I don’t wait for her to respond or refuse it.
I get the hell out of there.
I don’t want to upset Maritza any more than I already have.
It hurts like hell to see how much pain I caused her, and not just because I care about her but because she wouldn’t be so hurt if she hadn’t cared so much about me.
Our feelings? They were mutual at one point.
But evidently not anymore.
Not now. Now ever.
Thirty-Eight
Maritza
* * *
“Hey. You okay in here?” Rachael pushes past the restroom door and stands next to me in front of the mirror.
“Yeah. I’m fine.” I force a smile. The swell of tears in my eyes subsided about a minute ago, the second I removed myself from his presence.
I didn’t know seeing him again was going to get to me like that. When I first saw him, for a half of a second, I thought it was Ian, but then I saw the faded t-shirt and the shorter hair and the weighted look in his eyes, and I knew.
“Is he still out there?” I ask.
Rachael rubs circles into my back like the devout mother-figure that she is and sighs. “Nope. I told him to get lost. And I told him never to come back here again.”
I chuckle at the idea of five-foot-two Rachael giving strapping Isaiah the what for.
“But before he left, he asked me to give you this.” Rach digs into her apron and retrieves a folded, faded piece of paper and hands it over.
“I don’t want it,” I say, taking a step back.
“Ritz…”
“No, seriously. I’m done.” I shake my head, staring at a water-stained tile on the ceiling. “I don’t know why he thinks a letter is going to change anything. It’s not going to change the fact that he let me go first, Rach. He let me go first.”
“I’ll hold onto it for you.” She offers a tepid smile. “In case you change your mind.”
“We should probably head out there before we get fired,” I say. “How’s my mascara?”
“You pass the raccoon eyes test.”
I glance at my face in the mirror. My rosy cheeks and glassy eyes are a dead giveaway that I temporarily lost my cool, but a couple of deep breaths later, I’m somewhat more presentable.
Stepping out into the hallway where Isaiah stood just minutes ago, I round the corner and watch out the window as he climbs into his vintage Porsche outside the café.
A second later, he’s gone.
Gone from my life just as quickly as he came into it.
Thirty-Nine
Isaiah
* * *
“Hey, Ma. Brought you some lunch,” I call out as I walk through her door. The doctors put her on this new medication while I was gone and she’s been less sleepy lately, spending most of her time in the living room and taking the occasional five or ten-minute walk around the apartment complex when she’s feeling up to it. “Got you the clams casino from Bertocelli’s.”
It’s a step in the right direction, that’s for damn sure.
“Isaiah,” Mom says. “We have company!”
Placing the brown paper bag on her kitchen counter, I drop my keys beside it and turn to face her, only to find my brother, Ian, relaxing on her sofa.
“Corporal.” Ian rises, coming at me with his right hand extended, and I glance at my mother to find her all smiles, as if she expects that we’ve suddenly made up after all these years. I shake his hand with terse hesitation, but he pulls me into a hug. “Been a long time. You’re looking good. Glad you made it home safe.”
Bullshit.
All of it.
Ian’s the phoniest fucking bastard I’ve ever known, and I know him better than anyone.
“Come on. Have a seat. We should catch up,” Ian says, waving me toward the living room. “Was just telling Mom about this girl I’ve been talking to.”
Mom turns to me, her dark eyes lit. “She sounds perfect, Isaiah. Ian, tell your brother what you just told me.”
Ian wears a shit-eating grin to go with his shit-brown belt and his shit-brown shoes and takes a seat in the center of the sofa beside our mother, taking her hands in his.
“Well, she’s sweet and funny and kind,” he says. “And she’s got the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen.”
“What did you say her name was again?” Ma asks.
“Maritza,” Ian says, directing his gaze to me as he answers. “Maritza Claiborne.”
I’m going to fucking murder him.
And now it makes sense … all those things she knew at the restaurant, she learned from him, and I’m two-hundred percent sure he painted me in the worst possible light because that’s what Ian does.
It’s what he’s always done.
We were never close.
We were never brothers.
We were always competitors—at least in his eyes.
Everything I ever had, everything I ever worked my ass off for, Ian wanted.
Everything.
My fists clench at my sides and my jaw tightens. Ian is rambling on and on about how wonderful she is and my mother is lapping it up like a kitten to milk, telling him how she can’t wait to meet her and how she’s so happy he’s finally met someone special.
“I’m going to introduce her to Benson soon,” he says, referring to his son—the son that was almost mine until my girlfriend—ex-girlfriend—dropped the ultimate bombshell on me at the last minute.
“You know my birthday is in a couple of weeks,” Ma says, clapping her hands together. “Calista wants to throw a barbecue at some park by her house. You should bring her then!”
“That’s the plan, Ma,” Ian says, the smug bastard’s gaze careening into mine.
“Excuse me, boys. I’ll be right back.” Ma pushes herself up from her chair and makes her way to the bathroom down the hall.
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” I say under my breath.
Ian stands, adjusting his tie. He looks like a goddamn buffoon. Or a kid playing dress up in his father’s clothes. He’s nothing more than a snake oil salesman trying to project an image of success, but I see through it.
I’ve always seen through everything he’s done over the years, like it’s some skill I’ve honed and practiced and fine-tuned.
“Okay, so if you killed me … how many would that be? What’s your running total?” he asks.
“Fuck you.”
“What does it feel like to kill people you don’t even know? I’ve always wanted to know,” he says. “Do you ever feel bad about it? Do you ever feel like, hey, maybe I shouldn’t fight this war I have no business fighting and maybe I shouldn’t kill people if I don’t have the decency to fucking look them in the eyes when I do it.”
“Go to hell.” My shoulders rise and fall with each hard breath and I clench my fist to keep from strangling the jackass. “You’re lucky Mom’s in the next room.”
I step closer to him, until our faces are mere inches apart.
“What exactly are you doing?” I ask. “With Maritza? What’s your plan here?”