Mr. Big(43)

Mia shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said offhandedly. She wasn’t feeling quite up to dating strangers, though she knew she had told them that she would.

Ava frowned. “Honey, you can’t keep letting this Mr. Big guy put you in a funk. Seriously. He’s gone. It’s over. He found out and he was mad and it’s over. You’re still here with us, you’re still a gorgeous successful businesswoman and you are still one plane ride away from going to Italy. Your life is not terrible right now. You just had a big bump in your road, and you need to get past it. You can’t hold on to it. So, let it go. No good can possibly come from you holding on to any of what has already passed, especially that whole thing. So let go and find some hot guy to have a fling with, get some good sex, have a few laughs, and enjoy yourself. Life is too short to spend any time being miserable. You need to put some good positive things back into your life.”

Mia looked up at her and realized that she was right. Ava didn’t often have a good point to make, but she certainly did at that moment and Mia was struck by it. “You know what, Ava? You’re right. There isn’t anything good that can come of holding on to any of it. I have been miserable, and I don’t have to be. I don’t even know why I’m holding on to it… I guess I just feel so bad… so miserable about what I did.” She lowered her voice a little at the end.

Maddie gave her head a shake. “What good is that guilt doing? Does he even know how you feel? Does he know you’re wallowing in it? Does he care? No. He doesn’t know and he doesn’t care. The only one here who is being affected by it is you, and it’s not doing you a damn bit of good, and it’s not fixing anything or making you a better person, so just let it go. Now, I know that you chose to accept the challenge, but we are all three the ones who put you up to it, so we’re just as much to blame for acting below the morality line, aren’t we? You weren’t the only one in that whole mess. Ava’s right. Let it go. Go do what makes you happy and move on. Move forward. Don’t carry this crap around with you everywhere. Okay?” She looked at Mia pointedly.

Mia nodded and gave the first genuine smile she’d had since Alexander walked out of her office. “Okay. I’ll do that. I’m going to do it. Thank you… all of you, for being so strong and supportive of me. I love you,” she told them, looking around at all of them. She promised herself that she would not carry the guilt with her any longer; it wasn’t doing her a bit of good, and Alexander wasn’t even around to appreciate that she was wallowing in guilt, so there was no point in doing it whatsoever.

She went home that night feeling a lot better, though she was still sad that he was gone. She slipped into a hot bubble bath, and though she tried to talk herself out of it, she wound up listening to his old messages on her voicemail. There were three of them, and she had listened to them countless times in the week that had passed since he’d left. She knew every moment of them, and as she listened over and over, she closed her eyes and soaked in his voice; his deep happy sweet voice, asking her for her time and company.

The messages took her back to a time when everything was all right; when he wanted to be with her and talk with her, when he wanted to kiss her and hold her, before everything was ruined. She finally sighed and ended the call to her voicemail, knowing that she would have to delete the messages if she was going to move on, but still allowing herself one more night with them before she wiped them from her phone.

As she laid there amidst mountains of bubbles with her eyes closed and her mind on various moments that she had shared with him, she promised herself that she would change what he was doing, and she would let him go.

Her phone rang and she was so startled she turned too swiftly and slid in the bathtub, sinking down beneath the hot water and bubbles, and she came up blinking and spluttering, grabbing the towel to wipe her face and ears off before she reached for her phone.

“Hello?” she asked, not bothering to look to see who it was.

“Mia? Hey there lady. This is Logan! I’m glad that I caught you. Are you busy?” he asked with a flirtatious tone.

She blinked some more and pushed herself up in the bathtub. Logan. Her newest client and last date before Alexander. She had ignored him so much that she was certain he would have given up completely. Maddie had warned her that he could be clingy, but she wasn’t really in a position to say no to any man that might be able to get Alexander off of her mind.

“Logan! My goodness, what a surprise to hear from you. How are you doing?” she asked distractedly as she toweled her head off some more and dried both of her hands better.