Three text messages.
All from Bad Boy Rich.
Wesley: Why do you keep doing this?
Wesley: Milana, please answer your phone.
Wesley: Do you want me to call Em and tell her to put you on the phone?
I don’t appreciate the threat and know he’s capable of doing exactly that. I dread this conversation but know I have to ease his worried mind.
“You’re alive.” I can hear the drag in his voice, the sound of a puff echoes through the receiver.
“I told you I would be busy. This is my work. You can’t expect me to drop everything for you.”
“Funny you should use the term work. Is that what you’re doing now?”
“I went to a museum.”
“Interesting. I thought you have no time to chat since work is so busy.” His maddening laughter annoys me deeper than I care to admit. “Common decency… heard of it?”
The heat in my cheeks begins to rise, the air around me stifling hot as anger consumes me. “I could say the same for you,” I grit, feeling suffocated by this conversation. “I told you I needed space, and you refuse to give it to me. Let me process the fact that I saw you doing some drug deal outside your place in the middle of the night.”
Silence falls on his end.
“Exactly, I didn’t think you would have a response to that.” I shake my head, disappointed in him. “I have to go.” I’m about to hang up since he chooses to keep quiet, and just before I do, he calls my name one more time before admitting he is using right now.
Standing, alone on this busy street in New York, I just want to break down. My short-lived happiness of visiting the museum and wanting to share it with Mama is once again overshadowed by Wesley.
“I don’t know what to say. Or how to feel. Look…” I switch my tone to more sympathetic, “… I’m here until tomorrow afternoon then off to Vancouver. I need to clear my head, I think this will be good for us.”
“If you say so.”
“I believe so. Bye, Wesley.”
I wait for him to say goodbye, but it doesn’t happen, forcing me to end the call.
With a heavy heart, I battle the fierce
wind that makes it difficult to walk, and hail a cab back to the hotel where Emerson and I are sharing the penthouse suite.
Back at the suite, I find Emerson laying on the sofa FaceTiming with Logan. She ends the call with her ‘I love you’ and turns to face me.
“You okay? You’ve been quiet today,” she says, stabbing her fork into a salad bowl she’s balancing on her lap.
“Full schedule and just the time zone.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you, how’s Liam?”
“We broke up,” I admit, quick to add a smile and derail the topic. “You looked so natural today with that mommy-blogger group this morning.”
“I’m passionate about being a mommy.” She beams, showing me some photos of Lola that Logan sent her. “It’s hard being away. Really hard. I never expected to form such an attachment, you know? I always thought I’d be one of those moms who happily would hand off the baby. Now, I know why my mom cried when my brother and I left home.”
I understand, partially. Being away from your mother is tough. Though, Emerson’s maternal instincts are something I just don’t have. Motherhood, babies, a woman’s yearn to procreate, it isn’t for me.
Liam tried to convince me, but it only ended up in us arguing. Even Phoebe would try to persuade me by showing me hot men carrying babies. I protected myself when I had sex, I even researched tying my tubes. It isn’t a phase, and unlike other women, I welcome my periods each month.
I am not lying when I tell Wesley I’m getting them. I can easily skip the white pills and avoid them but don’t want to risk anything. My cramps are a dead giveaway that it’s on it way in the next two days and totally explains my mood.