“Yeah, we’ll keep him in reserve. But I’m surprised nobody else has used him yet. We wait too long, and all the good shit’s going to be out in the open.” Blackmail material was the only reason to have a big family, as far as I was concerned.
Devin scoffed. “In this family? Not a chance.” I heard what sounded like a car door slamming. “I’m late for a meeting, so I’ve gotta hang up. But when my mother asks if you’re fine, will I be lying if I tell her you’re good?”
Probably.
“No, everything’s starting to work out.” As long as I left out work, my personal life, my finances, and my sanity.
“Alright. Just let me know if you need anything.” He wasn’t going to argue, but it was clear he didn’t believe me.
“You already did more than enough.” Letting me stay on his couch long enough to get my first check, and even putting up with my grumpy ass, was more than I could have asked for.
Not telling my mother how bad things got was enough that I was going to owe him, eventually.
“Just let me know. You can always work with my monsters if you want.”
“No chance in hell.” He laughed at how serious I was. “Helping out sometimes is fine. That’s it, though.”
“I’m hurt.” The laughter made that statement unbelievable.
“Would you want me there all day?”
“Enough said.” The smile in his voice made me almost angry. But his next words pushed me well into insane. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but I think you deserve to know.”
Shit.
“What?”
“He called me.”
There were only two men I referred to as “he.” But in this situation, there was no other “he” it could be. My ex. “Why?”
“I got some line of crap that he missed you and realized how badly he’d treated you.” Devin’s voice said he thought it was a load of shit.
I tried to mentally shrug it off. “I guess all the money is gone.”
Devin didn’t respond to that; he just kept going. “I told him where he could shove his apology and said you weren’t interested. That was what you wanted me to say, right? You didn’t want him back or anything, did you?”
“Hell, no. I’m not that stupid.” I almost smiled at his sigh of relief. “He fucked my entire life up for ten seconds of internet fame.”
Devin just started grumbling, no longer nervous that I’d lose it. “He called the other night around three in the morning or something crazy like that. He’d been drinking and rambled on about how sorry he was.”
“Bullshit. If he’d been that upset it wouldn’t have taken him months and all my money to realize it.” I hadn’t been rich, but I’d been comfortable, with everything in my life planned out.
“Good. I was worried once I woke up completely and realized how fucked up it was that he’d even called.”
“How did he even know to call you?”
“I don’t know, but you might want to be careful with what kind of stuff you put online. Your name and even the business stuff for a while.”
Great. “I can’t stop my life. If he calls, I’ll deal with it. Hopefully, he’s smart enough to know that tracking me would be a bad idea.” In this day and age, no website meant no business, especially for a job like mine.
Devin snorted. “Yeah, understatement of the year. Okay, really got to go this time. Talk to you later.”
Tossing my phone down on the bed, I started stripping off the sweatpants I’d been lounging in and began getting ready. It felt more like I was putting on armor and less like jeans and a nice button-down. But with Eli around, it always felt like I needed one more layer to keep him away.
Not that he’d ever done anything overtly sexual to me specifically. While he hung on the rest of the guys and flirted, no matter what he was wearing, with me he kept his distance physically. I still had to watch everything else he was doing, but it was nothing I could complain about.
Preston, I need you to make Eli stop flirting. Yeah, that would go over well. And it wasn’t like I hadn’t realized how they dealt with each other or the total lack of inhibition, so I couldn’t really complain. It was maddening.
