Now that my wrist was no longer sore from the grocery store fall and didn’t ache after hours of photo and video editing, I was still nursing a bit of tenderness on my hand from the coffee incident.
Freaking Hunter.
I swear, the man was a walking injury waiting to happen. If he weren’t so shocked and apologetic after, I’d have thought he was using it to get rid of me. Much like his “boundaries talk” a few days ago. And what an enlightening talk it had been.
Porn! He honest-to-god thought I was shooting porn in my bedroom. Me of all people. I’ve heard there’s porn out there for all tastes, but a curvy—okay, chubby—textile designer freelancing in product photography would be so many levels of weirdness.
But I had to admit, if felt good to see him so flustered and outraged, which had emboldened me to screw with him and withhold the clarification of his assumption.
Let him think I was picking up hard-bodied gym hunks for hanging-from-the-ceiling sex marathon sessions. It was a few notches—maybe a few floors—above my current life status as a struggling freelancer trying to eventually make it as a creative. Not exactly original.
I made sure to bang against the walls and moan every so often when he was home. Just for my own amusement.
Now I could finally relax. I’d sent off my finals to Harper Linens. The respite only lasted for as long as it took to turn off my computer. Next came the inevitable wait for rejection. At least it meant my editing program could rest up for the next week. I grabbed my stylus and tablet and pulled up my neglected design portfolio, which had to feel abandoned after the weeks it had been since I’d opened it.
The thumbnails were filled with whimsical colors and shapes, more understated, classic patterns. A lot of different ideas without a hint of cohesion. Ah yes, now I remembered why I hadn’t opened this.
For a long time I’d been holding back. After one ‘no’ too many, I’d given up for a while. The wallowing and feeling that I’d never have my designs seen had hit hard. But the tide was finally turning. After leaving my old apartment and old life behind and being in Barbara’s apartment, more ideas flooded in.
Bouncing the ideas off my sheet models, I had been throwing around a whole new set of designs to add to my portfolio.
I dumped all my old designs in a folder and started fresh.
Textile design wasn’t a job most people thought about. What even was it? But I loved thinking up new patterns and designs for everything from pillowcases to sheets to carpets. A fully coordinated look anyone would love to have in their house or apartment. The types of accents I’d want in a house when I finally got a place of my own. Who wouldn’t want to see a section in Target with matching everything covered in a design they dreamt up. It wasn’t high fashion, and others out there would probably roll their eyes at how excited a toothbrush holder with my designs on it would make me, but screw it, it was my dream and I wouldn’t apologize for it.
My stomach rumbling and a pinch in my neck alerted me to how long I’d been hunched over my desk, scribbling away with design after new design flowing from the end of my stylus. Three hours had zipped by.
Sitting up, I cracked my back, wriggled my fingers and stared at the screen. Excitement bubbled up. I needed to send them to Cat now. She was always my biggest cheerleader but wouldn’t hesitate to tell me something sucked in that perfectly abrasive way of hers. I sent off the link to the folder and a note to do her worst with the feedback.
My phone rang.
I picked it up and laughed. “You’ve seen them already? What do you think?”
“Hey, love. I’ve missed you.”
Not the voice I’d been expecting. His voice.
It was a freezing fire-hose blast straight to the face. “Why are you calling me?”
“I’d have thought it was obvious. It’s killing me being apart from you.” The velvety baritone had once turned me to putty in his hands. But that was before he turned me into the other woman. Now it turned my stomach.
“You’re calling me from another number?” I pulled the phone away from my ear and blocked it so the next time he called it wouldn’t go through. Panic welled in my chest and guilt soured my gut like I was horrible for even hearing his voice on the other end of the line. Then Cat’s voice rang in my ears and angry coals sparked before burning bright. Why couldn’t he just leave me alone?
“When you blocked all my others, what was I supposed to do?” A petulant tone seeped into his voice. I had once mistaken it for a need to be with me, but I’d come to learn it was all selfishness wrapped up in deception.
“I don’t know, take the hint and not ever try to contact me again? I fled our apartment. How much more did I need to do to show you we’re over?”
“How can you say that?” He said it like it was an impossibility. Like me finding out was a blip on our road to relationship bliss. “You left. I came home and you were gone. I can’t just let you go.”
My anger grew, brewing deep in my stomach and burning bright in my chest. “Of course you can. You can very easily do that.”
“We were together for over a year and you want to just throw that away? You act like it meant nothing.”
My teeth clenched and I seethed. The betrayal stabbed me through the heart all over again. How quickly I’d locked up those old feelings and pretended they didn’t exist. “You were married the whole time. Of course it was nothing.”
“Don’t say that. We’re on the outs.” The sulky tone grated on my nerves, shredding at the last fibers of my restraint. “We’re getting a divorce.”
More lies and excuses. “I don’t care. If you’d cared about me, you wouldn’t have made me the other woman.”
“It wasn’t like that.” That whine in his voice, the same one I’d thought was endearing when he wanted me to stay home with him instead of going out. The one he used to keep me home so there wasn’t a chance of running into his wife.
I jumped up from my seat and shouted into the phone. “How was it? You lied. Taking extra shifts. Visits to your grandparents. All lies to cover more lies and deception.”
“She was never as good to me as you were.”
“And I was a fucking fool. Don’t ever call me again.” I jammed the end button so hard pain shot down my finger.
Standing in the center of my room, my chest heaved, my stomach roiled, and I tried to catch my breath, my feelings chasing after each one like a stack of papers being stolen away by the wind.
My phone, still gripped in my hand, vibrated. I stared down at it and answered, ready to go to battle again.
“What?”
A pause on the other end of the line. “Is this a bad time? It’s Ian. Is everything okay?”
I jammed the heel of my hand into my forehead. My muscles loosened, no longer prepared for the invisible threat on the other end of the line. “Hey, Ian, sorry about that. What’s going on?”
“There’s a delivery here for you, and I wanted to know if you wanted me to bring it up.”
“I can come get it.”
“It’s no imposition, really.”
Leaving the apartment was a good idea, even if it was only for a few minutes. Clear the air. Clear away the conversation. Clear Seth from my mind completely.