Again, I glanced at Toni in the rearview.
“Maybe Eddie lives around here,” Toni said, giving me guilteyes in the mirror, since she was lying for me.
“Lee said he was home on leave,” I added.
“I kinda hope Michael’s cheating now because I sure hadcheatin’ thoughts when I clapped eyes on Eddie when hegrabbed me,” Lena muttered.
She was lying too.She’d fallen for Michael.
I saw in him what I saw in a lot of the attorneys who triedtheir cases in the courtroom I worked in.
Narcissism.
So I hoped he was cheating on her too, because I’d rather mylittle sister be in a bit of hurt after scraping off a cheating boyfriend, thanlive her whole life with a man who thought the most important person in theworld was him, and everyone should agree.
“I’m hungry,” Lena declared.“Brother’s for a sandwich and abeer?”
“I could do atickyturkey,” Tonisaid.
I could always do atickyturkey.
I pointed the car toward My Brother’s Bar.
I knew he’d come.I just didn’t know he’d come thatsoon.
The evening after our run-in with Lee and Eddie, I was inthe sapphire blue velvet sectional Darius had bought us, on the lounge section,with a glass of wine and a book, when the door opened.
Something else I didn’t know, and had never asked, was if hehad a key from the guy he knew who got me this pad, or if he picked the locks.
I was dying to know.
I was also dying to know, if he picked the locks, when helearned how to do that.
I was further dying to know how his mom was, his sisters,and if they knew about Liam.
They should know.
But if he wasn’t taking that step, I knew he wouldn’t wantme to.
Something else I wished I could talk to him about, becauseMiss Dorothea was a lovely woman, she’d be a great grandma, and although my boyalready had one, it never hurt to have two.
In fact, it was impossible to enumerate all the things I wasdying to know about Darius Tucker.
But I was getting really good at burying how much I neededto know them, and ignoring how not knowing them, or being able to ask, wasslowly killing me.
He showed in the living room, and he looked as good, and asscary, as ever.
This time, he was holding a large manila envelope.
Yes.I knew he’d come.
Because I needed him.
In this instance, Lena needed him, but to him, it was thesame thing.
He took me in where I was stretched out on the loungesection, his body held in a weird, still way that I understood, because I washolding mine in the same way.
It’d been three years.
