Lucille would die if she saw this.
Carter had never texted, nor had he emailed. Nor did he attempt to reach out in any other way. She did get about fifty-seven emails from Jennifer regarding Noah’s case after Perdie sent her notes along. And wasn’t it going to be so much fun following up on all that work.
She meandered into her bedroom and stared at herself in the vanity mirror next to her dresser.
Her mouth was wrought in a tight line, her skin sallow, hair half out of a ponytail, and she was wearing a ratty sweatshirt that Lucille’s father had given her ten years earlier. Knox Family Christmas it read with a now peeling, ironed-on picture of the then family dog Oscar wearing a Santa hat. The Knoxes were nothing if not dog people.
After a soft knock on her door, Lucille peeked inside. “Hello, my lovely little blue jay. How are we feeling this morning?”
Perdie pointed to her face. “As I look.”
Lucille inched into the room, tightening her canary-yellow robe around her waist. “So, now is probably a bad time to tell you that I have to drive home for Christmas. I was planning on leaving Friday. They asked if you were coming.”
Perdie rocked back in her chair. “Too much on my plate right now. As much as I want another Knox Family Christmas sweatshirt.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll bring one back. My dad already had it made for you.” Lucille toyed with a glass container of perfume on Perdie’s vanity. “Also, I asked Noah to come.”
Perdie raised a brow. “Thought you were hopping out of the dating pool.”
“As friends. He doesn’t have any family, so...” She lowered her gaze. “And did you see how flippin’ cute he looks out there sleeping with Bananas?”
Perdie pointed a finger at her. “Bananas stays here. Don’t try to haul him away.”
Lucille gave a small smile. “I am a little worried about not being here with you over the holidays. And I don’t feel entirely sure Hampton won’t try to come around...”
Perdie waved a hand. “Eh, we have bigger fish to fry than that.” Although inwardly she was worried about the same things.
Lucille patted Perdie on the shoulder. “Maybe when I return before the New Year, you’ll even let me meet Carter.” She padded out of the room, closing the door behind her.
And the black hole inside Perdie threatened to swallow her up.
Chapter Fifteen
Perdie waited at the entrance of the elevator on the fifth floor counting backwards from ten. She smoothed out the sleeves of her cobalt blue blazer and checked the collar to make sure the tag wasn’t sticking out. In a surge of optimism, she’d donned matching white lace undergarments too.
She had been issued a new firm cell phone that morning. Luckily, not many questions were asked by the IT department as more than a few attorneys had been known for breaking phones in much more nefarious ways. Still, Carter wasn’t returning her texts and was only responding to impersonal business emails.
Perdie silently swore at herself. What did she expect? They worked together, and he was senior to her. The possibility of this kind of awkward scenario had loomed and she’d gone ahead and let her feelings rear their ugly head anyway.
But it was wrong that he would be so avoidant of her under such unfair circumstances. She couldn’t have eschewed standing him up. It wasn’t like she’d planned for an awful ex to show up at her condo and her friend (and client) to step on a rusty nail.
But also she wasn’t exactly blameless for the whole scenario going down either. Her actions had pushed the dominos into motion.
The timing couldn’t have been worse.
At any rate, she was prepared to be the bigger person and apologize which was not typically her MO.
She made her way through the winding hallway and knocked on Carter’s already open door. He was turned partially away, facing his computer screen, in a soft gray button-up. His hair was tousled, like he’d been running his hands through it, a tic of his, and his face was more darkened with stubble than she’d ever seen. Sexy as always, effortlessly, irritatingly so. But more than all that, he appeared tired as hell. A pang of guilt stabbed her sternum, not that she had any reason to believe his tiredness had something to do with her.
She swallowed hard but stepped past the threshold of the door. “Are you avoiding me?”
His gaze flitted from his computer, eyebrows raised, turning in his chair to face her. She resisted the urge to smooth down her hair or straighten her blazer.
She bit her cheek, but after a moment he answered. “Avoiding would be the wrong word.”
The answer lit her up. Perhaps they were falling into old habits quickly and there wasn’t anything else deeper or darker behind Carter’s sudden radio silence. She smiled, setting into a seat in the chair in front of his desk. “What’s the right word?”
He sighed, smoothing his thumb and index finger over his eyebrows. “You know what? I’m not in the mood to play games with you right now.”
Her throat tightened. Words bubbled up and over. “I wasn’t playing games. I swear to god. It was a freak accident, and as soon as I could, I tried to get a hold of you. If you hadn’t ignored me you would know how much I wanted to see you that night. I would never stand you up on purpose.”
He rocked back in his chair and put his hands out like he meant to soothe her. “Okay...okay. It’s okay.” He took a breath, letting his chair drop. “I’m sorry. I was ignoring you, and it wasn’t right. And I agree. Your behavior was reasonable given the situation. Necessary even. It’s just...” He shifted in his chair, considering his words. “You hurt my feelings. I wouldn’t have forgotten about our date until several hours later. That’s so...”
She waited for him to finish as his words trailed off. She couldn’t ignore the heavy pit in her stomach from seeing him this way. She felt bad. Guilty.
He closed his eyes with a slight shake of his head. “It’s more than that. I’m a sensitive person. I’m beginning to feel like a fool chasing you around. And one minute I think it’s exactly what you want from me and then the next minute you’re giving me a totally different message. Been this way since moment go. And at some point, I have to ask myself: Am I the asshole here? Am I pushing you into something beyond your emotional capabilities? Look, I’m not completely ignorant. I know the effect my physical appearance can have on people. I’ve been benefiting from it my whole life. But I don’t want to push you into something because of how I look. I was really trying to...make a real relationship happen between us.”
Perdie’s eyes went wide and a reflexive panic set in her chest. “Whoa, whoa, a relationship? We barely even know each other. I thought we were going on a date. That’s what we agreed to. A date with maybe some extracurriculars afterwards. You can’t pretend like I’m emotionally stunted when I agreed to the terms you yourself laid out.”
He shrugged. “I’m a guy who wants a real connection. But not at the expense of what someone else wants. I can’t be your go-to sex guy. It’s not in my DNA.”
Perdie let out a breath, her eyes closing. “It’s not fair to expect something out of me that I’m not ready to give.”
“That’s why I’m staying away. It’s not the fact that you stood me up that hurts. It’s the fact that you barely even tried to make things better. You could have at least called on Sunday. It might be nice to know that you care...like...a little bit.”
“Are you kidding? You ignored my emails. Ghosting someone is a pretty clear sign that you should leave them alone, and you ghosted on me. I’m not trying to be some kind of stalker.” Perdie was so used to such emotionally stunted men that she couldn’t even call them twice in a row without getting called crazy. And here was Carter, asking her to try a little harder.
“Stalker? You avoid me half the time. Can you blame me if I might need a little more convincing that you really wanted to see me? You pointed it out yourself: I can persuade you with sex or games or whatever else but that’s wrong. I’m not in the business of tricking someone into intimacy. Or at least, I really don’t want to be. And I can’t pretend it’s only sex I want. And you can’t pretend it’s not. I think that has become pretty clear. But bottom line, I wish you’d have fought for this. At least a tiny bit.” He regarded her steadily. “We’re at a stalemate.”
