Lunch went well as the adults utilized their daughter to keep the light conversations going over food. Leading the discussions, Gracianna told her mom all the things she had missed since Olivia was out of town. From how scary riding a charter bus alone was to how fun her trip to Central Park with the babysitter yesterday was.
Sharing concerned looks during some of the talks, Spencer and Olivia had their moments when they held their tongue at Gigi's mention of how cool traveling the Big Apple was. From her funny her Uber driver was to how hard it was to form her chaotic plan to meet her Dad.
Of course, both parents were going to address the traveling alone matter with their daughter. But they seemed to make a silent decision amongst each other to put off the talk until a later date. Instead, they would enjoy their daughter's tales of her adventure.
By the time dessert time concluded, Gigi was all talked out and filled with sugar. Her feet kicked with excitment, ready to move around when he parents told her it was time to go. That's how Spencer and Olivia found themselves ditching their cars for a long walk through one of New York's multiple parks. Lost in her imagination, Gracianna ran off some of her energy in front of them, while Spencer and Olivia strolled behind her. Talking amongst themselves, Spencer used his time with Olivia wisely.
"You are doing a great job with her, Liv." Spencer complimented Olivia, gaining a small smile from her in return.
"She makes it easy most of the time." Olivia mused, smiling at their daughter that pranced around a few feet in front of them in a world of her own. "She reminds me of you. She's really perceptive and determined when she puts her mind to things. Plus, her high amounts of energy have her bouncing off the walls most days. She was impossible to contain after she hit age four. My mom forced me to put her in a sport. Thus, my little acrobat was born." She laughed as their daughter threw a round off, backhand spring, as if on que.
"Yeah, she started profiling me and my life from the moment she stepped into the penthouse." Spencer chuckled, remembering his first conversation with Gracie. "She doesn't really talk like a little kid her age. Her thoughts go really deep, and then she gets inquisitive. She gets that from you." Spencer added, thinking back to Gigi's interrogation over breakfast.
"Sorry about that." Olivia playfully apologized. "I take her to work with me sometimes. She saw me do interviews several times and kind of picked up on my habits of dissecting every situation." Olivia noted, knowing Gracianna developed a little knack for investigative journalism.
"That's alright. I don't mind the 21 questions from her if it means we get to know each other better." Spencer assured Olivia, a sad tension falling between them.
"I wished you didn't have to. That she knew you from the start." Olivia sighed heavily, believing she should've done this years ago.
"Me too." Spencer agreed monotonely, not wanting to rehash tough situations they couldn't change. "But she's here now. That's all that really matters, right?" He asked, facing a quiet Olivia as she kept walking, lost in her thoughts.
"It's just, I keep wondering when did we change so much." Olivia groaned, "When we fought, we always found our way back to each other. But you let me go without a single thought after the breakup, Spencer. Why was it so easy for you to move on?" Olivia moaned out in frustration.
"I never moved on from you, Liv. Sure, I left. But that was so that you wouldn't have to choose between loving me and loving your career. I always figured we would find our way back, but then we didn't." Spencer recalled, disappointed that he failed to find the nerve to win her back years ago.
"Because you were already seeing someone else, Spencer." Olivia argued quietly, trying her best not to disrupt their happy daughter that kept galloping down the park path. "I called you to tell you that I was pregnant, you know?"
"No. I didn't know that." Spencer grunted, halting to a stopping point. "I never got the message." He huffed.
"Because whatever girlfriend of the week you were messing around with answered the call." Olivia responded angrily, still not over how fast he moved on from her. "She answered your phone and ignored me when I told her I wanted to speak with you. As if I was just some random girl. Then I heard you talking about me being a waste of breath because you thought I was some groupie calling to get money out of you. How many women were you sleeping with after our breakup that you were getting fake pregnancy calls that often, Spencer?" She questioned harshly, narrowing her judgmental brown orbs in his direction. "We broke up, and suddenly you were suddenly a womanizer? What is that even about?" Olivia interogated him, running on a tangent. Holstering her hands on her hips and shrugging her shoulders, she waited for an answer, scanning the area to ensure their daughter still in reachable distance, then glaring back at Spencer.
Furrowing his brows, he glanced at her as if she grew heads as she waited for him to himself. "First of all, what girlfriend? Secondly, I'm not some fuck boy, Olivia. There are no groupies beating down my door and roping me into raising some random baby. Where are you getting all of this information from?"
"I just told you where I got it from. There is no need to lie. So what, you been with other women. No big deal. We were broken up." Olivia groaned, fed up with the denial. "My problem is that your little girlfriend didn't know how to play her role. She could not have known you longer than a few weeks. What business did she have answering your phone, let alone not letting me speak to you." Olivia fussed, causing Spencer to smirk. "What the hell is so funny?" Olivia asked, wanting to smack the smirk off his face.
"As sexy as you get when you get into a jealous rage, Liv, I am telling you, I wasn't checking for nobody after our breakup." Spencer retorted, crossing his arms across his chest, adorned with a small smile. "Ain't nobody taking your place, Liv."
"Then explain to me why I tried to call you three days after that, and your line was disconnected?" Olivia asked with a raised brow as Spencer sauntered past her to get closer to their daughter, who was still lolly gagging in the park.
"I don't know, Liv. It was probably after I changed my number." Spencer shrugged his shoulders, "How do you know it was some duplicate phone you called? It was probably some random stranger you talked to for all we know." He guessed, picked up Gracie as she laughed in his arms.
"I heard a duplicate phone number. I heard your voice in the background, Spencer. Explain that, hmm." Olivia rolled her eyes as she followed behind them, still feeling salty that she hadn't gotten a name of the female out of him.
Her name. It hit her like an epiphany. "Who is Tee, Spencer?"
At that statement, Spencer's feet paused as he heard the name fall from her lips. Biting his bottom lip, he shook his head, denial falling over his mind. Leaning down, he put Gracianna back on the ground before twirling on his heel to face Olivia.
Shrugging her shoulders, as if to say, "Well?" Olivia waited for his reply.
"How do you know, Tee?" Spencer asked, his mouth going dry at her name, as if a bad taste was filling his tongue. "Is she the woman who answered the phone?"
"Teetee is Daddy's publist, Momma." Gigi interjected innocently. "She helps Daddy get interviews with people like you. Right, Daddy?" She added, looking to her father for confirmation.
Narrowing her eyes, Olivia shot daggers at Spencer, pissed at the thought of such a messy tramp around her little girl. Spencer grew more nervous under Olivia's furious gaze as he tries formulate the best way to explain his position without getting his head ripped off his shoulders.
"Yeah, baby, that's right." Spencer agreed, a bad feeling clouding over him as he kissed the top of his daughter's head.
"Your publist?" Olivia scoffed, nodding calmly, putting the pieces together as an angry smile fell upon her lips. "That bitch..." She mumbled to herself, thinking back to how this sly woman played her.
"Olivia I didn't know it was you that day." Spencer swore, walking closer to a pissed Liv. "My new contract was publicized, and these football groupies started hounding my phone. She made it seem like you were just some other hoochie looking for a quick catch. We had a major conference that day. When I checked my messages and call log, your name wasn't on the list. I would've called you back. I'd been waiting to hear from you for days since I heard that you moved. I had hoped you would've wanted to talk after settling in Toronto, even if it was to chew my head off. I would've called you back." He repeatedly stressed, causing Olivia her hands in awry.
"Okay, Spencer, ok." Olivia halted his pleas for her to believe him. "I get it. She purposely deleted my call from your history. And I suppose she also convinced you to change your number under the same ploy. What I don't get is why? Does she even know who I am?"
"She couldn't know you. I didn't hire her as my publist until a few weeks after our breakup." Spencer thought it out. "We never talked about my private life because, well, I didn't really have one after we broke up. I treated her like a friend at best. There were no romantic feelings between us. It's just not adding up."
"Well, tell you what, since you can't make sense of it, I will take care of it." Olivia snorted, grasping Gracianna's hand and trotting off back in the direction from which they originally came.
Taken aback by Olivia's abrasive motions, Spencer stood in place unsure what to do next.
Stopping in her steps, Olivia looked over her shoulder to a confused Spencer. "Are you coming?"
"Coming where, Liv?" Spencer asked, not understanding.
"I planned on spending the rest of the week at my hotel, but I don't see the point when the father of my daughter has multiple guestrooms for me to stay in." Olivia mused sassily. "I think it's time for little miss Teetee and I to get acquitted." She decided as if it were a done deal, pivoting back around to stomp her way back in the direction of her parked vehicle.
Shaking his head, Spencer watched the love of his life drag their daughter away in an obvious jealous rage. And he wondered just what he was in store for these next few days.