Page 41 of Broken Halo
When I look out at him this time, he stands up straight and pulls a hand down his face.
Trig: What time?
What have I done?
Me: Around four?
Trig: See you then.
He stands on my porch with a hand at his neck while he contemplates the stone under his feet and I can’t make myself look away. Being able to take him in without him knowing might be the first guilty pleasure I’ve had in years. But he makes me flinch when he throws the same hand back and hits the brick even though I don’t hear a sound in my well insulated house.
He’s upset, maybe even mad. And, unfortunately, it’s one of the only memories I have of him in the last decade.
He finally steps off my porch and disappears.
Rubbing my eyes, I stand and go back to Griffin’s room. Trig’s probably doing whatever this is to appease my damn sister. Fine, then. I’ll play along for both their sakes, if for no other reason, to get him and Jen off my ass.
We’ll talk about my dead husband’s parents and the marijuana charges. That’s it.
I crawl back under the covers and set my alarm, not that I ever sleep long enough to need one. Praying for just a few hours of uninterrupted sleep, I bury myself in my pillow, and for the first time in a long time, I hope the night doesn’t go by fast. I’m not looking forward to the meeting I just agreed to.
* * *
Everyone handles difficult situations in their own way. Since I don’t normally give a shit what people think of me on any random Wednesday, I can usually turn my nose up at a scratchy scenario without ever needing to itch it.
I’m trying my best to muster my I don’t give a shit attitude, I really am. But today it’s hard. I haven’t been back to MI since the day I made a spectacle of myself when I found out Trig was back in town. So much so, I’m late because I almost couldn’t bring myself to meet him.
“Mrs. Ketteman. How are you? I can call up, but I don’t think your sister is here. I’m pretty sure Donny picked her up about an hour ago for a meeting.”
I don’t do much to hide my cringe as I look at the receptionist in the main lobby of Montgomery Industries. “Call me Ellie. And no. I have a meeting with Easton Barrett.”
“Oh, I see.” She bites her lip in a way I can tell she’s heard about my arrest last week. Who hasn’t? It was all over the news. I mean, my parents saw it on Twitter while roaming the countryside of Spain and I had to deal with their wrath over the phone. “Should I call him or do you know where to go?”
Not wanting to make small-talk with anyone, I sign the visitors log and don’t bother showing her my ID. “I know where to go. Thanks.”
I rush through security, anxious to escape judgy eyes. Not that I don’t already stick out like a sore thumb. I might as well be an Old Navy clearance rack stuck right in the middle of the Saks Fifth Avenue couture department. My short, cotton sundress falls off one shoulder, and just for a bit of self-confidence, I’m wearing my tallest wedge sandals. My hair is loose and unruly, and the million bangles on my left arm jingle as I walk even though I’m the least jolly person in the building.
Robert hated when I dressed like this so, of course, I filled my closet to the brim with everything a sophomore in high school—or a beach bum—would wear. In the end, it brought me great happiness to piss him off since he basically ignored me anyway. I stopped going to his business events and committed myself to more charity functions and always attended alone. I was generous with his money at the end of every event. The more he ignored me, the bigger the checks I wrote. When he tried to put a stop to my Robin Hood ways, I informed him I’d tell everyone he couldn’t afford a donation, that my poor husband had fallen onto hard times at work and was demoted or, worse yet, let go. His ego was just big enough that he gritted his teeth and knew he had no recourse if he didn’t want me to start rumors about his smug, selfish ass.
Was it immature? Maybe. But he deserved everything I could do to manage to bring him low.
I always paid for it when I got home. He’d yell the house down, threatening me to the ends of the earth and back. Robert never actually laid a finger on me, but he sure let me know he could, and would, if he knew he could get away with it.
Which is why it never bothered me that he ignored Griffin. I didn’t want him anywhere near my son.
I step off the elevator and try to calm my beating heart. I stop in front of a middle-aged woman sitting in front of an office with Trig’s given name on the door behind her. “I’m here to see Easton.”
She gives me a warm smile. “Ellie. He’s got you on his calendar. Can I get you a drink?”
I shake my head. “I’m good, thank you.”
A deep baritone clearing its throat cuts through our space and my head pops up. Trig is standing in the threshold to his office with his icy blues focused on me. It’s not lost on me my dress matches the shade of those beautiful eyes I was once obsessed with.
Who am I kidding? I’m here when I know I shouldn’t be, wearing a damn dress that shows too much skin for the corporate world only because it made me think of him this morning.
“She’ll take a cup of hot tea, decaf. Thanks, Jessica,” Trig says without looking away from me. He’s never gotten me a cup of tea before the other day at his mom’s house. I have no idea how he knows what I drink and I’m just going to choose to not care.
Jessica smiles and stands. “Can I get you anything, Easton?”
