Page 33 of Trouble
She didn’t give me the opportunity to speak. “Screw that, Maddox. I’m the best thing to ever happen to you. When you figure that out, come and apologize. Then maybe we’ll have something to talk about. Or maybe we won’t.” She looked over at the Midget. “Until then, you don’t touch our car, you don’t make any damn changes without my permission. It’s half mine and I’m not letting you make all the decisions.” Lyla folded her arms across her chest.
I blinked a few times. Baby girl was all grown up and totally serious about this car. “What?”
Her head bent as she searched her bag for something. The coveralls from yesterday flew across the garage and smacked me around the head. I flailed around, eventually balling them up.
“You heard me. If and when you’re ready to be a real man and talk to me properly, you know where to find me.” Her flinty violet eyes met mine before she turned on her heels and strutted out of the garage, leaving me to stare at her retreating ass.
Great. I was screwed. Now what the hell was I supposed to do?
Ispent the rest of the afternoon trying to ignore the Midget calling to me from the back of the garage.
Lyla’s words echoed in my head.
Our car.
In the end, I started sorting out the office to try to divert my attention from the elephant in the room. It was about time I reinstated some sort of order in there so I could find invoices, for example, and make sure I was getting paid on time. And then be able to pay Bryan and Ric. I was a little forgetful with their pay checks and although they were fairly casual about it, I didn’t want to take advantage of them.I’d have preferred to be under the car or making decisions with Lyla about it. But it seemed that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. I sat there, surrounded by paperwork, regretting even starting the stupid task when I heard someone at the door.
Hoping it might be Lyla coming back to talk or at least a customer with a problem I could get my hands dirty with, I leaped up.
“You okay, buddy?” Wes walked in, carrying a six pack. “Thought you might need one of these.” His gaze went to my bruises.
“I suppose you heard what happened?” I grumbled.
He smirked. “Andre might have mentioned something.” He tossed me a can and I gratefully cracked it open.
There wasn’t much chance of me doing any more work this afternoon, so I closed up and suggested to Wes he come up to the apartment. At least I could sound him out about the whole Lyla situation and hopefully get a view from someone who wasn’t so close to it.
“What are you going to do about Lyla?” There was no beating around the bush, Wes went straight for the jugular.
Half a can of beer went down my throat as I debated the answer. “Nothing I can do. Andre’s made his feelings pretty clear on the situation, so I guess I’ll have to move on with my life. Give her up.”
I hated saying those words; it sounded like I was making excuses. Seeing Lyla so riled up about the car earlier must mean she still cared. I couldn’t dampen down ten years’ worth of feelings in less than twenty-four hours, and I was pretty sure she couldn’t either.
Wes shook his head, twirling his beer can around in his hands. “There’s something you ought to know, although it’s still a secret right now.”
For a second, I was concerned everything wasn’t fine and there was something wrong with him or there were problems between him and Scarlett.
“What’s up?” I frowned.
“We’re having a baby!”
“Oh my God, Wes! That’s fantastic news. I’m so pleased.” I went to get up and hug him, but he held out his hand to stop me.
“It’s still early days and we haven’t had all the checks done yet, so please don’t say anything. Especially not to your aunt. Penny will broadcast that kind of news like wildfire.”
I laughed. It was true, Aunt Penny did have a reputation as a bit of a gossip.
“Who else knows?” I asked. I didn’t want to make an idiot of myself and spill the beans before anything was official.
“No one. You’re the first person I’ve told, outside of our immediate families and Scarlett will kill me if she thinks you know.”
“Why did you tell me if it’s a secret?”
“Because when you find the right person who makes your heart swell, when you can’t stop thinking about them, when every moment away from them is torture, you know they’re the one.”
Wes was incredibly perceptive; it was almost as if he were describing exactly how I felt right now.
“It’s exactly how I felt when I met Scarlett,” he went on. “Even though we were young, she was always going to be the one for me. Despite all the shit, and hard times we’ve been through, I knew there wouldn’t ever be anyone else. I’m one hundred percent sure it’s how you feel about Lyla.”
