Fairytale Come Alive (Ghosts and Reincarnation #4)(136)
There were collective giggles (including Fiona’s) and Bella glared daggers at them as she wandered away. Fiona wandered with her and got close to listen in.
“Are you at Fern’s?” Prentice asked.
“Yes,” Bella answered.
“While you’re with her, talk about the sitting room,” Prentice ordered, sounding distracted.
“We already did.” She hesitated. “Listen, Pren –”
“Sorry, baby, I’ve got a staff meeting in five minutes and we’re breaking ground in the New Year on that job. There’s loads of shit to sort.”
Bella sucked in breath. Prentice heard it.
“Elle?”
“Um…” she began.
“Elle,” he cut in, “are you with Annie?”
Bella’s shoulders went straight and she snapped, “Yes, and would you stop asking if I’m with Annie when you think we’re misbehaving?”
“Oh crap,” Annie mumbled in the background.
Prentice obviously didn’t appreciate her tone of voice and Fiona knew this by his tone of voice when he answered.
“Were you with Annie two weeks ago when the police pulled you over for drag racing?” he countered.
Fiona giggled to herself because she thought that Bella drag racing was funny, especially Prentice’s reaction to it when Fergus called and told him it happened. Bella didn’t get in trouble, only a warning but the whole village had heard about it and thought it was a scream.
“We weren’t drag racing,” Bella replied. “I just got my new car and we were testing it out.”
“By racing each other in the streets?”
“Well –”
Prentice interrupted her, “And last week at the pub when you two challenged the rugby team to a game of quarters.”
“Quarters is like riding a bike, you never forget how to do it and Annie and I are good at quarters. The rugby team was smashed and we were only a little tipsy,” Bella defended.
“You play quarters when you’re in uni,” Prentice returned.
“And when your forty and having fun!” Bella snapped.
“I don’t have time for this,” he ground out, sounding like his patience was at an end.
“All right, fine. Just so you know, that night at the pub with the rugby team?” she informed him. “Later, when we were necking in the parking lot, there was a photographer. There’s, like, five pictures in a gossip rag of us going at it. Have a good staff meeting.” Then Bella pressed a button on her phone, turned to the group and announced, “Honestly, it’s like he’s an old man.”
“Actually, it seems to me it’s like twenty years haven’t passed,” Debs whispered, Annie, Fern and Mikey grinned at her and Bella’s phone rang again.
She answered without greeting, simply reminding him, “Pren. Staff meeting?”
Prentice didn’t greet Bella either.
Instead, he demanded, “Don’t put the phone down on me.”
“I… what?”
“Don’t ever put the phone down on me.”
Bella went still at the tone of his voice. So did Fiona’s spectral body.
He sounded serious and he sounded angry. Not Bella-and-Prentice-having-a-tiff angry.
Something else entirely.
Bella turned her back to her spectators and started, “Prentice, I –”
Prentice interrupted her.
“You could get in a car wreck, I could get in a car wreck and the last thing you did was put the phone down on me.” Fiona saw Bella’s face pale as Prentice continued, “When you’re done speaking, no matter how frustrated you are, you f**king tell me good-bye.”
“I’m not going to get in a car wreck,” Bella assured quietly.
He ignored her. “We fight, it’s what we do and as f**king daft as it makes me, I love that about us. But when you’re separated from me and I’m talking to you on the f**king phone, no matter if we’re talking or fighting, you say good-bye.”
“Pren –”
“Twenty years ago, I walked out of a room and neither of us said good-bye.”
Bella pulled in breath and her eyes squeezed tight.
“People who care about each other always say good-bye,” Prentice finished.
She opened her eyes and replied softly, “All right, Pren, I’ll say good-bye.”
“Always, Elle,” he demanded.
“Always,” she whispered.
“Now, I’m late. Don’t, for the love of Christ, get into trouble with Annie.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
He expelled an audible breath, his voice got soft and he said, “Love you, baby.”
Bella’s face got soft when she heard it; she started to say something and then her body jerked.
“Pren?”
“Aye.”
“Are you mad about the magazine?”
“I don’t give a f**k about the magazine.”
“Really?”
“Really, baby,” he replied, still using that soft voice. “Now, I have to go.”
“Bye, Pren.”
“See you soon, baby.”
He rang off and Bella turned back to her friends.