Page 595 of Not Over You

“You happy with this guy?” He stabs a thumb at Lilo.

Lilo’s eyes turn up for a second, but he goes back to helping Minnie.

“Yes,” I say. I expect the one word to stammer out, but it doesn’t. It’s strong.

Sonny goes to the refrigerator and looks inside. “Out of beer,” he grumbles to himself, and then he heads toward the front door.

“What did you do to him?” I practically scream after the door shuts.

Lilo grins and tries to go back to helping Minnie, but I put my hand on the paper. She’s grunting, making angry noises, trying to get me to remove it.

“What are you talking about?”

I almost believe him. But just like he knows my body better than I do, I know him. He can’t bullshit me.

“Ung! Ung!”

I let up on the paper and Minnie goes back to scribbling.

“You know,” I snap.

He shrugs. “We had a talk.”

“He never talks. Not to us.”

“He talked to me.” His eyes turn to the glass and then back to me. “It had something to do with finding a strange man in his house—alone.”

“I had to get Minnie. I didn’t think he’d be home so soon.”

“Doesn’t change what happened.”

“What happened?”

“I told him who I was. He reacted. I respect him for that. For respecting you and your feelings.”

“Who did you tell him you were?”

“Not your boyfriend.”

My eyes narrow.

“We both know it’s more than that.”

The look he’s giving me, and his words, hit me straight where he did last night. It’s starts in my heart and ends between my legs. I can still feel him moving all through me. My eyes soften, and so does his. My mouth parts, and he licks his bottom lip. We’re being pulled again. My eyes flick to the end of the hall and then back to him. The once haunted room has never seemed so far before. But now it’s filled with something else. Warm memories of us.

“You okay, baby?”

His eyes are narrowed, and the expression on his face is severe. I open my mouth to respond, to tell him why wouldn’t I be? But suddenly, it feels like all the blood has drained from my body. The last thing I remember is falling into his arms.

LILO

PRESENT DAY

I stepped out of the door, and my boot bumped a solid mass knocked out on the doorstep. Mooch looked up at me. Not really caring that he was in my way, though, he went back to sleeping with his head on his two front paws. His leash extended two steps down.

Lucila was sitting on the second, her back and elbows resting on the first. Her face was turned up to the sun, and her eyes were closed. Her knees swayed from side to side to some imaginary beat inside of her head. Or maybe she was remembering the melody that I had just been playing for ma.

If it wasn’t for the flush of her face and the constant movement of her legs, I would have been picking her up in my arms to make sure she hadn’t lost consciousness. Years ago, after she passed out on me, we found out she was anemic. The doctor had called it thalassemia minor. He’d used a lot of unfamiliar words, but when I told him to speak plainly, he’d said that she had a less severe case. People of Mediterranean decedent had a higher chance of getting it. And it was inherited.

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