A small smile spread across Lynx’s face. It didn’t quite reach her eyes, but close enough. I put that there, and I planned to do it more often.
“IWASbeginning to think you lost my number.”
That’s how Lila answered the phone when I called. She was the sweet one, so I knew I was in deep trouble. Natalie would have said, “Fuck you, Mike. Don’t call me for months, and now you call with a favor?” Not Lila. She just internalized her hurt at my not calling.
“Nah, Lila. Just been a rough few months. I hated unloading on you. You’ve had enough bad shit hanging over you, and you finally got your sweet, second baby and all. You need to enjoy it. By the way, how’s the princess?”
Standing in my barren apartment, I leaned my back against the glass, the Atlantic lapping away behind me. I’d begrudgingly dropped Lynx at her place after breakfast, watching until she disappeared inside the front doors of her building, and hoping she’d agree to see me again soon.
“Mikey, I can enjoy my life and still be there for you. Would I even be where I am today without you? Don’t answer that, because the answer is no. And the princess, Francesca, is a screamer. Yikes, Carson may be smitten with her, but she’s got some lungs.”
My head against the cool glass, I blew out a long breath and smiled. I couldn’t help but be happy for Lila and Carson. Two kids, a big home, and a happy life.
“Personally, I’m barely holding it together. Staci and Sampson are keeping shit together at the club. The hotel’s happening, but Lynx isn’t. She’s stuck in a bad place, Lila. I need her out of it, done with that crap.”
“She’s a woman.” Lila’s voice was gentle, soothing my anger. She’d been a rock, escaping a violent husband and religious oppression, reinventing herself as a stripper and escaping a violent kidnapping.
“You got out of it, made peace time and again. I was there, watched you. Remember?”
“We’re all different. We handle stress differently. I’d met Carson, and he showed me I could.”
“So I’m not enough?” I paced the hardwood floor wearing nothing but jogging pants hanging low on my waist, naked from the waist up—the way Lynx always loved me.
“You’re more than enough, but you need to show her, not tell her. Showing doesn’t mean sending flowers and singing telegrams. It means being patient and steady, by her side.”
“I think that’s what I did today ... I don’t fucking know. I just want her back, all of her, one hundred percent this time. In my house, in my bed, all mine.”
Lila laughed into the phone. “Don’t get so alpha, Mike. Is she seeing someone again? Talking this out? Ash said she ditched the last person.”
“That’s why I called. She’s not, and I need her to. Carson’s getting me a name, and I was kind of hoping you and Nat would help me convince her.”
“You’re a sneaky sucker. Weaseling your way into my love life back then, and now this. But I’ll help. What do you need?”
That was the problem.
I had no fucking clue.
