call him again. All of yesterday it was about me and Ward. I never had the chance to call Jamie back.
“Are you avoiding me?” he asks.
“Avoiding you? Why would I do that?” But I can’t lie to save my life. All the other times I’ve been in the kitchen, waiting for Jamie and knowing that he will pass by to catch up with me on his way out. Today I’ve busied myself with dusting the library. It’s obvious I’ve been avoiding him.
“Because you haven’t returned my calls.”
“Sorry. I got busy.”
He frowns. “Cleaning the house, or making his food?” He sounds angry. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, why?” I stop dusting and force myself to look at him.
“You left the club without telling me–”
“I texted you.”
“At 3.27am.”
He remembers the exact time. Who the hell remembers the exact time a text was sent? “I forgot. We ended up going to a party, and I forgot. I texted you as soon a I remembered.”
“You completely forgot about me?” he asks, his eyebrows shifting north as his disbelief deepens.
I make a face. “I’m sorry.” Thinking about it now, what I did was wrong.
“And who’s ‘we’?”
“Me and Danny and a few—”
“You and Danny?”
“And a few others.”
His eyes are cold and hard. “You didn’t think I’d want to go? Or you didn’t want me to tag along?”
“You were with Raleigh.”
“I was with you.” It’s only when he jabs a finger at me, that the extent of his rage becomes apparent.
I step back, startled by his reaction. “I’m sorry. I thought you and Raleigh—”
“Screw Raleigh.”
I’m guessing from this his night didn’t end well.
“You didn’t call back, and when I called you you said something about spilling some milk. You never called back.”
“I’m sorry.” The way it sounds, now that he’s telling me all of this, it’s no surprise he’s so angry. “I’ve just been so busy, Jamie.”
“All of a sudden you’re too busy to talk to me? Have I upset you in any way?”
“No! Of course now. Don’t be silly.”
“What are you doing?” he asks, as I get back to my chores.
“Dusting.” I turn around, so that he can see the duster in my hands.
“Why now?”
“It’s my job,” I say, laughing falsely, and doing it badly.
“I’m shocked that you left the bar without telling me.”
“Bar?”
He looks at me in disbelief. “Raleigh’s party. Saturday night. Try to keep up.” He’s more than a little pissed. I haven’t even thought about the party. Too many other things have kept me occupied since then.
“Why did you do it, leave like that?”
It’s not easy, thinking back a few days, before the marathon sex runs Ward and I have had. “Raleigh,” I blurt out, because most of that night is a blur to me.
“Raleigh?” Jamie snaps. “What’s she got to do with anything?”
“You were both talking. I didn’t want to interrupt you.”
“Interrupt? We went to that bar together, Mari. You and me.”
I scoff. “But we’re not joined at the hip, Jamie. We’re not together.”
He looks like he’s going to explode. His nostrils flare, and it confounds me that he is so enraged. “You both looked like you were getting on so well.”
“And you and I don’t?”
I don’t understand why he is so annoyed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d get mad about it. I wasn’t going to go to the party but a group of us got talking and then Danny suggested we all go to a party.”
“So you just upped and left?”
“I didn’t do it on purpose. Why are you so mad at me?” After the up and down emotions I’ve experienced in the last forty-eight hours, I’m ill-prepard to handle Jamie’s wrath.
“This isn’t like you, Mari. You didn’t even have the decency to call and let me know,” he asserts.
This is true, and I immediately feel like a bad person. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“You seem to be doing that a lot lately.”
“I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“I called earlier and you sounded weird then.”
I turn to him and examine his face. “What is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with you? You leave me at a bar and go off to a party with Danny. What’s with the interest in him all of a sudden?”
I raise my eyebrow because he has it all so wrong. “Can you hear yourself?” I cry. “Me and Danny? Are you insane?” I’m certain that the alternative, the truth about who I was really with, would be so much harder for him to accept.
“Yes, you and Danny.”
The door pushes open. “Am I disturbing something?” Ward looks at