, I hooked up with Paige last night.”
Fuck.
“She sent me a social media message, asking me if I’d heard about your divorce, and when I’d said no, she kind of went on about needing someone to talk to,” he explained. “I agreed to meet her at Blackhawks for some beers, and when she invited me back to her motel room, I went.”
While it was bothersome that he’d gone with her so easily, I was hardly anyone to judge. “I can only imagine what she told you,” I replied honestly.
“She said that you’ve been having an affair for a few months already, leaving her no choice but to file for divorce,” he replied, and I wasn’t even surprised by her lies. “She said that you had moved on, and she was feeling rejected, questioning her confidence with men, thanks to you.”
“Of course,” I grumbled.
“I…look, I shouldn’t have fallen for it, regardless of what you may or may not have done, but it…it seemed like a win/win for the both of us,” he went on. “I’d get laid, and she’d get some helpful validation.”
“Gil, I don’t care about that,” I told him truthfully. “But…I think that there’s something you should know.”
“That she only did it to make you jealous?” he huffed. “I’m aware.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dude, she kept mentioning your name to the point that I ended up just getting my shit and leaving without even finishing,” he answered candidly. “She was also doing too much, which should have tipped me off from the beginning.”
“Well, this is more than that,” I grimaced, this conversation one that I could have gone the rest of my life not ever having.
“Meaning?”
“She sent me a bunch of pictures and a video of you two together,” I informed him, feeling sick to my stomach.
Gil let out a dark laugh. “I should have known.”
“Did you know that she was recording you guys?”
“No,” he replied drolly. “I never would have agreed to that shit.”
I let out a sigh that I was becoming increasingly familiar with these days. “I already filed a complaint with the police for harassment, and my plan was to add these pictures and video to the complaint. However, now that I know it’s you in the messages, I can delete them, Gil.”
“Look, while I don’t appreciate what she did, I don’t need this crap, Harding,” he said. “If you could delete what she sent and act like it never happened, I’d rather that than have to explain to the police how I got caught up with your crazy ex-wife.”
“She’s not my ex-wife yet,” I pointed out regretfully.
“What?” he bit out.
“I only told her about the affair last week,” I informed him. “I haven’t even served her with divorce papers yet.”
“Fucking Christ,” he grumbled before adding, “Well, I suppose that’s what I get for sleeping with a buddy’s ex-anything.”
“Look, I’ll delete everything, and then we can just pretend like this never happened,” I suggested, wishing that I could.
“Sounds good to me,” he grumbled. “I’ll talk to you later, man.”
Gil hung up without another word, and all I could do was close my eyes as my head dropped back against the seat. While I was more than happy to delete the pictures and video, Paige still had the original recording, and there was no telling what she might do with it once she realized that Gil wasn’t on her side. Despite him sleeping with my wife when we were supposed to be friends, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
In fact, I felt sorry for anyone that was unfortunate enough to cross her path these days.