40. Decisions Must be Made
forty
Jack
When Liz texted me, I was in the middle of a meeting with one of the guys who never wants to show up to work on time. Needless to say, her words cut the meeting short.
I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my life. For Liz Lawson to say, “I need you. How fast can you get here?” I knew something had to be wrong. If it was just sex that she wanted, she would have just come over and fucked me in the office again, or her text message would have had much more innuendo in it.
When I see her alone with some guy in a suit, my mind fears the worst.
As he walks out the door, I look at Liz, “Do I need to go kick that guy’s ass?”
“No. Well, maybe. Might make me feel better.”
I walk over to her and wrap her in a hug. “Alright, what’s going on? First, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me.”
“Who exactly is he?”
“Mitch. My ex-business partner.”
My eyes just about bulge out of my head. “What? Oh yeah, I’m going to go kick his ass.”
She grabs me by the arm. “Wait. Could you just come here?” Her voice cracks as she speaks.
I pull her into my arms once again and feel her instantly relax against me. “I’m so sorry, Liz. I wish I would have gotten here sooner. Talk to me. Tell me what happened.”
“I guess he cut some sort of deal with the feds to avoid jail time. I don’t know. I was kind of only half listening to that part because I was so pissed.”
“Understandably.”
“He showed up, trying to make amends or something.” She rakes her fingers through her curls.
“Amends like he wants back in your life?”
“No amends like he gave me a check for half a million dollars.”
“Excuse me?” I ask, stunned.
“That was pretty much my reaction too.”
“Okay, baby, you’re going to have to start from the beginning because I feel like I’m only getting a very little piece of this story.”
She starts talking a million miles a minute, and I just try to keep up. She’s faster than the speed of light when she’s on a roll.
From what I gather, though, this asshole is trying to make up for hurting her the way that he did. In my opinion, it’s too little too late, but I’ll let Liz make that call for herself.
“He also then told me that he got me a job back in LA if I wanted it.”
“Doing what?” I ask.
“Same thing I was doing before. Selling houses. I would just have to work for someone else, I guess.”
I probably shouldn’t ask this at this moment, but I can’t help it. “Do you think you’re going to take the job?”
“What?” She looks at me like she only half heard what I said. “I don’t know. All of this is just a lot of information being thrown at me all at once.”
When Liz and I finally decided to do this thing, I never really thought about the fact that she may want to leave Lilly Leaf Falls—which is dumb because I’m pretty sure she hates it here. Why wouldn’t she take a great opportunity to go do something that she loved doing before?
“Are you going to take the money?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Part of me wants to just chuck it into the trash because I don’t need anything from that asshole.”
Not wanting her to do anything rash on either end of the spectrum, I say, “I know good and well that you don’t need anything from anyone. But it seems like this guy owes you something for all the hurt he put you through. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take the money just as a fallback option.”
“Maybe,” she mumbles. She runs her fingers through her hair again, making it wilder each time she does it. “Oh, and apparently, he hired a P.I. to find me. He’s the one who took the photos of us and sold them to the tabloids. So, I guess that whole thing really was my fault.”
“I don’t give a shit about the photos, Liz,” I assure her. “The tabloids can go fuck off. They can take all the pictures they want. Doesn’t matter.”
“Why couldn’t he have just stayed gone? That would have made things so much easier.”
I can only imagine how hard all of this is for her. After my fighting career ended, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. But I also didn’t have people pulling me in different directions.
I certainly don’t want to be the one to influence her to do something that her heart may not be in. And I feel guilty wanting to ask her to stay.
I won’t be that guy, no matter how much I want to be.
In fact, I don’t want to do anything that may sway her decision. Regrets are a shitty thing to live with, and I want to make sure none of hers stems from my input.
“Sounds like you’ve got some thinking to do, princess,” I tell her.
“I guess. Thank you for rushing over here. When I first saw him, I got scared, and I just didn’t want anything bad to happen.”
I pull her in for a kiss. “You don’t have to thank me. You call me, and I come. That’s how this works. I’m always here when you need me.”
She leans her head against my chest, and I find it harder than hell to pull away from her in this moment.
But I need to.
“I’m going to give you some time to think,” I tell her. “You need to figure out your next moves. And when you do that, call me, and I’ll be right here.”