Even the Score(27)

“She wasn’t always that bad, but she’s always been selfish.”

“Yikes. How long were you married?”

“Nine years.”

He raised his eyebrows and shook his head again as he stared down at the bowl of pretzels. “Wow. To put up with that for nine years. That’s rough.”

“It is, but thankfully it’s over now, and I only deal with her a couple times a month.”

“It’s tough doing it all alone, I bet.”

“Very. Thankfully, Gloria does all my grocery shopping and stuff around the house, or I would literally have to find a way to stop sleeping,” I joked.

“Speaking of that.” Justin sat up straight and leaned back to look down the hall toward Gloria’s room. “Is she here?”

“No. She has most weekends off unless I have something I really need her for, so she typically stays at her boyfriend’s house on the weekends.”

“I’m proud of you.” Justin turned back and looked me straight in the eye, speaking in a low, humble tone. “Juggling all of this plus your company can’t be easy.”

“Thanks, brother. It’s not, but those kids mean everything to me, so I’ll do what I have to do to make their lives as good as possible, ya know?”

Justin pulled his bottom lip up a bit and nodded without saying anything.

“Plus,” I continued, “I’ve hired a new agent to help out, so that should definitely alleviate some of the stress at work so I can be home more often.”

“Oh, that’s right!” His eyes lit up. “You hired that Danicka Douglas from last night, right?” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down.

“Yeah, her, and before you say it, no, I didn’t hire her because she’s hot.”

“But she is hot.”

“Well, obviously, but that’s not the point.”

Justin laughed and smacked his palm on the island playfully “Well, not the whole point, but I’m just saying that if I were going to be stuck in an office all day with someone, she’s not a bad choice.”

“You act like I’ve never worked with a woman before. Ellie’s been with me for a few years now, and I’ve managed to let her keep her pants on.”

“I’ve seen Ellie. She’s cute. Like . . . little-sister cute, but Danicka . . .” He puffed his cheeks out, shaking his head back and forth slowly. “Dude, she’s no one’s little sister.”

“I think she’s single, want me to put in a good word for you?”

“For me?” His voice rose with surprise. “Oh no, my friend. I’m not the one she’s interested in.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Dude, at the bar last night when we were sitting in the booth . . . every time you talked to her, she was eye-fucking you, staring straight at your lips. That’s a for-sure sign that she’s into you.”

I threw my head back and laughed hard. “Bullshit!”

“I’m serious!”

“Get outta here!” I argued as I threw a pretzel at his head. “The bar was dark. and you were across the table; no way could you have seen what she was staring at.”

“I’m telling you, I know these things. Don’t forget that I was married once before, too.”

And just like that, the mood in the room changed from light to dark. Justin was a quiet man who didn’t open up about his personal life often. He used jokes and sarcasm as a defense mechanism to keep from talking about his painful past.

“I could never forget,” I said sincerely. “She was one of the most amazing women I’d ever met.”

“She really was.” Justin smiled and got that far-off look in his eye that he’d had for just a second in the bar the night before. He always got that look in his eye when he talked about her, when anyone asked about her, or when he was thinking about her.

Justin and Liz had a love story that made every other couple jealous. They were the true definition of soul mates . . . always together, always holding hands, always staring at each other like love-struck teenagers. I’d never seen two people connected like that in my whole life.

I was with him the day he got the call from the hospital that his wife’s car had been T-boned by a drunk driver. By the time we got to the hospital, she was already gone along with the baby that had lived safely inside of her for eight months. I stood in the corner of the room behind him as he sobbed, both meeting and saying good-bye to his tiny son’s lifeless body. I stood behind him with my hand on his shoulder when he held his wife’s hand and said good-bye. We’d shared more intense moments in the three years since he’d hired me than I would have ever guessed possible, and a lot of those moments were spent not saying a word at all.