Page 46 of Mafia Kings & Wedding Rings
“It wasn’t.” I sighed and draped my purse over the back of the chair before taking my seat across from her. “But it might be. He’s cool.”
“And fine!” Jordan grinned. “From the way he’s looking at you, looks like he’s trying to lock you down.”
“I don’t know about all that.” I picked up one of the laminated menus and studied it.
“You look good together.”
“Like I told him, I’ve already got a lot going on in my life. I did agree to go to the movies with him next weekend though. He’s Sap’s coach, and I don’t want to jeopardize that.”
“Well, it can’t hurt. When’s the last time you went on a date or had fun?”
“Hmm,” I muttered, trying to block the image of her husband folding me up like a pretzel and being balls deep inside me. “Been kind of hard to think about that. Feels like I’ve been spiraling since we lost everything.”
“That must have been really hard.” Jordan rested her chin in her hand and propped herself up on the table. “Your daddy used to be so intimidating. I swear I thought that man would live forever.”
“When the company went under, I didn’t even recognize him. It was like he became human suddenly. Like you, I always looked at him like he was this giant. It was hard seeing him allow life to defeat him. Him and my mother argued all the time, he was drinking heavily, popping pills.”
Reaching across the table, Jordan took my hand and empathy poured out of her big mud-brown eyes. I sniffled, not expecting to become emotional after all this time. I’d been holding in a lot since moving back home.
“You remember that time we had that sleep over and we were up all night doing prank calls and playing truth or dare?” shecackled. “He came in there yelling and going off, telling us to go to bed.”
“And my mama yelling ‘leave them alone! If you were sleep you wouldn’t be worried about what they were up doing.’” I mocked my mother, and Jordan’s head fell back in laughter.
“And we snuck his car keys and drove around the block when he finally did go to sleep.”
I couldn’t believe she remembered that, but the memory had me nostalgic, thinking about how we grew up. It wasn’t perfect, but Jordan was my girl. We’d shared a lot of good times between us over the years. Her family was split since her parents divorced. Years later, her mother died, and months after that, her father. She moved in with her mean ass auntie, but all she ever talked about was getting the hell away from her the minute she was of age.
My parents didn’t mind if she slept over regularly. Since Emerald attended the same school as me, they assumed her parents had money. In reality she just lied about where she lived so that she could attend. Daddy was always working though and my mama pretty much let us do what we wanted. She was always entertaining her friends, having different social gatherings where they got lit and talked shit about each other. Fundraisers and charity events were what she lived for organizing. Any chance to get her name in the paper, she took it. When those headlines broke about my father losing everything, she hid in the house for a month. It was the only time she didn’t want people in our business.
“That seems like another lifetime.” I gently pulled away from Jordan.
“It does, but… I still hold those times close to the heart. You were my bestie, Em. It really hurt when you left and decided not to keep in touch,” Jordan admitted.
“It wasn’t personal. My parents cut ties too. They wanted a fresh start for all of us, but I shouldn’t have allowed them to dictate who I had in my life. Daddy never liked Ivo either,” I sniggered.
“I remember that.” Jordan sat up straight.
Something had shifted, and I couldn’t say exactly what it was as she picked up the glass of iced tea she’d ordered before I got here and brought it to her mouth.
“So, how long have you two been married?” I pried, even though I already knew the answer.
I don’t know why I was such a glutton for punishment. Part of me just couldn’t help but be curious about how those two got together. Ivo barely paid Jordan any mind when she did hang around with us. He usually preferred for the two of us to be alone when we spent time together. Jordan paused from skimming the menu, and her dark eyes penetrated mine from across the table. Setting her menu down, she leaned forward.
“Listen, I know that once upon a time, you and Ivo were like two peas in a pod. Everyone knows that, but they also know nothing ever came of that. You leaving just left a gap… for both of us. I don’t know, it started with us just bumping into one another here and there. When we did, we would catch up and talk about you. I could tell he didn’t really want to do that though. It hurt him like it did me because we thought we were your friends.” Hearing her basically say that I was the reason they got together left tears misting my eyes.
How is that for fucking irony?
“Then we started taking walks on the trails. He showed me this spot by the creek where you two would read and have picnics.”
“He showed you that?” A frown furrowed my brows.
Jealousy was an emotion I wasn’t quite familiar with, but somehow, in this moment, it had reared its head. Ivo taking her to our spot was like a slap to the face.
“He proposed to me there,” Jordan confessed.
Once a sacred place to me was now tainted.
“Wow.”
