Page 61 of The Moment We Know

By the time David arrived at Paige’s apartment, his anxiety level was off the charts. The only times he remembered it being higher were when Paige had been having a miscarriage, when he’d walked out on her, and when she’d been knocked unconscious at Bender’s.

When she didn’t answer his first knock, he knocked a little louder, wondering if she was just on the other side of the door, like she’d been the night of their divorce ‘anniversary’ date. “Paige, open the door. We need to talk.”

The door across the hall opened and he didn’t have to look behind him to know it was that barracuda, Mrs. Harte.

“Oh,” she said, her tone full of reproach. “It’s you again. I should’ve known by the amount of noise.”

David ignored her and kept knocking.

“I don’t think she’s home,” Mrs. Harte said. “So there’s no need to break down her door.”

He finally turned to look at her. Tonight, instead of wearing a robe and slippers that looked like she’d bought them out of the 1950 Sears catalog like she had the first time they’d scuffled in this hallway, she was wearing rose colored, velour track pants, with a matching, zip-up, jacket. “Are you sure?”

“That there’s no need to break down her door? Yes.”

“No, that she’s not home.”

“Well, I’m as sure as I can be without x-ray vision. I heard her leave a couple of hours ago and haven’t heard anything since,” Mrs Harte informed him. “And no, I don’t spend my time listening to her comings and goings. The doors here are heavy and make a distinct sound like a bank vault when they close.”

His disappointment was heavy and almost suffocating. He’d been really hoping Paige would be here and with that not the case, his worry intensified. With a deep sigh, he weighed his options and came up with not a whole hell of a lot. She might’ve gone to Jules’s place, but he didn’t know her number or where she lived, so he was basically screwed.

“But that’s not to say she isn’t in her apartment, hiding from you again,” Mrs. Harte continued blandly. “Did you see her car in the parking lot?”

Fuck. In his forty-yard dash across the parking lot, he hadn’t even looked. “No.”

She tilted her head. “Then what makes you think she’s here?”

God, this woman. Weren’t old people supposed to lose their faculties? So why was she so damn sharp, and why was he so damn … stupid? “I didn’t see her car, because I didn’t look,” he admitted, because there was no way around it. “I guess I was in too much of a hurry.”

Mrs. Harte looked him over, and what she saw was apparently not up to her standards because she said, “And apparently in too much of a hurry to run a comb through your hair. Or wash it.”

He reached up and inwardly groaned. Paige’s fingers had made his hair a tangled mess, not to mention quasi-greasy from the coconut oil, which meant he probably looked like someone who lived in their mother’s basement and rarely ventured out. He opened his mouth to say something, only to close it when she walked around him and knocked on Paige’s door.

“Paige, honey, it’s Dolly. Are you in there?” she called through the door.

When there was no reply, she gave David a dismissive look. “She’s clearly not home, so … good night,” she told him pointedly, before starting to walk back to her own apartment.

“Wait,” he said, halting her. “Would you do me a favor?”

“Well, that would obviously depend on what the favor is.”

“Would you please call me if you hear Paige come home?”

She gave him a long, questioning look, as if trying to assess whether his motive was nefarious or not. “Why?”

David needed this woman’s help, and if he had to dilute the truth to get it, then so be it. “We had a sort of, um, misunderstanding earlier tonight, and—”

“What kind of misunderstanding?”

Obviously telling Mrs. Harte that he’d been left handcuffed to a bed after sex had gone awry was out of the question. “It wasn’t anything bad,” he hastily told her.

“It wasn’t ‘anything bad’, hmm?” Instead of looking placated, she looked like she was seconds away from calling the National Guard on his ass. “I was a grade school teacher for thirty-five years, and I know when I’m being lied to. Try again.”

For a ridiculous moment, he tried to picture her teaching young children and couldn’t do it. “I’m not lying to you,” he said, really hoping he was telling the truth. “It was just a minor misunderstanding, and I need to talk to her and get it straightened out.”

“So, now it’s a ‘minor’ misunderstanding?”

“Yes.”

---