Hero Next Door

“My ring.” Oh for fuck sake, it’s always something else. “My engagement ring. I want my diamond…”

“You threw it at me. You aimed it at my face,” I reply in a monotone voice. “When you tell me that you never want it back because you can’t stand to look at it, you give up your right to it. You know that, right? Also, I have to point out if that’s something that you wanted then you should have mentioned it through proceedings.”

“You know what a fucking divorce is like,” she screams, over reacting as she normally does. “You can’t always remember everything. But I want it now. It’s a memento of our relationship and while it ended shit, I still want to remember the good parts of it. You want that as well, right? You can’t only focus on the bad bits…”

“I don’t want to think about it at all,” I shut her down coldly. To be honest, I would give her the ring if I thought that it would shut this nightmare down but I know how she is and it’s always just on to the next thing. There is no end. She will always find something to bring in my direction to keep this going. “It’s done, it’s over.”

“How the fuck can you be so cold, Theo?” she shrieks some more. “How the fuck can you just forget our marriage like that? Did it mean nothing to you? God, I’m trying to remember the good bits. I’m trying to get something good out of those years. I don’t want it to all be a massive fucking waste. Why are you like this?”

“What is this phone call about?” I ask her wearily. “Do you want the ring? Or is it something else? Are you calling because you want me to remember our marriage? Because you aren’t exactly making sense.”

“Oh fuck you, Theo. Fuck you to hell. Are you really being this asshole right now?”

I pull the cell phone away from my ear as she continues to rant and yell. Freddie pokes his head around the door to check on me and as soon as he hears the screaming from the phone he knows what’s going on. I roll my eyes and he joins in. I hope that he can how little I really want this to keep this going on. I am done with this.

“Jane, I…” I try and talk over the yelling but it keeps on coming. “I… I have to go…”

I hang up. She is still shouting at me but I hang up and cut her off. Then I block her number so she can’t call me again, but I’m sure that she will find another way. She always does find a way.

“Fuck…” I go back in to the rec room where everyone else is sitting. “That was intense and just another reminder that marriage is not for me. In fact a relationship is not something for me, not long term anyway. I’m not going to fall in love again.”

“Oh you know that’s a clue that you’re about to fall in love,” Ashley yells teasingly at me. “Anyone who says that they are done with romance always falls head over heels. You might well be in trouble.”

I roll my eyes and snort with laughter, trying to disguise the fact that my brain immediately flies to Esme when I thought of never falling in love again. But just because we had a fling, just because we had a one night stand and she freaked out after, it doesn’t mean that me and her are about to fall in love.

“I’m not in trouble,” I shoot out, probably a little too harshly because I’m trying to cover up my own feelings. “Jane has put me off women for life. I don’t want to ever think about romance again. I mean, what fucking drama! Does anyone need that shit? Not me, that’s for sure. I just want to live my normal simple life.”

But if that’s the truth, then why am I sucking myself in to drama with Esme? Why do I want to be in the drama with her? What is it about her that I find so endlessly intoxicating? I just can’t get enough.

Chapter 9 – Esme

“Don’t go,” Mr. Jones insists the moment that he sees me reaching for my bag at the end of the day. “I’m not finished with you yet. We need to have another meeting because if this shit storm doesn’t get sorted out soon…”

I sigh heavily. I should have known that it was too good to be true. For the first time in a very long time, my boss has seemed much calmer than usual, not on edge like he normally is. He hasn’t even yelled at me once all day long. To be fair that might just be because he hasn’t done much speaking to anyone, he’s mostly kept to himself, but it was still nice. I was able to just get my work done without my shoulders all stressed and rolled up around my ears.