Read Online Falling for Your Madness by Katharine Grubb - Free Book Online

side of his head on the coffee table.
     
    It was Ruby. “Oh, sorry. Want me to leave for a while?”
     
    “No!” David and I both yelled at her unison. Behind her was Merle. That stupid driver! Where had he been?
     
    Merle stormed in and went right to David. “There you are! I’ve been looking for you!” He pulled David to his feet. “Good God, what happened? You’re bleeding!” Merle looked at me for an explanation. “Why did you bring him up here? You know the rules. He can’t be alone with you!”
     
    David struggled to put on his jacket and yelled at Merle, “She did nothing wrong. Nothing. It was all me. All of it! I can’t tell you, Laura, how disappointed I am in myself. But I need to go to a doctor.” David held his head. “Laura! Please! Forgive me! I’m sorry!”
     
    Merle pulled him out of the room and down the hall, outside, into the Crown Victoria, and they drove away.
     
    Ruby and I watched them go. “So, that’s David. The impeccably dressed gentleman who keeps his hands to himself? That’s the guy?”
     
    “That’s him.”
     
    “Are you okay?”
     
    “I am a stupid idiot. An hour ago, I was ready to marry the guy. What am I going to do? He’s just like all the others.”
     
    “Hey, look at this. Lover boy forgot his shoe.” She held it out. “Lord have mercy, you could rent this thing out to a family of seven. Did you see this? This is Italian. Look at this stitching. This shoe is bigger and nicer than our apartment. Oh, and here’s his sock. It’s cashmere. Cashmere! I’m keeping this.”
     
    I knew that she was trying to get me to laugh, but I didn’t feel like it.
     
    “What are you going to do about tea on Monday?”
     
    “I have no idea. But I do know this. He’s going to be sorry that he ever told me that I have power.”
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Saturday, September 29, 2012
    332 Babcock Street
    Brookline, Massachusetts
    11:22 a.m.
     
    I was glad it was raining. This meant that when David Julius Arthur Bowles decided to take his Saturday morning walk, his plans would be ruined. Good. Every time I thought of that pompous, hypocritical jerk, I wanted to kick something. I had work to do that was due on Monday, and I didn’t have time to waste my mental energy on what had happened last night.
     
    I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t slept well. I kept wondering if he went to the ER and if he really was okay, and that just made me madder. Why didn’t he have a phone? Why couldn’t he have some sort of way that I could track him down and ask him about his head and his shoulder and his foot and then give him a piece of my mind about the miserable way he treated me?
     
    It didn’t help matters that when I came into the kitchen this morning there was still blood, his blood, on my kitchen table and floor. I had sat there and taken care of him. If I had known what was coming, I might have stabbed him myself. All that sweet talk, the chivalry, the gentleman act, was just that, an act. His intention all along was to get me on the couch underneath him. Had Ruby not come home when she did, things might have been much worse.
     
    The more I stewed over this, and the more upset I got, the slower my computer seemed to work, the more mistakes I made on my project, the more I wanted to kick something, and the more I wanted that something to be David Julius Arthur Bowles, Ph.D.
     
    My phone rang. Mr. Baseball lit up on the screen. It was Trey. Trey? I hadn’t thought about him in a long time. How long had it been, two weeks? There was no need think about Trey with David around. Grrr. Stupid David.
     
    Trey was upbeat. “Hey you! What’s going on?”
     
    I wasn’t sure how to answer that question. “Nothing. I’m working. What’s going on with you?”
     
    “How’s work going?”
     
    “Great. How’s work with you?”
     
    “Regular season’s almost over. Not exactly the season we hoped for, but you know how it goes. There’s always next year.” This