Chapter 20
Ty was disappointed when Middleton cancelled—okay, he was pissed off, but he understood where she was coming from. He’d never had a period, but he could imagine they were painful enough without adding a spanked ass. Still, he was morose as he rounded off his last few projects for the day, a hangover throbbing in his temples. He promised himself he’d never drink like that at lunch again, no matter how hard Roger McMillian was to be around sober.
He’d intended to go home that night; he had a rib-eye thawing on his kitchen counter. Instead, for the first time since he and Middleton began their affair, he spent the night on the couch at GGS.
The next day Middleton called in sick, something she’d never done before. He texted asking if she was okay, but no response came. At four o’clock he made the monumental mistake of closing the door to his office and calling her. The call rang out, and when her husky voice told him to leave a message, he opened his mouth, and made an even bigger mistake.
“Middleton, it’s me. Ty. Just checking in to, uh, make sure you’re alright. Do you wanna go out tonight? We don’t have to fuck or anything, especially if you’ve still got your period, but we can if you want to. Look, I just wanna see you and make sure you’re okay, please call me back—”
The dial tone beeped, cutting off the worst voicemail message in the history of voicemail messages, including some of the batshit ones Veronica had left him. Only the hope that Middleton would return his call kept him from dropping his phone off the roof. He went out that night with a few guys from a rival conservation firm, got drunk, booked a hotel room at two in the morning, and slept there.
On Friday he came in late and found her desk empty again. A wave of nausea that had nothing to do with alcohol swept over him. He’d just pulled out his phone to call her again when Stormy told him he needed to speak with Johnno.
“Shut the door and sit down,” the CEO barked as soon as Ty showed up at his office.
He obliged. “What’s up?”
“Middleton.”
Instantly his mouth was ash-dry. He’d been outed. Less than forty-eight hours had passed since he told Roger McMillian he was fucking someone and the slippery prick had already found out it was Middleton. He was going to be fired and so was she, maybe she was already fired. He sat, teetering on the edge of panic. He’d help Middleton find a new job—he had the contacts— but what would he do for himself? He’d deal with that later. He had to call her and—
“Middleton quit.”
Ty paused amid his frenzied planning. “Huh?”
Johnno slammed his fist on the desk so hard a cup of pens upended. “She quit. Quit this morning by registered fucking post.”
It took several seconds for Ty to unglue himself from thoughts of a year-long sabbatical and absorb what Johnno was saying. “Middleton. She quit…?”
“Get with the fucking program, Henderson.” Johnno held up a letter. “She quit. Reckons she got another job at Demonte and Decker. Isn’t even giving notice because she called the union, and they told her we owe her a shitload of overtime. Now she’s gone and the business’ll be down an engineer for weeks.”
“Right,” Ty said, trying not to ask if Middleton had quit for a third time. “She say why she left?”
“No, and who gives a shit, that girl fucked over everyone in this office. Now I’ve got the union breathing down my neck, asking me about gender quotas and why I wasn’t letting my only female employee take RDOs, acting like I’ve done something wrong when we spent years training her.”
And she spent years getting coffee and being boxed out of management opportunities and offered up as fuck-bait. Ty thought. So you got a new job, huh Middleton? Good for you.
He would call her again once this was over. He’d tell her he knew about D&D and offer to take her somewhere fancy to celebrate. Their situation was still a clusterfuck, but it had just been downgraded from a clusterfuck that could also get them fired.
Johnno let out a loud, petulant sigh. He began to pick up his spilt pens and place them back in the cup. “I think something happened to her on Wednesday.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if something happened with her after she took that file down to The Breton. She came back here in a right state and asked to take the afternoon off. Dutchy told her no, and she damn near told him to go fuck himself. Said she never got to take leave like everyone else.”
Ty, who’d been rifling through his mental restaurant Rolodex, snapped to attention. “Middleton brought that file to The Breton Club? I thought that was one of the interns?”
Johnno’s meaty forehead creased. “No, I sent her. You telling me she didn’t hand it over herself? Fucking hell, those files were confidential!”
It was convenient that Johnno went off on another tirade because Ty was trapped in an acidic whirl of panic. There had been a moment during lunch when he’d seen a face peering at him through the panels of the serving alcove. He’d told himself it was a waitress, but something about it had made him edgy. Now he knew—it had been Middleton. She’d been there, and she’d heard him say—what? What had they been discussing when he saw her? The possibility of going to Tommy’s? No it had been worse than that…
Ty’s guts churned as he remembered his comment about ‘all fours.’ He shot to his feet. “I should go speak to the rest of the crew. See who can take on Middleton’s projects.”
Johnno made a grumpy noise of agreement. “Tell Franco to mock up an ad for her position while you’re at it. I want it advertised by midday.”
“Sure. Right. Whatever you want.”
Ty powerwalked back to his office, dialing Middleton’s number along the way. Surely she hadn’t quit because of him? She would have called, she would have asked him about it. She wasn’t the kind of girl to end things without saying anything. Was she?
Something else he’d said to Roger came back to him—what’s the point of having a dirty little secret if you share it?
His stomach contracted so violently for a second he thought he might throw up. Middleton’s phone rang out and he didn’t leave a message. He shut himself in his office and called Georgie. She answered on the third ring. “Hey, how’d you know my surgery got cancelled?”
“I didn’t. You got a copy of The Feminine Mystique handy?”
There was a brief pause. “What have you done?”
“You’re not gonna like this. I don’t like this. I think I might be scum for doing this. I think it might be over.”
“Tyler.” His best friend’s voice was hard. “Talk.”
And so he talked. When he was done there was a long silence.
“You understand why I did it, don’t you?” he pressed. “Roger’s a bloodhound. If he thought Middleton was a girl I cared about, he’d have made it his life’s mission to find out who she was. I had to act like she was nothing special.”
“Is she?”
Ty frowned. “What?”
“Is. She. Special? Because it seems to me you didn’t have to say any of that garbage about her. You could have just shut your mouth and told them it was none of their business.”
Ty slumped back in his desk chair. “I know. I panicked.”
“Bullshit excuse.”
“I know.” He pressed a palm to his sweaty forehead. “What are the chances I’ve fucked this and she’s never going to speak to me again?”
“Realistically? I’d say between seventy-five to eighty percent.”
“Fuck.”
“You should be glad to be getting the silent treatment. If I heard you saying that about me…”
Ty’s left eye-socket tingled. “Yeah, I know, so what do I—” he saw something that made him yelp.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I think…” He pulled on the corner of the pale yellow envelope and recognised Kate’s loopy handwriting at once. “Fucking hell, she wrote me a letter. I’ve gotta—”
“Read it. Call me back.”
The line disconnected.
As he looked at the envelope, Ty could taste his pulse. He knew the chances of it being filled with positive feedback was rare. Letters like these were never a good thing, except maybe in that movie Veronica liked, The Notebook. Why had it been called that, anyway? Fucking movie was all about letters. It should have been called The Letters. Ty slid the slim sheaf of paper out of the envelope, noting with a lurch that it had a buttercup border.
Dear Ty,
I guess you’ve heard by now I’m leaving GGS. I’m sure Johnno’s pissed. And Dutchy, though that probably has more to do with getting his own caramel lattes than anything. I’m excited to work for D&D. They pay less, but I think I can grow there, become the engineer I know I can be. I’m also excited to work in a place with more than one woman and where no one will call me Middleton. You were the only person I ever liked calling me that.
Someone knocked on his door.
“Come back in ten,” Ty called.
“But—”
“Do it.”
The person—it sounded like Collins—walked away, no doubt cursing him under his breath.
So with D&D out of the way, I guess it’s time to write about us. It’s funny how hard it is for me to say ‘us,’ because I know it’s not a word you wanted me to use in the context of whatever we were doing—sleeping together, fucking, exploring our mutual interests etc. We never got around to labels, did we? But here’s the thing—deliberately avoiding labels doesn’t mean you have no obligations toward my feelings. You slept in my bed, you came to my derby final, met my friends and told me I was beautiful. You bought me a freaking dildo. There was an ‘us.’
“Was,” Ty said. “Was.”
His chest felt like a car compactor slowly crushing inwards. He knew exactly where this was going, but made himself keep reading.
Never saying “We’re in a relationship, Middleton, I care about you,” isn’t some magical backsies card you get to slap down whenever you need to make your escape. I know you’re not planning on dumping me but I also know it’s never going to be more than what it is now.
When I picture our future, I see the two of us sleeping together for months, maybe even years, me too scared to bring up commitment, you making sure I’m never really a part of your life so you can always peel me away like old Velcro if you need to. I don’t want that and I think you knew it. It was like you said at the derby final; you just couldn’t stay away.
I’m glad Johnno was a jerk and made me go to The Breton Club in the rain. If I hadn’t heard what you said to Stormy and McPerverson, I might never have seen what was staring me in the face. When I calmed down, I realised you were probably playing up the sleaziness to get them to change the subject—I recognised your smile from all the times you pretended to be my stepdaddy— but you meant what you said about relationships. You really do have no intention of loving me.
I’m in love with you. You must know that, right? You saw it on my face, and when you did you kissed me and said something like “You’re too adorable for your own good.”
I’m not too adorable for my own good, I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you for a long time, maybe since we met. You know D&D headhunted me a year ago, and I decided to stay at GGS because of you. I started drinking coffee because it gave me an excuse to ask if you wanted one. I hooked up with that rugby guy in Bendigo because you were watching and I thought feeling a man’s hands on me while you watched would be the closest thing to having you.
Are you scared yet? I am. I don’t know why I wanted you so badly, but I did.
“Middleton,” Ty said. “Don’t do this.”
We need to end things. Not because you’re too old for me or I’m all wrong for you—I think in our hearts we both know we’re good together, but this is going nowhere. I don’t know what your ex did to you but I don’t think you want to love anyone ever again and if I stay, I will wring myself out trying to make you change your mind. I’ll ruin all the best parts of myself.
I want real love, Ty—a guy who goes down on me and introduces me to his friends and tells me he loves me. When we’re together, you give me just enough to imagine having those things, but it’s not a real possibility. I stopped selling my panties because only having a small part of my fantasy was so painful. This is worse. You’re an amazing lover, but you’re not my Daddy, and I don’t think you ever will be. You’re a charmer. I thought you never showed me that side of yourself, the way you showed the Barbie Trolls and the guys at work, but you did, you showed it to me in bed when you were everything I wanted you to be and more.
“Middleton,” Ty repeated. His hands were shaking like leaves, rendering her words almost illegible. “Middleton don’t.”
Maybe no other man will ever measure up to you and I’ll be single forever, but I have to try and get what I want for myself. No all-powerful father-figure is going to ride in and save me, I know that now. So I’m leaving. I’m leaving you and GGS and also Australia for a little while.
“What?” Ty stared at the piece of paper, waiting for the letters to re-arrange themselves into something that made sense, but they remained stubbornly in the order they were, telling him Middleton was no longer on the same continent he was.
“Is everything okay?” A voice at the door shouted.
“Yes! I’m fine!”
“Are you—”
“Yes! Fuck off!”
The person—Ty was sure it was Collins again—walked away muttering much more audibly about how he didn’t have to deal with this bullshit. Ty ignored him and stared at the letter.
One of my Aunty Rhonda’s friends is putting me up in her apartment in Prague. I’ll be pretty miserable, obviously, but it’ll be nice to take a break from everything.
I think this is the part where I say goodbye and please take care of yourself. I’m not brave enough to mean it yet, but I hope you find someone you can be with. You’re an amazing guy and not just because you used to be a firefighter and you’re hot. You’re so funny and smart and when you opened yourself up to me, I felt like the most incredible girl in the world. It would be such a shame if that went to waste because of the hang ups you have about love. Okay, I should go, sorry this letter is so long. Tam just told me to stop apologising for things that don’t need apologies, so I’ll just say I’ll miss you, Ty.
Middleton
Ps. I know this sounds lame, but someone will call you about returning my apartment key today or tomorrow. Goodbye again xxx