31. Chapter 31
Chapter 31
Lis
A s the days pass, I try to bury myself in my work to keep from talking to Spencer. I take transit home or finish before he does and walk by myself. It’s far lonelier than I expect it to be.
Spencer doesn’t push. He gives me the space I’d asked for and now I’m getting tired of it. Nothing is resolved between us, but I miss my friend. I miss laughing with him and hiking and watching movies. I would even do the Grouse Grind with him again if it meant we could have back that easy relationship we’d had before.
Daze tells me, often, that I’m the only one getting in the way. And by the next weekend, I’m finally starting to believe her. But on Friday, I notice a shift in Spencer’s demeanour. He doesn’t smile and he doesn’t talk to me at all. He spends as much of the day in his office as he can while still coordinating the rehearsal dinner that night. Saturday is the same, but worse. On Sunday, I bake him some cookies.
I’m the one who put the space between us and now I’m not sure if I’m allowed to ask him what’s wrong. So I just go into his office without a word. He looks up, his eyes haunted the way I’ve only seen them once before. I set the box of cookies on his desk and then leave.
I don’t work on Monday or Tuesday. But when I go for my morning run, I stop by to see if he’s working. On Monday, he is and I give him a batch of cinnamon rolls I’d baked that morning. On Tuesday, he isn’t there, but Vic is.
Oddly, however, the door to her office is closed. I stare at it in confusion for a long moment, glancing down at Cerberus as though he might be able to tell me why it’s closed. The doors are almost never closed around here.
I knock softly.
“Come in,” she says.
I open the door, entering with my backpack filled with baked goods and my dog trotting happily at my feet. He immediately goes to Vic and sits in front of her. “Sorry to disturb you. I brought something for Spencer. Is he here?”
She shakes her head, bending down to scratch Cerberus behind his ears. I’m about to tell her we’ll leave her alone when I catch a glimpse of her eyes. They’re red rimmed.
“Is everything okay?”
Finally, she turns toward me. She doesn’t say anything for a long time. When she finally does, it’s quiet. “I broke up with my girlfriend, Emily. For real this time.”
I close the door behind me and sit down on one of the chairs.
“I blocked and deleted her number. Then I blocked her everywhere else I could think of.”
Spencer had mentioned Emily a few times, usually after she’d spent the night at Vic’s place. And after that single meeting with her, I definitely had my opinions.
“If you don’t mind my saying, you deserve better than her, anyway.”
She huffs a laugh. “That’s number one.”
I look at her in confusion and she pulls out a sheet of paper and hands it to me. At the top it says, “15 Reasons Not to Call Emily” only the 15 is crossed out and she’s written 16 in its place.
I scan the list.
1. You deserve better.
2. She spends all your money.
3. She leaves you on read.
It goes on and on until I reach the last one that Vic must have written in recently. She wanted me to choose between her and Spencer.
I slap the paper down on the desk when I finish reading. “That bitch. You guys have been friends since you were kids. How could she ask something like that?”
She lets out a breath and looks almost relieved. Then she shakes her head. “Especially right now. She should have known I’d never abandon him. And not this week of all weeks.”
I catch that statement, but she continues before I can ask about it.
“I’ve known for a long time that she was all wrong for me, you know.” She sighs and takes the list back, slipping it into the top drawer of her desk.
“So why do you keep going back to her?”
“It wasn’t always this way. In the beginning, she was nice. She was sweet. I loved her.”
“What happened?”
Vic sighs and Cerberus lays his head on her knee. She smiles down at him and scratches him again. “I’m not sure which it was, exactly. A few things happened at the same time. It was almost exactly two years ago and she asked me to go out with her. I told her I couldn’t because Spencer needed me. Then she found out who his father was and who my family was and suddenly things shifted. She wanted me to spend less time with Spencer. She was awful to him whenever we were together. She started making me pay for everything because I could afford it. I broke up with her.”
She pauses, but I feel like she’s not quite finished. I’ve noted the reference to Spencer and how he needed her almost exactly two years ago, but I wait to ask. Eventually, she picks up the story again.
“A month or so later, she called me, told me she was sorry for everything. I still loved her so I took her back. It was familiar. I was lonely. But nothing changed. Over these last two years we’ve broken up and gotten back together a bunch of times. It’s always the same. One of us is lonely, we call the other, we’re together for a while, but nothing is different.”
“I understand those feelings. It’s why I tried online dating.”
“How did that go?”
I smile ruefully. “My last date asked me to donate my kidney to him.”
She laughs and I laugh with her. Now that it’s over, it is pretty funny.
But when my laughter subsides, I say, “That was the night I met Spencer.”
She looks at me and it occurs to me why she might have felt relieved by my outburst.
“Did you think I might ask him to choose between me and you, Vic?”
She returns her attention to where Cerberus is still resting his head on her knee. She hasn’t stopped petting him. “I hadn’t considered it might be a problem until last night when Emily asked me to choose.”
“Spencer and I aren’t even together.”
She rolls her eyes and then looks at me like I shouldn’t be so stupid.
“Regardless, I would never do that.”
“Good.” Her look turns hard. “Because I would fire you for that.”
I lean forward. “I would want you to.” We lapse into silence for a moment. “Do you want me to stab her? I’m pretty good with knives.”
That startles a laugh from her and I smile.
“That seems a bit extreme, but I’ll keep it in mind.”
“I try to limit myself to assault. Don’t want any murder charges.”
“Of course. Very prudent. You make offers to stab people all the time?”
“My sister says you know I love someone if I do one of two things: bake for them or offer to stab someone.”
“You should probably stick to baking.”
“Probably less of a chance of me getting arrested. Though I suppose I could consider the idea of poison.”
She laughs again and I’m glad to hear it. She usually portrays an image of an unbreakable block of stone. Ready to do whatever it takes to ensure her business, and the people connected to it, succeed.
“I’ve noticed you’ve done some baking for Spencer in the last few days.”
I try to keep my cheeks from heating. I am not at all successful. “I guess I have. I actually wondered if you could tell me more about this week.”
She sighs and leans back in her seat. “He told you about his mom, right?”
I nod.
“The anniversary of her death is tomorrow. And every year, he goes to his dad’s house and spends the day with him.”
“I thought they didn’t speak anymore.”
“They don’t. Except for his dad’s birthday and this one day every year. The birthday isn’t as hard, but this one is. I go with him every year, but I’m only marginally helpful. I would do anything I could to help him feel better.”
We share a look. I understand why Emily might have been jealous of Vic and Spencer’s relationship. I could see how Emily might have felt threatened by the love and protectiveness they feel for each other. But from where I’m sitting, all I can feel is glad he has someone in his corner, someone who would be willing to go to bat for him, stand beside him in good times and bad. It makes me feel more like I’m part of something than excluded from it.
“You guys,” I hesitate, unsure exactly what I’m trying to say. “You’re more than just co-workers and friends, aren’t you? You’re like a family.”
“I got your back, no matter what,” Vic says under her breath. “That’s all Spencer’s doing, too. Right after we started university, Spencer cut pretty much all ties with his father. I guess he’d been kind of looking for a new family and when we met Derek and Adalie, we all just sort of clicked. He decided we were it.”
“I noticed.”
“Actually.” She stares at me for a long moment, contemplating. Then she nods. “I wondered if you would be able to do something for me?”
“What is it?”
“There’s this photographer. I’ve been trying to get her to meet with me to have a sort of first dibs contract with her for next summer. I have a similar contract with our florist and the baker who does the cakes. Anyway. She said she was free to meet tomorrow, but then not again until later in September. I told her I couldn’t, obviously.”
“Okay. What does this have to do with me?”
“What if, instead of me going with Spencer tomorrow, you go with him?”
“Oh. I don’t know, Vic. We haven’t really been…” I trail off.
“I know. And that’s all on you. I’m not saying you have to get over it. As a woman in the business world, I get it. Sleeping with the boss, even if you’re madly in love with them,” she shrugs. “It looks bad from the outside. Though he’s not really your boss, I don’t blame you for being cautious. But what I am going to say is, if you decide it’s not worth keeping you two apart, it’s up to you to make the first move.”
She’s right. It’s exactly the same thing Daze has been saying to me pretty much every day for the past two weeks. I pull the container of cookies I’d made that morning out of my backpack and set them on her desk.
“I baked these for him this morning.”
She gives me a patient look. “Right. And you’re not in love with him.”
“I never said that.”
I hadn’t ever said that I was in love with him, either. But the more I think about it, the more I realize it’s true. And cookies and other baked goods are nice. But I want to help him more than just a few cookies.
“I’m supposed to work tomorrow.”
She points to herself. “Boss. You can have the day off.”
“Okay. I’ll go with him. If you think it’ll help.”
“I do.”
“You’ll make sure he gets the cookies? And there’s a couple dozen in there, so you can have some, too. I’d like to make him something special tomorrow. Have any ideas for me?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think there’s anything in particular he likes more than anything else. Why don’t you make your favourite thing?”
“It’s not sweet. My favourite thing is a cheese bread.”
“He’ll love that. Who doesn’t love cheese?”
I laugh as I stand. Cerberus looks up at Vic before he moves.
She scratches him behind the ears again. “Thanks to you, as well. It’s amazing how just scratching a dog’s ears can make everything feel a bit better.”
“Come on, Cerberus. Let’s let Vic get back to work.”
He trots over to me and I clip his leash on. Just before I leave the office, Vic says, “Lis? Don’t tell anyone about Emily, okay? I don’t want to make a big deal of it.”
“I know it’s not quite the same as Spencer, but I got your back.”
She smiles. “No matter what. It is the same.”