Page 78 of Falling Into Forever
God, Shan. I miss you. I’m not someone who prays often, but I do occasionally speak to my sister, and the urge to ask her for a sign bubbles in my throat.Am I going to be okay?
* * *
The air isthick with tension when I make it downstairs, but I can’t read Dante’s or Grady’s expressions.
“What’s up?” I ask, and both men turn to me with varying shades of unease, but neither says anything.
“They’re seeing who has the bigger schlong,” Lilly says from her perch at the register where she’s reading. I fight and fail to hide a smirk. After her parents died, Lilly retreated from everything she normally loved. And it seemed to get worse when Grady became her guardian. They had growing pains figuring out their new dynamic. But in the last year, she’s started to show signs of life again.
“Lilly.” Grady’s voice cuts through the tension.
Lilly shrugs. “They’re both giving each other warnings when the truth is, Dante is in love with you, and Grady loves you…” Grady’s face turns purple. “Because you’re his best friend and he struggles with boundaries, he’s here making sure Dante doesn’t mess up, and Dante is telling Grady that he’s got it covered. There, was that so hard?”
Throughout her entire spiel, she never once took her eyes off her book. I would have laughed if the testosterone in the room weren’t cloyingly dense.
Dante does.
“Yeah,” he chuckles. “That about covers it.”
Grady’s face shifts from purple to a slightly less angry shade of red.
We’re making progress.
“Are you—”
A FaceTime call cuts off my question. The telltale ring has us all reaching for our phones.
Dante lifts his. “It’s Lena.” He accepts with a wide grin, no doubt excited to see Poppy. His expression is sad whenever he talks about her. Being away from her is getting to him.
Will he resent missing out on her everyday life if he stays here?
“What’s wrong?” Dante’s voice changes in a heartbeat.
“He— I — She was at dance. I.” Lena is dragging in painful, sobbing breaths in between each word, and I reach for my pendent on reflex.
Zip. Zip. Zip.The sound of the chain reflects the harshness of my breath as I cross the room to stand beside Dante.
Lena’s beautiful face is streaked with tears and mascara. The air shifts as Grady moves forward too. If Dante has a Mr. Fix-It complex, Grady has a savior one.
“Take a deep breath,” Dante says. His voice strains and his pain hits as hard as my own.
“He. I brought P-Poppy to dance. I only left to get a coffee down the street.” We can understand her words, but it’s filtered through fear and pain that lances my heart. “When I was walking back, I saw him taking her from dance. Her arm. His grip. She was crying, and I ran. He, he was trying to take her, Dante. And he was on something else this time, he had to be. There was no emotion when he grabbed her hard enough to bruise.”
Dante’s body begins to vibrate next to me.
“He didn’t let go when I grabbed her around the waist. He didn’t let go when I begged him and she cried out in pain.” She chokes on a sob so broken it causes a sensation that rivals my worst panic attacks. “He pushed me and pulled her, but I didn’t let go. I…”
“Lena.” Dante’s voice is tortured. “Do you have Poppy now?”
She nods, and tears spill out over her cheekbones.
“Where. Is. Trent?” There’s a deadly calm to his tone that I’m sure is for Lena’s benefit. He hides how his body shakes and his knuckles turn white, but I’m witness to it all.
I place a hand in the center of his back, and his breathing slows, but nothing will bottle up the fear vibrating through him.
Grady stands on Dante’s other side, so close you couldn’t slip a piece of paper between them, and for Lena’s sake, I’m glad only Dante is visible on the screen. Together, they’re a wall of barely contained rage hidden behind layers of muscle.
“I don’t know. One of the dads from dance saw what was happening and stepped in. I’m not sure what to do,” Lena cries. “He went to my parents’ house this morning, but we were already gone.”
