“Dex?” she said when I answered. “You’re home?”
“Yes, I’m home.” I could barely tolerate the sound of her voice. It used to be a voice that made my rainy days shine. Now, it was like nails to a chalkboard. Her voice made me picture her face, and that face filled me with loathing.
“Is there something wrong?”
“Yes, there’s something wrong. Right before I left, Sicily dumped me. Because of you.”
She was a lawyer, so she knew it was a smart time to shut her goddamn mouth.
“How dare you say that shit to my woman? How dare you try to manipulate her—”
“I wasn’t trying to manipulate her—”
“You’re a goddamn lawyer. It’s literally your job to manipulate an entire jury, so don’t play fucking innocent with me. I fixed your goddamn mess and cleared her head of the bullshit you infected her brain with, but don’t try that shit again. Even if Sicily actually left me, I would never, ever take you back. Not even for Ryan. Why would I want to set that kind of example? Why would I want him to believe it’s a good idea to settle for someone who treated you like shit rather than find real happiness? Fuck. Off.” I hung up.
I spent the day catching up on sleep and paperwork. It was nice to be in my own apartment again, to have hot, running water with great pressure, and to order a pizza whenever I felt like it.
When I went to Sicily’s apartment last night, I didn’t have a plan.
I was just mad.
I said my piece, knocked some sense into her, fucked her, and then just left.
I guess I was still a little mad about the whole thing…
I expected her to be working for me when I started back up in a couple days. I expected everything to be exactly the same and her new position at the Trinity Building to be terminated. That new assistant she hired, she better assign her to other work because she wasn’t my assistant.
Sicily was my assistant.
I didn’t reach out to Sicily because I expected her to come to me—and fucking apologize.
Like I’d ever want to be with Catherine instead of her.
Was she fucking crazy?
My dad stopped by after work, and being the doctor that he was, he looked me over like I was a patient, checking the color of my eyes, the appearance of my skin, making sure there were no bruises or weird bites, even giving me a gentle shove to check my balance and reflexes.
“Dad, I’m fine.” I pushed his hand down and walked into the kitchen to grab a couple beers. “Did I pass the test?”
“I think so.” He sat down and took the beer I handed over.
I sat beside him and felt him wrap his arm around my shoulders and give me a squeeze. “I missed you too.”
He patted me on the back before he dropped his hold. “So, have you spoken to Sicily?”
“Oh, I spoke to her. We’re fine.”
“Good. You just…don’t sound like it’s fine.”
“I’m still angry with her. I called Catherine and told her to fuck off. That felt nice.”
“She deserved it, but be careful with that. You’ve got to be diplomatic for Ryan.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, whatever. I’ll be diplomatic when she stops interfering in my relationship. Then I’ll be a fucking UN ambassador.” I took a drink of my beer.
“I’m glad you two worked it out.”
“We haven’t really talked about it, but…we’ll be fine.”
“If you didn’t talk, how was the situation was resolved?”
I shrugged. “I just told her we were together, and that’s the end of the story. She nodded—I left.”
“Well, let me know if my conversation with her made a difference.”
“I will.”
His arm moved around me again. “I’m glad you’re home. Want to come over for dinner tomorrow?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Good. Your mom misses you.”
I couldn’t see my son for at least a week, so I was pretty bummed about that.
Catherine and I hadn’t talked, so maybe when a week came and went, I still wouldn’t be able to see him.
God, I hoped not.
My first day back at work, I was in the office seeing patients. I’d taken two weeks off, so I needed to make up for that by working more. The elevator doors opened, and I stepped inside, and just as I expected, Sicily was there.
Damn right, she better be.
I stopped and stared her down before I proceeded to my office. My schedule was on the desk as usual, so I looked through it to see what my day would look like. We were in the process of restructuring my schedule for Ryan, so my research had to be handed off to someone else.
The door opened, and Sicily brought my coffee and breakfast.
I leaned back in my chair and stared at her exactly the way I did before, expecting her to do some recon to fix all this shit she caused. My elbow was propped on the armrest, and my knuckles were folded against my mouth.