Page 86 of His to Love
I laughed out loud and shook my head.
Me: I will never see you again.
Blackbird: There are things you need to know. Trust me, Blue. I’m looking out for you here.
That was rich. I stared at the text message. As if I could trust him again.
Me: Go to hell.
Before he could reply, I turned off my ringer and dropped my phone back into my purse.
And as I finally fell asleep, I did so with more tears wetting the pillow beneath my cheek.
Chapter 20
I curled my feet beneath me and draped a blanket over my lap. On the other side of the couch, Eleanor pressed her lips together and blew a breath across the top of her mug, cooling her tea.
She’d been here for two days, making good on her promise to be in Detroit the night after I called her. But since her arrival, we had been busy with not only the visitation and funeral preparations, but the actual services themselves.
In addition, there had been a steady stream of my father’s men coming in and out of the house. He was meeting with various members of his organization and palpable tension seemed to hover in the air. I didn’t think it was solely due to losing my mother.
The reception at our house after the funeral had lasted hours due to the fact that everyone who was anyone wanted to show their support for my father, and, what felt like an afterthought, me.
I had moved to Eleanor’s side, clutching her hand while the forever-long line of people offered their condolences. I figured about half of them were genuine. The ones who I knew were genuine were my, apparently, brand new friends from Fireside Grill. When I saw Paige walk toward me with her husband, I had begun shaking. When Suzanne followed with her husband, and then Chelsea and Camden, Eleanor had to wrap her arm around my waist to keep me from collapsing.
They had swallowed me in hugs and warm kisses, whispering how sorry they were for my loss. Suzanne told me she and her husband had gone to Fireside for lunch, and when Declan was surprised to see her there, telling her my mom had passed and about the funeral and reception afterward, they had all rushed to my house.
I had never had friends as amazing as these women, and I promised I would call them as soon as everything settled down after.
At least the burial service earlier in the day had been a private affair with only me, my father, Eleanor, Clarissa, and Claude, along with my father’s most trusted men, in attendance. Malik had been absent, which I spent no further time thinking about after noticing.
Now Eleanor and I had chucked our funeral wear and were lounging in the living room in sweats, with Clarissa hovering nearby to ensure we ate.
“We haven’t had much time to speak,” Eleanor said and took another sip of her tea.
I clung to my coffee and pressed my lips together. “There hasn’t been much else to say.”
I had already told her all about Tyson. Even to her it seemed like déjà vu. She had let me cry on her shoulder, both of us crying over my mom’s death, which we expected, and me also crying over Tyson’s betrayal, which I hadn’t expected at all.
“What are you going to do now?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know. I have the week off work and I was supposed to move into my apartment last weekend but I postponed that.”
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to postpone all of the furniture deliveries, so my non-lived-in apartment was filled with furniture. I was debating about what to do with the furniture and the place. How could I live in Latham Hills now?
“Maybe I should stay here for a while,” I told Eleanor and watched the expression on her face. To her credit, it stayed perfectly blank.
“I feel bad leaving him now,” I said, in reference to my father. Although why I should was a mystery even to me.
But the fact was, he and Eleanor were the only family I had, and she was leaving tomorrow. A part of me wanted to jump on the plane with her and go back to Colorado, where everything was simpler. My heart surely never felt like it was being pounced on and pecked into a thousand jagged pieces when I was living among goats and chickens.
“Have you spoken to him yet?” she asked, her voice soft.
She didn’t have to say his name. I already knew. She already knew that he wasn’t far from my mind. Sometimes when I cried myself to sleep at night, I imagined Tyson’s arm around me, comforting me and holding me close.
Other times, all I could hear were his whispered promises and lies that dripped from his lips.
“We have nothing to say to each other.”
