“He says it’s not him,” she said. “He admitted to the dead fish and he can’t dispute all the phone calls and texts since they came from him.”
He closed his eyes and let out a breath. “Start at the beginning.”
“Why do you care about my problems?”
“Because I’m good at what I do and if someone is bothering you, I’ll put a stop to it.”
She stared at him. Almost mimicking the way he’d done it to her.
“Why?”
“Is that the only word you know?”
“I want you to answer me,” she said. “Before I tell you what an idiot I am.”
He wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but he settled on the truth. “In the Navy my job was retrieval and extraction. To do that, I had to know exactly what I was getting into. I can help if you let me.”
“There is nothing to help,” she said. “My ex is an idiot and I probably caused him to act this way. Though he’s pushing it.”
“Let me be the judge of that. What did you do other than pack his clothes to leave them on the porch?”
“You’re going to have a completely different opinion of me when you hear this. You might fire me.”
He let out a half laugh. “I doubt that. And there is no way I’m going through the trouble of finding another wedding planner. You’re stuck here.”
“Awww, I think I’m getting to you.”
He pulled the empty glass out of her hand and filled it up a second time. She’d drunk that first one fast. “Maybe this will loosen your tongue.”
She heaved out a gush of air and moved to the other side of the bar and sat on one stool. He joined her.
There were a million things he could do right now helping his family out with customers on the property, but this was more important.
“It all started when I got a call from my coworker on a Sunday morning.”
He sat there and listened to the pictures she’d gotten, then the asshole coming home and wanting to have sex with her.
How she slept in the same bed with the guy that night was beyond him. He wouldn’t have been able to hold off kicking their ass out then and there.
“Glitter?” he asked. “You put glitter in a box of his clothes?”
She shrugged. “He always gave me a hard time about my arts and crafts. I take pride in my job. Maybe I spent more time than I needed to trying new things for my students, but it’s fun.”
“If you say so,” he said. “Not that I’d be happy to have glitter in a box of my possessions, but it seems he got off light. Not sure what the big deal is.”
“It wasn’t just one box. One was hot pink, the other box was neon green, the third was iridescence.”
“What’s that?”
“Like clear but when the light or sun hit it, you see pink or blue and it’s reflective.”
“Shit. That would be annoying.” Which meant you might not realize it was on you until you were outside.
“I put it in with his underwear. Also in a few of his shoes.”
He rolled his eyes. Childish, sure, but he thought she was justified. “What did he do?”
“He called and texted and left voicemails about how pissed he was. I should have swapped out my contact information in his phone like I did his mother and Lana. My guess is he wouldn’t have been able to remember my number to bug me if I’d done that.”
