Lorenzo
Like everything else in the last two days, Lorenzo hadn’t even noticed the older model Chevy sedan parked in front of his townhome. It wasn’t even until he’d circled his own car that he saw the girl step out of the Chevy. Even then, he didn’t catch it was anyone he knew until he did a double take, saw the pup in her arms, and stopped.
She hurried toward him, scanning him from top to bottom as if seeing him in his fatigues confused her. “I’ve tried calling you so many times.”
Lorenzo wouldn’t be rude to her, but he wasn’t giving in to listening either. “Sorry, Em,” he said, continuing to trudge again toward his front door. “But I have a feeling what it is you wanna talk to me about, and I haven’t been in the mood. Probably never will be.”
“Oh my God. So she’s really not here?”
He turned to look at her just before he inserted his key into the front door lock. “Your sister?” He hadn’t even been able to say her name yet, and it still hurt like hell just to refer to her. “She’s in Dallas, remember?” Turning back to the door, he proceeded to insert the key in the lock.
“No, she’s not. Well, at least she was supposed to try and get a flight out late last night, but she never made it home. I thought for sure she must’ve come straight here to see you.”
“I’m just now getting in from North Carolina,” he said, stepping into his place.
Lorenzo hadn’t even decided if he was going to invite Emi in when she followed him in with a purpose. “Have you talked to her?” she asked anxiously.
“Nope.” He shook his head, dropping his keys on the table a bit loudly. “Not since the day she told me what she’d been up to out there and who she was spending her time with.”
“She hasn’t called you today?”
“Not that I know of.”
He opened his refrigerator, trying to shake off the annoyance of being forced to discuss this. But it was true that he had no idea if she’d called once he’d gotten on his flight home. He’d purposely hadn’t bothered to turn his phone back on when he landed. Not just because he wanted to avoid seeing if she’d called or texted him but because he didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Lorenzo wasn’t sure how much anyone knew yet about their break up, and like when he’d broken things off with Linda, it wasn’t a subject he wanted to get into with anyone. The hope was that like with Linda, the less he talked or even thought about this the faster he’d get over her. So far he’d been sorely mistaken to think this would be anything like with Linda. He was certain he resembled a walking zombie for all the sleep he hadn’t gotten in the past two days. Now here he was first thing when he got home talking to Emi about the one person in the world he’d failed miserably to get off his mind.
“What do you mean not that you know of?” Emi demanded.
Motioning to the phone he set down next to his keys, he took a swig of milk straight from the carton. After he was done, he took a moment to answer properly. “I forgot to turn it on after I got off the plane.”
“Well, turn it on!” she said almost hysterically. “Maybe she’s called you. I’m worried sick, Lorenzo. I know you’re mad at her, but aren’t you the least bit worried?”
“Why would I be worried? She probably decided to stay a little longer.”
Lorenzo had considered trying to tone it down, not sound so bitter, but it wasn’t worth the effort. Mostly it was impossible, so he didn’t even try.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “She would’ve called me if that were the case. She knows I’ve been worried sick about her,” she added, her voice going a little harder. “Besides, Margie said she’s not there anymore. She did leave last night.”
Slowly but very deliberately Lorenzo turned and locked eyes with Emi. Her startled eyes said it all as she clutched Liv’s baby in her arms. They were both thinking the same thing. If Liv wasn’t home yet, she’d left Margie’s place, and Em had just confirmed what she’d clearly mistakenly assumed all day—that Liv was with Lorenzo then . . .
“Maybe you should call her boyfriend.”
Emi’s eyes widened momentarily, but she managed to recover from the obviously unexpected choice of word he’d used for Jay’s relationship with Liv. Lowering the pup to the floor she straightened out, crossed her arms, and lifted her chin a bit.
“I did call him,” she said with a glare.
Under normal circumstances, the amusingly angry little brow might’ve made him smile. But damn it if she didn’t remind him too much of his beautiful Liv. That mixed with thoughts of who he was certain Liv was with now had his insides roiling. Up until now, a tiny part of him was holding out hope maybe he had overreacted. Maybe he would open that damn text she’d sent him a few days ago, sooner than he’d expected. He’d refused to read it until he was sure he could handle reading it without smashing his phone into a million pieces. Now he wasn’t sure he’d ever read it.
“I did call you many times,” Emi clarified almost through her teeth. “But you didn’t answer.”
Lorenzo scoffed. “I’m sorry. I thought you and Liv were close. She didn’t tell you we broke up?”
“Of course she told me,” she said, raising her voice a little. “It took me forever to understand what she was saying because she was so hysterical, but I finally got most of it. You two didn’t break up. You dumped her without even letting her explain.”
“What’s there to explain?” he asked, feeling the adrenaline begin to pump and heat his insides all over again. “She’s in Dallas hanging out with her ex-boyfriend. Well,” he added, his voice dripping with bitterness, “I’m the ex now. So he’s her boyfriend now since she obviously can’t tear herself from his side just yet.”
“He is not her boyfriend, damn it! She’s in love with you, and you have no idea what this is doing to her.” She stalked toward the table where his phone sat and picked it up. “But I don’t have time to argue with you about that right now. I need to know if she’s called you. May I please check?”
“Have at it,” he said, unbuttoning the top layer of his fatigues.
It was suddenly too hot for layers. Wondering what Liv was doing with her fucking boyfriend at that moment had him beyond hot.
Em scrolled through his phone quietly for a moment. “There are no calls from her but . . . this text?” she asked, looking up at him. “The one marked unread from the other day. Is it really unread or did you just mark it that way?”
“I haven’t had time to read it.”
Her expression went even harder. “Do you mind if I read it then? I know it’s from a couple of days ago, but there might be a clue in it.”
Lorenzo shrugged, pretending to not care but had to admit he was curious. The curiosity had begun to get the best of him, and it was also why he’d refused to turn on his phone after he’d landed. He’d read the preview of the text the day after his infuriating talk with Liv that ended with him calling the whole thing off. That alone had ruined his entire day early on, and the preview was nothing more than her explaining she was texting from a temp phone. The thought of who’d taken her to buy it since obviously Margie was in no condition to be driving her around nearly had him crushing his phone.
“Maybe you should read it,” Em said, handing the phone to him. “It’s kind of personal.”
Swallowing hard, Lorenzo stared at the phone in her hand for a moment before reaching for it. Just by glancing at the screen, he could see it was a long text, and he braced himself.
This is Liv. I’m texting you from my temporary phone. I’ll have this with me for the next couple of days. Lorenzo, words can’t begin to express how incredibly hurt and disappointed I’m feeling right now. This is so unfair that you would end things so heartlessly without so much as allowing me the opportunity to explain my side of this. I thought I meant more to you than that. Don’t I? DON’T I? Really? You’re just gonna hang up and turn off your phone? I called and called and called. I’m sure you’ve seen the number of missed calls you have from me! I wanted nothing more than to talk to you, plead with you to understand why I had to do this. Why I had no choice. But now all I can think is maybe I was completely wrong about you. Maybe like with Jay I was SO STUPID to believe you actually cared for me as much as I do for you. My relationship with Jay may’ve been sick in many ways, but something good did come from it. And maybe you’re right. Maybe things really do happen for a reason. Maybe my experience with him was meant to prepare me for YOU. Maybe I should thank him. Because of him I am not that person anymore. I will not beg you or surrender my dignity to you or any man ever again, no matter how much I adore him. I pray that I’m wrong about you. That you’re just angry right now, but you’ll come to your senses and realize how much I love you and that I would never hurt you. I pray maybe you just need to sleep on it and I’ll know soon enough. I’m sorry that my having to be around Jay upset you, but my conscience is clear. I’ve done nothing wrong, so that’s the ONLY thing I’m apologizing for. I refuse to grovel. I know you have to turn on your phone tomorrow. I know you’ll read this, and as much as it hurts to even think it, if I don’t hear from you, then I’ll have my answer to my question. And that’s that I DON’T MEAN SHIT TO YOU! And even though the new me is crying her eyes out right now, it’s only because this is still so incredibly raw. But know this. The old me is gone. The new me is going to do whatever it takes to get over you and move on with my dignity intact.
A part of Lorenzo was glad he’d waited to read this. He would’ve never made it through his training exercise if he’d read it the morning he’d seen in on his phone.
The new me is going to do whatever it takes to get over you.
Really? Like stay and hang out a few extra days with Jay? This would’ve made Lorenzo even more furious that morning after, when he still hadn’t calmed even the tiniest bit about her riding around with Jay on his bike. That fucker had no qualms about admitting that not only was he still in love with her he was still insisting she wasn’t over him either. He’d probably had a hard on all day, feeling her body up against his.
Yet another part of him felt a mix of hope and fear: hope that maybe he had overreacted but fear that he may’ve fucked up royally by not reading and responding to her with something, even if it was just to say he was still too angry to discuss it but he might be willing to once he got home. The way he’d felt the entire next day and even today there was no way anything he said or even texted would’ve sounded the least bit sympathetic to her pain, but if he’d at least responded, she wouldn’t be doing anything infuriating to try to get over him.
He glanced up at Emi, who was staring at him anxiously. “When’s the last time you talked to her?”
“Yesterday in the daytime,” Emi said, chewing the corner of her lip. “But she texted me last night around ten in the evening to tell me she was heading out to the airport. She’d purchased an airline ticket online, but the earliest direct flight she could get was a three a.m. flight. She said she’d called the airline and they told her there would likely be open seats on earlier direct flights but she’d have to go to the airport and request to be put on standby, so that’s why she’d left so early. But that’s the last I heard from her.”
“None of your brothers have talked to her either?” Emi shook her head, but something about the way she suddenly glanced down at the pup sitting quietly at her feet got his attention. “When’s the last time any of them talked to her?”
As much glaring and staring anxiously at him as she’d been doing, suddenly she was looking everywhere else but at him. “Isaiah’s on a four-day shift. He won’t be home until tomorrow, so I haven’t had a chance to tell him.”
“I thought you said you’d given her their numbers?”
“I did,” she said, finally looking at him, but there was a definite change in her demeanor. “With her phone issues and everything she was still dealing with Margie and her parents, I just told her I’d handle keeping everybody updated so she wouldn’t have to be bothered making so many calls.”
Lorenzo peered at her for a moment. Something was up. “So none of your brothers have talked to her or tried getting a hold of her?”
“AJ’s out of town on a tournament, and I’ve just been updating Nathan, but I hadn’t even told him she was on her way home last night because she didn’t want me to.”
“Why?”
Something was definitely up, and now Lorenzo was back to thinking he’d made the right call with his reaction to all this.
“She wasn’t sure she’d get an earlier flight, so she didn’t want me to say anything to any of them until she knew for sure when she’d be home.”
It dawned on him just then that if Emi was the first person to know Liv had even gone to Dallas because she didn’t get a chance to tell anyone before rushing out, it meant she’d never told her brothers about Jay showing up the night before she left.
“Do they know who she went with?”
Emi didn’t answer immediately, and that only fanned the fire already blazing inside him.
“She hasn’t told them yet,” she said, and before he could question that, she rushed on with her explanation. “She said the whole thing was so convoluted she wanted to wait until she could explain everything to them in person. They do know she’s in Dallas with Margie and that Margie had some kind of nervous breakdown. They know that’s why Livi had to leave so suddenly.”
It still didn’t sit well with him that, like in the past, Liv was still keeping the truth about Jay from her brothers. But he supposed it made sense that if she was finally going to come clean she’d want to do it in person. Emi still didn’t seem completely comfortable with the turn this conversation had taken. But he still wanted to get something straight.
“Did Margie say if Liv actually got on a plane last night?”
Again Emi’s eyes bounced nervously around the room. “She didn’t actually see her get on, but she does know Liv was headed to the airport when she left her house last night.”
“So Margie didn’t take her to the airport? Who took her?”
Just like yesterday when he’d heard the sound of that fucking motorcycle taking off, every muscle in his body went completely tense because he already knew the answer to that.
“Margie is on some heavy medications,” Emi started to explain. “She’s not supposed to be driv—”
“Did he take her?”
“I think—”
“No, you know,” he said, trying desperately to not snap at Em.
It wasn’t her fault, but this was bullshit. Liv drops everything to fly out there on a whim for Margie, and Margie’s parents don’t offer to drive her to the airport? He was certain they’d offered, but Liv, of course, chose to have him take her. She didn’t want her brothers to know she’d left Margie’s until she was sure when she’d be home, and now no one could get a hold of her? Where the fuck had she spent the night?
“Margie said Livi left when everyone was asleep. She left a note, so she doesn’t know how she got to the airport.”
Oh, Lorenzo knew and it was beyond infuriating. “Has anyone tried to get a hold of Jay?”
“Yes,” Em said, her lowered voice completely lacking that no-nonsense attitude she’d walked in his place with earlier. “Both Margie and I have been calling him all day.”
“And?”
“He’s not answering either.”
“There you have it then!” he said, feeling the utter jealousy and fury inundate him once again. “I guess neither of them wanna be interrupted.”
His phone smashing against the wall made Emi flinch, and her hands flew to her ears in reaction. It didn’t, however, do a goddamned thing to help alleviate his rage as he’d hoped.