With two people’s lives at risk.
Pretty Boy said “them.”
Plural.
Plural equals Ozzy and Lorenzo.
I don’t need confirmation to know they might be in two separate vehicles, and we’re going to have to choose one.
FORTY-SIX
bay
Beingin the passenger seat with Levi behind the wheel is nostalgia I haven’t felt in what seems like forever.
I’m completely at ease.
Every sharp turn he makes and the slipping of the back tires does nothing to bring up any level of anxiety.
It’s the locating thing that’s bugging the shit out of me.
However, Levi knows The Landings as much as I do, if not better. The engine of the Plymouth Roadrunner roars through the light and weaves out of traffic like a dream.
Or maybe it’s the driver.
More than likely the latter.
Levi being within the same space as me is more comforting than any hug or kiss. It’s the safe cocoon he mindlessly wraps me in, where all my faith is thrown and everything is at peace.
Nonetheless, we’re in this weird spot where neither of us knows where we’re going, and it bothers me we haven’t talked it out. That we haven’t been able to.
“Lev…” I swallow, my nerves beginning to coil in equal parts embarrassment and fear. “I’m sorry.”
He takes another sharp left turn and straightens the car. “About what?”
“The baby.”
His head turns to me, and I meet his unmatched green gaze, one that appears confused and annoyed. “You wanna talk about thisnow?”
“When am I going to see you again?” I lift my shoulders because I know he doesn’t have an answer to that. “Besides, I’m ready to…move past it. And I can’t without talking to you about it first.”
Levi shakes his head, his white mask shoved up to his forehead, as he continues studying the road. “It is what it is, Astor. There’s no changing?—”
“I was going to name it Rosie if it was a girl,” I shove from my throat, giving him every little last detail of what I was thinking before everything happened, like he was always there. “And Levi, if it was a boy.”
My best friend falls silent then, alluding that he doesn’t have shit-all to say about it, which is fair.
However, I keep talking before I lose the courage to do so.
“I didn’t want it. The last thing we needed was?—”
“You don’t need to explain this to me. I know how sex works.”
“Levi,” I hedge evenly, watching his jaw tick and his fingers tighten around the steering wheel. “I lost you. And now that I didn’t, I was pregnant with another man’schild.”
“I know what you were.”
“I would’ve wanted you there still. I know that’s selfish. You should’ve taken your out,” I mutter. “Pretended to be dead.” My stomach clenches with memories of how I believed that once was true. “Started a new life for yourself. Something that would’ve been less trouble.”
