Page 111 of The Moment We Know

David glanced at her over his shoulder. “You do?”

She nodded.

“Well maybe I’ll have to cut my beard way back,” he told her, before checking his newly trimmed beard for any uneven spots. Once he was satisfied, he turned around and motioned for her to come over to him, which she did, stepping into the circle of his arms. He took her face in his hands and kissed her, just as the sound of someone knocking at the loft’s door echoed like gunshots down to the bathroom, startling them both.

“Oh, my God,” Paige blurted out. “Is that … could that be Ashley and Jacob already?”

“It can’t be,” David said, leading the way into the bedroom to grab his phone and check messages. “It’s way too—oh, shit it is them. She texted fifteen minutes ago to say they were on their way. Fuck.”

Paige’s eyes widened in horror as she looked them both over. Dressed only in panties and David’s Barenaked Ladies concert T-shirt, with sleep-tousled hair, and no make-up, she was a complete train wreck, while David, wearing only his gray sweats with the hole in the knee and matching sleep-tousled hair, looked only marginally better.

Neither of them had showered yet, and they both probably smelled like sex.

“Why don’t you hang back until she’s gone,” David suggested.

Before she could respond, a second round of knocking—this time louder—had David abruptly pulling the Barenaked Ladies concert T-shirt off of Paige (destroying her hair even more) and putting it on himself, before dashing out of the room and down the hall to answer the door.

Left alone and basically naked, Paige thought about staying back because of the optics, but then decided against it. For one, she couldn’t really hide from Jacob, and two, she wasn’t going to hide from Ashley.

Galvanized into action, Paige quickly found her bra on the bedroom floor and put it on, followed by a clean shirt from her overnight duffel bag and a pair of leggings, hopping a little in the process. She then took a few moments to finger-comb her hair into some semblance of order, and when she was satisfied that she looked somewhat presentable, she left the bedroom and headed down the hallway toward the sound of voices.

As she approached the trio in the entryway, the first thing Paige noticed was the absolute lack of any warmth between Ashley and David, who seemed to be in the beginning stages of a contentious conversation.

Paige stopped midway down the hall, unsure if she was going to be interrupting something she shouldn’t, just in time to hear David ask Ashley, “Has he had a nap at all today?”

“No,” Ashley answered, dropping Jacob’s backpack on the floor with a loud thump.

David gave her a look of disgust as he held Jacob against one hip and rubbed his back in soothing circles. “Why not? It’s the middle of the afternoon, and he looks exhausted.”

“We were at the park, David,” she snapped back. “There was no place to nap.”

“You should’ve taken him to the park earlier. Like in the morning. Jesus, we’ve talked about this—”

“Well, I had things to do in the morning, so I couldn’t, all right? We went when I had time. And anyway, he said he wasn’t tired before we left.”

Paige shifted her attention away from Ashley to Jacob, who was now resting his head on David’s shoulder, looking directly at Paige. She raised a hand in a small wave and gave him a soft smile to hide the utter shock she felt at the marked difference between this boy and the one she’d met a few days ago. That boy had been a little shy, but this one was wilted and withdrawn. His eyes were dull, with dark circles underneath, and his face was a little splotchy, like he’d been crying.

He raised the fingers on one hand in the tiniest of return waves, but didn’t return her smile.

“I’m going to put him down for a nap,” he told Ashley. “I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t go anywhere.”

His expression troubled, David turned and started down the hall. After the two of them passed Paige and disappeared into Jacob’s room, Ashley caught sight of Paige for the first time and exhaled a long sigh of disgust. “Ah, there you are,” she muttered, taking in Paige’s controlled disarray. “Now my shit weekend is complete.”

Hearing the woman describe a weekend with her child as ‘shit’ had Paige’s spine stiffening in anger. “Ashley, I want you to know, if I ever hear you refer to a weekend with your child as ‘shit’ again, I’m going to knock you on your ass,” Paige said, keeping her tone conversational, as if she was shooting the breeze with a friend, and not someone she wanted to throw down an elevator shaft.

Ashley narrowed her eyes. “This isn’t any of your business, so stay the fuck out of it.”

“Well, since David and I are together again, I’m making it my business.”

“Unbelievable,” Ashley muttered. “Just. Fucking. Unbelievable.”

“And don’t, for one second, make the mistake of thinking I’m bluffing, because this—” Paige pointed to her own face, “—is my I’m not fucking around face. I’ll knock you on your ass and not even blink. I do owe you one, after all.”

Just then, David came down the hallway and saw the two women glaring at each other. “What’s going on?”

“Ashley was just saying what a shit weekend she had,” Paige replied. “And I was just saying how much I didn’t like hearing that.”

David knew a condensed version when he heard one, but decided finding out the rest could wait until later. “I think Jacob’s the one who had a shit weekend,” he said to Ashley. “He looks like he has PTSD, for Christ’s sake. What happened?”

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