Struck from the Record

by K. A. Linde

  Never had he ever imagined a life Andrea didn’t exist in. Ten years ago, they’d formed their pact. And he’d somehow destroyed it all in one night of drunken debauchery.

  “No,” he muttered. “She can’t do this.”

  He wrenched out his phone and dialed her number, determined to convince her that she had made a horrible mistake. She couldn’t leave him. Andrea was the one with abandonment issues. There was no way that she would just leave without a word. Without one goddamn word.

  The call went to voice mail, and he heard her sweet voice on the other line.

  “Hi, this is Andrea Billings. Sorry I’ve missed your call, but…”

  Clay ended it before she could finish. He couldn’t leave a message. What he needed to say had to be done in person.

  He stormed back down the stairs and out to his Porsche. He ignored traffic and floored it over to her apartment. He was lucky that no cops were looking to pick up an asshole in a Porsche going ninety in a forty-five. He slammed on the brakes, leaving skid marks on her street, before parking illegally in front of her building. He hopped out of the car, took the elevator up to her place, pulled out his key, and slid it into the hole.

  It wouldn’t turn.

  He stared, dumbstruck, down at the door. He’d been here last night. He’d used this very key last night to get into Andrea’s apartment where they had gotten ready together for the ball. He jiggled the lock a dozen times before realization dawned on him.

  She’d changed the locks.

  His jaw dropped, and he stared uselessly at the handle. His hands were shaking again. His body ached from the extremes she’d gone to.

  It couldn’t end like this. It made no sense. Last night was no different than any other night. What the fuck did she think had happened?

  He’d hurt her with his words. He knew that. But he hadn’t actually slept with anyone. He hadn’t even been fucking coherent enough to get it up, and he’d woken up alone. He hadn’t gone through with his threat. There was a difference between hurting Andrea with words when they argued and actually going through with something that would destroy her. She had to know that.

  But she clearly didn’t.

  Clay banged on the door until his fist was bruised. He yelled against the door. “Andrea! Come out here right now! I know you’re inside! Just talk to me!”

  He yelled until the next-door neighbor came out and asked if everything was okay. He was making a scene.

  Fuck, I’m making a scene.

  Clay dialed her number again and listened all the way through the voice mail this time. “Andrea, what the fuck is going on? Your stuff is all gone at the house, and my key doesn’t work at your apartment. Where the hell are you? We need to talk. I don’t know what happened last night that made you want to do all of this, but it’s not what you think. I swear. Just talk to me.”

  He hung up before he could say anything else stupid, and he took the stairs back down to the ground level to burn off steam.

  Seated in his car once more, he didn’t feel any better at all. He needed to talk to her. He needed to talk to someone who could explain this to him. Definitely not Ethan or Cash. They’d probably just laugh at him and say he’d had it coming or he was better off. He didn’t feel better off.

  He stared at his phone and realized there was no one else. Andrea was always the person he would run to when things got tough. She was the one he talked to and joked with and fucked when he needed someone. She was his person.

  Instead, he dialed Liz’s number. He didn’t know what had made him do it, but he couldn’t just sit here alone. And even though he and Liz had had their differences, he knew he could rely on her.

  He dialed the number, and after only one ring, it went straight to voice mail.

  “What the fuck?”

  He tried again. Same result.

  So, Liz knew and wouldn’t talk to him. That meant only one thing.

  Brady actually answered the phone. “I had a feeling you’d call.”

  “What the fuck is going on?” Clay asked.

  “I really hoped you would have the answer to that.”

  “Andrea is gone. She won’t answer my calls or texts. She’s moved out all of her stuff from our house in the suburbs and changed the locks at her apartment.”

  “I see. I had gathered that from the furious shouts Liz had been ranting about all morning,” Brady said. “Do you want to meet up and talk about it? In this case, I don’t think it’s too early to go get a beer.”

  “Fuck, I need one.”

  Clay couldn’t believe the kind of day he was having. First, his girlfriend of ten years had left him. And, now, he was having a beer at noon on Saturday with his older brother, who he’d spent longer than the last ten years feeling torn between disgust and envy.

  Brady sank down into a seat at the quiet brunch location they’d decided on. It was halfway between Brady and Liz’s place and Clay’s townhouse. He’d gotten a back booth, away from prying eyes and ears, and he was happy to see it had a functioning bar. He probably shouldn’t be drinking after what alcohol had done to him last night, but he couldn’t face this day completely sober.

  “Damn, you got yourself in a mess,” Brady said as soon as the beers were in front of them.

  Clay shook his head. He still couldn’t fathom how he’d gotten here. “Yeah, I just don’t fucking get it.”

  “Well, all the women are pissed as hell. I don’t even want to be in my own place with all the uproar. What exactly did you do?” Brady asked.

  “I said some stupid shit to Andrea last night,” he admitted. He didn’t know why he was being this honest with Brady when he’d normally crack a dumb joke, but there literally wasn’t anyone else to tell. It felt kind of nice to confide in Brady.

  “What kind of stupid shit?”

  Clay sighed. “She kept going on about how she wanted to change our relationship so that we were a couple and not…whatever we’d been the last decade.”

  “And that is?” Brady prodded.

  “You know how we were. We had an open relationship. We didn’t care what the other person did, except when we were together.”

  Brady’s jaw clenched. “I did know that was what you and Andrea had been this whole time, but just the thought of doing that with Liz makes me want to go ballistic.”

  “Yeah, well, y’all are different.”

  “Doesn’t sound like Andrea is that different. What did you say to her wanting to change your relationship?”

  “I told her I didn’t want to,” Clay said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. “She told me, if I didn’t really want a relationship, then I should go sleep with someone else. So, I told her I would.”

  Brady put his head in his hands. “When a woman tells you to do something that stupid, you should never listen. It’s like saying fine to end an argument.”

  Clay blanched.

  “She said fine at the end of the argument? Oh, you’re fucked,” Brady said. He held up his pint glass. “Here’s to living in the doghouse.”

  “I just need to talk to her. If I can talk to her, I can tell her that I didn’t actually sleep with anyone else. It didn’t really happen.”

  “Even if she believed you, Clay—and with your track record”—Brady frowned—“I don’t think she’d care. It’s not so much whether or not you slept with someone; it’s that you ignored how she was feeling and said you were going to do it just to hurt her.”

  “That’s some fucked up mind game right there.”

  Brady sighed and took another swig of his beer. Clay had already finished his.

  “It might feel like a mind game, but to be honest, for a long time, I’ve been waiting for Andrea to realize she wants a real relationship. Savi and I always teased you about getting married for a reason. I honestly thought that was the trajectory you were on. I’m pretty sure Andrea thought that as well. So, if you weren’t there with her, then she was probably feeling led on and used, little brother.”

>   “That’s bullshit! We talked about this,” Clay said in frustration. “We decided how our relationship was going to be. She knew!”

  Brady held his hands up. “I don’t doubt that, but she still left for a reason.”

  “Well, fuck, what do I do? I have to talk to her. We need to work this out,” Clay said.

  “I’d just give her some space. Trust me. I fucked up with Liz a lot. A lot. I think I took fucked up to a whole new level,” he admitted. His eyes were dark and distant, as if remembering that time still haunted him. “I should have fought harder. I shouldn’t have ignored how she was feeling, even when I knew she was hurting. There’s a lot that I wish I could turn back and correct. But I don’t regret letting her figure out her thoughts on her own. She needed that time. I needed that time. Maybe I should have come back into her life earlier, and then she wouldn’t have had to deal with shit from that douche bag she dated, but it made us stronger. When Andrea’s ready, she’ll talk to you again.”

  Clay nodded. Brady’s advice was sound, but in that moment, all Clay wanted to do was tear D.C. apart to find Andrea and convince her that leaving was a horrible, terrible mistake. But, to his chagrin, she wanted nothing to do with him.

  So, he was stuck here at a bar, taking his brother’s advice, and giving his girlfriend, his constant companion, the space she needed and deserved. And he fucking hated it.

  Chapter 13

  SUFFERING

  Giving Andrea the space she needed and not busting down the door to her apartment was an exercise in restraint. He hadn’t even known that he had that much control in one finger, let alone in his whole body. He also hadn’t known that her walking out would hurt this much.

  And it hurt like a fucking bitch.

  Fifteen years was a long-ass time to be with someone.

  He didn’t even remember what a time in his life before Andrea was like. He’d been a kid. She was his entire adult life. She was the girl at every event. She was the girl he would come home to. Without her, what the hell am I supposed to do?

  He’d found that answer at the bottom of a bottle all weekend.

  Sure, I’m wallowing in self-pity, but who could blame me? His girlfriend had just left him, and he didn’t know how to pick up the pieces of their life together. He had always been so confident and cocky in the fact that he had his own life. It was completely separate from her. The part of him that never needed anyone. Now, he knew that was a lie.

  There was no separate part of his life. Even his bachelor-pad townhouse made him think of her, and she rarely, if ever, came over here. She always complained it smelled like a rock star’s tour bus even though he paid for a cleaning service.

  It was easier to be so drunk that he couldn’t think or see straight all weekend than to be sober and sitting around, thinking about her all the damn time.

  She had proven her point. Loud and clear. He got it.

  She was pissed. She’d wanted things to change, and he’d been a dick. Maybe if he had responded less like…himself, then things would look different today. But, instead, he’d told her he was going to go fuck someone else and break all the goddamn rules. After he’d just been so pissed at her for doing the same.

  At least he hadn’t actually slept with anyone. Brady had filled him in on the fact that he’d flirted with half of the women at the inaugural ball before everyone at the party had lost track of him that night, but Clay knew he hadn’t slept with anyone. He wasn’t sure it would have even been humanly possible to sleep with someone with that much alcohol in his system.

  Monday morning dawned bright and early. He felt and looked like shit from the long weekend. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, and despite the shower, he still smelled like he was oozing alcohol from his pores. He found it hard to give a damn.

  He entered his office without a word to anyone else there. He closed the door and laid his head down on the cold hard desk. Shit, he felt horrible.

  The door to his office burst open.

  “What the fuck are you doing, just sitting there?” Gigi asked.

  She wasn’t in a pantsuit today. Instead, she had on a pencil skirt with a button-up tucked into it. She wore black-rimmed glasses that looked hot as fuck, too.

  “Just a few more minutes,” he said, closing his eyes again.

  “Are you out of your mind? Do you know what time it is? Do you know what day it is?”

  “Monday?” he croaked.

  “Yes! Monday! Monday morning, when we have a meeting with a partner to hand over your freaking cases.”

  His eyes popped open. Well, shit. With the kind of weekend he’d had, he hadn’t even thought about his meeting with the boss this morning. He needed to prove he was worth their extra three hundred grand.

  Clay stood and tried to brush out the wrinkles in his suit coat.

  Gigi groaned and hastily shut the door. “Christ, you’re trying to get us both fired, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She stormed over to him and started straightening his jacket and shirt. Then, she barreled straight forward and ran her fingers through his hair. Normally, this would have been pretty sexual, but she was very matter-of-fact about the entire thing.

  She shook her head as she fixed him. “You smell like a bar,” she said. “What the fuck did you do all weekend?”

  Clay shrugged. “My girlfriend broke up with me.”

  She stilled with her fingers still in his hair. Her dark brown eyes rose to meet his, and she had a sad frown on her lips. “Oh.” Then, realization seemed to trigger in her. She shoved him away from her. “If you had a girlfriend this whole time, then why didn’t you just say that? You acted like a total jackass to me when I was drunk, and all you had to do was say you were with someone.”

  Clay didn’t answer her right away. He could have said that, but that was never his answer to problems. Andrea wasn’t his scapegoat. He was just an ass.

  “Well?”

  “It didn’t matter. We’d been in an open relationship for a long time.”

  “Yeah. Well, that sounds like it worked out great for you.”

  Clay internally winced at that comment. On the outside, he remained as stoic as ever. “Literally every woman I know hates me right now. Let’s just not.”

  Gigi sighed. “You’re right. That’s not fair of me. I don’t know the details or what happened.”

  “Yeah. I’m not exactly an open book either.”

  “You do look like you’re thoroughly suffering though.” She bit her bottom lip and observed him.

  “Thoroughly suffering is one way to put it,” he said dryly.

  “You still look like a hot mess.”

  “At least I’m still hot.”

  “And arrogant.”

  “But hot?”

  “And an asshole. So, your breakup didn’t rid you of any of your less redeeming traits.”

  Clay laughed softly. It felt good. “Thanks.”

  “Well, if you’re ready, I think that’s all I can do for you. Cooper is normally drunk by noon most days anyway. He might not even be able to smell the alcohol.”

  “I suppose alcoholism runs in the business,” Clay joked.

  “It’s a tough job. Not everyone is cut out for it.”

  “That’s the truth.”

  “Anyway, let’s get moving, Maxwell. We have a meeting to get to.”

  Clay groaned but nodded, following Gigi out of the office. She glanced over at him once they reached the elevators.

  “What?”

  “Were you at the inauguration?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah. Every year.”

  “Damn. I couldn’t make it. I was stuck at work.”

  “You worked all weekend?” he asked.

  “Don’t have anything better to do.” She pressed the button for the fourth floor. “Plus, this case is killing me. Literally.”

  “You should loosen up some, De Rosa.”

  She gave him the side eye. “As if loosening up has helped you any. Perhaps
you should dig in and get a little more serious here. I can tell you think this place is a stepping-stone for you.”

  “Oh, yeah?” he asked curiously.

  “It’s written all over you. I can’t believe they paid you a signing bonus, knowing that you’re on your way to being a district attorney or a judge. It’s written all over your résumé, all over your family,” she told him intuitively.

  “So what if it is a stepping-stone?” He was very intrigued now. Of course his résumé looked like he was on an upward trajectory. He was.

  Gigi pursed her lips. “You’ll move up, no matter where you go and what you do. You’re a Maxwell. Name recognition is important for a reason, but if you didn’t just slide by here and you actually worked with me instead, we could do some good things on the way up.”

  “Like what?”

  She sighed, as if she hated admitting this out loud. “Help people, Clay. We could help people.”

  “That sounds like pro bono work.”

  “I’m just saying that we have a lot of power, and instead of stepping on the little people, we could maybe help them. I’ve been there. I know what they suffer.” She eyed him up and down. “I don’t know if you’ve ever really suffered before, but I’m kind of putting myself out there on a limb. Mind helping me off the ledge and agreeing to help?”

  “So…what? You want me to spend a few more extra hours at the office to work on cases? Other cases?” he guessed.

  She shrugged. “If you still have a job after this, then yeah. Why not?”

  Why not? That was the question.

  Honestly, when had I ever done anything for anyone but myself?

  Helping people wasn’t the reason he’d become a lawyer. He wasn’t a social worker. But maybe helping people would be just the thing he needed. And, for a second, it dulled the ache in his chest and gave him something to think about for a future that had looked so bleak only moments before.

  Their meeting ran over with the boss man, and by the end of it, Clay was second-guessing agreeing to help Gigi with more work. It’d been bad at the Supreme Court, and this workload was nearly on that level. He had a ton of cases of his own. Not that he’d ever been put off by having a lot of work to do. He usually just barreled through it with a single-minded madness for it, but he didn’t know when he’d have time to work in anything else.