#andrew004

The event hasn’t even gotten into full swing yet, instead everyone is mulling around waiting for the auction to start -- browsing the items in the silent auction, socializing with old friends and neighbors, crowding the open bar. She’d lost Andy in said crowd a little while ago, having gotten caught by one of the dad’s from the pre-k group, Maddie and his daughter have been friends since their daycare days and when Andy was in prison he’d made a pass or two at her. She makes a point to ignore it, gesturing to things with her left hand and making sure to dangle the diamond on her finger in his face before she manages to finally slip away from the very long, and very boring conversation. She beelines for the bar, squeezing into an opening to get a new glass of wine before weaving her way through the crowd. She has to stop and make small talk with a few people -- it’s always at events like this where she realizes just how many people she knows -- while simultaneously looking for her husband. She finds him on the other side of the room and eyes him as he tugs at the tie around his neck, making her eyes roll slightly. But there’s a smile on her face still, one that’s been practically engraved on her face since she’d woken up that morning that has everything to do with the card he’d left her--- and yes, maybe it had made her tear up but that’s not the point. “Quit fussin’ with that,” she scolds him gently as she approaches, lifting her free hand to swat his away before straightening the tie again. “The wrinkled tie is ruining the hot James Bond look you’ve got going on,” she teases him gently, brows raising at him with a wide grin tugging up on her features. 

 In Rowan’s defense, the motion lights in her backyard have gone off more than once tonight. However in stark contrast to that, she’s already almost positive that it was nothing more than a stray cat cutting across her patio. Still, her phone is heavy in her hand as she dials Andy’s number --- he had said anything out of the ordinary, right? And she had promised she would call, she couldn’t go back on that now, could she? For all she knows the cat in her backyard could actually be someone in a cut with a bone to pick. Or, at least, that’s what she tells herself as she listens to the ring. It’s not just because she misses him, wants to see him again that has her dialing his number at 11:00 at night, dragging him away from whatever -- or whoever, a voice taunts her-- he’s doing. 

Ex-wife of the fucking year, Rowan Fisher.  

“Hey --- it’s me,” good one. “It’s late, I know, I’m sorry to call now, but uh... I keep hearin’ something in my backyard, and my motion lights keep going off.” She paused for a second, looking out the back kitchen window and into the vacant yard, already feeling like a manipulative asshole. Say nevermind, hang up. “You don’t have to come --- you can send someone else. I just... would feel better if someone checked it out.” She doesn’t want him to send someone else, hopes he doesn’t or else she’s going to feel even stupider than she already does. Rowan isn’t a betting woman, but she’s almost positive he wouldn’t send someone else to her house, but after the way she left him when they slept together, she wouldn’t blame him. 

When she hangs up the phone, she just paces the kitchen, Scout obediently trotting along beside her. She’s anxious and he can tell, pressing his head up against her thigh in an attempt to get her to slow down. It’s not until the rumble of a motorcycle pulls into the driveway that he leaves her side, standing alert by the door and letting out a couple of loud barks when someone knocks. Rowan checks out the livingroom window to see who it is before she opens the door, never being too careful. Just because whoever had arrived did so on a bike, didn’t mean they were a friend. Something stirs in her chest at the sight of Andy on her front porch and she moves to the door, opening it while simultaneously shooing Scout out of the entry way.

@andrewtahan