Suspicious Minds (Fate #3) (10 page)

By the end of the night, Olivia had a better understanding of
what Lorenzo was expecting of this relationship. As planned, she’d had the two
wine coolers, and Rose had kept her promise about serving her another big
helping of the delicious lunch she’d prepared.

At the end of the night, Lorenzo walked her out across the street
to her car. Once there, he leaned against it, pulling her to him again and
planting another kiss like the one she’d been thinking of all night. While
Lorenzo hadn’t lied about not being able to keep his hands and lips off her
even in front of Rose and Vince, he seemed to sense her unease about doing
anything more than sharing a few quick pecks in front of them, so he’d behaved
himself. Now he kissed her so profoundly she tingled in the most private of
places.

Shamefully, she had no qualms about getting right to the amazing
sex as soon as he wanted to. As if reading her mind, because her thoughts were already
on how slowly he planned on taking this, he pulled away breathlessly. She could
already feel confirmation press against her leg that he, too, would likely be
anxious to get to that sooner than he’d made it sound.

“What’s your schedule usually like?” he asked her, still
breathing hard and staring deeply into her eyes. “Tomorrow. What time are you
off?”

“Not all my days are the same. But I’m usually done around six-ish.
It just depends on who I’m working on and how many appointments I have that day.”

They’d already exchanged numbers earlier, and they agreed she’d
call him the next day as soon as she was off. Okay, maybe this wouldn’t be just
a “Monday Night Football” thing. After just one evening of hanging out with
him, holding hands, kissing, and cuddling, it felt as if he’d been her
boyfriend forever. And while getting so instantly lost in his eyes felt similar
to what Jay could do to her once upon a time, it had never felt quite like this.
Her tumultuous relationship with Jay had had its moments. But this excited her
more than she cared to admit. It was almost embarrassing how giddy she felt
about the whole thing. What was she, twelve? At least with Jay she had an
excuse. The excitement with him had started when she
was
very young.

After several marathon kisses goodbye, Olivia was finally in her
car and on her way home. Still feeling breathless, she thought of what her
friend Margie might say if Olivia could call her and tell her about Lorenzo.

Sprung!

It was what her ex friend would say Olivia was. And she’d be
right because it was exactly how she felt. For years she thought she’d never
feel the things Jay had made her feel, and now unbelievably this was beginning
to feel as if it might actually top that. She took a long deep breath,
reminding herself tomorrow she’d have to get a grip. How mortifying would it be
if he knew what she was feeling after spending just one evening with him?

Her phone beeped, and as soon as she came to a stop, she read the
text from Lorenzo.

Call me as soon as you’re home and in bed so we can talk.
This is crazy, but already I can’t wait to see or talk to you again.

With one hand at her mouth she giggled—just like a twelve-year-old.

Six

Lorenzo

Everything he’d told her was the truth. Lorenzo couldn’t
wait to see or talk to Olivia again. He really did want to hear her sweet voice
one last time before he went to bed. And he really had left his keys hanging in
the doorknob when he got home because he’d been so engrossed in reading the
text she’d just sent him.

They’d been on the phone for almost an hour already, and so far
they’d mostly laughed over silly non-heavy issues. But Lorenzo had every
intention of getting to know a little more about her ex. He knew she’d said she
had no relationship with him anymore, but Rosie’s comment questioning how over
her ex Olivia could actually be hadn’t been forgotten. Had something Olivia
said to Rosie made her doubt it?

Lorenzo had no idea when they left Vince’s house today for the
market that things between them would progress as quickly as they had. He wasn’t
regretting it or anything. After spending such a fun and perfect evening with
her, it confirmed what he’d already begun to think even before today—he had it
bad
for her. But he
did
wonder if maybe he hadn’t jumped the gun without
making completely sure she was over her ex. Just because they didn’t speak
anymore didn’t mean she was over him. And the guy
was
her first
everything
.

The moment she’d driven away and he began to come down from the
high of being around her, it hit him. What the fuck had he done? He needed to
be sure he hadn’t made a hasty mistake.

“You said you were born and raised in Dallas. So you and all four
of your siblings moved out here two years ago or were they already here?”

“No, we all moved here together.”

“Really? Wow. Why such a big move all of a sudden?”

“My parents had been divorced for years, and my dad moved to San
Diego several years before we did. Then in a span of less than a year we lost
both our parents.”

She was quiet for a moment, and at first Lorenzo dared not say
anything, but then he did. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want
to.”

“I don’t mind talking about it,” she said, sounding a bit somber,
but at least she wasn’t crying or anything. “But maybe I’ll save my mom’s story
for another time. It’s kind of a heavy subject to tackle so soon.”

“Done,” he said immediately, not wanting to ruin the mood. “What
do
you wanna talk about?”

“I can tell you about how we got here,” she said, sounding a
little less somber. “I’ll just say my mom died suddenly, and we were left in
the care of my oldest brother, Isaiah. He’d already passed the fire explorer
academy and was working as an EMT technician driving an ambulance, but none of
the fire departments in our county were hiring. Both my other brother Nathan and
I had part-time jobs, but even between the three of us, we were still barely
able to pay all the bills.

Then later that same year my dad had a heart attack. It was the
weirdest thing because it felt like the end of the world, especially after everything
we went through with my mom’s death so recently. I’d never been close to my
dad. After the divorce, I was just mad at him and sort of shut him out. So while
tragic because I always assumed I’d eventually get over being angry and someday
make amends, it caused an added inner turmoil when he passed. AJ and I had been
the angriest about the divorce therefore the hardest on him.” She sighed but
went on. “On top of the child support he was still paying for my sister and
younger brother, my dad had been sending Isaiah extra money even before my mom
passed because he knew we were struggling. So when he died so unexpectedly, it
felt as if everything had suddenly just gone to crap, and then we found out our
dad left us his house here in San Diego and money.”

Olivia stopped when someone said something to her—a guy. Lorenzo
assumed it was her brother and her calling him by name confirmed it. She’d
already told him all her siblings’ names. He listened as she continued to talk
to him.

“You have Emi in the morning right, Livi?”

“Yes,” she said. “I can drop her off before my first appointment.”

Her brother said something else Lorenzo didn’t catch, and then
she spoke again. “I love you too. Goodnight, Isaiah. Sorry, that was my brother,”
she explained.

“Livi?” Lorenzo asked curiously then smiled.

“Yeah,” she said. “All my siblings have always called me Liv or
Livi. Never Olivia.”

The realization that she hadn’t lied about her name that first
day made him smile even bigger, and he felt a strange relief. Now that she
mentioned Liv, it
was
the name she’d given him that night,
short and
uncommon
as he remembered. At least it was uncommon to him. He’d never
known a Liv. Lorenzo hadn’t realized until just then how much the assumption
that she’d lied about her name had bothered him, especially given her “Jerks
only deserve fake names” comment last week.

“I like it,” he said, smiling. “It’s cute and sexy at the same
time. Suits you.”

“Thanks,” she said, and he could almost picture her sweet smile.

“What’s Emi short for?”

“Emilia,” she said, and again he could practically see her smile
proudly. “But she’s the baby, so she’s always just been Emi to all of us.”

He nodded immediately, deciding he’d stick to Liv or Livi from
here on, but he wasn’t so sure about calling her sister Emi. She wasn’t
his
baby sister. She might think it creepy.

“So back to your story about why you moved here so suddenly,” he
said, sitting back and making himself comfortable.

“Oh, well, I was just saying it was weird that, just when it felt
like our world was falling apart, we got here and all of a sudden everything
fell into place. The San Diego County Fire Department, which Isaiah had already
applied to, was testing. He took the test, passed, and got in. I was already
doing some grooming in Texas but had never been formally trained, so with the
money my dad left, I got the training I needed.” She paused for a moment before
going on. “My sister is probably the only one of all of us with aspirations of
attending college, so since I’d used part of the money for my training, I
decided to get a loan to start up the business and get the van, instead of draining
the funds my father had left us.”

She went on to explain how her second-to-oldest sibling, Nathan,
had also gone through the explorer academy and was in the process of trying to
get into the fire department as well. She also told him a little more about her
youngest brother, AJ, and how he’d always excelled in sports from the time he
was a boy but baseball and being a catcher were where his talents stood out.

“Well, I guess that confirms the saying is true, right?” Lorenzo
asked. “Everything really does happen for a reason. At least it sounds like it
did for you guys.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I mean at first the thought of such a huge
move, leaving everything I’d ever known behind and starting all over again in
another state, was terrifying. But it was a no-brainer.”

“Is that why you and your ex broke up?” Lorenzo asked, glad for
the perfect opportunity to ask. “Because you were moving?”

“Ultimately, yes,” she said, and he heard her take a deep breath.
“But it’d been coming to a painfully slow end for a while. Technically, we were
never even a formal couple. We’d been back and forth for years and friends for
even longer. Months before my dad had died and we’d talked about moving, I’d
made the decision to walk away from the relationship. It was unhealthy and I’d
known it for years. My brothers never liked him to begin with.”

Hearing that her brothers didn’t like her ex made him feel better
about it. But he was even more curious about the guy now. “Unhealthy like how?”

The pause she took without saying anything was a bit long—telling.
Lorenzo wondered now if maybe she’d regretted saying too much, but then she went
on.

“We’d been friends all along from the time we were kids. He was one
of the neighborhood kids and a little older than I. He had a troubled home life,
and so as we got older, he started to lash out and get into trouble: running
with the wrong crowd and ditching school. His older brother . . . They were
both bad news, but his brother was into some really shady stuff. For the most
part, Jay tried to stay away from the illegal stuff, but it’s kind of hard when
your whole family is dysfunctional. Rumor had it that one girl tried to accuse
him of rape. Though it never amounted to anything and she moved away. But it
gave him a real bad rap anyway. We were still good friends, and I
thought
I
knew the real him. I was convinced that it was just the bad situation at home
that made him act out and that he was a good guy deep inside. He said the girl
who accused him had been with him willingly and was just pissed when she heard
about him with someone else. I believed him.” She went quiet for a moment, and
Lorenzo waited, even more curious. “My brothers and my mom didn’t even approve
of him and me as friends, so I knew they’d be completely opposed to anything
more happening between us. But I was young and stubborn. I allowed our
relationship to grow into more anyway—behind their backs, of course. I told Jay
we had to keep it on the down low. No way could my brothers know. He agreed. Then
things got heavier until I decided to give him my virginity.

“I could’ve probably convinced my mom to let me hang out with him
in a romantic way and that he wasn’t as bad as everyone said he was. I almost
did try to until I found out he’d slept with someone else. He said he did it
because he’d gone on an angry drinking binge. He was angry because he felt I
was ashamed of him. Though we were never actually a formal couple, I thought we
had an understanding, so I broke things off. I wouldn’t have dreamed of
sleeping with anyone else, and I stupidly assumed it went both ways, especially
because he was so insanely jealous of any guy I even mentioned talking to. Long
story short when he found out I was going to the prom with someone he’d accused
me of being attracted to in the past, he went out and got drunk and slept with
someone else again.” She took a deep breath then exhaled a bit exasperated. “In
hindsight, I know I was stupid, but he was my first everything. I’m pretty sure
I was even a little obsessed at that point. His being forbidden and all made the
relationship that much more exciting. So after prom when he cornered me and
begged me on his hands and knees to forgive him and take him back, even if we
had to continue keeping it on the down low, I did.”

Someone was in her room again, and Liv asked Lorenzo to hold when
she was asked something. A girl this time—Emilia. Lorenzo waited, thinking
about everything she’d just told him. He could already tell he, too, would feel
insanely jealous when it came to Liv, not just because of his experience with
Linda, but because like everything else he felt for this girl so far, he
already knew the jealousy would be just as overwhelming. Just listening to her
say she’d been obsessed with this guy was beyond irritating.

“Sorry,” Liv said when she was done talking to her sister. “She
just needed to borrow something of mine.”

“You can call me back,” he offered, “if you need more time with
her.”

“No, she’s gone now. I’m good. Where was I?”

“You took him back,” Lorenzo said, remembering
exactly
where she’d left off.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, exhaling again. “In many ways, he was far
less mature than I was. Obviously, the bad choices he made and his impulsiveness
were clear signs of that, but he
was
older. He had far more experience
than I did in a lot of things. And because we’d known each other for so long,
even before he gained the reputation of a bad boy, he knew me intimately. He
knew how to work me; he took advantage of the fact that he was my first
everything, and I was insensibly obsessed with him. I’d actually begun to work
up the nerve to talk to my mom about my relationship with him. Then he and his
idiot friends went and got arrested crashing and nearly ruining a neighborhood
backyard
quinceañera
party.
By the disgusted way my brothers reacted to that alone, I knew they’d never agree
to let me see him. I was so mad at him, but he always had a way of convincing me
he was sorry and that he’d make up for it.
Then
he slept with someone
else again because he heard rumors of me sleeping with my prom date. He claimed
my date was spreading them. Lorenzo, if you knew my brothers the way my prom
date knew my brothers—the way
everyone
knows my brothers—he’d never even
insinuate something like that about me, not if he valued his life anyway.”

Lorenzo chuckled. “I don’t know your brothers very well yet, but
if they’re anything like your cousin Romero, I can only imagine.”

Liv didn’t comment on that but went on. “Jay’s doing something
stupid or sleeping with someone else then begging me back went on for too long
probably. But months before we talked about leaving the state, I’d told him I
was done. I know he didn’t think I’d stick to my guns. He loved playing head
games—toying with me. I’d tried breaking things off before, but he’d always
lure me back in. That worked for a long time too, but I was over him that last
time, and then the move happened. It was perfect timing. I got a clean break
and never looked back. We even started texting and talking on the phone again, but
didn’t talk of anything romantic between us. We’d gone back to being just
friends like in the very beginning, and I had no intention of ever going there
with him again, but I did enjoy being able to talk to him. He
was
a
wonderful friend to me before anything romantic happened between us.”

Just when Lorenzo had begun to grind his teeth, wondering if it
were possible to hate someone he’d never even met, she added something else.