Indiscretion: Callie Douglas - Book Four

Chapter Ten

"What did you mean when you said you had to take money out of your line of credit to pay the bills?"

"The way we had done the finances of our relationship was that we would each pay money into our joint account and it was out of that account that our rent, home phone, cable and internet bills were to be paid. Anything left over financed our joint entertainment – any dinners out or weekends away. We hadn't been out for dinner or gone away in some time, so there was quite a bit of money in the account. Payment on our bills was due a week after Michael left, but when Michael left, he was mad at me."

"How could he be mad at you? He was the one to hit you, not the other way around."

"That's true, but he was mad at me because I wouldn't accept his apology. Anyway, the upshot is that he emptied out the account, leaving me to pay the bills out of my private account. As it was an unexpected expense, I ended up having to take money out of my line of credit to make the payments."

"Asshole. Did you ever call him on it?"

"No. He had left town and besides, at that point I was just glad to be rid of him."

We got down to Gabe's truck, lifted the tonneau cover and put my suitcases in. Getting in the truck, I started to laugh. "What's so funny?" asked Gabe.

"I was just laughing at how Michael's sheet was tenting when we came in and loose when we left. I think we took him down a peg or two."

"Forgive me if I don't find that funny yet."

"That's okay. Any time I can take him down a peg or two rates as a good time for me."

"Yeah, but he won't stay down for long."

"No, he won't. Or, at least, he won't because he'll start playing with himself again", I said, laughing again. "I wonder how long it will be before Michael calls Blake and tries to create another plan to get under my skin and away from you. You have to admit, entering the sex den of my apartment was pretty funny."

"It was funny to you. He wasn't sitting where you normally sit on the couch. He was sitting bare-assed in my seat!"

Gabe carried my bags up to his bedroom while I went in his kitchen and started the kettle for a pot of my favourite herbal tea, a blend of chamomile and mint, and a pot of decaf coffee for Gabe.

I went upstairs. Gabe was emptying out his dresser drawers into a couple of empty laundry baskets. "You don't have to do that", I said. "I can live out of my suitcase."

"These clothes are my summer clothes anyway, so I don't need this dresser. All my winter clothes are in my armoire. Besides, it isn't nice living out of a suitcase. I'd much rather have you live out of a proper dresser."

"Where will you put all your summer clothes?"

"I'll take the laundry baskets down to the basement and pack the clothes into my suitcases. They can live down there until the summer, at which point I can exchange my cold-weather clothes for my hot-weather ones. This will be fine, darlin'. We'll make this work for both of us."

Touched by Gabe's insistence on having me move into all areas of his life, I unpacked my clothes into the newly vacated drawers. Gabe had a large walk-in closet, and he transferred all his clothes over to one side of the closet for me. "I didn't bring that many things that hang. You don't have to move your clothes", I said.

"Again, it is nicer if you have your own space, and I don't need to spread my winter and summer things over the whole closet. I only had them separated for organizational purposes, not because I needed the space."