Page 109 of Live for Me

“I don’t need advice about women from the man who kept his girlfriend in the trunk of his car for the first half of their relationship.”

“It was a warning. Not advice.”

“Man, this really isn’t the fucking time for your —.”

“Your Judge says you’re in love with her,” he interrupted. “Remember that. And act like it.”

That motherfucker smacked me on the shoulder and just walked away.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

memphis

“Your name is really pretty,” Trista whispered against the top of my head.

“I didn’t think he’d react that way,” Indy said. “I’m sorry, sweets. And I wasn’t looking foryou, Memphis. I wasn’t trying to dig up anything about you. I had no idea. I was just looking at missing kids from the area. Some of the cases have been open forever.”

“I don’t imagine he’s actually madatyou,” Trista added. “I think he’s probably just as shocked as the rest of us. It just comes out a little different when you care about someone.”

Jersey hadn’t bothered saying anything since he came back into the house. He only sat next to me with his hand on my leg.

And I couldn’t come up with words if my life had depended on my ability to speak. Too many things were happening inside my brain at the same time. I couldn’t make the thoughts happen clearly through the cloud of emotion.

Jersey peeled Trista’s arms off me and took the paper from the desperate grip I’d kept on it. I looked down at it with him. I hadn’t seen Emery in years, aside from brief glimpses of her through the security cameras around the house in Tupelo. I’d never had pictures of her to just keep, but seeing her face again this clearly was somehow more painful than even stopping to consider what it meant to have us both pictured on a missing persons flyer.

Utah was standing in the entryway to the kitchen when I looked back up from the paper in Jersey’s hands. He looked like he was in physical pain right along with me. Jersey folded the page again and placed it back in my hands before he kissed the top of my head.

“You come find me if you need me, honey,” he whispered into my hair. “Everybody else, out,” he said to the rest of the room before he ushered Triss and Indy out of the kitchen. I watched him stop in the doorway to the living room to turn around and point at Utah before he left us alone.

“Angel, I —.”

He didn’t finish whatever he intended to say. He came the rest of the way around the island to pull me out of the chair and crush me against him. I cried even harder with him holding me that way. He let me go just to move his hands to my cheeks.

“I’m sorry I didn’t put it together before this. Whatever you need me to do, sugar, I’m here for it.”

He spent a minute trying to wipe the river of tears from my face.

“I’m going to go put the truck back together,” he said quietly. “Then I’m coming back in here for you. We’ll go somewhere that we can be alone, so you can tell me everything you need to tell me about this. And we’ll figure out what happens next.” He paused just to kiss my forehead. “I’m sorry, Memphis. I’msosorry.”

He stepped back away from me and paused again to search the depths of my eyes. He still hadn’t let go of my face. He looked like he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to move at all.

“I’ll go tell New?—.”

Jersey cleared his throat from the doorway to interrupt and let Utah know he was already here to wait with me. There wasn’t even a glare exchanged between the two of them that time.

“I’ll be right back, angel.”

Jersey was back in the chair next to me as soon as Utah was gone.

“How old were you?” Jersey asked in a perfectly calm tone that absolutely did not match the rage I could feel vibrating off the rest of his body.

“Thirteen,” I choked out. “Em was only eight.”

I watched his elbows come up to rest on the countertop and his fingers lace together in front of his face. I was a little concerned that he was about to break every bone in his own hands with the way he was crushing them together.

“All those times you tried to tell me that you could see why I would relate to Triss just because she was alone,” he said and sighed. “And there you were, living with everything else that she felt. Honey?—”

“Please,” I interrupted. “Jersey Boy, I know this is a lot for you to suddenly have to swallow. But please, I need to know that we can still go about our lives acting like this never happened. I can’t revisit this every day.”

---