Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
Admit it, you and your BFF are not two peas in a pod. You’re ice cubes in a glass. Trying to play it cool, but about due for a meltdown.
—Romeo to Mable
Mable
I was well and truly angry.
Pissed.
Incensed.
And it all had to do with a man who had left without a single backward glance.
It was a solid week after I’d left Romeo’s house, fully expecting to see him the next day after I went to church, only to find him gone.
Gone, gone.
As in, as if he’d never been there to begin with, gone.
His horses were gone.
His house was empty—I would know. I’d broken in to see if I could find him, and had found the entire place cleaned out. There was no food in the cupboard. There were no clothes in the closets. There was nothing there but the empty feeling of a cabin that was rented out to guests.
It was as if no one had lived there in years.
That led me to now, working my ass off to keep from focusing too fully on the fact that the man I’d decided that I loved had up and left without a word.
Unfortunately for me, it was shutting down time for the day, and I had to leave or I’d be forced to leave.
Big John had already informed me that I wasn’t allowed to stay past five anymore, or he’d make me regret it.
Funny enough, I knew that he would, so I was gathering my things despite not wanting to leave.
Another crazy storm was headed our way, and I just knew without a doubt that it would be torture for me. As if I wasn’t plagued with thoughts of Romeo enough, I now had to be stuck inside my house thinking about the last time a storm had rolled in.
“Taking off?”
I smiled at Jesper, though it didn’t reach my eyes. “I am.”
“Have a good one. Stay warm,” he said as he tipped his imaginary hat.
Stay warm.
If I had a man at home waiting for me, I might.
Though I couldn’t say that it was all bad. At least when Romeo had disappeared, he hadn’t taken Brawny with him.
And Brawny would keep me warm.
I didn’t need no man…
At least, I had that opinion until I got home and tried to open a new jar of pickles.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the damn thing open.
“Stupid small hands,” I grumbled, kicking my big toe at the corner of the rug that’d flipped up. “I hate you.”
I set the bottle of pickles on the counter and glared at it.
I glared at it so hard that the ringing of my doorbell had me startling.
My head whipped around as I stared in hope at my door.
I moved toward it quickly, though not too quickly. I didn’t want to look desperate.
My hopes were dashed, however, when I got to the door and yanked it open only to see…
“What are you doing here?”
Birdee and Shade.
My face dropped as I saw her standing there with her arm in a sling and a crutch under the other arm. The cast on her leg was bright red.
“I thought we were cordial now?” Birdee questioned.
I blew out a breath. “I’m just surprised to see him here.”
“I’m actually not staying,” he admitted, shifting from foot to foot.
“And…” Birdee urged.
“And I’m sorry for giving you lime. That was out of line, and I shouldn’t have done it. No matter how much I thought you hurt my best friend,” Shade muttered.
“You’re forgiven,” I said. “On one condition.”
Shade’s brows went up. “What?”
I left the door open and walked toward the kitchen and my jar of pickles.
When I had them in my hand, I turned and thrust the jar at him. “Open this.”
He did, handing it back to me.
“That’s it?” he asked.
I nodded once.
“Guess that was pretty easy.” He wrinkled his nose. “I’m sorry again.”
With that, he took off, slamming the door closed behind him.
I stared at Birdee and said, “What’s going on?”
“Two things,” she said as she looked around. “But I’m waiting for Cody to get here.”
“You are?” I asked in surprise.
Brawny got up and walked toward Birdee, touching his snout to her hip.
She reached down and scratched him behind the ear. “Aren’t you just so handsome?”
Brawny nudged her pocket, and she snorted and pulled out a treat for him.
He sat, letting his tongue loll, then offered up both paws.
“Good boy,” she said as she held it out to him.
He took it and walked over to his dog bed in the corner of the room, set up in front of the huge plate-glass window that offered a view of the entirety of my backyard.
“He looks like he’s done that with you before,” I mused.
“I used to visit with him when you weren’t around,” she admitted.
I walked over to the kitchen and gestured toward the barstool at the counter. “Have a seat. I’m making sandwiches. Do you want one?”
She took the seat and studied the fixings for the sandwiches. “I still don’t like anything but meat and cheese.”
She sounded so embarrassed that it had me smiling, despite the slight awkwardness of the situation.
“I figured that,” I said. “I’m not actually putting anything veggie-wise on this. I’m using the pickle juice to flavor my mayo. Would you like to try it?”
She hesitated.
“You can have a bite of mine.”
She nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”
I got to work fixing dinner which consisted of chips, a sandwich, and lemonade.
By the time I’d slid Birdee’s sandwich onto her plate, my front door was opening and Cody was walking inside.
“Yo, hos,” she said as she barreled toward us. “What’s poppin’?”
My brows went up. “Are you subbing at the middle school again?”
“High school.” She flashed me her beauty queen smile. “What’s up? Not that I’m complaining if you’re going to feed me.”
“Well, mainly, I just wanted to share what I found,” Birdee explained.
“I went to clean out my room at the mansion since they’re moving everything out in preparation of getting kicked out.
Tom wanted me to get everything out before he dumped it.
He’s really mad at us, by the way. He thinks we betrayed him.
Anyway, so I’m getting everything out, and I take my computer that was hooked up to their network. Only, it wasn’t my computer.”
“Whose computer was it?”
She pulled it out and handed it to me. “My mother’s.”
I stared at it. “Oh.”
“I was going to ask if you wanted to give it to your man’s computer friend.”
I grimaced at that. “Well, that’s going to be hard since I haven’t seen him in a week.”
“What?” Cody asked. “Who?”
“Romeo?” Birdee asked.
“Romeo,” I confirmed.
“Why?” she asked. “Have you called him? What if he’s dead in a snowdrift somewhere?”
“That’s not the case,” I admitted. “His horses are gone. His house is cleaned out. And he put a leave of absence in at work. Paul Junior told me about that today.”
Both women stared at me. Both equally sisters in their own right.
Though, Birdee was clearly nowhere near as close to me as Cody.
“That’s fucking bullshit,” Birdee declared. “Who just leaves like that and doesn’t say goodbye?”
“We never made any promises to each other,” I admitted. “We just slept together. That’s it. We didn’t exchange any promises or words other than very shallow thoughts. He didn’t know how I felt about him at all.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Cody scowled. “That really pisses me off.”
“Did we just agree on something?” Birdee looked at Cody.
Cody flipped her off, and Birdee smiled.
I, on the other hand, looked between the two like they were nuts.
“Did y’all become friends without me?” I asked.
Because I wasn’t quite there yet with Birdee. Every time I looked at her, I felt like I was looking at an enemy.
That wasn’t something that I could just turn off overnight.
“Not quite yet,” Cody admitted. “Maybe we’ll get there. We can bond over the bullshit that is Romeo.”
I smiled sadly. “How about we talk about anything but?”
I plugged the computer in, then powered it up.
It went straight into the computer home, skipping the part that asked you to enter a password.
“Did you sign into this already?”
“I did,” Birdee admitted. “Well, Dad did. He left it open, and when he gave it to me, I just took it.”
I started poking around. “Did you look on it?”
“No,” she admitted. “I wasn’t kidding when I said that I suck at computers. I didn’t want to mess anything up, so I just brought it here.”
“Well, let’s just change all these settings and make it stay on until we want it to turn off,” Cody suggested, taking the computer over from me and pressing a ton of buttons.
Moments later it was on the counter between all of us. “What do you think that file folder on the desktop is?”
“It’s all the evil deeds she’s done to us over the course of our lives,” I quipped.
She clicked on it and photos, as well as a few Word docs, started to pop up.
“Whoa.” Cody leaned forward. “Isn’t that…”
She clicked on a news article and my breath caught in my throat.
Romeo.
Only, it wasn’t the Romeo I knew. It was a photo with an accompanying article featuring a much younger Romeo.
Murder He Wrote
Six months ago, Romeo Hayes Rossi, twenty-four, of Dallas, Texas, beat and caused the man his wife was having an affair with to go into a coma. With the overwhelming evidence stacking against him, things are not looking good for Rossi.
When asked among his friends in his neighborhood, they all had nothing but good to say about him.
Romeo cleaned up our streets and made it safe for our children to play outside. He didn’t hurt anybody, least of all this man. Whatever evidence the cops were able to collect was planted. Romeo wouldn’t hurt anyone. Says one concerned citizen.
Romeo helped keep my family’s bakery open.
They cleaned up the riffraff that were trying to make it impossible to keep the business open.
Every morning he’s the first one there to buy a pastry.
If he did it, I’ll give up my spot in the bakery business.
He’s all class and doesn’t deserve to be put through the wringer for false accusations. Another neighbor shares.
Jury deliberation starts at eight in the morning sharp. More updates will be in tomorrow’s edition of Dallas Times.
I swallowed hard at the article in bold.
Cody clicked out of it without a word and moved on to the next article.
This one was simple.