Margot goggled at her. “As in, he does this on what? A regular basis?”
Olivia’s throat jerked. “Define regular.”
“Jesus,” Margot murmured. Olivia’s phone continued to vibrate against her palm. “You answer?”
Olivia cradled the remaining cans, eyes flitting between Margot’s face and that lost can. “I . . .” She cringed sharply and gestured to the phone with her elbow. “Could you just . . .”
“Are you serious?” Margot stared at her. “You want me to answer it?”
Olivia cringed. “I’ll be so quick. Just . . . hold it up to my ear?” She stared at Margot with wide eyes and—ugh, Margot couldn’t believe she was doing this. A testament to how little she wouldn’t do for Olivia.
She swiped at the screen and held the phone against Olivia’s ear.
“Brad?” Olivia rolled her lips together and shifted her weight from one foot to the other, looking as uncomfortable as Margot felt. “Now isn’t a good time.”
Margot bit down hard on the inside of her cheek.
Olivia shut her eyes. “No. It’s in the junk drawer.” She sighed, forehead creasing in irritation. “The junk drawer, Brad. The catch-all drawer in the kitchen. The one below the coffee maker. The one that sticks when you—yes, that one. It’s in there. Check in the back.” Olivia’s shoulders slumped, and Margot was tempted to hang up the phone for her. “No, Brad. I have to go. Good n—”
Margot ended the call with a little more gusto than strictly necessary, jamming her finger against the screen. She reached around Olivia and slid the phone back into her pocket, then stepped back, crossing her arms. “How often does Brad call you, Liv?”
One of Olivia’s shoulders rose and fell, too jerky to be casual. “Sometimes. I don’t . . . It’s not like I’m keeping track. It’s enough to be a nuisance, but not enough to be a problem.”
A nuisance was a problem. Anything that put a frown that severe on Olivia’s face was a problem, and she shouldn’t have to put up with it.
“What’s he even calling you about at”—Margot dug inside her pocket for her own phone—“eleven at night, anyway?”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “He was looking for the spare garage door opener.”
“And he called you?”
A can of cat food teetered, stacked precariously atop the rest. Margot snatched it just as it fell, holding on to it for Olivia.
Olivia nibbled on her lip and nodded. “It’s—it’s always stupid little things, Mar. I just shrug it off. It’s not worth getting up in arms about. Trust me.”
“Why haven’t you told him to fuck off?” Or, better yet . . . “Why do you even take his calls? Just block his number.”
“I asked him to stop.”
“You asked him.” Margot’s tongue bulged against the side of her cheek.
Olivia blew the hair out of her face with a weary sigh. “It’s not that simple.”
Margot bit her tongue against the urge to blurt out that it sure sounded simple to her. Cut-and-dried. Fuck off. Two little words, but . . . she wasn’t in Olivia’s shoes. “Help me understand what makes it complicated, then.”
Olivia stared at her for a second, eyes flitting over Margot’s face as if weighing the sincerity of Margot’s request. After a moment, her gaze dropped to ground between them, her voice quiet but steady. “It’s not like I want to take his calls, but I can’t just block his number.” Her jaw ticked, a muscle beneath her ear jumping. “I’ve asked him not to call me unless it’s about something serious.”
Margot was trying to understand, but it didn’t make sense. Olivia and Brad had been divorced for a year, and from the sound of it, they didn’t share close mutual friends. They didn’t have pets or kids to shuffle from one house to another. And they hadn’t exactly ended on the best of terms, what with Brad being a cheating ass. The longer she puzzled through this in her head, the less it made sense and the more frustrated she got on Olivia’s behalf, her blood pressure rising. “Okay. What would possibly be serious enough for Brad to need to contact you?”
Olivia shrugged, sending another can tumbling. It rolled across the tile floor all the way to the end of the aisle, stopping against the wheel of the cart belonging to the woman with all the mayo. The woman nudged the can back toward them with a kick. It stalled out midway down the aisle, and Margot left it there. She’d pick it up later.