I stared at my phone for a minute, expecting to find something happening, when it started ringing and Dana’s name flashed on the screen. I answered it. “Hello?”
“Well, it’s about time. I’m sorry that you got fired. What happened?” That last question proved that she didn’t know why I was fired, but the truth was, I wasn’t officially fired. Matt never said the words, although it was assumed and rightfully so.
“It’s a long story,” I said. “But I have other news. I got hired and even promoted to head writer at Colorful Times.”
Dana squealed on the other end of the phone. “Then, this requires a celebration, Miss Head Writer. Let’s meet for lunch.”
I willingly agreed, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of impending doom, from not knowing how Matt was doing, or not being able to talk to him. I hung up the phone and got out from under my bed. I didn’t want to dwell on the negative aspects, when my dream job was finally back in my corner. The only problem was, I was no longer certain that working at the magazine was my dream job. Things had changed, and I found my heart was leaning more towards the job I just lost.
Chapter Nineteen
Matt
Regrets
The phone continued to beckon for me to call her, even after two weeks went by. I hated the way things were left between us. Even though I felt it was the only choice I had, I wished we would have been able to at least have a decent goodbye to one another.
I’m not really sure what I expected or hoped for, but I would have done anything to get back that moment, where I could tell her again that I wasn’t disappointed in her and I wanted to hear her out, but instead she left thinking that I had some ill-will feelings towards her and that really wasn’t the case. I just was thinking, well, I don’t know what I was thinking when I let her drive away.
I got so lost in my thoughts that I barely noticed the time creeping towards when I had to get out of the office. I was thankful that Mary stuck her head in the door to remind me. “Cody will be getting out of school soon. You best be going.”
I looked up and gave her an appreciative smile. “Oh yeah…thanks Mary. What would I do without you?” I asked. I knew what I’d been doing without Tasha, dying a slow death.
Mary shrugged. “Hope you never have to find out.” We laughed, and I grabbed my car keys and hurried out of the office.
Since parting ways with Tasha, it really caused me to have to pick up the workload, leaving less time at the office, but that actually turned out to be the best thing to happen, because I got to spend time with Cody and I always loved that. I just wished it would have come before I had to lose the love of my life, but I was learning to deal with that.
I pulled up in front of the school as students started filtering out of the building. I kept my eyes peeled for Cody and inched my car up as other cars pulled away. I eventually saw him coming out of the building. I narrowed my eyes to see who he was walking with. They were talking about something and, as they got closer, I realized the kid looked familiar. I watched the encounter for several minutes, because they stopped about ten feet from the car and continued the conversation. Then, before saying goodbye, they did a boyish handshake that had me widening my eyes. I couldn’t believe I was witnessing such an interaction.
Cody turned to the car and headed over to me, then opened the backseat and tossed his things in. He crawled into the car and shut the door. I looked at him through my rearview mirror.
“Hey…how was school?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Fine. School is school.” He laughed, and I knew exactly what he meant, but I had a nagging urge to ask the question. “So, wasn’t that Bobby, the kid that had been bullying you?” I asked.
Cody nodded. “That was a while ago. That all changed when…” His words fell off as he looked at me. His face was sullen.
I frowned. “That all changed when what?” I asked.
He looked sad and then shrugged. “Tasha told me how to handle it. She said that I should try to friend him, because that was probably what Bobby needed was a friend, and he probably didn’t know how to make friends. I really just wanted to whip his…” He stopped short and a smirk pressed against his lips. “Oh…never mind. But Tasha said that I should be kind to him and eventually he would come around and wouldn’t bully me.” He smiled. “It really worked.”
I looked at him and his genuine love and care for Tasha shone through as he spoke about it. I was forced to really think on it. The fact that Tasha did that for him really made me love her even more. Who was I kidding? I couldn’t love Tasha more, if I tried. I wanted that love to go away, just because I was upset about the revelation that showed up in my mail, but I was lying to her and I was lying to myself. I said I wasn’t disappointed in her, but a part of me was and it wasn’t right to just not hear her out. I should have done a better job of listening, before I judged. I was looking at the evidence, and not the beautiful soul of my woman. I guess being a lawyer really made me have blinders on.
I don’t know how long I was staring at Cody, but when I heard a couple cars behind me honking for me to move on, I knew that I had been there for way too long. I turned around and quickly pulled away from the curb.
We were on the route back to our place, when I heard his voice. “I miss her Uncle Matt,” he said.
I peered at him through the rearview mirror. It was definitely sadness I saw on his face. Since I explained to him that Tasha might not be coming back because we had an argument, Cody didn’t really talk much about her. I was grateful for that, because the less we had to discuss her, the more I could ease my mind.
But Cody continued. “I don’t really tell you, because I don’t want you to be sad.”
“Cody, you can talk to me about her. I miss her too,” I said.
His eyes lifted to look at me through the mirror. “Then, why won’t you get her back? What happened?” he quietly asked.
There was no way I would go into those details with him, but I would keep it simple. “A lot of adult stuff,” I simply replied. I looked towards the road, so I wouldn’t get distracted and Cody didn’t say another word about it.
Our talk did get me to thinking more. I needed to do something that I didn’t expect I’d do. I had to talk to her, because it wasn’t doing any of us any good feeling this miserable. Plus, I had to know how she was doing. She was still the woman I loved, and she helped Cody, so that deserved a thank you. I couldn’t wait to talk to her. That thought left me feeling excited about something.
Chapter Twenty
Tasha
The Unexpected Visitor
I quickly got back into the swing of working a full-time job at Colorful Times, and I really forgot how much I enjoyed writing. However, it was true that even though it was what I enjoyed doing, it really was no longer my passion. My heart was elsewhere and remained there.
After finding that the clock flipped over to four thirty, I was out of there. Or, at least tried to be, but was stopped short when I spotted Vicky heading my way. “Sorry and I know you’re cutting out of here, but will you read through this intro? I think it’s missing something.”
I grabbed the paper from her and read through it. It definitely sounded like there was something missing, so I quickly jotted down some notes and handed it back to her. “Maybe this sounds better.”
She looked at it and smiled and nodded. “Perfect! Thanks!” She scurried back to her desk to finish her piece, and I was back to heading out of the office for a long night of holiday Lifetime movies. I was happy to give corrective ideas and suggestions without criticizing the writers underneath me, like Melinda and Nina had done to me, but that’s water under the bridge.
I pushed through the glass doors and fished my keys out of my purse as I headed towards the car. When I looked back up, I slowed my walked down to a turtle’s pace and stared ahead. Matt was leaning against my car, his eyes directed at me. When I got closer, he stood up.
“Hey,” he said.
“Um…hello,” I starte
d. My first thought was to go to Cody and hope that everything was alright. “Everything alright with Cody?” I quickly asked.
He nodded slowly. “Uh yeah…everything is fine. I didn’t mean to worry you,” he quickly said. “He’s staying with a friend’s overnight and I thought I would stop by and see how you’re doing.”
I frowned. Not exactly the visitor I expected to encounter. After we left things up in the air more than two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been surprised to never see him again. “Oh. Well, I’m doing alright,” I said. It was really only partly the truth, but mainly a lie. One would have to define alright.
“Well, glad you’re doing alright.”
“How’d you know I’d be here?”
“When I got back in contact with Joseph Mallard, he told me that you got your job back, but this time as head writer. Congratulations,” he said.
“Thanks Matt, and thank you for everything you did to get my job back. I appreciate it and I’ve been meaning to tell you that,” I said, while trying to avoid his eyes that would surely pull me back into his orbit, if I were to stare at him any longer.
“So, here’s the thing…I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and was hoping we could talk this evening. You can come over to my place, or I’ll come to yours. If you don’t feel comfortable with either of those options, we can go to a restaurant. I just really need for us to talk.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t feel comfortable at his place. I could never get to that point, no matter what occurred between us, but I wasn’t so sure that going back to the scene of the crime would be such a good idea “No Matt. Now, I’m the one that doesn’t think that’s a good idea. I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m not kicking my own ass and I’d like to stay that way,” I said, and, if eating a pint of ice cream nightly didn’t qualify as kicking my own ass, I was being truthful.
“Tasha, I should have given you a chance to explain yourself, and I want to hear what you have to say.”
“That’s just it Matt. I don’t have anything to say to you.” I mean, what could I say that he hadn’t already seen in the video.
Matt stepped closer to me, so close that I could hear him breathing. “Come with me, Tasha. I need…to hear what you have to say.”
His nearness made me lose my gumption to fight what was so natural. To go with him. “I would like to talk to you, too,” I softly stated. “But I’m not so sure that your place, or mine, would be the best idea. Maybe a restaurant would work best.” I laughed nervously and from the look in his eye, he understood my thinking. We needed to be able to hear one another, not cling to each other making up for weeks of being apart.
“Okay. Can I at least pick you up? Or would you rather meet there?”
I wanted nothing more than to be back in the presence of him, and if he wanted to pick me up, then I wouldn’t stop him from doing that. “You can pick me up,” I agreed.
He smiled. “Okay then…how about seven?”
“I’ll be ready.”
He grabbed the keys from his pocket and headed back to his car. Once he reached the driver’s side, he turned to me. “Oh…Tasha?”
I turned around. “Yes?”
“You look really good, and it’s nice to see you.” He smiled that smile that had me weak in the knees every time. I smiled, still surprised by seeing him outside of my job.
“Thank you! You look pretty good yourself.”
He waved, then got in his car and backed out of the spot. I watched him leave, my heart racing wildly in my chest. I wanted to believe nothing bad could come from going out with him, but I was hesitant, because I didn’t want to lose him all over again.
***
Matt picked me up and we rode together to the restaurant. It was all pretty normal, other than there wasn’t a kiss greeting and the ride to the restaurant was pretty quiet. I didn’t know what to expect or why I was even there. He didn’t say anything, and I was afraid to dive into our discussion.
We got to the restaurant and it wasn’t even until after we ordered that we started a true conversation that didn’t include just small talk. “So, first off…I need to thank you.”
I arched an eyebrow at that statement. “You’re thanking me? For what?” I asked, after taking a sip from my water glass. For some reason, I felt like my mouth was full of cotton and I needed something much more than water to quench my thirst. Maybe liquor.
That’s when he told me the story about Cody. “Cody and Bobby are actually friends and I don’t know how you did that, but it was good to see them walking out of the school together, laughing and talking, just being bros. And from what I hear…that’s because of you.” There was a twinkle in his eyes as he talked about Cody’s new relationship with Bobby.
I was happy too, but shrugged. “I didn’t do anything, not really. It was Cody’s responsibility to get Bobby to talk to him and he did it. Your nephew is a very special little man.”
He smiled the first real genuine smile that I had seen come from him since he picked me up. I just sat for a moment and admired the beauty of it, his sparkling white teeth, perfectly shaped lips, causing a glow to spread across his entire face. “He is pretty special, I must admit, but I thought I needed to reach out to you and thank you for giving him the courage to face his fears and conquer them with kindness. You gave him the thought of becoming friends with Bobby. It was really pretty genius.”
I nodded slowly and looked away from him. All this thanking me had me wondering if that was the only reason he invited me out, because he wanted to thank me for doing something so small. “So, that’s what this is about?” I asked, motioning my hand toward our dinner. “You just wanted to invite me out to thank me for doing my job? I mean, I was his babysitter at the time and it’s only right that I try to help him be a good human being.”
“Well, I suppose you could say that it was just part of your job, but I say that it’s a part of who you are. And no, that isn’t the only reason I asked you out.”
I sat back in my seat as the waitress brought us our food and we thanked her. Once she was gone, he started to pick at his chicken, but I waited to eat. “Okay, then what other reason is there?” I asked.
He put down his chicken and wiped off his hands. “I got to thinking…and I now know that I wasn’t exactly fair to you. I want to hear your side of the story.”
I bit my lower lip and scooped a small spoonful of potatoes in my spoon. “Is that right?” I said, then took a bite of my potatoes while looking at him.
He nodded. “I let you walk out of my life…” he swallowed, before correcting himself. “I let you walk out of our life without so much as a word from you. That wasn’t fair, and I want to correct it and hear your side of the story that you wanted to tell me that night.”
I took a deep breath. It was everything I wanted to hear him say from the beginning of this mess, and now I didn’t even know where to start, except I needed to start at the very beginning. “It happened a while back,” I started. “I was just getting my feet wet with writing and I was getting ready to work on a story. It was a story that I saw would put me on the map as a writer and I wanted to make a big impression. So, I got hooked up with this guy named Harper Finley and he was going to make that happen. Supposedly, he could pitch my story to New York Times and Washington Post and get me on as a permanent part of the staff,” I paused, feeling the memories all rushing back in. “What I didn’t see happening was that I was going to lose my integrity, and my heart, to him.”
“So…you fell in love?” he asked softly.
“Well, I thought it was love. Turns out, I didn’t know then what love truly was. He told me everything I wanted to hear, and I believed him. And then everything fell apart. He didn’t have any intentions on helping me. When we were having sex, he was videotaping me. He asked me to take near nude photos, as mementos of me when we weren’t together. Shortly after all of that, he humiliated me by leaking the sex tape in a compilation he created called ‘What Girls Will Do For Fame’ and t
hen he sold the photos. It became painfully clear that he was only using me.”
His face fell. “Oh wow…Tasha, I’m sorry that happened to you. You don’t deserve that, you don’t deserve any of that.”
I shrugged. “I thought I got past all of it and didn’t even know a DVD was left of it. And, God only knows if it’s on the internet,” I said, trying to hold myself together. I didn’t want to sob at dinner with Matt.
“This is messed up Tasha. Who do you think sent it to me?” he asked, furiously.
“Melinda gained access of it when we worked together. She pretended to be outraged about it, and I thought she cared about me at the time. She told me that she had thrown it away, but I guess she didn’t and just thought now would be a good time to dredge it up and get even with me. She lost her job and any hopes of having you, so I figure she sent it to you, because she thought at least I would lose the guy, and it worked.”
He released a sigh. “Wow. I should have listened to you, especially since this whole DVD thing smelled of Melinda. I should have heard you out.”
I reached out and touched his hand. “This isn’t your fault, Matt. I’m just sorry it came out like it did. I never wanted it to be discovered like that.”
“Seeing you with another man nearly drove me insane, even knowing that he was before my time.” He shook his head and I knew he was driving out those images from his mind. Then, slowly, he looped his fingers with mine. “I could smack Melinda for doing this to you…to us.”
I smiled. “Don’t worry yourself about Melinda. I’ll take care of her.” I winked at him and he smiled brighter than before. “Now, let’s eat and try to forget about it.”
I let go of his hand, but he was quick to grab it again. We stayed that way as we ate the rest of our food. I had hopes that we would find our way back to the peace we’d once found in each other.
Chapter Twenty-One
Matt
Reunion
I hated that Tasha had to endure the pain that she did from that ass of a man she dated. And I hated that I was so quick to jump to every wrong conclusion. If I had to do it all over, I absolutely would have listened to her, but now I couldn’t take that all back. I could only move us forward and hope that she would forgive me for not standing by her side, when she had once again been wronged by Melinda.
Drive Me Wilde (Breathless Book 6) Page 13