Page 80 of Not Mine to Rescue

There was a second or two of a pause. I felt the resignation in his voice hit the back of my chest like a fist. “I did.”

“I’m sorry?” I offered.

This time the wait was a bit longer. Molly twisted so I’d reach a better spot to scratch.

“Are you?”

Oh god. “I… it’s been a bit of a hassle at work.”

His breath hit the microphone as he blew it out. “My fault.”

“No, mine,” I quickly countered.

He snorted. “Honor.” There was reproach in that word.

“It is. I should have let them know sooner and it wouldn’t have been such an issue. My own insecurities caused the problems with the account and they had to tell Walt, and⁠—”

“Yeah, about that.”

“I saw he went straight to you that day.”

Wombat paused again. “What did he say to you?”

“Just greeted me, said, nice day isn’t it? But it wasn’t. It was cold and rainy. What’s up with that?”

“He was in a snit. I’m glad he didn’t insult you. Then again, talking weather? That’s his way of pushing you away.”

Oh. Interesting insight. I logged it for any future encounters. “He’s mad at me?”

“He’s mad at everything he can’t control.”

“Sounds like Jim.”

The noise Wombat made wasn’t pretty. I laughed because I felt the same way. “The partners called him into a meeting yesterday.”

“How’d it go?”

The partners wouldn’t let him talk about the change in lead. “Terribly. He’s angry. And, he may have mentioned a comment or two about retaliation due to his paternity leave.”

“That’s valid. He takes off work, loses a big client to the lawyer who took up the slack. He might even have a claim.”

“Except for the fact that he can’t be impartial when it comes to you,” Wombat said.

“Impartial or not, we have to take steps to avoid this kind of drama.” We were getting somewhere now. I shouldn’t stop. I should tell him everything I’d been ruminating over for the last week and a half. But he interrupted me first.

“We, who? Your firm or us?”

“Us. Since we know Jim has a problem with you, we’ll avoid it.”

He used one word like a hammer. “How?”

“You know…” Did I have to spell it out?

It took him so long to reply, I checked to see if he’d hung up on me.

Eventually, he shifted tactics. “Honor, you and I both know I don’t have anything to offer you.”

“That’s bullshit. You are kind, considerate, great at listening and even better at giving grounded, sensible advice. You take your time with me, and that’s…” God, it was everything. “Jim never did that. I mean, okay, when we dated, sure he was all those things. But once we got married, he changed. It seemed like he didn’t want to pay attention to me anymore.” And he certainly didn’t go out of his way to call or text me twenty times in one week. Well, a week and a half.