Levi
Raven drove backto the house with me, only to find that Low beat us to it and licked the place clean of any evidence she ever lived here. We head back to The Sloppy Pelican, and I head straight over to Axel who’s still sweeping broken dishes off the floor. It’s a ghost town in here. Not even the band is insight.
“We’re closing early.” Ax grunts as if someone painfully welded the broom tohishand.
But I’m not here to debate the hours of operation. I pull him in by the shirt and set my face next to his. “Where the hell does this batshit crazy ex of yours live?” I can hardly contain my breathing. It’s taking everything I’ve got not to knock his head into a wall until he spills every detail heknows.
“Dude”—he gives a hard push to my chest and sends me staggering back—“don’t touch me again.” His left lid hangs heavy where I decked him earlier, and he nods up at my own face. “Sorry about the busted lip.” He takes a seat, and Raven and I fall in across from him. “I don’t know where Lexy lives. I don’t know anything about her anymore.” He sighs those last few words out as if he were resigned to the fact he never will again. “We haven’t spoken in years. I was sort of hoping we’d reconnect before she lefttonight.”
Raven scoffs while folding her arms across her chest. “Oh, she connected with someone tonight. It just wasn’t you.” She turns to glare at me, and I can feel it coming. “And you had better explain to me how my best friend managed to end up with a brokenheart.”
My mouth opens as I set to begin, and just like that, it closesagain.
Crap. It’s true. I’ve broken Low’s heart, and it grieves me to think about it. All of those horrible memories from last year come flooding back. Memories of my own broken heart, or so I thought, haunting me with their knife-sharp pain. But the truth is, I was never in love with Meredith, not the way I should have been. And if Low is half as much in love with me as I am with her, then I know she’s in a hell of a lotofpain.
Axel lifts his hands as if he wants no part in this conversation. “I’m headed to the back.” He takes off, and it’s just my sweet little sister, the one Low and I tried so hard toprotect.
Raven looks up at me from under her lashes, that look of vengeance still ripe on her face. “Start talking, boy, or I’m going to pick up that broom and start beating youwithit.”
A dull smile comes to my face. “Sounds like something Low would say.” And just like that, my own heart snaps in two. “Low and I weren’t hooking up.” I swallow hard as the truth bubbles to the surface. “We were falling in love.” I glance her way as her eyes grow the size ofherhead.
“Oh my God! What are you talkingabout?”
“I was never seeing that chick that attacked me. I don’t know where the heck you came up with that. She’s the food critic. Low befriended her. Anyway, that text I sent you—the one you said wildly upset Harlow? Evie Slater is a name Low made up for herself. She came with me to the hospital when Maxie was born and pretended to be my girlfriend to piss Meredith and Chip off—her idea, not mine. Only, in an effort to avoid the word getting back to you, she made a slight name adjustment—thus, Evie Slater was born.” I sag into my seat as if I were recalling the good old days, and in a wayIam.
“Oh—my—God.” Raven looks as if she needs a paper bag to breathe in. “So, you and Low? You pretended and then—” She shakes her head as if denying what mightcomenext.
“And then it was real,” I finish the thoughtforher.
“Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow.” She fans herself as she does her best to blink back tears. “I can’t believe this. I strictly gave you bothordersto—”
“I know. And I don’t want to hear it. Do you know how much we’ve sacrificed to keep you happy? Please—don’t start in on the lecture. Low felt pretty bad about it—right up until I royally pissed her off with a text that was never meant for her eyes, nor was it about her.” Shit. I can’t even imagine what must be going throughhermind.
Raven presses her hands over her face a moment before coming up for air, the look on her face twice as startled. “Did you tell herabout—”
“Not yet.” Cutting off my sister is becoming quite the sport. “I think before I do, I need to clear a few things upwithChip.”
“I think that’s a great idea. Maybe by then she’ll call one of us back.” She gives a littleshrug.
“That depends. Is she half as stubbornasyou?”
Raven grimaces. “She’s twice asworse.”
“Great.” I text my brother and ask where he is. It’s clear I’m not getting anywhere with Lowanytimesoon.
“Hey”—Raven leans in—“you know I love you. And I love Low, too. If the two of you are serious about one another, then I’m the happiest person on the planet right now. But the last thing I wanted was for either of you to be hurting, and that’s exactly what’s happened.” She sinks her head into her hand. “And it’s all becauseofme.”
“No, it’s because of me. It was a piss-poor idea for me to kid around with you like that. If I hadn’t chosen a lousy moment to revive my ridiculous sense of humor, then I wouldn’t be sitting here right now wondering where the hell Lowcanbe.”
“What can I dotohelp?”
“Scour the internet—I don’t know. Head down to Food Crack Nation and bribe the hell out of someone in HR to give you that nut job’saddress.”
She wipes the tears from her face before saluting me. “I’ll do my best.Andyou?”
My phone buzzes. It’s a textfromChip.
At the Black Bear. You want tomeetup?
