by Claire Adams
“Great, I will—”
I hung up. Then I texted Daisy, who by now was probably wondering where I was. There’s one thing I need to take care—running a little late. Be there soon.
I’d do everything I could to make sure this little visit was over as fast as fucking possible.
Chapter Eighteen
Daisy
I got Ian’s text, saying he’d be late, so I ordered myself a drink and sat at the table by myself, watching the other people around me socialize. I thought about maybe calling Caroline and having her meet us; surely she just needed to hang out with Ian again to realize that he was nothing at all like she thought. Well . . . maybe he was a teeny bit arrogant, but, then again, a lot of guys were.
“Now what is a lovely lady like yourself doing sitting all alone?”
I turned to see who was talking to me. It was Billy McAllister. He had on a white button-down shirt with the sleeves pushed up and a pair of blue jeans. “Can I join you?”
“Sure,” I said, glad for the company. Even though I didn’t know exactly what it was that Ian had to do, it was taking him longer than I expected.
“So,” Billy said. “You still enjoy working for Ruby? How’s that going?”
“It’s good. I like working there a lot.”
“Glad to hear it—it’s quite a pleasure to know that your face will be the one to greet me when I stop by there now. The other girl . . . she was a looker, but not nearly as good-looking as you. Had a little bit of a bad attitude, too; more toward the end. Can’t say I blame Ian for firing her.”
“What happened there?” I asked, my interest piqued. That was something Ian and I hadn’t talked about before, though I had been a little curious over why the last girl had left.
“That was Annie,” he said. “Before Annie was Petra, and she was a lot like you—really nice and really cute. She ended up moving out to California. Then Annie got hired to take her place. And Annie . . . you never met Annie, but one look at her, whoa nelly! No way I could’ve hired a girl who dressed like that and had her work for me. She and Ian definitely had a . . . thing.”
My heart stopped for a beat. I tried to keep my face neutral. “A thing?” I said. “What do you mean?”
“You know, they were . . . involved. It wasn’t public knowledge or anything, they weren’t a couple, but I’m pretty good at sensing these things. They were pretty hot and heavy for a while there.”
I let what he was saying sink in. Ian had been sleeping with his last secretary? Was this like some sort of pattern for him? Was it like some sort of game he played, where every time he hired someone new, he slept with them, but told them to play it off like nothing was happening?
But . . . maybe Billy was wrong. I doubted he and Ian had actually talked about it, so he was just going on what he thought he sensed, and since he hadn’t sensed anything about Ian and me, well then, maybe he wasn’t as psychic as he thought.
He was laughing, slapping his knee. “I’ll never forget walking in on the two of them, right there in the office. It was technically after hours, but the door was still open and I was in the area, and I go in, and I heard these sounds, and I thought for a second maybe he was watching porn, but why would Ruby watch porn when he could have the real thing? And he’s got her bent over his desk, his pants around his ankles . . .” He stopped and gave me an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. This isn’t an appropriate topic of conversation. I’m sure you have very little interest in hearing anything about this.”
“It’s okay,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound too shrill. I tried to force a smile. “That’s really something—to have walked in on him like that.”
Billy laughed. “Yeah, it really was. That’s Ian, though. He’s a good guy; don’t get me wrong, but he’s certainly got his own way to go about doing things. That’s one of the reasons my dad likes him, though.”
“I see,” I said faintly.
“I’m not sure what happened with Annie; one day she was there, then the next time I went in, there you were. And I’m not complaining. I’m a pretty nice guy, contrary to what you might have heard before. Real pleasure to get to run into you here and all, but if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to take you out sometime. There’s a lot of great places around here that you might not even know about . . .”
He continued to talk. The chatter around me thrummed on, people laughing, someone cheered, Billy’s mouth was moving, and I could hear him, but it sounded like he was speaking to me underwater. There wasn’t even an accurate title to put what Ian had done to me—he hadn’t cheated on me, hadn’t lied to me—I supposed the most accurate thing would be to say he used me (just like Annie), but that didn’t seem quite right, either. We hadn’t really discussed anything; I had just assumed that it was going to go somewhere that it wasn’t. And if Ian hadn’t been running late and Billy hadn’t ended up coming here and telling me all this, who knows when I would have found out.
Billy was still talking.
“I’m sorry,” I said, grabbing my purse and standing up. “I . . . I’ve got to go; I just remembered something I have to do. I’m really sorry.”
“Oh, sure,” he said, looking unbothered by my sudden departure. “I’ll see you around, I hope.”
It was only as I was walking away from the table, the exit suddenly a long way’s off, that I realized Ian could come breezing through the door at any second, and if he did before I made it out, what would I say? There was no way I’d be able to pretend that nothing was wrong, but I didn’t want to have some sort of confrontation right here at Failte.
I didn’t need to worry about that, though. I made it to the door, pushed through, and was then out on the sidewalk, the evening air still warm. I looked both ways before I hurried off, not breathing a sigh of relief, though, until I was around the block and in my car. I thought about texting him that I wasn’t going to be there, but I decided against it. He’d want to know why I’d left, and I just wasn’t going to get into that with him right now.
I didn’t want to go home though. Just the thought of having to be on the lookout for Noah made me feel like my head was going to explode. I started to drive, just so in case Ian was nearby, but I felt through my purse for my phone and called Caroline.
“Can we meet up?” I said when she answered.
“Sure. Where are you? Failte?”
“No, I want to meet somewhere else.” Somewhere that he wouldn’t be likely to show up, if he ever showed up from whatever it was he was doing.
“Okay,” she said, “I’m dying for some pad Thai. Want to go to Orchid House?”
“Sounds good. I’ll meet you there.”
I tossed the phone down and took a deep breath, trying to loosen my grip on the steering wheel. I could tell that tears were trying to force their way out of my eyes, but I refused to let them materialize. I blinked really fast, and at a stoplight, I rubbed both my eyes really hard, like I had a bad case of hay fever.
The light turned green and I started to go again. I might be able to keep the tears at bay, but I couldn’t keep the onslaught of thoughts. I hadn’t necessarily thought that I’d lose my virginity to the guy I would end up marrying, or that it would be this totally magical moment that I would always cherish, but I had hoped it would at least be a little special. But apparently, it was just what Ian did with the secretaries he hired.
I never wanted to see him again.
The problem was, though, I couldn’t just quit. Well, I could, but I knew what the job market was like out there, and I’d barely gotten any call backs after I’d been fired from the salon. Quitting with no backup plan wasn’t a smart idea.
I was at least able to find a parking spot right on the same block as Orchid House, and Caroline was there, waiting at a table for me. She looked a little worried when I slid into the seat across from her.
“Is everything okay?” she asked. “You sounded a little frazzled on the phone.”
“No, everything is not okay. I was just at Failte—�
�
“Oh, I would’ve met you down there, I didn’t realize you were there.”
“No, no, I had to leave. I was supposed to meet Ian there, and he texted to say that he was running a little late because he had to do something. He didn’t say what, though. So I was sitting there, and who walks in but Billy. And he comes over and sits down, and we start talking, and then he tells me how Ian used to sleep with the previous girl that worked there, but then he fired her. I’m not sure why he fired her. But that doesn’t really matter. What matters is the fact that he’s basically doing with me the same thing he did with the girl before!”
“Ew.” Caroline made a face. “That’s not cool.”
“No, it’s not. So I got up and left before he showed up. I don’t even know what to think.” We stopped talking about it when our waitress came over with glasses of water. She asked if we wanted a drink, and I was about to say no, but then Caro ordered us two Thai iced teas.
“We need drinks,” she said when I started to protest. “At least one drink; maybe two.”
“Fine,” I said. Caroline ordered her food, too, but I decided to just stick with the drink. I didn’t think I’d be able to stomach anything else right now.
After the waitress left, Caroline leaned her elbows on the table and rubbed her eyes. “I told you,” she said. “I knew there was a reason I didn’t like him.”
“I can’t believe I was so stupid. I mean, I fell for him hard. And all of that shit he was saying. It’s pathetic. I hate myself.”
She smiled and patted my arm. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. He is hot—I’ll give him that much—and sometimes it is hard to resist a handsome face. But at least you found this out now before it got any further.”
I winced. “Um, yeah . . . That’s the other thing. I kind of didn’t mention it to you.”
She gave me a suspicious look. “What?”
“I lost my virginity to him.”
“You did? When? Why didn’t you tell me? Holy shit, Daisy!” Now she was smiling. “Congrats!”
“No, not congrats!” I hissed, looking around to see if anyone had overheard her, though it’s not like they’d know what we were talking about. “And I was going to tell you, but then you started going on about how you didn’t like him. I wanted to tell you, trust me. Really, though, I should have listened to you from the beginning and maybe none of this would have happened.” Again, I could feel the tears stinging the corners of my eyes, but I blinked them back. I didn’t know how many more times I’d be able to successfully do that.
“It’s okay,” Caroline said. “I mean, I wish you had told me before, but I’m glad you’re telling me now.”
“I thought it had actually meant something!”
“Was it good?”
Before I could answer, our waitress reappeared with our drinks, which I gladly took a long gulp from.
“Yeah, it was really good,” I said. “It was better than I ever imagined it would be.”
“How many times did you do it?”
How many times had it been? I’d sort of lost count. Her eyes widened. “You’ve had sex with him so many times already that you’ve lost track? Geez, I’ll say it must be good.”
“Yeah, it’s good because he’s obviously so experienced with it because he apparently fucks every secretary he brings in there! I can’t believe I let this be my first time. What was the point in waiting so long if this is how it was going to be?”
Caroline was shaking her head, though. “No,” she said. “Don’t feel bad about it. The sex was really good, right? That’s really what matters. Remember my first time? With Sam Hutton? It lasted all of three seconds, after it took him about five minutes to finally get it in.”
We both laughed, which felt good.
“I know, you’re right,” I said. “But I just feel played or something. Not that he was really making me any promises, but . . . I really liked him. Like, a lot. And I felt like there was this connection between us—” I stopped, clapping my hand over my mouth.
“What?” Caroline said. She twisted around. “Don’t tell me he’s here.”
“No, no, he’s not. It’s what I just said. Or was starting to say.”
“Liking him a lot?”
“Yeah, and having this connection. I basically sounded like Noah. That’s all shit that Noah has said to me before, and I thought he sounded crazy. That he’s obviously imagining all this stuff, because there’s no connection there. And that’s exactly what I’m doing with Ian!”
It was really rather disconcerting to realize this. But I felt so burned by this thing with Ian because I thought that there was something special between us—that’s what my feelings had been telling me, anyway. Really, though, how did that make me any better than Noah?
“Well,” Caroline said, squinting, “It’s a little different. Not that I’m encouraging you and Ian or anything, but you guys did sleep together. There’s no doubt in my mind that he finds you attractive and enjoyed being with you. Whereas you never slept with Noah.”
It wasn’t exactly the same, but it was close enough. Close enough to make me realize how unreliable feelings could be.
“Do you think you’re going to talk to him about it?” Caroline asked.
I shook my head. “No. I don’t want to talk about it. Really, I’d just like to forget the whole thing.”
“Isn’t that going to be kind of hard if you’re still working for him? Or are you going to quit?”
“I’ve got to keep working there for now. It was hard enough to get this job as it was, and I don’t want to quit until I at least have something else lined up. So maybe I’ll start looking. I don’t know,” I said, putting my elbows on the table and leaning my face into my hands. Maybe I was being a little dramatic, but I just felt so confused by everything. It probably would be impossible for me to find another apartment I could afford, unless I got roommates. What if I just saved up a bunch of money and then moved? Have a fresh start. A new life. There’d be no Noah, no Ian, no hair salon that unjustly fired me. It would be a clean slate, and hopefully things would go better there than they had here.
I could just imagine what my mother would say about all of this.
Chapter Nineteen
Ian
Annie lived near Fenway in a three-bedroom apartment with a couple roommates who I hoped would not be home when I got there. The place seemed quiet enough when Annie met me; she came to the door wearing a pair of yoga pants and a sweatshirt, which was surprising. I had expected her to be in her usual tight top and short skirt, but she seemed subdued, or maybe tired.
“Hey,” she said. “Thanks for coming to see me.”
“Sure,” I said. I was about to add Let’s get this over as quickly as possible, but stopped myself at the last minute. “What is it that you wanted to talk about?”
“Come on in,” she said, motioning for me to follow her down the short hallway to the common area, where there were some futons, a flat screen TV, a coffee table with a bong on it. “Don’t worry, I’m not smoking,” she said when she saw me eyeing the thing. “I stopped as soon as I found out.”
“So you probably were smoking then when you were pregnant; you just didn’t realize it yet.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Like I said: I stopped as soon as I found out. It’s still very early. The doctor says I’m six weeks along.”
“You’ve been to the doctor?”
“Of course I have! I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought I had this cold that I couldn’t shake, and that’s strange for me, because I’m usually so healthy. I was exhausted and felt like shit. It didn’t seem to get any worse or better though; it just sort of stayed the same. I thought maybe I had mono or Lyme disease. Trust me, Ian, I was just as surprised as you were to find out. This isn’t something I planned.”
“So isn’t that what Planned Parenthood is for? Actually planning for parenthood?”
“You don’t want to sit down?”
“Standing is
fine.”
She sat. “Whatever you want. If you’re trying to suggest I get an abortion, I told you—I’m not doing that. Nothing you say is going to change my mind about it. I’d like it if we could be adults, though. I want us to get along, at least for our child’s sake.”
I felt my balls shrink just at the mention of our child. Jesus fucking Christ.
“Maybe I will sit,” I said. I sat down, but immediately started tapping my foot. I tried to stop that, and my fingers started to tingle, like I needed to start gnawing at my cuticles or else. I refrained from doing so, but the exertion made my intestines twist. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead that I hoped wasn’t visible. “What is it that you would like to do? I mean, aside from having the baby.”
“Would you like to hear my ideal situation, or what I know will probably be closer to reality?”
“Let’s stick with reality.”
“Okay. Well, I’d like it if we could get along the best we can. I’d like us to co-parent, not parallel parent.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means that we’re both involved in the child’s life, that we communicate with each other, that we might even do things together, even though we’re living apart. You know, school events, extracurricular activities, birthday parties—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said. “I think you’re getting a little far ahead of yourself here. School? After school activities? This is years down the road. Even birthday parties. Kids don’t remember their parties till they’re at least five, maybe six. And I never had a big birthday party growing up, and I turned out fine.”
She gave me a look that strongly suggested she thought otherwise.
“You asked me what I was hoping for, and I’m telling you.”
“Okay,” I said. “So that’s co-parenting. What’s parallel parenting?”
“That’s basically where we both do our own thing. We may communicate once in a while, but when the child is with you, he’s with you, when he’s with me, he’s with me.”