Page 98 of Feel It in the Air

26

MARGEAUX

I’m prettysure when Keith Urban wrote “Tonight I Wanna Cry” he was thinking about an actual breakup. Not being suspended from your job.

Oh, wait, sorry, administrative leave.

Either way, the pity party the Aussie had in mind was not me sitting on my couch in the rattiest sweats I own, half-eaten pint of Ben & Jerry’s in hand, playing his song on repeat, lamenting the consequences of my own actions.

Doesn’t stop me from hitting repeat again though.

My anger has mellowed, soothed by ice cream and frozen cherry chunks, but hasn’t dissipated completely. More than anything, I’m pissed at myself. For letting myself get here. For risking it all.

All of it.

Four years of undergrad, my executive MBA, my JD. Years with Sulonen. Time abroad. Nights. Weekends. Overtime. Hours and hours of hard work. Sleepless nights thinking about how to solve the issue at hand. All flushed down the drain.

Over a man.

This is not who I am. Not who I ever set out to be. How I got so off course…well, doesn’t matter now, because here I am.

My entire career hanging on by a fraying thread.

My phone rattles against the glass top of my coffee table, the grating sound cutting over Keith’s soothing laments. Instinctively I reach over to ignore the call and make the harsh, jarring noise stop, but then I see the name flashing on my screen.

Dexter Wynn.

Sitting up, I straighten myself up enough so that I don’t sound like Pity-Party Barbie when I answer. Responding to his text with an actual phone call and more than just a thumbs-up was on my to-do list. Just not today’s. I figured I’d do that once I’d worked through some of these feelings. And this pint of Cherry Garcia.

Calling him was Monday Margeaux’s item.

Apparently it’s a now Margeaux item.

“Dexter,” I answer, faking all the confidence in the world. “Bold of you to assume that I don’t have plans on a Friday night.”

“If I know my star, you’re still in the office, arming yourself to the teeth with some knowledge to continue to kick ass and take names,” Dexter’s voice booms through the phone. I smile, the image filling my mind of the impeccably dressed lawyer easing back in his chair.

If you took Terry Crews and gave him a deep Southern drawl, tempered by thirty-plus years in LA, and then made him a sharpshooting West Coast lawyer, you'd have Dexter Wynn.

My star…

Le sigh…if only I was still his star. I bet anything he wouldn’t think that if he knew about today. About what I’d been doing these last couple of months.

Oh shit.

Does he know?

My pulse skitters as the realization sinks in. I don’t know exactly what he does and doesn’t know. Percy could have told him anything.

Time for a fishing expedition.

“I’m at home, actually.”

“Well, look at that. Maybe someone is learning something about work-life balance.”

Ha! If you only knew, Dexter…

“I got your text,” I tell him, ignoring the unspoken invitation to expound. You can take the man out of the South, but you can’t take the South out of the man. “I figured I’d call you first thing Monday.”