Roman Townsend had almost forgotten he sent the text by the time he got an answer. It had been a spur-of-the-moment thing. He had been so clear about his leaving her alone that he almost felt guilty typing it out. Which meant that when he went back to business and back to work, it had worked itself out of his mind almost immediately.
Three listens through the first track and plenty of serious consideration about how he was going to adjust it for a second attempt was fifteen minutes of hard focus, and thankfully for him, none of it was about Mary. If she wanted him to leave him alone, he’d do it. Just as long as he was able to keep focused, at least. And he could keep focused. It would just take a little bit of effort on his part, and a little bit of time.
His phone ringing in his pocket almost surprised him. It took him a long minute to realize who it might be. When he took the phone out of his pocket and managed to confirm it for himself, his head was already hurting again.
So now he’d guilted her into calling him. And probably, she was going to give him a whole thing about how he’d told her that he would leave her alone if she didn’t want to see him. A promise which he had, originally, had every intention of keeping.
But last night had gone so well. He’d never really expected her not to call. He’d expected to text her when she didn’t call even less. First, because she would call, without prompting, and second, because it meant breaking his word.
His thumb hovered over the button to hang up the call. She didn’t need him sitting there trying to guilt her into something she didn’t want to do. And as much as she had every right to be upset, he didn’t need to get a lecture about how he needed to learn a lesson that he’d already learned.
“I’ve got to take this,” he said. Then his thumb moved over, tapped the green button, and he moved the phone to his ear. “What’s up?”
The door closed loudly behind him, and he kept walking without looking back.
“What do you mean, what’s up? You texted me.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I know I said I wasn’t going to, but…”
“Is that what you said? Oh, excuse me. Maybe I’m having some kind of aneurysm or something, and that explains the day I’ve been having.”
“What happened? You sound upset.”
“Oh, nothing. I’m just crazy, I guess, because I’ve been going in my head over what the hell I did to piss you off!”
“You didn’t do anything. Why would you even think that?”
“Why? Why would you send a text like that?”
“Like what? I was worried about you. You didn’t call or anything.”
“Well, I almost called this morning. I was all ready. It was a big thing. You should see it. I wrote this long post on my web site vagueing about you. It was beautiful. People are going to love it, I hope.”
“And then what?”
“What, you want me to give you a play-by-play?” She let out an annoyed breath that was loud enough to hear it through the phone. One that came from something that he’d evidently done to make her angry, and something that he couldn’t begin to explain.
“I guess so. I’ve been waiting all morning. So… I don’t really know what it is that I’m supposed to know about.”
“Really. Here, let me click over. You’re telling me you didn’t send…” She paused. He could hear the sound of tapping right by the mouthpiece, which he assumed was her fingernail on the phone screen as she navigated to something he’d evidently sent her. “‘Don’t contact me again.’ Sent at… 8:32am.”
“I don’t mean to sound contradictory here, I really don’t. But… Mary, I didn’t send that.”
“It’s right here, with your name on it. Same phone number that sent me a message twenty minutes ago, asking why I hadn’t called him.”
“You know what? I’ll solve this. I’ll just take a look at my message history. Maybe there’s some kind of mistake, or something. I don’t remember texting anyone, of any description, but maybe there was some kind of mix-up.”
Roman pulled the phone away from his ear and tapped around until he, too, got a chance to look at his messages. There was only the one. A message sent at 3:48 in the afternoon. What’s up, why haven’t you called? And then a winking face in an apparently futile attempt to seem cute and playful.
He put the phone back to his ear. “Look, I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve got nothing. I didn’t send it.”
“Well, I’ve got it. You think I’m lying?”
“No,” he said. A woman who dressed and acted like a secretary studiously didn’t listen in on his conversation. He kept on moving down the hall. “I don’t think you’re lying. I’m just telling you, there’s some kind of mistake, because I didn’t text you. I had just gotten to work at eight-thirty.”
“So maybe someone else sent it.”
Roman’s jaw set off to one side. “Maybe someone else did.”
And he had a very good idea who it might have been. That little twerp was going to get his nose pushed in if he wasn’t careful. He’d worked with Tommy long enough to know that the guy ought to know better than to mess with his personal life.
And he’d known him long enough to know that Tommy didn’t know anything that didn’t make him money.