Roan knows something’s up, I can feel it in his stare over the last week. He asks me, and I tell him everything’s fine. It seems wrong to lie to this beautiful man. To choose to purposely hurt him. That’s the scariest thing to come out of all this, the fact that I may hurt him the same way I was hurt.
Leaving our apartment, I walk off down the street. It’s busy and bustling with people. I remember traveling to New York and thinking I couldn’t wait to get home. Then I came back here, where it’s smaller, that’s for sure, but the streets are busy. Especially, in the heart of the city. I like the suburbs, the quieter towns where I went to school. It also reminds me of him.
So much so that I’m not even watching where I’m walking and run straight into someone as I cross the road. My heel twists, and just before I hit the ground, that person grabs me, lifting me back up. Horns start honking. Looking next to me, I see the traffic light is green, and here I am in the middle of the street with a man’s arms around me. The stranger starts moving us, his strong arm around my waist. It takes me a moment to realize I’m letting a complete stranger help me walk and keep me upright. Pulling back from him the moment we hit the side of the street, I look up. His smile is large just as I remember. My heart beats hard, I haven’t seen him in so long, so very long.
“Cole.” He looks nothing like he did all those years ago. He seems toned and dressed in a suit. Very unlike him.
“I didn’t believe my eyes either.” He taps my shoulder, smiling wider. “How are you, girl?”
I nod my head.
Cole was, or is, Orion’s best friend. Which in turn made him one of mine as time went on. Whatever I didn’t tell Orion, I told Cole. He looks down at me because even in heels he’s still as tall as I remember. Then he opens his arms for me to go straight into them. His weight may have changed, but his cuddles haven’t. They’re still the second-best cuddles in the world. The way he wraps his arms around you and squeezes so tightly so you can only just breathe but you don’t want to let go either. That’s a Cole cuddle, and he hasn’t lost his touch. I feel the loss the moment he lets go.
“You free?” he asks.
I nod my head. Cole looks behind us to where a few restaurants are littered down the street and places his hand on my arm and escorts me to the closest one. We ask for a table and sit straight down.
“So tell me… did you do it, Lo? You a lawyer now… for the kids?”
My inspiration came from him and Orion. They were the children I wanted to help the most.
I nod. “I did.”
“Fuck! I’m so proud of you.” Someone coughs at Cole for swearing, but he stares at him and raises a lip offering no apology, and then he looks back to me.
“Thank you, now tell about you. You’ve changed. And the suit? I like.” I smile as my eyes roam up and down. He blushes, then straightens the suit out with his hands.
“Yep, manage a pharmacy… well, quite a few actually. Always traveling to see how business is.”
My mouth drops open in shock. That’s huge, very huge. He never thought he’d go anywhere or amount to anything, I always told him if he believed, he could.
“Do you…um… go back?” It’s not far from where we live. Granted it’s all changed now, poverty isn’t such a big deal anymore. People have welfare that look after them and a government that helps more. Not back then, though. I remember going to their houses, the way they were treated coming to my neighborhood. It’s all so different. Their parents used to get paid by the government, and the kids had to fend for themselves.
“I do regularly. I still live there actually, in that exact same house.”
I feel like I’ll need to pick my jaw up off the floor.
“It’s a lot nicer now. Hey, you should come… check it out.”
I nod because that’s the best I can do. We order drinks. I don’t know if I can eat right now.
His cell starts ringing and he answers it in a completely different voice. This one is serious and professional. Cole looks to me then hangs up. He looks down, starts writing on a card he pulls from his pocket, stands, and walks around to me. Cole leans down, kisses my cheek and slides the card into my hand. “Call anytime, Lo.”
I nod my head, not sure what to say, and before I have a chance, he leaves so fast I don’t even get to say goodbye. Standing, hoping I can maybe catch him, I turn quickly and lock eyes with someone else, who’s standing right in front of me. My legs take me back to the seat, and I fall down onto it. He takes the seat that Cole vacated. This time when the waiter comes over and asks us for food, he orders for us, knowing exactly what I like. The menus are taken, and we stare at each other.
“My Lotus, what a pleasure.”
“Orion, I’m not your Lotus.” His fingers tap once on the table then he removes them, hiding them from my view under the table. I loved those strong, capable hands.
“You were, once.”
I will myself to be strong, to tell him how he hurt me. Let him know. I don’t. Instead, I play his game, it’s what he’s good at. “Foolish.”
He laughs. “Years of foolish, then.”
“I’m engaged.”
He looks down at my hand, to my overly-large diamond. “I see. I notice he doesn’t know your taste in jewelry, then?”
“Things change.” Pulling my hand away, I tuck it under the table.
His hands come back up and he leans on them, then he slants his body a little closer. “Do they really? Because love, no matter how small, never dies. You know this, Lotus.”
“I like it.”
He pulls back. “I see, but you don’t love it.”
Fuck! He knows me so well.
“It’s not vintage… vintage, classical, elegant… that is Lotus Vein. Not flashy. Obnoxious. No, that’s not who you used to be.”
The waiter arrives with our food. We thank him and eat in silence. Orion stares, then I stare. But neither of us says a word until we’re both finished. My cell starts ringing as he opens his mouth to speak. He closes it again, nodding his head for me to answer. Leaning down, I pick it up and see Roan’s name flash up on the screen.
Shit. I was meant to have lunch with him today. Except here I sit having lunch with my ex. Pressing ignore and sliding my cell back inside my bag, I wipe my hands with the napkin before I choose to look up at him. His steely blue eyes are on me. They shine bright and want to penetrate me. Orion wants my thoughts, but he can’t have them. He doesn’t have the right to have them anymore.
“You’ve changed, Lotus, but…” he looks down then back to me, “… I can still see you in there.” Orion nods his head to the waiter to get the bill, and he pays without a word from me because I’m too shocked to even speak.
I’m still the same woman, aren’t I?
Granted, I was much younger then, more likely to live off every word he spoke and brush off the problems with a night together. Now, well now, I wouldn’t be so blind.
“Orion Hurley… you, my love, do not know a thing about me. And that is a good thing because you do not understand who I am. You may have understood the girl I once was when you had her in your grip. You chose to let her go. So I bid you goodbye, and hope you have a marvelous life.” Standing on shaky legs, I smile at him, and he watches me knowing that wasn’t me, or the me he once knew. I’m not a quiet woman, but I do like to refrain from opening my mouth and causing undue conflict. My words are trained now, they know when to leave my mouth and when to not. Law school helped with that or was it a shattered heart, I’m not entirely sure which.
Walking away fast and around the corner, I look behind me before I stop, and lean against the brick wall.
“Sorry, Lo.” My purse drops from my hand, landing at my feet. Cole’s voice shocks me. He’s standing in front of me, staring, and he bends down to pick up my purse then hands it to me. “I know you didn’t want to see him.”
Taking my purse from his hand, I manage to smile through the pain. “No. He’s the last person I want to see. You, on the other hand, are a welcome sight.” Leaning forward, my hands wrap around him and he squeezes me for the second time today. Such a small thing gives me strong relief. Pulling back, I smile up at him, feeling lighter than I did only minutes ago around Orion.
“He does care you know, Lo, he’s just afraid.”
Holding up my hand, I stop him before he can say anymore. “Please don’t defend his actions, Cole. You weren’t there that night.”
Cole’s hand brushes back over his head, his eyebrows scrunch. “I know. I’m sorry, Lo. I just wanted to make it easier.”
“I’m afraid the devil himself couldn’t, but it’s okay. I’ve lived with it for years, I’m sure many more won’t hurt,” I say while shrugging my shoulders.
Cole looks at me skeptically, he knows me better than that. “I’m just going to say one last thing before I have to go. When you know everything and you need someone, call me, Lo.” His hand lands on my shoulder and I nod, not sure what he’s talking about. Cole leans in, kisses my forehead, then walks off around the corner. Walking up to it, but not going around, I poke my head slightly and see them, both of them, standing there in an intense argument. Cole’s hands are flying around while Orion remains stock still, but he has hard eyes on him as he listens to him speak. Orion looks my way, his eyes landing on me. Instantly they soften as he stares. Looking away, I walk off telling myself I don’t need to know more and I don’t need to see him again.
Lies.
The lies we tell ourselves to get through life.
It’s comical, really.
Running down the street, I come to a stop out the front of Roan’s office.