Lorenzo
I’m about to board a plane to Dallas. I finally got a hold of Margie, but she’s in bad shape. I need to be there for her. I’ll explain everything when I talk to you later today. I love you!
Lorenzo stared at the text from Liv again. It was the first thing he’d read when he landed in North Carolina hours ago and he immediately turned on his phone. He’d yet to hear from her since, despite his attempts to call her several times. Oddly his call had gone straight to voicemail each time. He was trying to keep an open mind, but like yesterday his gut was telling him something was wrong. He cursed the fucking timing of this deployment. He could’ve been there with her. He also cursed the fact that all this time he hadn’t thought to exchange numbers with any of her brothers for times like these when he was worried about her.
Once he’d reported to duty he was required to turn his phone off. The little time he had during breaks he hadn’t wanted to spend making phone calls to try and track her brothers down. That would likely have Lorenzo leaving messages only to have to turn his phone right back off when his break was over. Lorenzo wasn’t sure he wanted everyone in on this yet. It could be nothing more than Liv wanting to be there for her despondent friend. He wasn’t sure yet how much her brothers knew about the situation if at all. He decided it was best to wait at least until tonight when he was done with training. If he hadn’t heard from her by then, he’d have no choice but to start making calls, even if it might open up a can of worms.
He was on his lunch break now and he’d hoped that by now he would’ve heard more, but he still had nothing. The damn knot he’d had in his stomach ever since he read her text earlier was only getting tighter. He hated the memory it brought on of when he’d last felt this bad: the night he got the call about Linda being in a wreck.
Lunch break was nearly over, and Lorenzo hadn’t bothered getting anything to eat. For obvious reasons, he didn’t have much of an appetite. Still lost in thoughts of what Liv might be doing but most annoyingly who else might be with her, he flinched when his phone rang in his hand.
His eyes were immediately on the screen, but he didn’t recognize the number. Under the circumstances he didn’t care. He swiped his finger across the screen anxiously and answered.
“Lorenzo?”
His brows pinched at the female voice he didn’t immediately recognize. “Who’s this?”
“It’s Emilia,” she said. “Livi asked me to call you.”
“Em? Yeah, yeah,” he said, standing from where he’d been sitting and gripping the phone a little tighter. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
“Yes, she’s fine,” Em said quickly. “She just lost her phone. She thinks she left it on the plane. She doesn’t have your number memorized. I had to call the firing range and get it from Vince. But she wanted me to call you as soon as I did and let you know she’s fine. She’s with Margie now.”
Lorenzo was already heading back to his training. He had precious little time before he had to report back, but he needed to know a few things first. “What happened? Why’d she have to go so suddenly?”
“I don’t have all the details. She just said Margie had some kind of nervous breakdown and she had to be there for her. No one was here when she left, so she didn’t get a chance to explain to anyone. We didn’t even know she’d gone to Dallas until she called me. I’m the first one to hear from her.”
That last comment made Lorenzo slow down. “She didn’t call your brothers?”
“Uh, she might’ve now,” Em said, and if Lorenzo weren’t mistaken, he caught the slightest bit of unease in her tone. “My number was the only one Margie had on her phone. She didn’t have my brothers’, but I gave her their numbers.” She laughed softly but even that sounded strangely forced. “It’s crazy how nowadays no one memorizes numbers. She didn’t remember their numbers either.”
“But Margie’s okay now?”
“Yes,” Em said readily. “They got her back to her parents, and everything is gonna be fine. I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to get a hold of Vince since I was in class when I got the text from her, so she asked me to leave you a message as soon as I did. She didn’t think I’d get a hold of you because you’re in training. But she also wanted me to call her as soon as I was done leaving you a message with your phone number so she can call you or text you. You want me to do that now since you’re available?”
Lorenzo glanced down at his watch with a frown. He didn’t have time. He needed to report back in less than two minutes. Already he was rushing back toward the training grounds.
“I was on a break,” he explained. “But it’s over now. Tell her to call me after five tonight. I really wanna talk to her.”
“Okay, I’ll let her know.”
“Em?” he said before she could hang up.
“Yeah?”
“Who’s they? Who else is she with?”
The line went quiet for a moment. Then he heard her clear her throat. “She, uh . . . didn’t say. It was just a couple of texts that I couldn’t even read until after class because we’re not allowed to have our phones on in class. She didn’t answer when I tried calling her after class, so I just went ahead and started to track Vince down. I just now got the phone call from him, and I was going to try to call her again as soon as I left you her message.”
For a moment, he was tempted to challenge that. Logically, if you’re going to speak or text to anyone in terms of “we” as in “we just got her back to her parents,” you wouldn’t bother using we and Em wouldn’t have mentioned they, unless it had already been clarified who they were. But he wouldn’t be confrontational about it, not with her sister anyway.
It had only been a few minutes since he’d hung up with Emilia, and already the annoyance was overriding any previous feelings of concern. But he welcomed the annoyance. He preferred it to the utter jealousy mixed with fear that Jay still had that kind of power over Liv, something she adamantly claimed he no longer did. He may’ve once again persuaded Liv to do as he wished—convinced her she needed to go back to Dallas—with him. On the premise that it was for Margie’s sake.
Lorenzo was still determined that any reaction to all this wouldn’t be swayed by his past, and he had every intention of giving Liv the benefit of the doubt. She was a sweet girl and clearly a great friend. If she saw fit to drop everything to fly out on a whim to be by Margie’s side, she likely had good reason. He wouldn’t fault her nor would he question the obviously rash decision. It shouldn’t matter that she’d never once mentioned that flying out to be with her friend was even a consideration, not even after finding out she’d gone missing. Given the time she sent the text that morning, something big must’ve happened overnight.
Despite all the possible rational explanations, he could already tell this was going to take all the fortitude he could summon to not jump to conclusions. The adrenaline he was already feeling about the possibility that she was out there spending time alone with her ex was a living, fiery thing. But he refused to let it manifest into what he knew it could—make him imagine the worst. It was very possible that, as she mentioned in her text, after leaving his place today, she’d finally gotten a hold of her friend and was compelled to be there for her. If that’s all this was, then he’d be supportive and understanding. It didn’t have to be what he was already blowing up in his head. Just because her ex had been in town last night and she’d been more than noticeably bemused from just seeing him again for the first time in years, it didn’t mean he was the reason for her impulsive decision.
It didn’t mean that by “they” she’d been referring to her and Jay.
It didn’t mean she’d been with the guy since this morning.
It didn’t mean Lorenzo had to lose his shit—yet.