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Chapter Thirteen
I paceback and forth in front of Quinn’s office. He hasn’t come in and I need to talk to him before he comes to me and I lose all the nerve that I have.
It’s almost ten in the morning, and he’s still nowhere to be seen. He sent me a text last night saying that dealing with family stuff all day made him exhausted and he was going to bed early.
But I haven’t spoken to him since the text exchange.
“He’s not coming in today,” his assistant says with an arm full of paper.
“Oh, he’s not?” I stop and look at her.
Is he okay? Why wouldn’t he have told me this?
“No, he mentioned that something personal came up and blah, blah, blah. Do you want me to take a message for you and send it to his email?” she asks. “He’s checking his messages though.”
“No thanks, it’s nothing pressing and can wait until he returns. Thank you.” I say, put my head down and head to my desk. I pull my phone from the pocket in my purse. Maybe he sent me a message and I just missed it, but there are no messages from him. Nothing.
I put my phone in my pocket and head toward the elevator.
Once I exit into the lobby, I press his contact, walk out the front doors and sit just outside the building, hoping that no one from work comes by.
“Hi, yeah?” he answers anxiously in a whisper.
“Are you okay?” I ask skipping the pleasantries.
“Sidney?” he says, sounding far away.
“Who else would be named Sidney in your phone? Are you okay?” I ask again.
“Yeah, yeah. Everything is alright. I just have some stuff that I needed to do today. And I’m in a meeting right now, so I can’t really talk—could I call you back later?”
What is happening?
He doesn’t call me back, at least until much later in the night. As we talk, he sounds a little off, not his normal happy-go-lucky tone. I get myself situated lying in bed, ready to have a heart to heart or get broken up with.
“Are we okay?” I ask.
“What do you mean? Of course we are, what gives you that idea?” he asks, his tone laced with confusion.
“You’ve been a little weird lately, and then today—I’m probably jumping to conclusions, being emotional and a total chick right now.”
“Look, if I’ve been weird, that’s probably right. And I’m sorry about that. I don’t talk to my parents much, and when I do, they like to remind me of all my failures in life.” He explains.
“Is that why you didn’t want me to come with you yesterday?” I ask.
“Partially, yes.”
“Just partially?”
“I don’t want to go into it, not right now, not when I’m emotionally drained. There are some things we need to talk about, but I can’t right now. I know that’s probably not something you want to hear, but I wanted to hear your voice and talk about your day before I called it a night.”
“Okay,” I say, then proceed to tell him about my day. Before hanging up, he tells me that he will be out of the office again tomorrow. I don’t ask any questions, since it’s clear that he’s not really wanting to divulge anything, but I do make a mental note to get some answers.
We hang up and I’m left not feeling any more confident that I was before the phone call.
QUINLAN
The longer thatI hold off on coming clean to Sidney, the more I feel like a complete asshole.
I spent my entire day at my lawyer’s office and feel like nothing was accomplished. The good news is that there’s nothing that Amelia has against me. The bad news that we will still need to go to court if she doesn’t agree with what we come up with during mediation.
I need to come clean with Sidney. I just need to get this court stuff started and finished.
