After You (Because of You 2)

“My day off was last Friday. You were there. Alex’s wedding.”

Derek frowns. “I meant this week, obviously.”

“I don’t take a day off every week. I don’t take days off at all unless there’s an event I can’t get out of. Obviously Alex’s wedding qualified, then the day you decided to kidnap me I ended up taking most of the day off, but that’s only because my phone was dead and I had no choice.”

“So… when do you live your life?” he asks, appearing slightly confused.

“Every day. This is my life.”

“This is your work.”

“Same thing,” I tell him.

He frowns, mulling it over for a moment. “Okay, I can see how it’s a little different for you because your work is more a calling, mine is more to pay the bills, but there should still be down time, Nikki. You can’t work all the time. You’ll get burned out—and also miss out on your whole life. That’s probably worth mentioning.”

Cocking an eyebrow, I look up and remind him, “You are only here because I wanted to use your sexy body. Your input regarding my life is not welcome or relevant.”

“Well, I don’t keep to the box you try to store me in, you should have learned that by now. I’m formally requesting you put in for a day off and then get back to me with which day is good for you. I’ll work around your schedule, if need be.”

I frown at him. “For what? We’re pretty much done here.”

Derek is already shaking his head like that’s out of the question. “I want you to go out on a date with me,” he says.

“Nope.”

Rolling his eyes, he says, “Wow, you need to think about that a little longer?”

“I don’t.” Placing a hand on his chest, I lean in and kiss him. “You can try to bust out of your box all you want, but it’s made of steel and wrapped up in chains with a sturdy padlock keeping you inside, understand? So unless you’re secretly Harry Houdini, I’m keeping you locked up in the booty call box. There’s no escape. It’s the only way.”

“It is definitely not the only way. Even if I’m gonna be your booty call, you’re gonna have to take days off for it. I can come here sometimes, but not every time. You need to haul this pretty little ass back to my place sometimes. It’s also probably easier for you, since to come here I have to arrange a babysitter, and my place of work is a set place with set hours. Can’t you work from pretty much anywhere with wi-fi and a place to plug in your laptop?”

Frowning, I push up on my elbow. “You have Cassidy again this weekend? If this is your weekend with her, you should be at home, Derek, not here harassing me.”

“I have Cassidy every weekend.”

“And you work during the week?”

He nods.

“Well, there you go. Our schedules are incompatible. I’m not going to monopolize all your Cassidy time, and you only have weekends off. The only time I could come over when Cassidy isn’t there would be week nights, and given it’s a three hour drive and you work regular hours, it just isn’t feasible. The earliest you could get here would be probably close to ten o’clock, and then it would be a three hour drive back to work the next day.”

“Stop making excuses,” Derek says.

“I’m not making excuses, I’m explaining why this can’t happen. That’s too much work for a booty call. This does not have long-term potential. Let’s not fuck it up trying to extend it. Let’s just allow it to be what it was, Derek. A reunion perfectly fitting the disaster that was our relationship, and now it’s time for us to both go back to our respective lives.”

“Cassidy would be there on week nights,” he states, not even addressing the latter half of my remarks. “I have Cassidy full-time. There is no Cassidy-free time, so you’re not monopolizing anything. There’s no reason you can’t come around when she’s there. I thought I made that pretty clear last weekend.”

“Wait, why do you have Cassidy full-time? When does Kayla see her?”

Dragging a hand through his hair, he shakes his head. “She doesn’t. Kayla bailed four years ago, Nikki. I’m not even sure where she is. Los Angeles, last time I checked.”

He says the words all at once, without any lengthy pauses in between, but time seems to slow down as the words travel from his lips to my ears, then slow down even more as my brain tries to process the information.

Four years.

He is saying Kayla left four whole years ago.

As in, when I was hauling the first book in my trilogy to the post office to mail it to him, Kayla was either gone or about to leave. While I was forcing myself to let go of him, he was becoming a single father.