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When it was over, and everyone had disbanded, Valerie offered to take Jacob for a few hours so Paige and David could spend some time together before she had to go to work.
Once inside her apartment, David proceeded to instigate a little make-out session in the entryway—which seemed to be a new favorite pastime of his—only to have it interrupted by a knock at the door.
“No,” David groaned. “No, no, no. I thought Dolores said she was going to run some errands after brunch?”
“Maybe she changed her mind.”
“Well, get rid of her. And that doesn’t mean talking about cat treats or your lemon squares or email spam, got it? We have less than two hours before you have to go to work, and I don’t want to waste a minute of it. I have plans.”
Paige checked her clothing and found it presentable before waving a hand in front of her face. “How’s this?”
She only looked slightly disheveled, but he fixed her hair a little bit, anyway. “You’re perfect. Now get rid of her.”
Chuckling, Paige opened the door only to freeze, her laughter dying and her expression turning to one of ugly shock. Not knowing what was going on, David took a step toward her, just as a woman’s voice said, “Hello, Paige.”
Instead of returning the greeting, Paige asked coldly, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Since she obviously wasn’t talking to Dolores, David stepped from behind the door to see who it was, only to stop abruptly at the sight of his former mother-in-law. He hadn’t seen her in over six years, but it didn’t stop him from instantly recognizing Claire. Her resemblance to Paige was strong enough that Claire looked like the sixty-year-old version of her daughter, with toffee-colored brown hair lightly streaked with silver and bourbon-brown eyes.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, stunned to see her. “Claire?”
“David,” she replied, stunned to see him as well.
Paige stopped and waited for some sense of emotional connection or lingering affection to be felt, but none came; there was no feeling that she was looking at her mother, with whom there had once been the strongest of bonds. “What the fuck are you doing here?” she repeated, her voice now rock-steady.
“I came to see you and wish you a happy birthday and—”
“You came to wish me … a happy birthday?”
“Yes. And I apologize for showing up unannounced, but you haven’t answered any of my calls, or responded to any of my texts—”
“Well, I blocked you, so I didn’t get any of your calls or texts,” Paige said matter-of-factly. “And you can spare me the bullshit about my birthday, given how you’ve ignored it for the last three years, okay? Now, for the third and final time … what the fuck are you doing here?”
“I was … hoping we could talk for a few minutes,” Claire said quietly.
“You want to talk for a few minutes?”
“Yes.”
“You really have some motherfucking nerve, considering how our last conversation went down.”
Claire held up her hands. “Look, I know you’re upset with me—”
“Upset with you?”
“—and you have every right to be. That’s one of the things I wanted to talk about,” Claire told her, then asked in a beseeching tone, “May I please come in?”
After a lengthy pause, Paige finally said, “All right,” before stepping back to let Claire into the entryway and closing the door behind her.
It was then that Claire saw the engagement ring on Paige’s finger. “Are you and David … engaged?”
The question threw Paige for a second. “Yes. And no, you won’t be receiving an invitation to the wedding, in case you were wondering.”
Claire overlooked the obvious hit, and managed to produce a weak smile. “Well, congratulations to you both.”
“Thanks. That means a lot to us,” Paige replied, deadpan. “Now, say what you came here to say.”
Claire cut her eyes to David before looking at Paige with a pleading expression. “Could you and I sit down and talk in private?”
