Chapter 8
THEODORE
Friday arrives with Desiree acting a little too composed for my liking.
Since Tuesday, she’s given me just enough of our routine to make a less attentive man miss what’s underneath it.
She still kisses me when she passes. Still checks whether I ate.
Still presses her foot against my leg in bed when she thinks I’m already half asleep.
But there’s been something bothering her all week, and she keeps dancing around it versus just telling me whatever it is.
Leaving is already bad enough. Leaving her like this, with things unsaid, is even worse.
She’s near the dresser, fastening one diamond-studded earring while she watches me fold a shirt at the foot of the bed and lay it in my suitcase.
“Alright, let it out.”
Her eyes connect with mine through the mirror. “Baby, what are you talking about?”
“Desiree.”
“Theodore.”
The room’s so hushed, you can hear the faint ticking of the clock hanging on the far wall near the walk-in closet. I look at her until she stops pretending she doesn’t know exactly what I mean.
“I leave in a few hours. If there’s something you need to tell me, tell me and I mean now.”
She finishes with the earring first.
“I don’t like you leaving.”
“We’re grown, Desiree. Don’t do that. You know that’s not it.”
“No, but it’s still true.”
“I know it is.”
She turns from the mirror then, arms folded at her chest, trying to look calmer than she is.
“You don’t like leaving either.”
“No. I don’t.”
Desiree knows I’m coming back. She knows what these acquisitions require, especially when a struggling firm starts hiding bad numbers behind too-neat paperwork.
Just like she knows I wouldn’t put two weeks and half the world between us unless the move needed to be made.
None of that changes the fact that I hate standing here while she keeps making me pull at what’s really bothering her.
It can’t just be that I’m leaving. Business trips come up all the time. So what changed?
“I offered to make arrangements for your pleasure,” I tell her, watching to see what her demeanor gives off.
“I know your appetite, Honey. And I know what I denied you Monday night. Two weeks can feel like a lifetime when I’m the one who left you wanting.
” I step away from the bench in front of the bed and move toward her.
“But when you told me no, that was it. I didn’t negotiate around what you told me you didn’t want. ”
She looks up at me. “And if I had said yes?”
“Then I would’ve made the call, and watched every second of it before I left.”
Her arms stay folded, but the argument I’m waiting on never comes. Still, I want this understood before I get on that plane.
“While I’m gone, nobody comes near you. You know that. I trust you. That’s not the issue. What we do has structure, and I’m part of that structure. Without me in the room, no one gets access.”
She looks away first, and that tells me plenty.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Nothing happened.”
She says it like I’m supposed to accept it.
“Woman,” I say. “Don’t stand here with something on your mind and give me nothing when I’m leaving the country today.”
She walks to the nightstand, picks up her phone, unlocks it, and turns the screen toward me.
A booking request.
Private Wellness Consultation.Client: B. Kinsley.Referral: T. J. Kelly.Tuesday, 10:30 a.m.
I read it once and then again.
“Open the details.”
Desiree doesn’t move right away.
“Baby.”
She taps the request open.
The rest of it fills the screen.
Client: B. KinsleyEmail: b.kinsley.private@—Phone: 480 area codeRequested service: Private Wellness ConsultationRequested provider: Desiree PerkinsRequested date: Tuesday, 10:30 a.m.Referral: T. J. Kelly
Tuesday. I won’t even be here.
I check the email, then the 480-area code. The name and details send my mind to one place.
“When did this come through?” I ask.
“Tuesday morning.”
“Desiree. Honey, today is Friday.”
“I didn’t know what it was.”
“But you knew enough not to approve it.”
She gives me that look. “Don’t start.”
“I’m not starting. I’m just saying.”
“I left it pending.”
“I can see that.”
I look at the screen again.
B. Kinsley.
Contact information that doesn’t belong to who I’m thinking of. But yet my name is being used as a referral.
“I didn’t refer anybody to your clinic. Those contact details don’t match anybody I would’ve sent you.”
“I figured as much,” she says. “But seeing your name listed on the referral line bothered me.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m telling you now.”
“On the day I leave.”
“Because I didn’t want you doing exactly what you’re doing.”
“Which is what?”
“Standing here blowing a gasket. Turning a pending appointment into a federal case.”
I’m not even going to respond to that because if I do, my response will put us somewhere we don’t need to be this morning.
“Send me a screenshot of all that. And of course your clinic is yours,” I tell her. “But my name is not something anyone should be using to reach you.”
She just stares at me.
“Whoever booked this may be nobody,” I say. “Could be a new client with bad timing. Could be somebody trying to get closer than they’ve been allowed. Either way, I don’t know yet and neither do you.”
“That’s why it’s pending.”
“And it’ll stay that way.”
“I know how to run my business, Theodore.”
“I know you do, Honey.”
“Then don’t talk to me like I need instructions.”
“Your tone isn’t to my liking. I’m only going to tell you once to adjust it. I know you’re well aware of who you’re speaking with. Act like it.”
She looks away.
Curtis calls again from the dresser.
I let it ring.
“You need to answer that,” she says.
“I need to finish this conversation.”
“Theodore.”
“No.” I pick up my phone, silence the call, and set it face down. “Curtis can wait two minutes.”
He calls again.
This time, I decline it.
Desiree glances at my cell, then back at me. “You can’t keep doing that.”
“I can and I did.”
“Theodore.” Her chin lifts. “My clinic is mine.”
“And you belong to me.”
I step in, and this time she doesn’t move away. My hand comes to her face, thumb near the corner of her mouth.
“For the record, I have no problem with you handling the clinic,” I explain. “I have a problem with somebody treating my name like permission I didn’t give.”
The door chime sounds downstairs.
My driver.
Neither one of us moves at first.
“You have to go,” she says.
I hand the phone back to her. “Do not approve that request.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
She stays there, her eyes searching for one more reason to keep me standing here.
I would give her one if I could.
Instead, I take the suitcase off the bench.
“I’ll call when I’m in the car,” I tell her.
“You better.”
I move toward the door, then stop.
She knows I’m not done. I can see it in the way she braces herself.
“Honey.”
“Yeah, baby?”
My lips caress hers, mint on her breath while our tongues twist slow, dragging the taste of her into something I desperately don’t want to let go.
“I love you,” I say.
“And I love you more.”
I zip my bag shut, head down the spiral wooden stairs, and all I get is sound—the bag knocking against my leg, my shoes on wood, both echoing before I reach the foyer.
Walking outside, the driver opens the back door after taking my bag. I get in, pull the door shut, and wait until the house disappears behind the gate before I open the screenshot.
I tap the number attached to the request.
One ring.
Then the recording cuts in.
“The number you have dialed is not in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please hang up and try your call again.”
I end the call and bring the screenshot back up.
B. Kinsley.Private Wellness Consultation.Tuesday, 10:30 a.m.Referral: T. J. Kelly.
Somebody thinks this is a game.
They obviously don’t know me.
Because if they did, they’d know I’ll fuck them up in more ways than one behind Desiree Eileen Perkins.