Chapter Twenty-Five
Archer
The dining hall was completely dark except for the light coming from my phone screen. A message popped up saying that the battery was critically low. I swiped it away and pulled up my message history. There were more than a dozen messages that I’d sent to Zoe. The first said, “Good morning.” I sent it the morning after she called me to tell me she would be staying at her apartment. I was hoping that we’d have a chance to talk for a little bit before she went to work, so I stayed in bed while I waited for her to respond.
I must’ve waited for more than fifteen minutes staring at the phone. I imagined what my face must’ve looked like. I started wide-eyed and innocent, with a drunken grin on my face. As the minutes passed, my grin fell, lower and lower, until it’d gone from neutral to depressed.
By the time I’d finished making my bed, I was convinced that Mr. Beetle had gotten to her. I called Jo to do a quick drive by before she went into work. He messaged me saying that he saw her get in her car and drive to work.
She was ignoring me. The rest of the day, I stayed by the phone, glancing back at it every few minutes, trying to tell myself that she wasn’t pulling away, but I knew what she was doing the moment she told me that she was going to stay at her house. I just didn’t want to accept it.
Halfway through the day, I couldn’t help myself. I had to say something, so I called her. She ignored the call after the fourth ring. I wanted to throw my phone out the window. Instead, I took a deep breath and decided what I was going to do.
She probably just wanted some space. Things had been intense, and Rick was right, we were moving too fast. But it wasn’t like it had happened on purpose. I only wanted her to stay at my place so she would be safe. I wasn’t the kind of guy that clung to people right away.
I waited all of an hour to text her again. I told her to call me and that I was worried. I knew how it sounded. I was acting desperate, like I couldn’t live without her, but this was so sudden. There was no warning, no build up. We were in heaven, and now I was in hell.
I locked myself in my room that night and asked Mona to take the boys. I couldn’t face the trouble. I held onto my pillow all night, pretending that it was her. I was so used to having her sleep next to me. I told myself the next morning that it didn’t matter. I took a chance, and it didn’t work out. Halfway through the day, I started thinking about it again.
She could’ve just gotten caught up in things at the bakery. Her life was busy. She was probably swamped at work and too exhausted to call me. I texted her to say that I missed her. Then I set my phone down and kept it close by so I could answer her right away while I finished my paperwork.
I signed one page, flipped it over, and started reading another. I had to focus. I couldn’t allow her to interfere with my work life. I wasn’t a starry-eyed teenager any longer. I was a grown man, the architect of a billion-dollar empire. How could I possibly run a company if I couldn’t handle being away from Zoe for more than a few days at a time? I had to be disciplined. I was getting soft.
I glanced back at my phone. It was blank, but the purple light was flashing on the front. I had a message. I snatched it up, faster than I knew what I was doing, turned on the screen, and checked the message. It was spam. I shoved the phone in my desk drawer to get it out of my sight.
I had Mona stay over again that night, and the night after that. I must’ve sent Zoe thirty messages in two days. She didn’t respond to any of them. At some point, I had to stop, but that was harder than I’d expected. I tried to keep it down to two a day, but that didn’t work. It was more like five or six.
It’d been almost a week, and I couldn’t ignore the truth. We were supposed to spend the weekend together. It was supposed to be our time. Why would she do this? I put my phone away and walked out of the dining room to go to bed. I thrashed around, trying to calm myself and stave off the wave of depression that’d taken over. It was pathetic, but I couldn’t help it.
I finally started to calm down and felt myself drifting off. Then the sound of Abel shrieking sent me running down into the nursery. He punched at me and kicked his legs when I tried to pick him up. It got so bad that I had to hold him down just to keep him from falling out of my arms.
Andrew woke up as soon as I took Abel into the hall. I went back and forth until Mona walked in and saw me standing there, trying to wrestle Abel on the landing. He nearly slipped out of my arms when he saw Mona and tried to reach out to her.
“Just stop!”
“All right, all right.” She walked up the stairs to grab him. “Come here, little guy.” He stopped crying when she pulled him away. “They kept you up all night, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, they did, and I still haven’t heard from Zoe.”
“Oh.” She clicked her tongue. “I’m sorry to hear that. She was so nice, and she loved the boys.”
“I think I came on too strong.”
“Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t. What matters is that she’s got to make her own choice.”
“I know.” I leaned against the railing and stared down into the foyer. “I have to accept it.”
“But you don’t want to.” She walked inside to put Andrew to bed.
“No, I don’t,” I said when she came out. “I hate it.”
“Remember when this started, and I said that she might not be the one?”
“What are you getting at?”
“She pushed you into the dating pool. That’s a good thing.”
“I don’t want anyone else.”
“That will change. It might not feel like it now, but soon, you’ll be looking for somebody else.”
“I don’t think I can do this again. It’s getting to me. I can’t think when I’m at work. I can’t handle the boys because I’m too upset about her leaving. I spent two hours last night just staring at my phone.”
“I knew it’d be bad.”
“But you convinced me to do it anyway.”
“You know as well as I do that you’re not going to get anywhere in life without getting hurt a little.”
“I don’t like the idea of being alone this weekend. We were supposed to spend it together. I’ll take the boys.”
“No. I said I’m kidnapping them, and I meant it. You haven’t slept all night. If that happens again, they’ll have to put you in a straitjacket. Look at you. You’re a mess.”
“I’m going to get through this. It’s a minor upset is all.”
“That’s the right way to look at it. Focus on your work.” She slapped me on the back before I walked into the bathroom to get showered. I wiped the fog off of the mirror when I got out and stared at my reflection. My eyes were sagging, with half-moon circles below them, and there was a thick beard already growing on my face. It left a patchwork pattern down my neck that made me look like a hobo.
I needed to shave and get a haircut and take a nap. There were a lot of things I needed to do. I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was too upset. I couldn’t let Zoe do that to me. No matter how much I cared about her, she wasn’t worth the stress I was putting myself through.
I felt like I was neglecting my work. It seemed like I spent more time in the warehouse than I did at the office. Angela was taking on more and more responsibility, and it was starting to take a toll on her. I wanted to go straight in to the office, but I couldn’t stomach the thought of being bombarded by phone calls. I took a detour to the warehouse to see Rick’s progress.
I poked my head into his office. “How’s the upgrade coming?”
“We’re making good time. The Palantir two-point-oh should be ready by the end of the month.”
“Any bugs?”
‘We’re still working them out. The coders are having some trouble with the heat sensors, but they’ve assured me that the problem is fixable.”
“Good, I want the Eye of Sans on every plane in the country.”
“The Eye of Sans?”
“You don’t like it?”
“No, I like Palantir better. What I’m more worried about is that fake enthusiasm of yours.”
I slumped against the wall. “Is it that obvious?”
“Your beard is ridiculous. I can tell by the way you look that you haven’t been sleeping. How long has it been?”
“How long has what been?”
“Since she broke up with you. I can smell it. I told you this wouldn’t go well, but you wouldn’t listen. You kept it up knowing damn well that this could happen. Why would you do that to yourself?”
“You’re right.” I threw up my hands. “Do you want a gold star?”
“No, I want you happy again.”
“You want me to be your wingman is what you want.”
“There ain’t nothing better than a fresh piece of ass to fix a broken heart.”
“I don’t want a fresh piece of ass. I’m not interested in getting with anyone new right now.”
“You want to wallow in misery for a while. Is that it?”
“No, I just don’t think I could get into meeting someone new.”
“I’m sure you’ll find a way once you meet the right girl.” He pointed his finger up in the air, looked at it, then back at me with a comical expression.
“Fine.”
“You mean it? You’re actually going to come out with me?”
“I don’t feel like I have any other choice.”
“Good. Now get back to work. You’ve probably got ten thousand messages by now.”
I checked my phone. “Just about. I’ll catch you later.”