Page 74 of Mr. Fixer Upper
“He didn’t exactly fight her off.”
“Did he kiss her back? Bend her over a saw horse and start going to town?”
“Gross. No to the second. I don’t know about the first.”
“Is it possible that she’s just psycho and trying to make it look like they’re together?”
“Well, that could have been a possibility if I hadn’t seen Gannon physically dragging her into his hotel room like he couldn’t wait to get her naked.”
“Hard to misconstrue that one,” Becca mused.
“Exactly what I said.”
“So you had it out with him?” Becca leaned forward. “You didn’t just go all frosty-Leslie-St.-James on him?”
“I may have had a few drinks and defrosted my ice queen all over him.”
“You didn’t.”
“I tried to kick him in the shins.”
Becca nodded in approval. “Classy and not at all over the top.”
“I kept it classy until he accused me of not trusting him and then told me he loved me.”
Becca, for once, was speechless.
Paige wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Talking about it didn’t make her feel any better.
“Does he?” Becca ventured.
Paige shook her head. “If he loved me, he wouldn’t have kept me as a side piece and humiliated me at work.”
“Does everyone know?”
Paige slumped, sipped. “I don’t know. We were pretty careful, but Andy obviously knew something was going on and felt bad enough about the whole thing that he told my PA that I had a family emergency and sent me home halfway through reveal day.”
“Ouch.”
Paige buried her face in the crook of her elbow. “I let it get in the way of my job. A job I need.”
“Babe, we’ll figure this all out. I promise.”
“I’ve got to get attached to another show like now. I can’t do another season with him, with them.”
Becca shook her head in understanding. “No, you can’t.” She gripped Paige’s hand in hers. “We’re going to figure this out. I promise you, and one day we’re going to look back at this night and laugh about how we didn’t know how awesome things were going to turn out.”
Paige hoped so, but it sounded too optimistic thinking about a time when she wouldn’t feel so damaged.
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Paige wasn’t sleeping when her phone vibrated on the sad, pressboard box she used as a nightstand. She’d held firm and ignored the calls and texts from Gannon after he finished filming, but she was looking at the screen when the text popped up.
We wrapped. Everyone’s out at the bar and I’m laying here thinking about you. You didn’t have to leave.
Maybe it was because it was two in the morning her time. Maybe it was because she still felt like he didn’t get why she was so hurt. Whatever the reason, she picked up her phone.
I wish things hadn’t ended this way. Or that we’d never started.
