“I thought I’d let you know, I’m leaving town for a while.” What?
“Well, I need to move on and I need you to leave me alone! Maybe I’ll go to Vegas, find a cute circus performer and give him a blow job! A real one!” I could’ve been that circus performer without a dick to suck. Similar to my life now. Either way, fuck you, karma.
I snatch the phone from her and hang it up. “And that concludes your phone time for tonight, young lady.”
“I’m done.” She turns around and wobbles. “Oh, I don’t feel so great.”
“Shit!” I hurriedly guide her to the sink, but she stops and splashingly hurls all over the floor and my jeans. Fabulous. I wish it would’ve been all over Wilder. That would’ve been fucking priceless and the cherry on top of this night.
CHAPTER 27
“Babe, how are you feeling?”
I look up from my computer screen, not really seeing what’s in front of me anyway. “Okay…” The expression on Val’s face tells me she knows I’m lying. I sigh and sit back, confessing, “Not really.” I have a shitty hangover. It would be worse if I hadn’t thrown up. Sadly, I threw up all over Rod. What’s worse—maybe not for Rod—was I said things to Finn that I don’t really remember. Rod said it was pretty funny, but I doubt it.
“What can I do for you?” Her motherly concern is so nice.
Biting my lip, I angle my head as my eyes fall to my desk. “Wave your magic wand and make it all go away.”
“Oh, honey. I wish I could. I can’t believe this happened.”
I told Val that Finn cheated on me with Cara. I just couldn’t give her details. I already relive them enough. So far, nobody else seems to know what went down because nothing has been said to me, which is odd since Finn is so well known, except for in my office. All my coworkers really know him as is our softball coach, it seems. Betsy had commented that I looked depressed. I had to make up a lame reason and get as far away from her as I could before she sniffed it out. Shasta asked me how our hot coach is doing. I told her he was okay and left it at that.
When I called Bethany, she cried with me.
When I told my dad, he was upset, and I could tell that Finn cut him deep, too.
“I can’t believe it happened either. I guess my aura wasn’t as hopeful as you thought.”
I hear her inhale. “I asked Paloma about your aura. I want to tell you what she said, but we can talk about that later. Oh, I forgot to tell you, earlier this week Brandon got a call from Drake Emerson, one of the other sportscasters at you-know-who’s station.” I sadly smile at Val’s effort to spare me hearing his name. “Drake said he will be our softball coach for our next game. He wants to meet with us an hour beforehand to get to know the team. I’m not sure if this is a permanent thing… He said Ricky was going to stay, but he has to work, so…” At least Finn found a replacement. That’s kind of thoughtful. It’s still going to be weird around Ricky, but he actually was very sympathetic to me, even after what he had done in his past, and after I had assaulted his best friend.
“I honestly don’t know if I can play after what happened. It’ll be too hard.”
“I know, babe. Skip some games. If anyone asks, it’s under your doctor’s advisement from your accident still.”
“I’m here!” Morgan glides into my office and around my desk, grabbing me into a huge, enveloping hug, and I easily dissolve into cries and wracking heaves. Val hugs me from behind, and they encircle me. I hear Morgan and Val whispering above me, but can’t discern what they’re saying.
Morgan squats next to my chair. “Okay, so I’m going to take you to get you a new phone.” I sniff and grab for a tissue. “Then later, we’re going for a ride.”
As I dry my eyes, I’m apprehensive. “Where?”
“It’s a surprise.” She glances up at Val and smiles. “Everything will be okay, Hadley.”
Morgan convinced me to change my phone number so I don’t get calls from Finn. I didn’t want to at first, but she told me that when I’m ready, I can email him my new number, or she or Rod can give it to him. True. I’m still not ready to talk to him, but I might be sometime.
Rod said Finn texted him that he’ll never give up on me. I don’t know how I feel about that right now. Like I told Rod, I want to hate Finn, but I just can’t. I don’t know if I can ever forgive him, though. I want to. He hurt me, but if he had cheated on me because he was bored or wanted Cara, then that would more upsetting. He said he did it out of desperation, to numb the pain. I don’t know if I believe that entirely. I didn’t run to someone else to have sex to make me feel better. Sex was the last thing on my mind as my world fell apart. How could it be at the forefront of his?
Not in the mindset to mess with my new, complicated phone, Morgan takes it and my address book, along with a list of names I wrote down to add to my phone contacts. Yes. Finn is on the list. I’m sure she loved that one.
Before Val leaves for a meeting, she comes around my desk and gives me another hug. “I love you, babe. We’ll help you through this.” I nod against her and sigh as my eyes tear up again. Anymore, I think I would cry less cutting an onion.
As she leaves, I look back to my computer and see an email from Simone Garrison.
Shit. Finn must’ve given her my email address. Why?
__________________________________________
Can we meet for lunch?
Simone
___________________________________________
I don’t know if that’s a good idea.
___________________________________________
Please? I’ll be alone. I’m not meeting you on his
behalf. I promise.
___________________________________________
Okay. Meet me in the lobby at noon. We’ll eat in the
cafeteria here.
___________________________________________
Morgan isn’t in her office, so I stop to tell Rod where I’m going, but he isn’t there either. Feeling rather nervous from what Simone might say, I take my time going downstairs. Does she pity me or does she think I’m a callous bitch for not forgiving her brother?
As I step off the elevator, I see Simone sitting on a bench near the front entrance. When she notices me, she bounds over, throwing her arms around my shoulders.
“Wow, Hadley,” she says, squeezing me. “I’m so very sorry.” I hear her soft gasps. “I can’t believe… I don’t know what to say.”
Stepping out of her hug, I anxiously twist my ponytail, while fleetingly looking out the large windows, still unsure if this is a ruse and she brought Finn with her. Accepting that he isn’t here, I nod behind over my shoulder for her to follow me. When we walk past the guards to the cafeteria, I fold my arms and ask, “So, how did you find out? Did he call you, saying I’m making too big a deal out of it?”
Her forehead wrinkles and she frowns in consternation. “No, he didn’t. I called him because I’m in town staying with a friend until I can move into my dorm.” Oh, right. She’s going to school here soon. “Ricky answered my brother’s phone and said he needed me. Ricky told me that you two had a fight and broke up.”
We walk into the cafeteria, but we find a table instead of getting food. As we sit, she swipes her cheeks and blinks at me, explaining, “At first, I thought it was like the one you guys had at my mom’s, pertaining to those issues. I went to his apartment to tell him off about how stupid he is, but when I got there, I found him hiding in his office on the futon. He didn’t even pull the thing out. Ricky said he wouldn’t move from it, refusing to sleep in his own bed. Finn called off work, but he was in trouble anyway when they found out the cops were called to his place for a domestic disturbance. So, I confronted my brother about it and he confirmed that you broke up with him.”
I clear my throat and play with my pink blouse’s sleeves. “Did he tell you why?”
She offhandedly plays with her blonde hair and gives me a remorseful smile. “He told me about you proposing to him with a rin
g and he said no. I almost smothered him with his pillow just for that. You really did ask him to marry you?”
I nod at the table, but don’t elaborate. She continues, “Then he told me he thought you were breaking up with him. He said he was grief-stricken and he didn’t want to hurt. He said you caught him and a coworker…” She tucks hair behind her ears and uncomfortably frowns.
“Yeah.” I prop my elbows on the table and hide my eyes behind my clasped hands.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make you think about it. I just wanted you to know, I’m here for you. I’m so mad at that asshole. I really thought he was going to marry you.”
“I hoped, but he didn’t want it. He never did.”
“He said he proposed to you…after.”
I lower my arms and shrug. “Too late, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. He said it didn’t mean anything and he thought you were leaving him, but I don’t understand how he could turn to that slut. He was so in love with you. He still is. He’s so… devastated. I’ve never seen him like that before, not even with Mom and Jack’s divorce. That’s nothing compared to this.”
“I’m devastated, too.” I clench my hands into fists and lean onto them. “He crushed me!” I bite my lip and look down to the table, whispering, “I love him, too. I always will. I thought we were forever. I just can’t get the thought of them together out of my head. It haunts me every second.”
“Maybe you two will find your way back to each other.”
I look up at her somewhat encouraged face. “I don’t know if I could ever trust him again.”
“He’d have to earn back your trust. What hurts for me, is that I’m losing you in my life. I don’t want that to happen, Hadley. I really thought of you as my sister-in-law.” Her voice hitches and I look up, but seeing her tears causes more of my own.
Bowing my head again, I close my eyes. “Me, too, Simone.”
We sit and silently cry with each other. Finn’s shattering actions have a further reach than I had realized.
She asks, “Can I email you to keep in touch? I won’t send them too often. I just want to see how you’re doing. I won’t go on about my shithead of a brother.”
I uncertainly regard her. “I don’t know. I’m not sure how much I’d actually respond…or read them. Just seeing you is hard for me.”
“I understand. It’s hard for all of us. My mom…” She sighs and wipes at her eyes. “My mom is so despondent. When I told her, she made me put him on the phone and she screamed, called him a slew of names and hung up on him. Even without her on speakerphone, I could hear everything she said, she was so irate.”
“She is?”
“Yeah. So am I. After I yelled at him, I left and Ricky had to convince me to come back to help him watch Finn. I can’t even look at him, but he doesn’t move from the futon, so I don’t have to see him much.” Rod won’t let me lie around, not facing the world.
“Take care of him, though, Simone. He’s going to need you and Ricky.”
She grudgingly says, “I will. Ricky and I are switch-hitting watching him. I don’t know how long we’re going to have to do that. One of us tries to be with him at all times since we’re not sure what he’ll do. We don’t want him making anymore scenes or upsetting you.”
“I’ve been staying with a friend.”
She thoughtfully smiles. “That’s probably for the best. Maybe you two can talk sometime? If not to iron through things, but to at least get some kind of closure?” Closure. That’s so…final.
Sighing, I attempt a small smile in return, but it doesn’t feel right. “Maybe someday. Right now, I just want to be able to breathe again.”
Shortly after I return from my visit with Simone, Morgan returns to my office with my phone and Rod.
“Let’s go,” she announces.
I pick up my purse and ask, “Where are we going anyway?” She hands me my phone and I take it like it’s a loaded gun. I have no idea how to work it. The guy in the phone store showed me, but I wasn’t paying much attention to him. I haven’t been concentrating on anything lately.
She gloriously smiles and I’m instantly suspicious. “You’ll see. Do you have everything?”
“Why?”
“Just asking. Rod, I need to borrow your phone. Mine needs a new battery, so it doesn’t hold a charge.”
“Awesome, Morgue. Now you’ll intercept all my personal calls.”
She holds out her expectant hand. “Yeah, from your mommy and your kite broker. Come on. We need to get going.”
“Where’s the fire, chief?” Rod grouses as he pulls his phone out of his pocket and hands it to Morgan.
“I just want to get going before it’s too crowded. I’ll be downstairs.” She leaves the office, while Rod waits for me to lock my cabinet drawers.
“Do you know where we’re going?” I ask him.
“Yeah. You’ll like it.”
“I don’t want to run into anyone.” Cara’s mouth. Ricky’s questions. Finn’s arms.
He knowingly smirks. “We won’t.”
I sigh and he puts his arm around me, towing me to the door.
We meet Morgan in the lobby, where she’s busy tapping at Rod’s phone. She looks up and says, “We have to make a quick trip to the gym. I need you and Shane to get a picture together.”
I stop walking as they move for the door. “What? Why?”
She holds the door open for Rod and me. “It’s for my scrapbook. I need a few more of you and Shane. I got a lot of Tonya and Derrick, but not of you and Shane. Please? Two.”
As Morgan stands against the door waiting for us and checking Rod’s phone, he whispers to me, “I’m sure she did get a lot of Ton-ya.” I elbow him and feel a smile trying to emerge.
I practically whine, “Really, Morgan?”
“Yeah. I’ll also need you to change and pull your ponytail out.” She impatiently rolls her hand at us. “Let’s go!”
“Sure. I’ll just take off my clothes and wear nothing,” I reply sourly.
Rod takes his arm off me to enthusiastically clap. “Now that’s the spirit, Hadders!” I smack his stomach and he shoves me forward through the open doorway, out into the sunshine.
Morgan says, “I brought you something to wear. Calm down.”
“You had this all planned,” I complain.
“I did. I just didn’t want you to worry about it. It’s just a couple pictures.”
I pout. “Don’t expect me to smile.”
Walking to her Mercedes SUV, she argues, “I’ll need some smiles, Hadley. They’re for my book!”
I grumble, “That’ll cost you extra.”
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Morgan asks from the passenger seat of her car, having refused to take Rod’s truck because of her bad sense of balance now with her growing belly, but also refusing to drive her own car because of emails she needs to return.
“It was horrendous,” I grouchily tease. It wasn’t that bad. I’m just bitter. “Thanks for letting me borrow your dress, though. I think I might keep it now.” Morgan gave me a knee-length, light pink dress of hers to wear, explaining that she wanted pictures of Shane and me in different clothes for variety or “multiplicity is the seasoning of existing,” as Rod had put it.
She says down to Rod’s phone. “Shane looked nice, too.”
I roll my eyes at her. “I guess.”
“Well, you got a couple pictures with Dick Rod.” She makes a disparaging noise at him and he flips her off.
He huffs, “Yeah, and I look like fucking trash!” Greg Rodwell looking like trash? Never. Not even when he wears his lamest concert T-shirt, cheapest blue jeans and sneakers. He always looks cool.
Morgan sneers, “You don’t really matter.”
He turns to glower at her. “Thanks a lot, hag.”
“Watch the road, Ass Rod. You’re driving my car.”
“What? Was your hearse in the shop?” Before Morgan can make a snide comment, I hear Rod’s p
hone buzz and she instantly returns to her messages.
As we merge onto I-95 North, I ask, “Where are we going anyway?”
Morgan distractedly answers, “The jazz festival.”
“Jazz festival? Where?”
Rod jumps in, “Washington D.C., baby!”
“What the hell?”
Morgan twists as much as she can behind a seatbelt and burgeoning stomach. “It actually was Val’s idea. She wants you to get away for the weekend.”
“It’s Thursday!”
“Come on, Hadley. You need some time away from…” Her gaze moves from me to the back window. “You’ll have fun with us.”
“But…” I’ll be farther away from…home. I need to be away, yet I don’t… What the fuck is my problem?
She nearly glares at me. “No. You’re getting away.” As if she can read my mind, she mutters as she turns around, “He’ll still be there when we get back, unfortunately.” I miss him, though. I’m such a loser.
I scoff, “You’re a newlywed! Isn’t Ivan going to be upset?”
“He has to work. He said he’ll meet us there for a day. We’ll be back Sunday. Chill.”
I ask, “Rod, you’re just going to leave your truck in the lot until Sunday?”
He looks at me in the rearview. “No. It’s at Morticia’s. Relax. We have it all figured out.”
“My clothes?”
Morgan answers, “Packed.”
Rod laughs. “And boy did I love going through your undies. I did not know you had so many pairs of handcuffs and vibrators! You go, girl! I especially loved the crotchless underwear. Wow.”
Rolling my eyes, I try to hide my smile as I gaze out my window. “Shut up.”
Morgan assures, “I packed your clothes. I also checked your mail. You had a ton. I put it on your table. There was a car key on your floor.” Oh, right. Ricky.
“You swiped my apartment key, too?”
“I told you we had it covered.”
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