I expected him to start typing back, but it didn’t happen. I expected him to be relieved or even tell me that he figured something like that might have occurred. But, there was nothing. I sent my message, I saw the little D change to an R, telling me he had read the text, but then, nothing happened.
No little dots bounced.
No message came through.
It was as if he read the message and decided it wasn’t worth a response.
Maybe I shouldn’t have told him.
“Look, Miss Eva! Look!”
Asia’s voice pulled my eyes to her paper, and I saw what appeared to be a beautiful sunset. The bottom half of the page was blue, and there were little hills at the top that almost looked like waves. And the top half of the paper had a massive yellow ball up at the corner with pinks and purples and blues streaking across the sky.
“It’s beautiful. I love it,” I said.
She looked up at me with a smile. “You can have it if you want.”
I smiled. “I’ll put it front and center on my refrigerator at home.”
Her eyes grew determined. “Well, in that case, let me add some fishes and my name. Painters always sign their names to stuff.”
I giggled. “Sounds like a plan, pretty girl.”
But as the day passed on, bleeding into another dinner Asia and I planned together, I never got a response from Gavin. Not a phone call, or an email, or even a text message, letting me know what time he’d be home. And it made me wonder if I had ruined everything between us in one sweeping text message.
11
Gavin
The second I read Eva’s message, I had to put my phone down. Anger, unlike anything I had ever experienced, pooled in my gut, and I had to leave Jorge’s set in order to get some fresh air. I burst through the security guards just outside the door and heard people scrambling to get their cameras. I slipped into a darkened alcove before one of the bodyguards stood in front of me, blocking the flashing of cameras and muting the onslaught of questions as people tried to pry quotes from my dying lips.
Why on God’s great green earth would Marissa lie about something so stupid?
Did she not feel she had enough control over my life? Did she want to feel more powerful? More in tune with Asia’s life? Well, she needed to be around to have those privileges, for starters. But what did I know? I was simply “the man who knocked her up.”
“Gavin out here?” Jorge exclaimed.
I sighed as his voice resonated in my ears. “Yeah, I’m out here.”
He pushed his way through the security guards. “You want to get back inside so my set can no longer be a madhouse? They love you, you know.”
I scoffed. “Wish Marissa loved her daughter as much.”
He gripped my arm. “Let’s get you inside before the wrong set of ears hears that shit.”
Jorge dragged me back inside before promptly dismissing the set for a late lunch. But, I knew he wasn’t finished with me yet. He kept pulling me across the damned place until we were behind his office door. And after yelling at his assistant to get us both some lunch, he closed us in.
“All right, spill. What did she do now?”
I snickered as Jorge turned to face me. “That obvious?”
“It’s always obvious when she does something. What did Marissa do now?”
I shook my head slowly. “Well, you know she fired Camila, right?”
He blinked. “Right.”
I raked my hands through my hair. “According to Eva, who heard it from Camila’s aunt, she didn’t get fired. Camila quit because she’s pregnant.”
