Page 51 of Indigo

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INDIGO

“YOU GOT IT, BOSS,”I say to Jagger as he calls out instructions from the front door before letting it close behind him.

After taking a sip of my now lukewarm coffee, I scroll through the schedule for today.

Mr Green should be here within the next few minutes to collect his car, and then Mr Vance should drop his off shortly after. Right. Easy.

My phone dings on the desk beside my keyboard, and I try to inconspicuously open the message, not wanting a customer to spot me looking on their way in.

As usual, there's one from Michael. His messages have become less consistent, thankfully, but the malice included in each one increases the longer I remain silent. Should I have blocked him by now? Yes. But part of me needs to know what he’s doing, and thinking, scared that he’s going to rock up one day and burn my new life to the ground.

I delete the message, trying not to linger on his hateful words before they disappear and open the one from Mum.

MUM:Lunch? We’ve got a half day at school today, so I thought I’d drop by and take my favourite daughter out for some food.

She includes about six emojis, all of different foods, and adds an entire line ofx’s.

“Shouldn’t have shown you the emoji’s,” I chuckle under my breath as I reply.

ME:Sounds good, give me an hour?

If we aren’t having lunch together, or coffee after work, she’s popping in first thing in the morning, removing any need to set alarms for myself. I curse the spare key I gave her most mornings, but truthfully, having her around so much has healed something inside me I thought Michael had damaged for good.

The bell above the door rings, making me jump, and I quickly lock my phone and place it strategically under the computer screen and out of sight.

I plaster on a smile, expecting to greet Mr Green, but I’m met with a woman instead.

I maintain my customer service smile as she sways her way toward me. “Good morning. Can I help you?”

“Hi,” she greets me, flicking her onyx coloured hair behind her shoulder. “Is Pax in?”

Popping her hip, giving me the perfect view of how well her tight, dark blue jeans mould to her thighs, she tilts her head toward the hallway, confirming that she knows exactly where his office is.

A pit forms in my stomach and I nod, even though I really don’t want her going back there.

“Uh, yeah,” I reply, trying to remain professional. “Just knock before you go in. He gets a bit grumpy if you don’t.”

She laughs dramatically, as if I just spoke the funniest words she’d ever heard, and shoots me a wink. The wing over her eyeliner is so damn sharp and clean that if I wasn’t so confused about who she was, I’d ask her to teach me how to replicate it. “Don’t worry, I know how to handle him,” she says, thinking I’ll laugh with her, obviously.

I don’t. I just sit there and watch her disappear out of sight, her overwhelming strong vanilla scented perfume lingering in the air.

As her feminine giggle travels down the hall and the sound of Pax’s office door opening and closing hits my ears, I cringe.

My stomach rolls as my mind wanders back to the day I walked in on Michael cheating on me, but I shake my head and try to refocus on the emails that I need to respond to before close of business today. When that doesn’t work, and I find myself rereading line after line to try and make the words sink in, I turn to my trusty pad of paper and begin doodling.

I draw her, and him, and then scratch them out with my pen like a five-year-old, and then turn to flowers, hoping that my usual way of dealing with anxiety will help.

It doesn’t.

“He wouldn’t. They aren’t the same. Pax isn’t like that. We’re together and he’d never do anything to jeopardise that.” I whisper the words aloud, trying to make myself believe them, and then quickly make sure no one is within earshot. Thankfully, I’m alone, and no one is here to witness my complete mental breakdown.

Are we together?

Why haven’t we had an actual conversation about that?

I drop my head into my hands and groan softly, not wanting to alert anyone in the garage to my spiralling. Pax and I have been sleeping together for two weeks. How has this subject not come up? Jesus, does he think we’re just having sex? Would he sleep with someone else while we are what we are?

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