CHAPTER FOUR
LIZ
“Ican’t stay here.” I spin around, ready to march back out the way I came in, but Jovi is at my back and catches me before I can make a run for it.
“Where are you going?”
I wriggle out of his grip. “I have to get an Uber to the airport. I don’t want to miss my flight.
” My flight leaves two days from now. Thanks to the unforeseen turn of events this afternoon, I was planning to change it anyway.
No time like the present to get that sorted out.
Maybe I can get on standby. Score a red-eye flight tonight.
“Honestly, the sooner I get to the airport, the better. I have a million things to sort out so I can get back here.”
To this house.
Which I can’t bear to spend one night in. Let alone a year of my life. Possibly forever.
Jovi stares at me.
“What?” I cross my arms over my chest. There’s something invasive about the way his eyes pore over me.
“You know.” He smirks, but it does little to diminish the sadness in his chestnut eyes. They’re darker than I’ve ever seen them, like deep wells of familiar grief. “Just looking for the bits of truth you like to scatter about in your bullshit.”
My mouth twitches with a deep desire to scowl at him, refraining only to deny him the satisfaction. We’re way past pretending we can’t see through each other’s veils of crap tonight.
“Fine.” I release my arms to my sides in a show of surrender. “It’s too soon, okay? I thought I would find it comforting to be here tonight, in their space, but I was wrong. I don’t want to stay in this house alone.”
Jovi nods, biting the left corner of his bottom lip the way he’s always done when he’s thinking. There's something annoyingly comforting in seeing something I recognize. Something I still understand. Even if it's something about Jovi.
Turning, he starts for the door. “Come on.”
Desperate to get out of his house and its suffocating walls, I follow him. “You don’t have to take me to the airport, Jovi. It’s almost two hours away.” And I don’t think I can spend two hours stuck in a small space with him, nothing to focus on but the two of us.
He reaches his truck and opens the passenger side door. “I’m not taking you to the airport.”
I stop short of climbing inside. “Then where are you taking me?”
“My place.” He gestures for me to keep moving and get in.
“Don’t fucking overthink it, Liz. I have a guest room.
It’s on the other side of the house. We won’t have to cross paths at all until you get your flight squared away and actually have to leave for the airport.
At which point, we both get back in this truck. No Ubers.”
“I can stay at a hotel.” I’d rather stay at a hotel. They have housekeeping, a skill I’m almost certain Jovi hasn’t acquired. And also, there's no Jovi.
He shakes his head at me. “Shut up and get in the truck, Liz.” Then he walks around the hood to get to his side and climbs in the driver's seat, leaving me only one option if I wish to continue this conversation.
And I do.
“Who made you the fucking boss around here? What, you think because you’re in charge of the business, that somehow makes you superior to me, the court-appointed homemaker?” I rant at him from the second I plant my ass in the seat until I’m yanking the door shut and clicking my seatbelt into place.
“You’re ridiculous.” He starts up the truck.
“I’m not bossing you around. I’m taking care of you.
Because you’re rattled and it’s making you irrational.
” He shifts into reverse, then turns to stare at me point-blank, never hitting the gas.
“I’m doing it for Lena. And I’m not going to stop.
So, suck it up, accept it, and shut up." He rolls his eyes, letting out an audible sigh. "Or keep arguing. I don’t care either way.”
“That’s dirty business,” I grumble, sinking into my seat and folding my hands in my lap to keep from fidgeting. “I can’t believe you brought Lena into this.”
He snorts in response and starts driving.
Two counties over ends up being over an hour-long drive.
This time of night, the roads are fairly empty, making the journey oddly serene given neither one of us says a word the entire way.
I can’t tell if I’m caught in some pocket of peace among the grief, or I’m totally zoned out, too exhausted to feel anything anymore.
Maybe it’s a little of both because I find myself coming out of a lulled state of dozing when the truck gently jerks to a stop.
“We’re here,” Jovi mutters. His voice is so low and so quiet, I can’t help wondering if I was asleep for a while and didn’t notice.
“You left a lot of lights on,” I mumble, taking in the large structure in front of me.
Jovi’s home is a massive two-story house complete with at least one balcony within view, a fancy tile roof, and a separate three car-garage attached to the house by a covered walkway. And windows. A lot of fucking windows.
“Wasn’t me.” He grabs the handle and opens his door to get out. “Casey must have gotten scared. Big house freaks her out sometimes at night.”
He’s out and the door shuts before I can respond. Part of me thinks he did it on purpose, to force me out of the truck before I can think twice about my decision to spend the night here.
Regardless, I get out of his truck when he shows up at my side and swings the door open. I have questions. Starting with, “Who’s Casey?”
“My girlfriend.” He makes a face. “Sort of.”
“How is she sort of your girlfriend?” I ask.
We make no effort to enter the house. We’ve made it out of the truck but haven't moved past standing here.
Both of us lean against the hood, having this conversation, neither of us so much as facing the front door. “She’s living with you,” I point out when he doesn’t respond to my initial question.
“She’s not living with me,” he insists. Though, for someone so adamant about something, his voice notably drops a few levels in volume. Like he’s afraid she might hear him. “She’s just staying with me while she’s between places.”
“Ah.” I nod. “Right. Just staying with you. Between places.”
“Why are you doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“Repeating what I said," he huffs. "Like you’re mocking me.”
“Oh, that.” I roll my eyes. “Because I am mocking you.” I lean toward him and hiss, “I hate to break it to you, Jovi, but you one hundred percent have a live-in girlfriend.”
He matches my stance and hisses back, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I stand upright again. “Right. So there’s, like, a housing shortage right now?”
His brow crinkles. “No.”
“She can’t afford rent?”
He averts his eyes. “She’s a teacher. Money’s not great but she can live on it.”
When he still refuses to see where I’m leading him, I carry on, “And all her stuff, it’s in storage?”
“No.” This time his nose twitches at the admission.
“In boxes? Stored in a closet? Or a spare room?”
He starts to shift his weight from side to side. “No.”
“Then…it’s unpacked? In your house?”
He scowls. “It’s not how it sounds. I haven’t been around to move all my stuff in, let alone buy the furniture to fill this place. And she couldn’t stay in an empty house, so—”
I smirk, reveling in my impending victory. “She moved in.”
“It’s only temporary,” he grumbles, right back to where he started.
I sigh. “I’m too tired to explain to you how girls work but trust me when I say, this girl found a loophole with your commitment-phobic ass and jumped on it.”
I slide my hand over the hood as I start walking. It’s still hot and the warmth reminds me that somewhere inside Jovi’s mansion, beyond the misguided woman trying to trap him, is a bed calling my name.
The brief reprieve this distraction offered is wearing thin. I’m ready to stuff my face in a pillow and forget the world for a few hours.
“Unless you tell her to move out, she’s never leaving.”
Jovi continues to mutter under his breath all the way up to the front door. Surprisingly, he’s gracious enough to keep his arguments inaudible, allowing us both the satisfaction of believing we won.
Sometimes it’s not all bad having known each other for half of our lives. Even when we don’t like each other, which is most of the time, we still get each other. And tonight, that counts for more than just about anything.
“Do me a favor,” he says as he reaches for the door handle, preparing to lead us inside. “Keep all your theories about my relationship status to yourself. No snarky comments. No witty insinuations. No sarcastic implications. Nothing.”
I have half a mind to act offended. But the other half is too tired to bother. “Don’t worry. I’ve lost interest in your ridiculous love life already. The only thing inside that house I care about is the bed I plan to collapse in until morning.”
“Works for me.” His hand twists and pushes. Then he steps aside. “After you.”
I give a slight bow of my head to thank him as I go by. As soon as I do, I can’t help but wonder why we always bother with manners when we’re constantly being dicks to each other. Good upbringing, I guess.
“You’re home!” a semi-unpleasant squeal reaches us from somewhere inside the house. I'm sure it's delightful under any other circumstances. Tonight, everything feels like an assault on my battered nervous system.
Shortly after her exuberant greeting echoes down the hall, a plucky little redhead comes bounding around the corner, ready to launch herself into someone’s arms.
Not mine. Because she stops short when she sees me heading her way first.
“You’re not Jovi.”
“How very observant you are.” I plaster on a smile before Jovi can jab me with his elbow. “You must be Casey.”
“Liz is staying here tonight,” he announces, scooting past us both, skipping over introductions and greetings alike. “Just pretend she’s invisible and soundless. Trust me, you’ll prefer her that way.”
He rounds the corner of the entry hall and disappears, leaving me and Casey to stand here, locked in our pre-collision stance.