TEXT ME, CUPID // Episode 1, Scene 9
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT THE FIRST TIME:
CHRISTMAS SUCKS WHEN YOU’RE DIVORCED
Tuesday, December 19
He couldn’t believe it.
He fucking couldn’t believe it!
And by text, too!
He closed his office door. Picked up his landline. Dialled.
“Look, Will, I know this is hard,” Amanda said as soon as she answered.
“It isn’t hard, it’s fucking unfair,” he said.
“Don’t swear at me,” she snapped.
“I’m not swearing at you. I’m expressing my anger at the situation.” He paused, because he also really wanted to swear at her. And just generally scream, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” at the entire world. “You don’t unilaterally decide I don’t get to spend Christmas with my children.”
“It doesn’t fall on your weekend,” she said, and they both knew it sounded lame. “Look, Will, I know it’s hard, but it would be so…”
“How difficult would it be for you to… we’re doing well, right? I mean, compared to most people I’ve seen go through divorces. I’m not happy. You know I’m not happy. But I am not being a dick. We are generally being civil. I’ve given you pretty much everything you wanted, including a custody arrangement that’s killing me because it’s suppose to be better for the kids. Fine. You don’t get to just decide I don’t get to spend Christmas with them. How hard would it be, Amanda, for you to endure two hours of me in your house—our fucking house!—on Christmas Day, so that I can spend Christmas Day with my children?”
“Will…”
“And how do you think they will feel? This Christmas is going to be hard on them too!”
“Will, I wish I could. But Ranveer will be here, and…”
“Oh-my-fucking-god, your fucking new lover gets to spend Christmas with my children and I don’t?”
He didn’t know what she said next, because he ripped the headset off the phone, then slammed it down so hard on his desk, it bounced… and then yanked the cord out of its socket and threw the entire thing to the ground.
Kicked it.
“Fuck!”
Rosie knocked on the door.
“Will?”
He stared at her, furious.
“You need to go run on the treadmill,” she said.
“My ex-wife is a fucking bitch,” he said.
“Run on the treadmill, and then box, and then run some more,” Rosie said. “No. I don’t care what she did. I don’t care if she flipped out because you hired your old cleaning lady, I don’t care if she’s sending you pictures of Ranveer’s dick, I don’t care if she’s demanding that you donate a pint of blood a week for some warped science experiment and if you don’t you lose custody of your kids. Go run on the fucking treadmill, and we can talk after.”
He hugged her and then kissed her on both cheeks as he went out the door.
“What would I do without you?” he called over his shoulder.
“Get fired or go to hell in a hand basket,” she yelled after him.
Fuck. Rosie.
He adored her.
He had kept the break-up of his marriage a secret from her for the first three weeks. Because… well, he just did. During which time he apparently metamorphosed from the best boss in the world (Rosie had bought him a mug that said so, on their three-year anniversary) to a Grade-A asshole.
He didn’t remember what he did, exactly. But it was after three weeks of sleeping on Niko’s couch, three weeks of daily texts and phone fights with Amanda, and he was going out of his mind.
So. He snapped. Barked.
Rosie first snapped back, and then sat him down and said, “What’s going on?”
“My life is over and I’m going insane,” he told her. And then he told her everything. Well, almost everything. He didn’t tell her about how that night six years ago… No. He couldn’t. But he told her about Niko and AA, and patterns.
And his greatest fear.
“What helps?” she asked.
“What?” He didn’t understand.
“When I fall apart, I dance. Or do yoga,” Rosie said. “That’s what helps me. What helps you?”
He thought about it a little.
“Running, punching people, and lifting heavy shit,” he said.
She blinked.
“I mean, boxing,” he corrected. “Not punching random people. Although I do think slugging fucking Ranveer would make me feel better,” he added. Wistfully.
Rosie laughed, and he tried to smile.
“When was the last time you went to the gym?” she asked.
“Three weeks ago.”
“Ok. Go now. Run half-a-marathon, and then come apologize to me.”
“Rosie?” he said when he came back from the gym, limping, exhausted but in slightly less pain, that time. “I don’t deserve you.”
“I know,” she said. Patted him on the head as if he were a little boy.
He was really, really grateful he didn’t fuck it all up by sleeping with her… again.
It would have been so easy. It would have felt so good. In that moment… so good. And she wouldn’t mind… she would actually like… he felt the thought coming, and backed away from it.
He ran on the treadmill, not thinking about Amanda. Nor Florence. Nor Rosie. Nor drinking.
Not thinking, not thinking.
When he came back from the gym, Rosie had hooked the landline back up.
“It still works,” she told him. “Your wife… your ex… er, Amanda called on it.”
“It’s probably not such a good idea that I talk to her right now.”
“As you wish.” Rosie shrugged. Put the pink slip in-between his fingers. Punched his shoulder and walked out.
“Call Amanda.” Underlined.
He texted instead.
“I don’t want to yell at you again. I’m still pissed.”
“I’m sorry, Will,” she wrote back immediately. “I was, like you said, unilateral.”
They were so fucking civilized.
They decided he would take the kids on Christmas Eve-eve, and have them that night, and have all of Christmas Eve day with them. Deliver them to Amanda’s house—their former house—apparently, now, Amanda and Ranveer’s house (“Is he living there?” he asked Amanda, and she didn’t answer, which probably meant yes)—at 8 p.m.
Amanda graciously forgave him for stealing her cleaning lady. Will did not mention that she had been their cleaning lady for five years. And it wasn’t stealing. It was asking—it was saying, “Hey, Karla, do you have time in your schedule to clean my condo once a week?” Although apparently, it was unthinkable that, post-divorce, the same woman vacuum and scrub their separate households.
“I’ll get another,” Amanda said.
“I don’t ask her a fucking thing about you, you know,” Will said. “I don’t even ever see her.”
Amanda conceded that perhaps it didn’t make sense, but she just didn’t want… she just didn’t. “Ok, Will?”
Will didn’t press the point, but he did mention that it was perhaps unfair to fire a loyal employee just before Christmas. Amanda, after a pause, agreed, and decided to give the cleaner her notice after New Year’s.
So fucking civilized.
Rosie gave him a much-too-sympathetic hug when he told her about the “compromise.”
“I can’t offer to spend Christmas Eve being depressed with you because I have a crazy party planned,” she said. “To which you can’t come, because you have a penis.”
“Sexist bitch,” he muttered.
“I love knowing that if I had to, I could get your ass fired six dozen times for workplace inappropriate behaviour,” Rosie said. Then they both blushed. “Anyway, trust me, you wouldn’t enjoy it. But if you’re desperate on Christmas Day, text me, ok? You can have dinner with me and all my hungover friends.”
“Are they as cute as you?” he volleyed half-heartedly.
“Cuter,” she said. “And even gayer.”
They laughed.
Will felt better.
Not good. But… better…
MERRY MESSY CHRISTMAS TO YOU!
Check out the full RELEASE SCHEDULE & Table of Contents for links to published scenes.
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Of course, if at any point, you can’t take it any more and want to read ahead, one-click Messy Christmas or the full Text Me, Cupid series. In this case, I thoroughly approve of your desire for instant gratification. 😉
(And if you’re on-track and devouring all the novellas as they release–Saving Christmas is live!)
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