“Uh, no. I didn’t.” He doesn’t sound impressed.
“I don’t know how Dex derives from Declan, but whatever. Right?”
Nate chuckles into the phone. “But, no. To answer your question, Dex is not with me. Thank God, because I’m in bed.”
“In bed?” I look at my wrist to see the time, but my watch has somehow disappeared. Maybe it’s somewhere with Dex, sucked into the black hole of things I once loved but can’t find. “My watch is gone. Everything important to me is missing tonight.”
“Jane, you’re not making any sense. What’s missing tonight? What happened? What’s going on?”
“What’s going on is, quite frankly, this adulty relationship crap sucks hairy balls. I’ve been repeating the same mistakes with the same guys all my life. I might as well call them traditions. Nate? What am I doing wrong? Why does this happen to me?” Something feels like it’s breaking loose from somewhere behind my ribs.
“Jane, go get some water.”
“Why, should I drown him? I can’t even find him to drown him!” Nate’s not helping me at all. I take another loud slurp of wine. I’ve somehow moved myself into the kitchen and poured my wine into a red solo cup and topped it off with a crazy straw. I remember doing none of it. I don’t even know where the straw came fromand my mouth was just on it.
“How about you stop drinking and just tell me what happened? Did something happen at your birthday dinner?
I bark out a laugh.My birthday dinner?“The one where nobody showed up and I drank alone and ate a bazillion bread sticks by myself then thought there was a surprise party and raced home to be alone with more of myself? You are the only person I’ve actually spoke to all day.”
“Wait. Hold on a minute. Nobody showed up? Even Dex? And he didn’t even call you?”
“Nope.” I put the phone down and wrestle with the crazy straw. I swear it’s trying to take the wine from me. It keeps moving when I put my mouth near it. “I’ll cut you, you little plastic piece of—”
“Jane? Jane, where are you? Who are you talking to? Let me come and get you.”
I pull the phone back up to my ear. I don’t want him coming to get me. I just want him to tell me what to do about Dex.
“I’m just talking to my straw. It’s all good,” I slur.
“Do you need company? Are you home? You want me to come over?”
There’s a moment of silence on the phone. Maybe it’s in honor of the relationship we never got to have because he ended up being Julia’s boyfriend and not mine. I wonder, if he had stayed at the baseball game, after our kiss, how different my life would have been. Then I hate myself for thinking about it. He’s not the right guy for me. He’s not. Dex is. “YouwereMr. Perfect. WEEEERRREE.”
“Oh, and now Dex is? But he forgot to call and come to the birthday dinner he planned for you? Yeah, Jane. He sounds really perfect.” His words are mean and I think I hate him.
“I just don’t understand what I did wrong. I must have done something wrong…”
“Maybe you didn’t do anything wrong. Maybe something happened and he hasn’t had the chance to talk to you. Or maybe, Jane, maybe he’s really not as great as you think he is.”
“But how can a guy be amazing one day and then on your birthday just drop off the face of the earth?”
“Same way a woman could look me straight in the eyes and tell me she’s visiting family but instead she goes away for a weekend with another man and only gets caught because of the dick who can’t handle a Lamborghini that he can’t drive on the left side of the road.”
“Are you saying you think Dex is cheating on me?” Without Dex in my life, who am I going to stay in bed with all day and trade sexual favors for trips to the fridge?
“I don’t know, Jane. I’ve never seen him with another woman. I’ve never heard him talking about another woman. But something isn’t right.”
I blow out a long low breath. “He kept getting texts and phone calls from someone in area code 203. I saw a few of them on Monday. He said it was his ex-girlfriend trying to finagle her way back into his life because he thought she saw that he was writing Pippa’s story on one of the entertainment channels.”
“Do you think he was lying to you?”
“Not really. He showed me the entire text thread and he never answered her back. Then we went to work and I got sick and I haven’t heard from him since he texted me:Took a trip to see my mother. Be gone for a few. I’ll call when I can.”
“God, Jane. It sounds like something happened with his mother.”
“His mother lives in area code 203. Same as his ex-girlfriend.”
“Would you forgive him if he spent your birthday with another woman?”
