Page 80 of Scandalous Lover

I laugh softly and nod, not a bit surprised by this proclamation. The only thing that’s a bit curious is the fact that her phone isn’t already on her. I can feel the weight of my own phone in my fifth pocket, my now constant companion. “Run on up and grab it. I’m going to get started.”

She runs off, and I drag the weed-eater out of the small shed near our worksite. I’m checking the line and oil when I hear her cry out. I drop everything and bolt for the house.

I fly through the back door just in time to see Naomi rushing out the front door toward the driveway. I follow. By the time I get out to the front porch, she’s already finished her search of the golf cart’s floorboards and is collapsing into the driver’s seat.

I walk over and slide into the passenger seat beside her. “Everything okay?” I ask, even though the answer is obvious.

She just groans and rests her forehead on the steering wheel. “I forgot my phone.”

I bite my fist to keep from smiling, and I’m grateful Naomi isn’t looking at me. This is clearly a devastating situation for her, so I want to be supportive.

“Why don’t you head back to Dom’s and grab it? You know the way back now, so it will only take a few minutes.”

After the quick, third-hand conversation I had with Fran about Naomi being on the run from Dom’s, I have a feeling I know the answer, but I still want to give her the space to talk about it in her own time.

Naomi just shakes her head again. “I can’t go back there yet.”

My forehead creases with concern. This sounds like more than just a little sibling annoyance. “Why not? What happened?”

She flops back in her seat and lets her head drop backward to rest on the metal bar behind her. “Just a stupid fight.”

“Tell me.”

She sighs and finally looks my way. “It’s why I came over here in the first place. To talk to you about it.”

“But you changed your mind?”

“Once you started showing me your house, I just loved being here, the last thing I wanted to do was ruin it with my petty problems.”

I reach over and slide my arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to me. “Let’s hear it.”

“They wanted to talk this morning, and it was going okay?—”

“They?”

She huffs out a laugh. “Yeah. Dom and Reina. My new parents, I guess.”

“Okay…” I’m nervous about where this is going. My loyalties have been solidly in the corner of those two people up until very, very recently.

“Seriously, at first Dom was all nice about everything and told me he followed me on Instagram, which I had no idea about. But then he started in on this stuff about how it wasn’t his fault he hadn’t called in five years because he saw on my feed that I was doing okay. And I was like, you can still call someone just to say hi, and he was like, phones work both ways.”

She lets out another sigh, nestling closer to me. I hold her tightly, waiting for her to go on.It’s incredible to me, now that I have this perfect, interesting, kind person in my life, how little Dom actually mentioned her over the years. I never gave it much thought, but it’s all I can think about now. I guess I’m about to learn a lot more about the reasons behind his behavior. I try not to kick myself for not asking him sooner.

“That was the beginning of the end. He claimed he would worry about me less if I was in a relationship, and I told him I knew he threatened every man on the island against touching me. It went really downhill from there. He told me I needed a plan for my life, as if the entire career I built for myself was nothing. I stormed into my room and grabbed my bag and,” her voice drops as a sob escapes her lips, “forgot to grab my phone. I’m sure I would have noticed before I got too far, but Reina chased me down the path trying to get me to feel sorry for him.”

“You can use my phone?” I offer stupidly, still trying to process the back and forth of her and Dom’s argument.

She sits up, wiping her face with both hands. “It’s not the same. And it’s not even about the phone. I don’t even need it, really. It’s just…”

I wait patiently for her to get wherever she’s going.

“It’s always been my whole life, that phone. My community,my brain, my entertainment, my map. Hell, it’s my credit card. How could I have forgotten it?”

“You were upset.”

She deflates right before my eyes. “I guess.”

“Sounds like you’re upset about losing things that the phone represented, is that right? And that happened before this morning, but you’ve been putting off processing the feelings you’re having about the losses of those things? Your community, your job?”

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