Page 85 of The Moment You Know

“I put off having him put to sleep for almost two hours, waiting for you to get in touch with me. But I never heard from you, so in the end, I couldn’t wait any longer and had to go through it with Spook alone. I held him while they gave him something to make him fall asleep and then gave him the shot that stopped his heart. And afterward, when it was over, I bought a bottle of wine at a sketchy liquor store, went home, and drank the entire thing.

“It was after midnight by then and I was thinking that maybe you’d just slept through my calls, or your phone was off, or on ‘do not disturb’, or your battery was dead, or something. I figured I would hear from you the next day, when you checked your phone in the morning, but I didn’t. That really hurt. And a week later, when I picked up Spook’s ashes, I still hadn’t heard from you, but despite being incredibly pissed at you, I texted you to see if you wanted half of them. Again, I heard dick.”

She raised her head and looked at him. “That’s what happened.”

A heavy silence filled the room as he leaned forward and rubbed at his eyes. She knew for him, Spook had just died and he was obviously grieving, so she just sat there and waited.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I never got any calls or messages from you. If I had, I would’ve been there for you. And Spook. I swear it.”

She nodded. “You didn’t get any calls or messages from me because you had already blocked me by then. Which is also why you haven’t gotten any of my recent texts.”

Picking up her phone, she opened up her texting thread with him. “These are from the past few months—since the night at Bender’s. I’ve replied to your texts, as you can see. All of them. Well, all of them up until I blocked you last night,” she told him drily, then held her phone out to him.

David took it and simply stared at the thread, which looked much different from his. Frowning, he started reading her responses, starting with the earliest one that thanked him for taking care of her hospital bill by paying it.

“I didn’t pay your hospital bill,” he told her. “Ashley did. Well, she is.”

“What?”

“She’s the ‘outside party’. I made her work out a payment plan with Holy Trinity for the next twelve months to pay for it.”

“How much was it?”

“Fifteen hundred and change.”

Paige sat there, stunned. On the one hand, she was horrified at the cost, but on the other hand, she was extremely thrilled to hear Ashley was on the hook for it.

David turned his focus to her phone once again, reading more of her replies to his texts inquiring about her health. “You know, when I never heard from you, I figured you were ignoring me because of what happened that night. And honestly, I didn’t blame you. I was worried, though. I’m glad to know you’re feeling all right. Better late than never, I guess.”

A moment later, he raised an eyebrow. “Dickface?”

“The last two are from Jules. She was annoyed and had a few drinks in her,” she explained, leaving out the graphic voicemails that had also been left.

He handed her phone back. “I thought you said you were on a date.”

Crap. She blinked at him and didn’t say anything.

David blinked at her in return a few times before turning his attention to his own phone and started swiping and tapping. He was pretty sure he knew what he was going to find and when he saw that Paige’s number was blocked, he sighed heavily. “Fuck.”

“I told you so.”

The words were uttered softly, without any snark, which David appreciated. “I swear I didn’t do this. Drunk or not,” he told her, looking down at the blocked number again and quickly unblocking it.

His adamant tone and hardening expression were enough to convince her he hadn’t, and she pondered this new development.

“But someone obviously did,” she pointed out softly. “Someone close to you … with access to your phone.”

“I know,” he returned, knowing that someone had to be Ashley.

A heavy silence was beginning to descend over them when her office phone rang.

While she talked to whoever was on the other end, David used the time to change his passcode, his anger growing as he pictured Ashley getting into his phone. He couldn’t remember ever being this pissed off—and that was before he considered the possibility that she might have gotten into it and done anything else.

After confirming his new code, he looked up to see Paige watching him.

“My appointment’s here,” she told him.

David slowly got to his feet and she did the same; in silence, they walked to her office door.

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