Page 122 of The Twisted Beats

She gazes down at my hand and a small smile appears on her lips. “About New Year’s Eve, yes. I’m confused about the text messages, though.”

“Help me out. I haven’t seen or heard anything about them. Can you give me a quick run-through?”

She gets situated in her seat so she’s facing me and explains everything to me. With every text she reviews, I sit quietly and listen.

Her emotions fluctuate from sad to frustrated to angry. Until I know what I’m dealing with, I’m not going to react to any of it.

I know Livianna and she’ll just get more pissed if I try to explain each one to her. When she’s finally done, she peers over at me.

“First off, Lily, I didn’t send any message to Faith about being in the front row. I haven’t texted her since before you and I got together. She means absolutely nothing to me. And the more I run into her, the more it turns into disgust for her.”

“You promise you didn’t send those messages?”

“On my pops’ grave.”

“What about the others?”

I formulate how to phrase the situation as I speed down the highway. “I get why you’re hurt, and I’ll explain, but I’ve never lied to you about anything.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The other stuff is true.”

Her mouth drops open. “You told me it happened once.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did. You said you were both virgins and you only had sex once.”

I brace myself for her to erupt, but it’s time I own up to my omission of all the particulars. Even though it’s not lying, I realize it’s wrong of me and this is gonna hurt her. I feel terrible, but she deserves full disclosure now.

“Livianna, if you don’t ask, I’m not gonna get into the details of my past.” I glance over. “I’m sorry.”

She glares at me. “Then consider this me asking.”

A flutter of anxiety bubbles up in me, but I know I need to be truthful. “When I said it happened once, I was specifically talking about having sex with her one time without a condom. You and I never spoke about anything else.”

“But…” She grumbles and sits forward with her arms across her chest. She seems to consider something for a minute. “You knew I’d want to know.”

“Not true. I told you to drop it because I didn’t wanna talk about it. When you didn’t push, I thought you felt the same way. It’s in the past and doesn’t matter.”

“But she made it sound like you really cared about her.”

“I cared about having sex. That’s it. I know I sound like a dick, but that’s the truth.”

“What about her thinking she was pregnant?”

“Yeah, that was a lie on her part. Thank fuck.” I change lanes and keep my eyes on the road. “When I got down to Long Beach and to her house, she took me inside and said it was a false alarm.”

“Is that when you two decided to talk about starting a relationship?”

I peek over at Livianna with my face contorted in shock at her naivety. “Lily, I was using her. Period. I would say anythingI thought she wanted to hear to get… Fuck, you know what I’m trying to say.”

She glowers at me. “You sound like a total asshole right now. You know that, right?”

“I’ve never claimed not to be one.”

“You can be so infuriating.” She pushes my arm. The car veers a little into the other lane.