CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
He was fucking crazy. That was the only explanation for him acting like a damn stalker. She’d made it clear—crystal clear—that she didn’t want to know the truth. Yet here he was on her damn doorstep.
He had to make her understand… and then he would let her have it for not trusting him.
Cat had tried to talk to him out of it on the flight home, but he’d shut her down and taken a cab from the airport to Paige’s apartment.
He should have his head examined.
Fuck it. He knocked and looked up and down the hall. They’d been “together” for roughly two months, and this was the first time he was seeing her place. Was that weird? He shook the thought out of his head. Everything about them was weird.
He was just raising his fist to knock again when the door opened.
The woman had wild black hair shoved back from her face with a wide purple headband and scraped in at five feet even. She definitely was not Paige.
She eyed him skeptically. “You must be Cheater Magee.”
He bit back a defensive retort. “Is Paige here?”
She shook her head, and her thick hoop earrings jiggled. “Nope, she got a text from an anonymous source that a jackass of a carpenter was headed her way.”
He was going to have to kill his sister.
“You might as well come in.” She walked away from the open door, and Gannon followed her in, dropping his bag and slipping his backpack off his shoulders.
The woman reappeared with two beers and jerked her chin toward the couch, the only place available to sit besides a pair of rickety-looking barstools tucked under the two feet of kitchen counter. He sat, accepted a beer, and stared at it.
“Why are you letting me in and giving me beer if you think I cheated on Paige?”
“I’m Becca by the way.” She offered a small hand, which he took in a perfunctory shake.
“Gannon. Not a cheater.”
“I figured.”
“So she didn’t tell you?” Gannon ventured.
“Oh, she told me. I’ve just been in and around the industry long enough to recognize a narcissistic, loose cannon who doesn’t care who she hurts to get what she wants.”
“Meeghan.” Gannon spat out the name. “She’s psychotic.”
“So you were not dating Meeghan.”
“No,” he said emphatically.
“But Paige doesn’t believe you, or she’s just humiliated enough that it doesn’t matter that you weren’t dating her. A woman still showed up at her place of work, laid claim to you, and then treated her like garbage.”
“Yep.”
“And what did you do immediately after the claiming and the garbage treating?”
Gannon’s hand cruised the back of his head. “Not enough,” he admitted.
“Why not?” Becca pulled her feet up on the cushion looking comfortable and relaxed.
“Paige and I were trying to hide our…”
“Go ahead and say it. Relationship,” Becca said with a royal flourish of her hand.
“Relationship. She didn’t want anyone to think she was sleeping with the talent for… perks.”
“Sounds like Paige.”
“I had no idea what was happening. One second I’m working with power tools, and the next someone’s kissing me. When I pulled back, I saw Paige’s face…” he shook his head. “And then Meeghan’s strutting over to her, throwing her purse in her face, and giving her a coffee order.”
“Bitch,” Becca said with enthusiasm.
“This is after the network mic-ed Paige and made her start doing onscreen interviews to feed the interest in a potential relationship between us. I couldn’t say anything. Or if I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop, and everyone would know.”
“Well, clearly you’re screwed,” Becca announced, taking a swig from her beer.
“I love her.”
“Which you should not have told her in the middle of a fight when it looked like you had cheated on her.”
“Shit.”
He took a long pull from his beer and looked around. “She wasn’t kidding. You guys really don’t even have a coffee table,” Gannon said, eyeing the apartment. His childhood bedroom had been bigger than this living space.
“Want to make us one?”
“Will that get her back?”
Becca grimaced. “Look, man. I hate to be blunt like this, but Paige is a ‘fool me twice’ kind of girl. In her book, you’re a mistake, and she won’t be inclined to repeat you.”
“That can’t be the end of it,” Gannon argued. He wanted to get up and pace, but there was nowhere to go.
“It doesn’t have to be, but it’s not like sending some other girl flowers and she instantly forgives all your transgressions. Totally works on me,” she said jerking a thumb at her chest, “but not so much on Paige. If you’re serious about getting her back, and you’re not going to give up after a quick fix attempt, there’s hope.”
“What do I have to do?”
Becca leaned forward, looked him dead in the eye. “Whatever it takes. Go big or go home alone.”
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Gannon left Becca feeling marginally more hopeful. She’d made him promise that if the topic ever came up, Becca had slammed the door in his face, not fed him beer, and definitely did not conspire with him against Paige.
She’d given him a few guidelines:
1. Stop blowing up Paige’s phone.
2. But don’t go cold turkey on the contact either. Stay in her head.
3. Identify Paige’s life priorities and find a way to become part of them.
4. Be patient.
5. Build them a damn coffee table.
He hated the fourth and was pretty sure the fifth was just Becca’s fee for her “free advice.”
Paige’s priorities were easy. She had one: work. Unfortunately for him, their season had just wrapped, and if he’d been picking up on Becca’s hints correctly, Paige was looking for a way out of working with him again.
He stared down the hallway with its threadbare carpet toward the paint chipped stairwell and hefted his backpack over one shoulder. This was not the last time he’d see Paige St. James’s place, he vowed. She was his, and she was just going to have to get used to it.