Ace didn’t answer his phone, though. Instead, it went straight to voicemail. I fought back a wave of disappointment, reminding myself that it was probably better that he didn’t answer. If I had to deal with his voice now, as well as the fact that he had sent flowers to our house, I might just melt. I might ask him to take me back, to reconsider our relationship. I loved him, after all.
“Hey, Ace,” I said. “I just wanted to say thanks for the flowers, assuming you’re the one who sent them. They’re lovely. Ava was really excited.” I paused. “I’d like to meet up at some point. Give me a call back when you can, and we can figure out a time. Thanks. Talk to you soon.”
The message was a bit rambling; I just couldn’t seem to get my thoughts straight, and part of me didn’t want to hang up the phone. Part of me still clung to the idea that he might pick up midway through the message.
I wanted to talk to him, even though I was afraid to do so.
I forced myself to stop thinking about Ace, though, and start thinking about my interview. I couldn’t afford to be distracted, not this time. Fortunately, the interview went well. It was easier than I’d expected, with the politicians basically feeding me the information that I needed. I knew that they had no doubt been briefed by their PR people, but I hadn’t expected things to go so smoothly.
I guess I’d expected it to be more like the interviews that I’d done in Kuwait, where I’d had to fish for all the details that I wanted. I had to remind myself that just because it was a big story, it didn’t mean it was going to be the same kind of work.
I wasn’t sure if this was really going to be the huge article that I’d thought it would be. There wasn’t as much of a scoop as I’d thought; it was more the kind of stuff that anyone would know if they followed politics at all. But I supposed the trick was to phrase things in a way that our average reader, if they had no political background, could understand.
I had a message from Ace when I got out of the interview, and I cursed under my breath. Obviously, I wouldn’t have been able to answer the call in the middle of my interview anyway, but I hadn’t even felt my phone go off. It would have been nice to at least know that Ace had called back.
Even though I’d been trying not to think about him during the interview anyway.
I had to stop this. My head was starting to hurt.
I listened to the message. “Hey, Harper. Glad you and Ava liked the flowers. But I didn’t send them to guilt you into meeting up with me. That’s still your call, for whenever you’re not busy.”
I frowned. He almost sounded as though he didn’t want to meet up with me. But that was a total reversal from what he’d said before. I was confused.
But then again, he was probably at least as confused as I was. After all, I’d had months to get used to the idea that I was going to have a kid, and now I’d had three years to get used to the fact that I had a kid. This had all kind of been dumped on Ace. If anyone should be confused about what he wanted from his relationship with me and his relationship with Ava, it was him.
I started to wonder whether I’d been too quick to judge him. I should have just agreed to meet up yesterday. He deserved that much, at least.
The truth was, I was still hurt by the fact that he hadn’t even let me get a word in. He’d just accused me of lying to him, and then he’d walked out. I knew, on the one hand, that he was justified in all of that. But on the other hand, I’d expected him to care more about me, to want to work through things.
Then again, I had to remind myself that he had only been back from military service for a short while. I was sure he had enough stuff to work through already, and here I was dumping a kid on him, too. It had to be overwhelming. I should cut him some more slack.
Around and around I went in my head. It was enough to make me dizzy.
I looked at the time. His message hadn’t come in that long ago, just over ten minutes prior. There was a chance I might still be able to catch him. I quickly gave him a call, but I got his voicemail box again. “Hey, Ace, it’s me again. The flowers aren’t the only reason I agreed to meet. We have a kid together, remember?” I meant it as a joke, but right after I said it, I regretted it. Did it sound like a joke, or did it sound like I was just rubbing his nose in the fact that he hadn’t known about Ava for the first three years of her life?
I cleared my throat and continued. “Seriously, I think we should talk. Call me back if you can.”
I hung up feeling strangely flustered. I kind of wished there were a way to call and delete that message or to redo it somehow. But I knew that
there wasn’t. I had to live with it now.
I waited anxiously through the afternoon for him to call me back. The whole time I worked on my article, I was thinking about him. I had to scrap draft after draft; none of them sounded right. By evening, my editor was asking me what my progress was and if I was going to have the piece ready in time to go to layout and get printed for the following morning. I wasn’t sure that I would.
And I hated that. No matter what was happening between Ace and me, I needed to stay professional. I needed to get my work done.
But it was difficult with Ava’s picture of sunflowers sitting there on the edge of my desk. She’d been so excited by those flowers. It had been such a sweet gesture for him to send them to her at the same time that he sent some for me.
It seemed like no matter what, I couldn’t stop thinking about Ace.
He finally called me back. “Hey,” I said breathlessly, answering on the first ring.
“Hey,” Ace said, sounding surprised that he had caught me. “So you wanted to meet up?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m just finishing up a story tonight, but I’d be free anytime tomorrow. Or the next day.” I was trying not to sound too eager or too desperate, but I was afraid that I fell short there.
“I’ve got business stuff to deal with all week,” Ace said, his tone clipped and formal.
I paused, blinking off into space. “Oh. Okay,” I said quietly, wondering what that could possibly mean. He had been the one who really wanted to talk to me the previous day. He had been the one to send the flowers. But now, it sounded as though he wanted nothing more to do with me. What was going on in his head?