“Why me?”I asked still not understanding how I could help him.
A beat.
“Because you know who I was,” he said.“You know the man I can be and the things I will do when necessary.You know me, Nita, better than just about anyone.”
That hurt more than it should have.
“You left,” I whispered.“And I’m supposed to help you.”
“I didn’t leave you to hurt you or Char,” he replied.“I left so I wouldn’t destroy everything I touched.Your sister, she cut me loose.We had a talk before he got to her.She didn’t want the life I could give her.In the end, what we had was nice, but it wasn’t everlasting.Char opened my mind up to a possibility of something I had shut off.In the end, that shit doesn’t matter because I’m not that man anymore either.”
I swallowed hard.Lamonte’s name lived between us, unspoken and heavy.
“You’re asking me to step back into something I buried,” I stated unsure if I could see Dante Verdone without breaking apart inside once again.I had healed.I didn’t want to go back.Dante was a tie to Lamonte.
“I know,” he said.“And I won’t blame you if you say no.But people I care about are in real trouble.”
I believed him.That made it worse.Because I knew what having Dante Verdone in your corner meant.If I didn’t help him, he would still find away.So the least I could do was put my armor on to block my emotions, give him this favor, and then we both can move on for good.Nothing left between us.
I looked down at my coffee, now cold, untouched since the call began.Thirteen years of control, of balance, of carefully stacked pieces—shaking with every second his voice filled my ear.
“When?”I asked.
“As soon as you can.”
I exhaled slowly.“I need to think.”
“Of course.”
There was relief there.Gratitude.Restraint.
“Dante,” I added before I could stop myself.
“Yes?”
“You don’t get to disappear without answers again.”
Another pause.Longer this time.
“I won’t,” he said.“Not if you’re standing on the other side of the line.I’ll text you an address.”
The call ended, and I stood there long after, phone still pressed to my ear, heart pounding like I’d just run headfirst into my past.
Char popped in on me minutes later, she was here for breakfast.I was stuck in place, leaning against the counter like my bones had gone soft.
“What happened?”she asked gently studying me.“Nita, who happened?Someone got you shook up.”
I looked at my sister—whole, alive, happy in ways we once prayed she would get the chance to be.He gave her this, gave us this.
“It was Dante,” I shared.
Her breath caught.While Charlaina told me over and over the same thing Dante said, it still didn’t feel right.I knew the man Dante was with her.How could she not be in love with him?She has told me many times over the years, Dante was a safe place to fall when she had to learn to rebuild herself.But she knew Dante wasn’t her forever and that was why she ended things.She enjoyed time with him, but the butterflies and excitement with every touch weren’t there.She liked him well enough, but she simply found it wasn’t the forever kind of feeling she wanted.
I knew she hurt him.It was written on his face.Lamonte told me some too in casual conversation.Dante had been married before.Char was the first woman he had spent real amounts of time with.The fact he even considered a relationship with her was a huge thing according to Lamonte.
I get that it wasn’t meant to be fore them.Kind of like it was never meant to be for me and Lamonte.Fate was a cruel bitch that way.She gave me this beautiful, strong, protective, confident, sexy man.She let me fall hard and fast just to rip him away from me where I could never have that again.Yeah, fate was not fair because she gave some fairytales and others she left worse than nightmares, she left people like me absolutely empty.
I had buried all of these emotions.The ones where I wanted more than the life I had.Which only frustrated me more because I had a good damn life.I had a career, I had family, friends, and I literally loved waking up every day.Yet, one call fate ripped all the good emotions away and brought me right back to the emptiness.
