Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75474 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75474 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“I’m sorry,” I keep repeating. It’s all I’ve got.
He shakes his head, his jaw tight. “Not good enough.” Then he breaks the stare, exhales roughly. The end is near. I can see it written on his face. He thinks I’m lying to him, the one thing he can’t abide.
“I guess I was wrong about you. You can’t be trusted…I’m going for a run. I want you gone by the time I get back.”
18
Chapter Eighteen
Riley
Broken and in despair, I gather my personal belongings as quickly as possible, stuffing them in a duffle bag. The process takes a lot longer than I want it to because my hands are shaking so hard stuff keeps falling. I’m careful not to take anything that may belong to him, even the toothpaste just in case.
The iPhone and credit card Jordan gave me to use gets placed on the kitchen counter. I take the two thousand dollars that I was supposed to give Tommy before he decided to steal the ten thousand and leave the cash with the credit card. That should go some way to paying off the stolen money.
Then I bid goodbye to the place that has been my home for the last three months. The same place where I’ve made so many great memories. Where I fell in love for the first time. Where I discovered that I want kids of my own one day. The same home where I thought I found my one true soul mate…the one for me.
I take an Uber back to Staten Island. I can’t afford it but it’s the dead of night and I’m not risking some junkie pushing me into an oncoming train. It’s been happening more and more lately. By the time I’m turning the lock at my house, it’s five a.m. and dawn is peeking just in time to see my new life, one I was loving, come to an end.
Dropping everything at the door, I drag myself upstairs. Tired. Listless. Hopeless. All the horrible feelings that happen when you lose someone you love bear down on me to the point that I struggle to get up the stairs.
It doesn’t matter that this was a self-inflicted wound because the result is the same. Jordan is one of the most stubborn people I know. He’ll never trust me again. And without trust, there’s nowhere for us to go. A few hours ago I was having the most intense sexual experience of my life and now I’m alone again. But not just alone––alone and heart broken.
Hiding under the covers, the dam finally fails and all the tears I’ve been holding back run loose. I cry so hard I can hardly breathe. I cry for me. I cry for Tommy because he’s on a dark path that will lead him to one place only: jail. And his life will only get worse from there. I cry for Jordan––beautiful, complicated, sensitive man whose feelings run so deep sometimes he can’t see the truth standing right before him.
None of us come out the winner in this. We all lose.
“Rie?” my mother crawls into bed and cradles me from behind.
“Don’t say it.” If she utters one word…
“No, no. I’m sorry. Get it all out.” She holds me until I can’t cry anymore. Until the tears run dry.
“Curly Sue!” Dom’s nickname for me. He loved the movie. He’s been calling me that since he picked me up for shoplifting all those years ago.
Turning off the sander, Dom lifts his goggles and tosses them on the work bench. He turned the garage into a wood shop five years ago when he retired from the NYPD. I haven’t seen him without goggle marks around his chubby face for years. He loves woodwork as much as I do, and we woodworkers consider the mark a badge of honor.
“Dom, you know I hate that name.” I give him a great big hug and kiss his ample cheek. His waistline looks to have expanded because even though we’re the same height my arms barely make it around his rounded shoulders.
“It’s good to see ya, kid. How’s it going?”
“Not great. This is a nice piece.” A set of dining room chairs. Running my hands over the wood piece makes me miss my work desperately.
“French antique. I got so much work I don’t know what to do with myself. You need a job?”
He’s joking. Dom still thinks I have my business. Little does he know the destruction that was wrought on my life. Nuked by two men who claimed to love me no less.
“I might need one.”
His smile drops. The man who was the closest thing to a father to me frowns. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
Yeah is unprofessional…pops into my head. My brain is working against me. It won’t leave me alone, reminding me constantly that the man I love believes I’m a thief. That he thinks I’m even capable of stealing from him kills me.