Mondays (The Wait Book 2)

by Harper Bentley

  Then because of the corticosteroids she’d taken early on, she’d gained a lot of weight which had always been a huge issue for her, but no matter how many times I told her I loved her and that she was beautiful, she’d tell me I was lying. If I brought her flowers, they weren’t the kind she liked. If I wanted to talk, she was busy watching one of her TV shows. Or if I wanted to take her out for dinner, it was another ridiculous idea because she had nothing to wear, and on and on and on.

  That’s why Mondays had become a godsend.

  If she’d only been discouraged/annoyed/upset about having surgery and recovering, I could’ve taken it. But the thing was, everything felt like a personal attack. Yeah, yeah. I’m a pussy. But, believe me, that shit gets old very fast.

  I knew she was still harboring anger about Birdie, and who could blame her, because I, too, had remained angry at learning of the things Sonya had done. At the advice of my dad, I didn’t pry to get her to talk about all the bad shit so it just hung around; therefore, our relationship continued to suffer.

  In the beginning, when she’d come home three weeks after surgery, she’d seemed more willing to make us work, and the next month we’d started going to a marriage counselor. At that time, I’d been determined for things to get better, Sonya not so much, but I understood. I mean, fuck, when she’d needed me the most, I’d pretty much cheated on her, even though Birdie and I never slept together. But emotionally cheating was just as bad as physically cheating—Sonya and the counselor both let me know—which I already fucking knew.

  After I’d acknowledged my mistake, the sessions had gone surprisingly well until the numerous, nameless men Sonya had fucked for drugs was brought up, and we’d hit another wall. Then the fact that we hadn’t had sex in eight months—and still counting—even after the doctor cleared her six weeks after surgery, also added to shit. Don’t think I didn’t try. I didn’t pressure her or anything, but she didn’t even want my mouth anywhere on her. When I’d go to kiss her goodbye in the mornings or hello in the evenings, she’d turn her face so that I only got her cheek. Every single goddamned time.

  At the advice of our counselor, we’d tried communicating our feelings better and giving each other light touches to maybe get the spark going again—which went on for about a week—before Sonya had said it was dumb and we’d stopped. After that, she’d grudgingly continued going to counseling with me for six more months until telling me she’d had enough.

  That was also the same night she’d announced that she didn’t love me anymore and that we never should’ve gotten married.

  That had stung, but instead of admitting defeat, again, at the advice of my father—who’d meant well because he and my mom had a great marriage but Mom also wasn’t a drug addict—I’d sucked it up and forged ahead thinking she’d just been blowing off steam.

  And now, as I’ve said, I was stuck and really didn’t know what else to do.

  So there I sat in my office that Monday morning, my emotions at war with thinking I was happy to be back at work, but also aggravated that Sonya hadn’t said one fucking word to me the entire weekend. Her aunt and uncle had come to visit for New Year’s, and although they’d kept me involved in the conversation, Sonya hadn’t deigned to even acknowledge my presence. Nor had she kissed me back at midnight, which had pissed me off.

  My hand rested on my phone as I contemplated calling her, making her have to talk to me. Dick move, yeah, but I’d had it.

  “Fuck it,” I muttered, picking up the phone and dialing her cell.

  “Hey,” she answered halfheartedly.

  “Hey. I was just checking to see if Gina and Roger got off okay?”

  “Yes. They left about thirty minutes ago.” I heard her sigh as if she were already bored with our conversation.

  “Look, Sonya. I don’t know what else to do—”

  Another sigh.

  I rubbed my eyes with my thumb and finger. “Sonya, what do you want?”

  A third sigh. “I don’t want anything, Beck.” She paused before continuing. “No, I take that back. I—I want to be…free.”

  Clenching my teeth, I asked, “And what does ‘free’ mean?”

  Another fucking sigh. “I’ve told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  “I—I want my life back.”

  She made it sound as if I’d imprisoned her. Jesus.

  “And what does that mean to you?” I ground out wondering if she meant she wanted to go back to the drugs and partying and getting so fucked up she didn’t know how many guys she was screwing to get the shit.

  I heard her start to softly cry. “I’m sorry, Beck.”

  “About?”

  “I—I’m just sorry.”

  “I don’t know what you’re sorry for, Sonya.”

  I heard her mutter out a “God!” and knew she was getting agitated. But I was going to make her say what she had to say and no more skirting the fucking issue here.

  “It’s just that you watch over me like you’re my dad or something,” she began.

  “I’m sorry I care,” I contended blandly.

  “I know, and I appreciate all you’ve done for me. It’s just that…”

  When she didn’t continue, I pressed, “It’s just that what?”

  “I want to go out with my friends again, shopping or to the club to go dancing. I miss—”

  “The drugs?” I interjected.

  She let out an exasperated breath before hissing, “That’s the fucking bullshit that I fucking hate! You’re so fucking judgmental. You act like I’m the only one who fucked up. But guess what, asshole? You fucked up just as bad!”

  Ah. There was the Sonya I’d met when I’d first found out about her addiction.

  I took a deep breath and let it out before responding, trying to keep my cool. “I know I did. I fucked up badly. I’ve told you that. And I’ve never judged you.”

  A cynical laugh burst from her through the line. “Uh huh.”

  “Maybe we can go away somewhere. Take a vaca—”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” she screamed. “Can’t you get it through your thick skull? We’re no good together! We haven’t been for a long time! And I…” She got quiet and I heard her sniff several times. “I’m sorry, Beck but I don’t love you anymore. To be honest, I haven’t loved you since before I went to rehab.”

  Christ.

  Even after all the bullshit, I’d thought she’d come around, thought we might’ve been able to make things work. Guess that wasn’t going to happen.

  I sat back in my chair and stared up at the ceiling.

  “Beck? I—I met someone.”

  What the fuck? How in the hell could she meet someone when she spent all day at home?

  “You met someone?” was my disbelieving reply.

  “Yes.”

  “Who the fuck is it, Sonya?”

  “We’ll talk when you get home,” she answered, her voice cracking.

  I listened as she cried, heard her sniffling and gaspy breaths before stabbing a hand into my hair and shouting, “Fuck!”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw several coworkers walking past my all-glass-front office hesitate for a moment before moving on. Others, I knew, were staring from their cubicles. When Dana, my secretary, got up to pull my door closed—made of fucking glass, of course—with a sympathetic look on her face, it was all I could do to keep from throwing my phone at it as it shut.

  “Beck…I-I’m sorry,” Sonya whispered between sobs.

  “Yeah. We’ll talk tonight. Gotta go,” I replied and hung up.

  Chapter 5—Birdie

  I gobbled down a chicken salad sandwich in the back of a cab on my way to Fleishman Pharmaceuticals where I was meeting with Joel Gaines, the CFO. He’d called my boss three weeks before, requesting our help, informing him that their in-house accountant had found some troubling inconsistencies in their ledgers. I’d booked the rest of this week with them to see if I could find the error, and if more time was needed, I’d arrange
it, but it would cost them dearly since it would require me to reschedule a job I had in Chicago the following week and possibly the next week’s job in Boston.

  The cab dropped me outside the midtown Manhattan high rise and I took the elevator to the seventh floor where at the front desk I told the secretary who I was. She took my coat then immediately called Mr. Gaines to let him know I was there. A moment later, a handsome dark-haired man in his mid-thirties wearing an Armani suit—I knew this because Evan had one just like it—appeared and held his hand out for me to shake.

  “Hello, Mrs. Chapman. I’m Joel Gaines. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he imparted with a very nice and very sexy voice.

  “Ms.,” I corrected, still finding it strange that Mason was gone and I was no longer married. I shook his hand and offered, “You can call me Birdie.” When the questioning look most people got at hearing my strange nickname appeared on his face, I clarified with a smile, “It’s short for Bernadette.”

  “Ah. Well, Birdie, I don’t have a cool nickname. I’m just Joel,” he said with a wink then added, “If you’ll follow me?”

  I passed several offices that had a front wall of full glass on the way to his corner office where he held his hand out—on which I noted a wedding ring, boo—for me to go inside first.

  “Would you like some coffee? Or a soda?” he asked.

  “Not at the moment, but thank you,” I answered.

  “Just let my secretary, Sandra, know if you do.” He winked again as he picked up the receiver of his phone and pushed a button. “Sandra, please let Linda know that Ms. Chapman is here.” He hung up then updated me on the situation. “This is my first year here, and I guess I’ve walked in on quite the, pardon my language, shitstorm. Linda Reasor is our in-house accountant who found the inconsistencies, so she’ll walk you through what she found and then you can take a look at the books.” Just then Linda walked in. “Linda, this is Birdie Chapman from McNamara.”

  We exchanged pleasantries then Joel and I followed her to another glassed-in office which I saw was a boardroom where several boxes sat on a large table surrounded by about twenty chairs.

  “I pulled the past five years’ worth of books for you. The company was audited the year before that, which was just before I got here, so those books should be fine, but I seem to have screwed up royally somewhere along the line,” Linda disclosed with a sigh. “I also have a laptop for you to access the records online.”

  “Thank you,” I replied.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Joel said. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.” And there was the wink again before he left the room.

  Linda cut her eyes at me. “He’s hot but he’s also very married.” She rolled her eyes which made me chuckle. After helping me get things sorted and showing me how to access the online records, she left so I could begin.

  Two hours and one-and-a-half diet Cokes later, I stood and stretched. Walking out of the boardroom, I went to the nearest cubicle and asked a bored looking man who wore black rectangle glasses where the ladies’ room was. He pointed toward the front and I took off in that direction. When I finished, I walked out into the lobby and stood at another huge window looking down at the traffic below as I pulled my phone from my purse.

  “You bagged the criminal yet?” Jaden answered.

  “Getting there,” I replied then whispered, “I think it’s in payroll!”

  “Oooohh! Some nerdy administrator or lowly clerk is getting ready to be bus-ted!” She giggled.

  “I know! See? This really is exciting!”

  “Uh, B, I was kinda kidding.”

  I let out a Psh! “Come on, J. Lemme have this. You know I love this shit.”

  “Yeah, but you know what would really be exciting? If you personally got to go to the guilty party, pointing and nodding at them letting them know that you know, watching them get all nervous, sweating everywhere, then take their ass to the ground. Now that would be exciting!”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m a forensic accountant not Wonder Woman.”

  “It’d still be cool.”

  “Uh huh. You feeling any better?” I asked.

  “A little. I’m not matching plaids and florals any longer, so that’s a plus.”

  I chuckled. “Good. Okay, I’ve gotta get back.” I put a hand on my lower back and stretched again.

  “Call me later, ‘kay?”

  “Will do. See ya.”

  I hung up and slid my phone back inside my purse, and turning to go back to the boardroom, I got the fricking shock of a lifetime. My keen accounting observation skills emerged as I took in a tall, dark-haired man whose Hollywood square jaw gave him a bad boy edge, wearing a white button-up—rolled up sleeves displaying strong forearms—navy tie loosened, and black slacks with a black belt and silver buckle, staring at me with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen.

  I sucked in a breath just before he spoke.

  “Birdie?” Beck asked.

  Chapter 6—Beck

  Back at work, I got off the elevator, returning from a late lunch with my old college roommate Paul, who’d had a rare day off as he was now doing his residency at New York-Presbyterian. I’d been thrilled when he and his wife Taylor had moved to NYC from Pennsylvania last June after he’d graduated med school. We now tried getting together when we could, which wasn’t often due to his busy schedule, but today just happened to be one of the few times he had a break.

  I’d told him about my phone call this morning with Sonya and he’d shaken his head, pissed that after everything we’d gone through, she’d met someone else and was willing to call it quits with me.

  “I’m so fucking sorry, man,” he’d told me. “You gave it everything you had. I mean,” he’d shrugged, “not much else you can do.”

  I admitted to him that I wasn’t really shocked or surprised because everything had seemed to be building in that direction anyway. I was upset, of course. I loved Sonya and hated that things had come to this, but I was at a loss when it came to patching shit up. The past two years, it seemed that the harder I’d fought for us to work, the more she’d pushed me away. Now I realized that maybe she’d done so because she’d been in love with another man all along.

  Christ.

  The elevator stopped at the seventh floor, and I blew out a breath before the doors opened, trying to get back into work mode, telling myself I’d think about everything on my cab ride home then Sonya and I would talk when I arrived.

  But when I stepped out of the elevator, my world turned upside down.

  I’d always imagined what it would be like if I ever saw Birdie again, because, you know, in a city of eight and a half million people it was bound to happen. Yeah, that’d be me being a sarcastic prick again. Anyway, the ridiculous, romantic side of myself saw me going to her, taking her in my arms and bending her back to give her one of those great big Hollywood movie kisses, one like the sailor-nurse picture in Life Magazine. However, I was a pragmatist not a romantic, and the idea of my actually really doing that always made me chuckle.

  But I’ll be damned if right then it wasn’t all I wanted to do—take her in my arms and kiss the hell out of her.

  I stood frozen at the sight of her, heart pounding in my chest, God, she was so fucking beautiful, and from her expression I saw that she was in as much shock as I was. In the few seconds before I could muster up my voice to speak, I took all of her in: long, brown hair in waves cascading down past her shoulders, a tight, black pencil skirt that hugged her hips sexily, a white blouse through which I could see she wore a white camisole underneath, and high-heeled red “fuck me” shoes that had my dick twitching and my fingers rubbing at my palms, itching to touch her, wanting to make sure she was real.

  “Birdie?” I finally uttered raggedly, swallowing roughly after.

  She took in a breath, her lips parting as she started to smile, then I knew she remembered I was a bastard and I watched as she composed herself, her expression immediately going blank as if a light inside
of her had been turned off.

  “Beck,” she replied, going for aloof and indifferent, but I knew seeing me was taking its toll on her, if her pale face was any indication.

  “Birdie, I—”

  “I have to get back to work,” she interrupted, suddenly all business. Moving my way, she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, which I recognized as one of her tells that let me know she was either nervous or agitated, probably a bit of both. When she got to me, she smiled perfunctorily and stated, “It was nice seeing you again,” then just kept going.

  I watched as she walked through the cubicle area and at the boardroom door, she went in. I could still see her through the windows, but she didn’t miss a beat, putting her purse under the table then sitting down and clicking at the keyboard of a laptop, going right to work as if seeing me had meant nothing.

  Fuck.

  I’d known a forensic accountant was coming in to check the books, but it hadn’t even crossed my mind that it’d be Birdie. Hell, I didn’t even know she did that kind of thing. I stared at her a moment more until Rance Jones, who sat at a cubicle outside my office, gave me a leer and muttered, “She’s one hot piece.” I cut my eyes at him until he became embarrassed and turned away then I trudged my way into my office, wishing once again that the door wasn’t glass with a pneumatic closer so I could slam the fucker.

  The rest of my day was wrecked. All I could think about was Sonya and the talk we needed to have, and then there was Birdie and her reaction at seeing me which had really torn me up.