Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 52643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
I fake a smile as he speaks. I can still remember all the nights he kept me up until sunrise venting about it. How he read and reread the newspapers questioning if he was “way too young” to handle such a case.
“I offered the guy a twelve-year prison sentence in exchange for snitching on his family members, but he turned me down. We went to trial and he ended up getting a life sentence.”
“Is there a point coming with this story, Brett?” Liam asks. “Sounds like typical legal work.”
“After the trial, I secretly wiretapped his mother’s phone and found out she and a few other family members were cheating their taxes and framing banks. So, I submitted an anonymous complaint to the feds and they took over from there.” He smiles. “Now, the whole family will spend the next thirty years in separate prisons, and they’ll never talk to each other again. All because they dared to defy me.”
“You didn’t tell me that, Brett.” I look at him. “Why would you put the guy’s mother away?”
“She put herself away.”
“She’s like seventy six years old…” I swallow.
“I don’t care how old she is.” He shrugs. “She’ll be well taken care of behind bars where she belongs.”
Applause suddenly fills the room, saving us from an awkward silence.
“Excuse me for a moment,” Liam says, standing to his feet. “I need to check on something.”
I watch him wade through the crowd.
He doesn’t return for a long time.
After sitting through seven poems with Brett and Lauren,I pull out my phone.
“I need to call a classmate about tomorrow’s meetup,” I make up an excuse, but neither of them notice.
I make my way to the restrooms and push open the door on the men’s side.
“This is the mens room,” he says, spotting me through the mirror. “Surely you know the difference after all these years.”
“You’re an asshole.” I hiss. “I regret ever talking to you, kissing you, fucking you, and I swear—”
“Watch your mouth.”
“That’s it, isn’t it?” I say. “You got some underage pussy and decided to go to another school to fuck some other young girl.”
“I’m warning you, Genevieve…” He clenches his jaw. “Watch your mouth.”
“Contrary to what you think, you do owe me an explanation and I’d like it now so I can leave with closure.”
“Closure?” He mocks me.
“Yes, closure. Start talking.”
“Go back to your boyfriend, Genevieve.”
I stand my ground, refusing.
“Are you sleeping with him?” he asks, catching me off guard.
“No.” I roll my eyes. “No, I’m not sleeping with my boyfriend. I’m going on year five waiting on you to come back after you abandoned me without giving me a reason.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“That’s exactly what fucking happened.” My voice cracks.
“He looks older, so you still have Daddy issues?”
“Fuck you.”
“How old is he?”
“He’s not that much older than you.” I hiss. “And he didn’t make me jump through hoops to be with him.”
“I was the one jumping through hoops, Genevieve.” His eyes darken. “How old is he?”
“He’s forty. Happy?”
‘That’s not bad,” he says. “He sounds like he’s trying to plot your life, though.”
“What’s your point, Liam?”
“One, you’re not meant to be a lawyer,” he says. “You’re supposed to be writer and four years doesn’t change that. Two, you can do better than him.”
“Okay, I’m leaving before three.” I shake my head. “Thank you.”
He blocks me. “Does he know that you’re probably thinking of me every time he’s inside you?”
“I don’t think of you at all,” I say. “I let you go a long time ago.”
“Then go ahead and walk away from me.”
Silence.
Before I can say a word, he stamps his mouth over mine and pulls me flush against his chest. The feel of his lips on mine transports me to a place no other man has ever erased, a place that’s forever ours, still begging and waiting for us to reclaim it and finish what we left undone.
But as he kisses me deeper, tears prick my eyes because I can’t shake the way he left me behind.
He tears away from me first. “This is a mistake.”
“I agree.” I fire back. “I’m with Brett and I’m sure he'll never leave me like you did.”
“He’ll never love you like I did either.”
He leaves me again, and I stand in the bathroom staring at my reflection.
When I return to the table, I put on a fake smile as we listen to the other poets. I focus my attention on Lauren, but when the waitress comes to collect our licenses for another round, I spot Liam’s address and save it to my phone.
10
LIAM
Later that night
“What the hell did she do to you?” Lauren sets a steaming cup of tea in front of me.
“Huh?” I notice she’s wearing a lacy red negligee. “What are you talking about?”
“The woman who hurt you,” she says. “You’ve never said anything about your ex-wife. Are you scared I might know her?”