I got off the wooden table and limped toward the door. I gathered the clothes on the floor together, putting aside the jean shorts that was mixed in with mine.
She hugged me from behind, kissing me again, this time on my hair.
“I want you back,” came her voice.
“Look,” I said, pushing her off without turning to face her. “Give me some time. I need time.”
“For what?”
I quickly got dressed, buttoning my shirt. I still didn’t turn around to look at her.
“I have a girlfriend now. You were gone. We broke up. Now you just come back and want us to go back to before?”
I was confused. I used to love Wendy but not anymore. But her reappearance had definitely aroused me, drug or no drug. “I broke up with you, but I’ve regretted it forever. Dave,” she said. I still didn’t want to turn around and face her because I knew that her innocent eyes were staring at me, as though she meant every word.
And right. She broke up with me. She still wanted to get that straight.
I just needed time to think. And this headache wasn’t helping.
“I came back for you. I can’t go back anymore.”
Her seductive voice sent chills to my back, and I was tempted to turn around and kiss her. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to make another mistake.
“Here, put this back on,” I said, grabbing the shorts and extending my arm behind my back to pass it to her, again without looking at her.
“I want us to get married. Have kids together. Make love every night.”
Those magic words seemed to have an impact on me. I was finally weakened.
I felt the shorts being snatched out of my hand, and sighed.
While Lisa and I were great together, one thing I had to work on her was to change her mind about children. I wanted kids at some point in my life, but Lisa saw her career as something more important and preferred not to have any little ones—at all. Well, unless they were adopted. “Let’s just adopt some a daughter from China—maybe in ten years,” she would say whenever I brought up the topic of kids.
I retrieved my cell phone out of my pants pocket and looked at it.
One new message, left about an hour ago.
I listened to the message.
“Hey babe, where are you? I called twice earlier. You didn’t pick up your office phone. Must be on the road, huh? Anyway, I’ll actually be done at five-thirty today. I’ll just zip by your office and we can grab din. Love ya, mwah!”
Great. What time was it now?
I stuffed the phone back in my pocket.
“Look, it’s getting late. My girlfriend’s coming here, now. I need you to disappear, please.”
“Ah, I finally get to meet this future ex-girlfriend that you keep talking about all day.”
She stood by the whiteboard, and suddenly my massive headache was coming back.
I looked in horror at the board.While I was listening to the message, she had decided to doodle on the board the words “Dave + Wendy” along with a big heart, in bright red.
“Wendy! That board doesn’t erase properly!” I exclaimed, rushing to the board and started scrubbing the red marks with the worn-out eraser.
Wait a minute. I didn’t have any red markers in the office. Just red permanent markers.
I gave up.
Wendy smiled devilishly. “Where should I go then?”
“Well, you obviously have a place to stay. I mean, you aren’t carrying any luggage on you,” I snapped, a bit upset that she was treating it all like a game.
“I wanna stay with you. Otherwise here.”
I gave up. I didn’t know what to do. Obviously I wasn’t going to call the cops and have her escorted out.
“Look, you stay here and don’t go anywhere. I don’t have time to go get any food for you. Just go raid the snacks in the reception area. And there’s some canned…”
I froze up. My heart started pounding heavily.
Someone was banging on the front door. Loudly.
Oh no. Lisa!
That must be Lisa. So soon?
The banging came again, with each knock louder and louder.
What if I just pretended no one was in the office? Maybe she’d go away?
