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Jay turned to find Gareth standing in the doorway of his office. “Yep. Just hoping that Misha and her mom settle in well here so that they’ll stick around.”
“I hear you,” Gareth said with a nod. “She seems like she could be a real asset to the clinic.”
Jay wondered if the death of Ciara’s father might have been part of the reason they’d come, hoping for a fresh start. There was something about the way Misha had revealed the information that made him want more details. However, he wasn’t going to pry.
The professional and personal lines were easily blurred, with their family tending to treat employees at the clinic like family, but he didn’t feel it was the time yet to ask more personal questions. Her prior relationships and who Ciara’s father might have been had no bearing on her work at the clinic.
That didn’t mean that he couldn’t be curious. And he was, but for the time being, Jay wouldn’t do anything about satisfying his curiosity.
Janessa came to let Gareth know he had a patient waiting for him in one of the exam rooms, so Jay headed back to his office. He needed to get Misha set up in their payroll system to make sure there was no delay in her getting paid.
Before he started on that, though, he pulled his phone back out of the drawer. He hoped that he’d have a message from Casey saying that she understood and would back off.
Casey:Don’t be like that, babe. We’ve always been so good together. I made a mistake in agreeing that we were breaking up for good. I still love you. Please, let’s try again. I’ll even move back if you’ll reconsider.
Jay frowned at her last sentence. Move back? She’d been absolutely adamant that moving away from Serenity was the only way she’d achieve the goals she had for her law career. The advancements she wanted hadn’t been available to her there.
None of it changed his mind, however. A year ago, he would have jumped at the chance to rekindle things with her, but not anymore. He’d finally realized that their constant on and off relationship wasn’t healthy. How would that work if they got married? If they couldn’t manage to keep a serious relationship going, a marriage between them was destined to fail.
Casey hadn’t seen the same issues he had when he’d tried to bring them up, which had been the beginning of the end for hisemotional involvement with her. He knew that she’d dated other guys while on a “break” from him, just like he’d dated other women, trying to move on from her, but he didn’t want that anymore.
If someone needed a break from him as frequently as Casey had, they weren’t right for each other. And after Will had pointed out that Casey treated him like a back-up plan, Jay had come to see the emotional manipulation that was at work.
Rather than respond to Casey, Jay did as he’d promised and went about blocking her number. He knew it wouldn’t keep her from reaching out to him using a friend’s phone, but he was done responding. After doing that, he went to each of the social media platforms and blocked her there, too.
Done. Done. Done.
When she was officially blocked, Jay felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He didn’t have to delete any pictures of them from his social media or his phone as he’d done that after their last breakup. And there had been plenty of pictures to delete. Casey had been the queen of selfies. All of which she’d sent on to him.
Blowing out a long breath, he opened another text window and tapped out a message.
You’ll be happy to know that I’ve officially blocked Casey and will no longer be responding to her.
Will:About time, man! Good for you! Now we can be single together.
Jay frowned.Did she officially break up with you?
Will:No. But she hasn’t replied to the last text I sent her two days ago.
That made Jay wince. Yeah, that wasn’t a good sign.
Sorry, bud.
There wasn’t much more he could say after that. He really felt for his friend and wished there was something more he could do for him.
When Will didn’t reply, Jay set his phone aside and got back to work.
“Want to come for dinner?” Janessa asked when she poked her head into Jay’s office the next day. “Misha’s mom is cooking.”
“Really?”
“Yep. She offered to make dinner for us tonight.”
“That was nice of her,” Jay said.
“Definitely,” Janessa agreed. “So will you come?”
Jay thought about his plans for the evening, which weren’t of any real consequence. Just doing some housework and maybe working out for a bit.
