There was a short silence before Levi sighed again. “Yeah. I’m sure it was, but he wouldn’t admit anything because he didn’t want to pull me into it.”
“Good!” I exclaimed. That was the nicest thing I’d heard about the guy.
“I only found out about the fight afterwards, when it was too late for me to help. Not that I would have jumped in,” he acknowledged, “but I would have talked him out of doing it and I would have physically stopped him if I had to.”
“It sounds like he did ok for himself.”
“Yeah, and that’s how he always handled everything. I had my parents and my sisters in my corner, without question, no matter what. But August was on his own except for me.”
“What did you say to him when I left?” I asked.
“I just asked him to please let me help. He said I couldn’t.”
Levi took out his phone again and started to text people. I recognized the name of his brother-in-law, Hunt, who had some kind of connection to the military and maybe law enforcement, and he called his mom as well.
“My dad was pretty wary of August but she got along with him,” he explained when they hung up. “She even talked to his mom a few times to try to straighten her out.”
“Where is that woman now?”
“I don’t know and I don’t think he does anymore, either. It was easier for him when she was locked up—”
“Like, in jail?” I interrupted.
“Prison,” he corrected. “It seemed like a load off his mind that she was at least somewhat safe there and not able to get into too much more trouble.”
I thought of August’s big house and the incredible pool, and how you might have assumed that his life was pretty amazing. You never knew the depths of somebody, though. I also thought of Vivienne and how she’d lost her dad. Had they been close? I hadn’t been with my mother, but when she’d died…that wasn’t the problem at hand, though.
“It shook me up when he explained that he’d bought that house for her,” Levi said, and it took a moment for me to connect that he was referring again to August’s mom. “He wouldn’t ever talk much about her but I guess he never gave up on the idea that she’d come around someday.”
“That’s pretty normal,” I said. “You have to hope that your only parent will be able to change.”
“She never did. If my mom didn’t love me…” He trailed off.
“She probably does love him, in her own way,” I countered. “It just isn’t the way that he needed, or that any kid would need. It wasn’t enough. That’s not a loss that someone could easily get over, and I understand why he bought that house.”
He put his palm on my knee and rested it there. “August acts like a gangster but he’s not.”
“But it seems like he’s hiding out. Why is he doing that?” I asked, and Levi said he wished he knew.
When we got home, he was preoccupied with checking his phone but I figured he was starving, because I was. So was Coral. She was not pleased about how late she was eating this evening but she acted all right, with no hissing or hiding. When we were all finished with dinner and were sitting together on the couch, she let me pet her, too.
“What are you worried about?” Levi asked.
“I was thinking that she might be angry because her dinner was delayed, but she seems ok,” I answered, and stroked her head.
“No, I mean besides the threat of a cat meltdown. Whatever is going on with August, I won’t get in trouble over it. I promise.”
“I was thinking about that, but also about Vivienne.” I told him about her second visit and how she, again, had tried to get me to leave Detroit. “I have no idea why she keeps coming around here.”
“I might have guessed that she was reaching out because she needed a friend, but you don’t usually tell people to go away if you’re trying to form relationship bonds,” he said. “Too bad, because I know you’re interested in more of those.”
“Your little sister texted me this morning,” I mentioned. “She wants to have lunch this weekend when she and her family drive down and she said that one of those Curran women might come. I think her name is Julia.”
“Juliet. If you make friends with one of the Currans, you have the chance to hook five other sisters, too,” he pointed out. “I don’t think that Vivienne is after friendship, though.”
“Look.” I showed him one of her videos, which she’d posted the weekend after my car accident with Grant. It showed her and several other women partying next to her pool—her former pool, since she and Lance no longer lived in that house and she and Lance no longer lived together, either. “She has plenty of friends. She doesn’t need me now and she never had any use for me before. I thought that she didn’t care for me because I was so awkward and wrong about everything, but now I know that she actually hated me. She told me today that they had a nickname for me because I was so ugly.”
“Because you’re so ugly? Are you…what are you talking about, Emerson?” He tilted his chin so he could look down at me. “What the hell are you talking about?”
