Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (122 page)

“Please,” I said, opening my eyes and
meeting Zeke’s gaze. “Please pay attention to the feedback I’m giving you.” I
breathed in deeply again and felt myself calm down—just a little bit, but
enough to keep from flying off the handle once more. “I know I’m being really
tough on you right now, but the basic point I’m making is a valid one. You need
to pay better attention to the person you’re speaking to. You need to learn
when to focus on what
they
want to
talk to.”

“Okay,” he said, stepping back from me
slightly. “I’m sorry I offended you.”

I sighed. “You didn’t offend me,” I told
him, shaking my head. I swallowed against the bitter taste in the back of my
throat and forced myself to stay on task. “You frustrated me a little bit, but
I might also still be… a little bit sensitive after the whole thing with Nathan
Giles.” I knew for a fact that that wasn’t the reason I’d blown up at Zeke, but
I couldn’t tell him the real reason; I could barely admit to myself the fact
that my feelings had taken over. “I think—as much as I hate it—I should
probably go home, call it a night.”

“Why don’t you let me buy you a drink? We
can call the game in your favor, and sit and calm down for a bit,” Zeke
suggested. “We’ll collect some prizes, talk about other things, and you can go home
to Brady and get some rest once you’re nice and relaxed.” The thought of having
a drink with Zeke—of talking like just two people, not as client and coach, not
fighting—was tempting, I had to admit. But I knew that he wouldn’t be able to
keep from mentioning Brigitte at least a few more times, and I knew that it
would only continue to irritate me, even if I shouldn’t let it.

“Really, I think it’s probably best for
both of us if I just go home,” I said. “I’ve been off of the pain pills for
most of the day, and my knee and wrist are still pretty out of whack. I think
I’m going to go home, take half a pill, and see if the babysitter will stay for
another hour while I nap.”

“Are you sure? I could call you a cab, or
something like that,” Zeke said.

“That’d just mean I’d have to take a cab
back here tomorrow to pick my car up,” I pointed out. “I apologize for blowing
up at you—I shouldn’t have let myself get so irritable.” I collected my golf
ball from where it had landed near the hole. “I really do think that it’s best
if I just go home and rest up a bit.”

“Okay,” he said, still looking more than a
little worried. “Please text me to let me know you arrived home safely.”

“I can do that,” I said. It was actually a
pretty kind precaution on his part. We went back to the front of the mini-golf
place and turned in our balls and clubs, and I limped into the parking lot,
feeling thoroughly sorry for and ashamed of myself. I could feel Zeke watching
me as I made my way to my car, and I unlocked the door and climbed in as
quickly as possible, wanting to put as much distance between myself and the
disaster of a session as I could as quickly as possible.

I pulled out of the parking spot I’d
taken, shaking my head at my own outburst. How had I let myself get so
irritated, so consumed with petty jealousy that I lashed out at a client over
what was perfectly understandable excitement?
Zeke’s probably mostly thrilled that he could even have a successful
date with someone,
I pointed out to myself as I started for home.
For someone in his position, who gave up on
dating a long time ago because it never seemed to go anywhere, the night out
with Brigitte would be a revelation.

I pushed that thought aside, the other
part of my mind countering that even if I excused his enthusiasm, the fact that
he had basically refused to pay attention to the cues I was giving him was
testament to his self-absorption. I had tried to change the subject at least
four or five times, and every single time, he had managed to turn the
conversation back onto the woman he had gone on a single date with. He was
completely wrapped up in the fact that Brigitte—an ambitious, career-oriented
woman with no kids who was somehow exciting to him—had accepted his offer of a
date that he hadn’t even cared whether or not I wanted to keep talking about
it.

But then, I countered myself again. I
could have changed the subject more directly; I could have told Zeke that I
didn’t want to talk about his date long before I became so irritated at his
continued insistence on that topic that I blew up at him. I could have been
proactive. But I had been obsessed with making sure that I wasn’t obviously
reacting for my feelings towards him—conflicted and confusing as they were—that
I had tried to keep myself from saying anything at all at the risk of making it
seem like I was being petty and jealous.
And,
considering how I blew up at him, that worked out
super
well,
I thought sarcastically. I had potentially screwed up my
working relationship with Zeke because I hadn’t been able to bring myself to
deal with what he was doing.

I did give myself a certain amount of
leeway for the fact that I was still in more than a tiny bit of pain from the
assault I’d been subject to at Nathan Giles’ hands a week before, but I knew
without even having to question it that the greater part of my issue was my
feelings towards Zeke. If I couldn’t even handle him being excited about a
single first date with someone I didn’t even know and had never even heard of
until he mentioned her, how was I going to deal with the feedback and
discussion of dates that he would have in weeks or months to come? When Katie
finally started pairing him up with women that she’d decided would be
compatible with him, how was I going to keep my professional distance, if I
couldn’t make myself stay professional with one date?

As I pulled up to my apartment building’s
entrance, I thought to myself that I was an idiot. I shook my head, grateful
that things hadn’t gotten uglier than they had, but also certain that I’d hear
from Katie in a matter of days. She’d tell me that Zeke had complained about
me, and I’d end up telling her the whole story. I might even get fired for my
trouble. As I found my assigned parking spot, I thought that if I wanted to
save my job, I should probably go to Katie at the first opportunity and ask to
be reassigned, or at least taken off of Zeke’s case. I clearly couldn’t deal
with him continuing on in the program.

Chapter
Twenty Eight

Zeke

I stretched against the tightness in my
neck and shoulders, glancing at the screen of my phone; I was supposed to be
home an hour ago, but I’d stayed late at work. It had been the third time in a
week that I’d decided to do that, and I was starting to run out of reasons to
do it.
Just text her. See if she feels
like talking. What’s the worst that could happen?

I hadn’t seen Natalie in a little over two
weeks, since she’d blown up at me at the mini-golf place. Katie had asked me a
week before if I was still interested in continuing my coaching sessions—and
she hadn’t mentioned anything about Natalie dropping me as a client—but I
hadn’t been able to give her a real answer. The truth was that I wasn’t sure
whether I wanted to keep going or not. I knew that I wanted to see Natalie
again, but I didn’t quite trust my reasons.

I sighed. Nothing was going to solve the
problem until I talked to Natalie again; I was being a coward not to at least
see if she wanted to keep me as a client, work with me the way that she had for
weeks before the incident between us.
You’ve
taken a long enough break. You can get in touch.
I looked at my phone again
and started to reach out to grab it, but stopped. If Natalie had wanted to get
in touch with me, wouldn’t she have done it by now?

This
is bullshit. Just text her.
I picked up my phone and unlocked
the screen, thinking about what I should say. After a moment, I opened up the
message thread with her and started typing.
Hey!
I hope you’re fully recovered from that incident with what’s-his-face. How have
you been?
I tapped send and set my phone aside, turning my attention back
onto my computer. I would do a little work, wait and see if she replied, and
then I’d go home.

A few minutes later, my phone vibrated and
I snatched it up, unlocking the screen again.
I’m feeling much better! Sorry I haven’t been in touch.
I thought
about it—did I really want to call Natalie? She hadn’t given me much of an
opening. I texted her back, asking if she was free to talk on the phone.
I have probably about fifteen minutes before
I need to leave and pick Brady up from his grandparents’ house.
Fifteen
minutes was good. We couldn’t possibly say anything that would make matters
worse between us in fifteen minutes.

I called her. “Hey,” I said, as soon as I
heard the line connect.

“How have you been?” I considered the
question.

“Mostly good,” I told her. I pressed my
lips together.
Might as well come out
with it.
“Things pretty thoroughly fizzled out with Brigitte,” I admitted.

“That sucks. What happened?” I smiled
wryly to myself. I might be willing to be honest with Natalie about the fact
that things hadn’t worked out with Brigitte, but I wasn’t quite willing to
admit why.

“Just didn’t seem to work out. We had a
second date, and it never went anywhere else from there.” I shrugged, even
though I knew she couldn’t see me. “I guess I still have a lot to learn from
you.” She chuckled.

“Well, it may not have been anything I
could have helped—keep that in mind,” she said.

“That’s true,” I agreed. The real reason
that things hadn’t worked out with Brigitte was that I couldn’t seem to find
her as interesting as I’d hoped. Our first date had gone so well. I was so
excited to have dinner with her, and everything she had told me about her life
had seemed intriguing. But on our second date, in spite of the fact that she
had looked great and been just as talkative as she had the first time, I just
couldn’t quite get into it. Compared to Natalie, I wasn’t sure anyone else
could be interesting enough.
Definitely,
after that outburst, she qualifies as interesting.
“I wanted to ask…are you
still willing to work with me? I got a call from Katie the other day and I
didn’t know… I mean, after the thing that happened between us, I wasn’t sure.”

“I’m sorry for that,” Natalie said. “I shouldn’t
have blown up on you that way, and I’ve spent the past two weeks feeling really
ashamed of myself for doing it.”

“You were right, though,” I pointed out.
“I wasn’t paying attention to the cues you were giving me and just talking over
you. I should have been more considerate.” It had taken me two days to come to
that conclusion. At first, I had been baffled, and then I had been angry, and
finally, I had accepted that while Natalie hadn’t gone about it the best way,
she had had a point.

“I should have handled it better,” she
insisted. “I think I was mostly just shaken up still from the attack.”

“How are you feeling now?” There was a
brief pause and I wondered—again—if Natalie had said something to Katie about
what had happened between us.

“I’m pretty much recovered, both mentally
and physically,” Natalie replied.

“Do you think that you’d be willing to go
on another practice date? Get back into the swing of things?” My heart beat
faster in my chest at the possibility that she might say no.

“I think… When did you want to meet up?” I
opened up my calendar on my computer; Trevor kept it updated throughout the
day, so it was pretty reliable.

“We could maybe do lunch? I’m pretty
booked up tomorrow and the next day, but I could do Thursday or Friday.”

“I can do lunch,” she agreed. Her voice
sounded more than a little doubtful, but the fact that she was willing to even
entertain the idea of meeting with me was at least something.

“Let’s say lunch on Thursday?” I tried not
to hold my breath.

“I’ll add it to my calendar,” she said,
and I thought—I hoped—I could hear her smiling, at least a little bit. I stayed
on the phone for a few more minutes, asking about Brady, about the dates that
Natalie had been on with other clients since we had parted ways, and then she
reminded me that she had to pick her son up from his grandparents’. I let her
go.

As soon as I set my phone down once more,
I felt relieved. I had no idea where things would go between Natalie and me
once we met for lunch, but the fact that she’d been willing to meet with me
again had to be a positive. I decided to go ahead and go home. I had only
stayed behind at work because I didn’t want to sit around at home, by myself,
being pathetic. But now that I had something to look forward to—even if it was
just a practice date with a woman who didn’t want to become my girlfriend—I
didn’t particularly feel like giving myself make-work to get done just to avoid
my own apartment.

I shut everything down and headed out of
the office and down to the garage, thinking about how things had gone with
Natalie.
At least you know that she
probably didn’t say anything to Katie about what happened,
I thought, as I
got out of the elevator and headed to the exit.
That has to be something good.

I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that
Natalie hadn’t just been irritated at the fact that I was talking over her and
obsessively bringing the conversation around to Brigitte. There was something
about the situation that made me think that maybe—just maybe—Natalie had some
kind of feelings towards me, even if she didn’t want to.