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“Who’re you here to spy on this time?” The Douche asked as I entered his office, not even bothering to rise from his desk.
“What?” I asked, confused not only by his question, but by his demeanor.
“C’mon, Delilah, give me a break … I know you think I’m a jerk, but do you really think I’m stupid enough not to know what you’re doing?”
“What am I doing?” I asked, trying to give attitude to cover up the fact that he’d thrown me.
“Working with that PI, sneaking around and taking pictures of people to get them in trouble,” he answered calmly, his hands together on his desktop.
“How do you know?” I asked, no longer playing coy.
“I’ve heard chatter. About people getting caught cheating and stuff, then I noticed you slinking around by a motel one day when I was driving home. But when you came in here the other day, finally ready to give me the opportunity to explain myself … Well, that confirmed it for me. I saw you run out as soon as Tracey left on her break.”
I mentally kicked myself for not being a better actress, then felt the need to assure him, “The kids don’t know. No one really does, at least, I thought no one did … I guess I wasn’t being as discreet as I thought.”
“So, what are you doing? Working as a PI with that jackass Moose?”
“No, I’m an Investigative Photographer,” I made that up off the top of my head, and really liked the way it sounded. “Moose does the PI work and deals with clients, I just take the pictures.”
“Sounds like it could be dangerous.”
“It’s not, I swear,” I assured him, then wondered why I was defending myself, when I’d come there to confront him. “Anyway, that’s not why I’m here.”
“Oh? You aren’t here to spy on Tracey again?”
I looked through the glass of his office at the woman who was back in her spot at the desk, then back at him.
“No, not today. I’m here because Elena had a talk with me last night. She wanted me to know that you introduced them to your girlfriend, who is, apparently, moving in with you.”
The Douche crossed his arms over his chest, the defensive gesture he always went to whenever I brought up something he didn’t want to discuss.
“Okay…” he muttered warily.
“I thought we agreed to talk about it before we introduced the kids to anyone special in our lives.”
He sighed and admitted, “You’re right, we did … And I meant to talk to you about it. But then you came in last week and things didn’t go so well, and I never got around to it. I’d talked to Mary about pushing back our plans to tell the kids, but she’d already put in notice on her rental, so we couldn’t really do that?”
“Why didn’t you call or shoot me a text … something?” I argued, then what he’d said penetrated. “Mary?”
“Yeah, Mary,” he replied, his arm waving out toward the office a few feet away, where Mary, one of the loan officers that he’d worked with for the past ten years sat. “Didn’t the kids say?”
I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.
Mary? Did that mean Slutty Shirley Finkle wasn’t the one-time deal I’d thought? Had he cheated before? Had he been cheating on me for years? Mary’d been to our house. I’d invited her over for holidays and family gatherings, worried that she’d be alone if I didn’t … Had I been made a fool this whole time?
Some of what I was thinking must have been conveyed on my face, because The Douche held up his hands.
“No, no, no, Lila, it’s not what you’re thinking … Mary and I were never together before. We’ve only been seeing each other for six months.”
“And you’re already moving in together?” I asked, not ready to believe him.
He ran a hand over his face and looked over at Mary, who was watching us through the glass, a worried expression on her face.
I tried to ignore the fact that we were on display, and kept my attention on my ex-husband.
“It may seem like it happened quickly, but we’ve known each other for so long … just as friends … so the relationship felt like it started in the middle, you know? I swear, nothing ever happened before, Mary will vouch for that, and you know she’s a good woman.”
He was right, I did know that, but still … I fel
