He wanted me. I knew that much, but after the fight, I didn’t want to do that to him. I didn’t want to take away from the weekend he’d planned for us. I didn’t want this new, potentially awful thing making the weekend he’d planned even worse. I didn’t want to fuck it up for him more than I had already.
Hiding behind my faux nobility was easier than facing up to my fear. I didn’t want to do anything to push him away. If he was leaving, I wasn’t going to be the one who pushed him away.
22
Levi
You could tell a lot about a woman by looking at her mother. Audra must have gotten her coloring from her father. He was probably a swarthy, dark Italian guy because she hadn’t taken after her mother. The resemblance was there facially, but her mother had sandy blonde hair. If you told her you knew then where Audra had gotten her good looks from, it wouldn’t be a lie.
I had contacted her the day after Audra had flown back to the Bay. I hadn’t known what to expect, but how bad could it be? She hadn’t been at the house when we were there, so I had been spared meeting her then, which was probably better. Her daughter had just fled my house in the middle of the night. I guess the fact that she wanted to meet me at all meant Audra talked to her; made sure she knew I wasn’t torturing her or whatever.
We had had an entire fight over this just last weekend, making decisions that involved her without talking to her first. Was I doing that by setting a meeting up with her mother? I didn’t know; maybe this fell in some sort of gray area. Just in case, I had texted her telling her that I was doing it, so she couldn’t say that I hadn’t.
She had said that she thought it was too soon. Weird, I couldn’t wait. I didn’t want to wait. I had never done this before, and I didn’t know what clock Audra was using that said we had all the time in the world because the only reason I was holding back was her.
Being with Audra was like being a freshman in college who had missed orientation week. I had no idea what I was doing. Everything was new. The long-distance thing—that was new for both of us, but with that was everything that came with having a stable girlfriend that I had until this point only heard about. How the hell had I gotten to thirty-two having never done all this before? Audra had taken her time coming into my life, but now that she was here, she was staying in it.
Being in a relationship took loads of time and effort. It took sacrifice, compromise—all that good shit. I was mostly just trying to keep myself from proposing to her. She would say no, but I didn’t like this dating thing. It was with Audra, so it was great, but it wasn’t airtight. It wasn’t permanent. Marriage wasn’t either, but it was more permanent than a casual agreement between two people to only fuck each other.
I didn’t like to call her my girlfriend. It sounded juvenile, like we were middle school kids, making out under the bleachers. She meant more than that, and I wanted more, but there was a way you did things like this.
There was convention, and rules and shit. That was why I was seeing her mother; not to ask for her blessing, yet, but because the bi-coastal thing was fucking up the speed of things. She had met my whole family, even Max, poor thing, and I’d just met her cats. I was doing this right, and that meant I had to follow the rules. I was doing everything, even the tedious stuff.
Audra’s mother was also the only person I thought I could talk about Audra with. She had lost weight, and she wasn’t eating. She had picked at her food when we ate together, and she was always tired like she’d been running marathons.
Her job was demanding, but she worked at an auction house, not a ship breaking yard. She was off. There was something up with her, and she wasn’t telling me what it was. That was why I needed her mom.
Her first name was Adrienne. I decided Ms. Francini would be a safer bet. I didn’t want to see her across my desk at the office like I was interviewing her. How did you meet someone’s mother? I hadn’t done it before, but I knew it wasn’t like that. Ideally, Audra would be with me to be a buffer between the two of us. At least I wasn’t meeting her dad.
At least she hadn’t had to meet Jackson. It would be like introducing her to a stranger. I don’t know whether he ever loved his family, or just loved having a family. Loved being able to say he had one. Loved that he could show everyone his dick still worked. Three trophies named Max, Celeste, and Levi who’d make sure nobody forgot who he was when he died.
A bunch of people he had financial and social power over; that was what we had been to him. Talking to him was like talking to a brick wall. You couldn’t do it. He could hear you and talk back, but he was a brick wall; you never felt like your words meant something to him.
He might have liked her, maybe thought she was pretty, but the only reason I’d have ever introduced them was so he couldn’t say that I hadn’t. I wasn’t looking for his blessing. That didn’t mean anything to me. He was gone, and that didn’t mean anything to me either.
Inviting someone to your home was like exposing your soft underbelly, and since Audra wasn’t there, it seemed a little inappropriate. I didn’t particularly want to invite her to my home, anyway. Maybe we would, though, eventually, for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Did Audra do holidays with her family? If she didn’t, would we start when we got together? It didn’t sound like the worst thing. She and Celeste were basically best friends. My mother liked her. We wouldn’t invite Max. It could work.
I had ended up driving back to Brooklyn on Wednesday because she invited me to talk to her at her house. That was probably what you were supposed to do; take yourself to them. I wore a suit because I wanted to look like I had a job. She made me sit in the living room for a while alone while she prepared tea. I should have asked her whether she wanted help. She came back to the living room and sat so she faced me.
She had said nothing, but I felt like I was sitting there naked. What had Audra said about me? What had other people said about me? Just because Audra hadn’t seemed to know that much about who me and my family were, didn’t mean it was the same for her mother. Would I have to defend myself against what she knew, or thought she knew?
“Audra said you paid for her to make the trip here and back home?” she started.
“Yes. I wanted to see her. We’re in a long-distance relationship. We had planned to see each other the weekend before, but I couldn’t make the trip because of work.”
“Hm. She said you flew her there in your family’s private jet. Did you do it because you thought she couldn’t?” she spat the words making me feel a little bad all of a sudden.
“No. I did because I wanted to.” She stared at me, and her eyes narrowed a little. I felt like I was being interviewed and I had just lost the job.
“I hope you don’t think you’re impressing her. If you want a girl like that who likes shiny things, you’re out of luck. I’ve heard a lot of things about you Levi Strickland, but Audra painted a very different picture of you than the media does. What’s the truth?” she asked.
“The truth is always somewhere in the middle,” I said. “All I can ask is you to get to know me yourself.”
“You seem pretty confident that Audra wants to keep you around.”
“I want to be part of her life. The arrangement we have now isn’t permanent. Eventually, we will move in together.”
“Where? Here or San Francisco? She works there. You expect her to give up her career and life to move here with you?”
Okay. So she wasn’t going easy on me. I shouldn’t have expected her to. Audra was her only child. What she was asking was perfectly reasonable. I wouldn’t trust me either if I was in her position. I wanted her to now, though. I was serious this time.
“I don’t expect her to do anything for me that I wouldn’t do for her. We haven’t talked about where we will live, and I can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do. I want her in my life, here or in San Francisco, or somewhere else entirely. We’ll have the conversation when it comes time to have it.”
“Why did you want to speak to me today
, Levi? Why did you want to speak to me at all?” she challenged. How were these things supposed to go? I wasn’t sure I was doing well or not.
“I care about Audra. I see her in my future, and I want to make a life with her.”
“What? You want to marry her?”
“I can’t do that without your blessing,” I said seriously. “I want to be part of her life… for a long time.”
“I won’t be holding my breath,” she said. “I trust my daughter’s opinion, but she isn’t always right.” In other words, I don’t know why Audra chose you, but since you’re here, I guess we’ll see what happens. I ignored it because I didn’t drive across that fucking bridge so she could lay into me.
“I actually wanted to ask you about Audra. She seems unwell.”
“Does she?” she asked.
“Fatigue. Skipped meals…” I knew what I thought it was, but I didn’t want to say anything. I had grown up in Marin. Rich girls with eating disorders were a dime a dozen. I hated to think Audra was sick like that, but if the shoe fit…
“She seemed fine to me,” Adrienne said. I blinked a couple of times. We were talking about the same Audra, right? Her child? Long black hair? Beautiful, lived in San Francisco?
“Perhaps she was different when she was with me. She just spent one night here.”
“I’m Audra’s mother. I think I would know when something was wrong with her,” she said, a warning edge in her voice.
“Of course. I’m just worried about her.”
“Don’t be. She’s fine. If there was something wrong, she’d tell you. Most importantly she’d tell me.”
“Ms. Francini, with all due respect, I care deeply about your daughter, and I’m afraid she’s ill. I wouldn’t bring it up with you unless I thought it was a problem.”
“She said you were stubborn,” Adrienne muttered. “Listen, Levi. You and Audra just started out. I know how she feels about you, but you have to give her some space—not physical space,” she emphasized, preempting what I was about to protest.
“She won’t roll over for you, and you can’t expect her to. Respect the things she wants and has worked for. She will tell you when something’s wrong. I know she’ll give you that much.”
“I don’t know that she will,” I admitted. She hadn’t so far.
“She will if she thinks you deserve it.”
Seeing Audra’s mother was supposed to make me feel better. It was my fault. I hadn’t picked someone who would tell me what I wanted to hear; that I was doing great, and she loved me. Of course, the mother of the woman I loved was going to be suspicious. Of course, she had heard my name before and didn’t have me at the top of the list for possible suitors for her daughter.
I had expected charming her would be easier—another mistake. I’d just have to convince her. I didn’t know how, but at least now I knew I was doing something wrong. At least now I knew I had two women to impress, not just one.
If I got Lindsay to push a couple of meetings into next week, I’d be able to make it to the Bay by Friday morning instead of Friday night. I could work from the house and go to see Audra in the afternoon. Or she could come to Pacific Heights. With any luck, she’d be feeling better. I had asked her every time we talked how she felt, and the answer was always the same. Fine. She would just say she was fine.
I wanted to believe that she would let me know if something was wrong. When I woke up, and she wasn’t in the house, and her bag was gone too, I panicked. I was ready to call the police. She hadn’t been taken, I knew that was impossible, but it was an easier pill to swallow than her just not wanting to be around me. What did I have to do? I didn’t want her feeling like she had to have one foot out the door when we were together because she was scared of me.
I had made a bad enough impression in the beginning; I knew that. I would probably be paying for that for a while, but how long was that? As long as it took, I guess.
I could take her mother not particularly liking me. I couldn’t take being treated like a criminal. She didn’t have to like me at all. She just had to be civil—respect the fact that her daughter did.
I went home after the meeting. I wanted to work, but not from the office. If I was at the office, I’d have to come back home at some point, anyway. I probably wasn’t going to be able to, and if that was the case, at least you couldn’t say I was wasting office resources.
All I had to do was think about that weekend. It would be better when we got to see each other again. We could pretend we didn’t have things to talk about and just spend time together. I got home and went into my office there knowing I probably wouldn’t get anything done. Hopefully, I’d catch some inspiration. I heard my phone ring, thankfully taking me out of my own head. I picked the phone up. It was Audra.
“Hey sweetheart, what’s going on?”
“Levi?”
I frowned. It was a woman speaking, but it was not Audra. “Who is this?”
“Is this Levi? My name’s Zahira West. I’m Audra’s friend. We haven’t met.”
“Why do you have her phone? Where is she?”
“Can you promise not to panic? Audra might be in trouble, and I think you should be near her.”
“What happened to her?”
Car accident. Kidnapping. Had she been attacked in her home? A thousand horrifying thoughts crashed through me.
“She’s okay. She’s at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital. She said you were coming to see her this weekend-”
“Zahira? If she’s at the hospital, she clearly is not okay. Why are you calling me instead of her? Tell me what the problem is.”
“Listen. I don’t know you, and I don’t have to tell you any of this. You’re someone Audra cares about so I thought you should know. She’s going through something right now, and you should be near her. Try to get here as soon as you can. She’s probably going to be here for the next couple of days.”
“If you have her phone, she’s with you. Let me talk to her.”
“She doesn’t know I’m talking to you. Listen. You have no reason to believe me. Audra won’t ask you to come, and she won’t ask for help. She won’t say anything is wrong if you ask her. You know where to find her if you come.”
She hung up. I was landing at Oakland International the next morning.
23
Levi
Dad had started his treatment in the hospital but had moved into his house soon after. He said he didn’t like the way the hospital made him felt. He thought he’d have a much better chance of getting better if he was in his own bed. He was wrong.
He’d had around-the-clock care and was never alone, but he had died, the same way he would have if he was still in the hospital. Hospitals were like planes for me. That sterile, clinical feel they had just made me uncomfortable. The fact that Audra was somewhere in this one made it worse.
I told the receptionist who I was, and they told me where to find Audra—no hesitation. She wasn’t in the ICU or the burn unit or anything scary like that. I found her room number and went in without knocking.
She was dressed when I walked into the room, sitting on the bed like she was about to be discharged. That calmed me down. It wasn’t like I thought she was a picture of health because she could sit up unsupported, but she wasn’t prone and hooked up to beeping machines. She looked… she looked fine. She didn’t even look sick. She had all her limbs, no open wounds; she looked fine. She wasn’t though because she was here.
She did look a little surprised to see me, though. I closed the door and walked up to the bed, grabbing her. Her hands went around my neck, and I lifted her off the bed, holding her close to me. I released her, so she was standing.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“You’re sick. When were you going to tell me that something was wrong?”
“How did you know I was here in the hospital?”
“Audra, why would you want to discuss this right now? I asked you all weekend what was wrong, and you said you wer
e okay. The next thing I know you’re in the hospital? What the fuck?”
“It’s… I know what this looks like, and I should have told you earlier, but I don’t want to do it here.”
“Told me what earlier? Audra, what happened to you?”
She looked down then, and I knew what was happening. I had seen it so fucking often at this point. She had done it because of me so fucking often at this point. I cupped her face, stopping a tear on its way down.
“I never meant to keep it a secret this long,” she whispered. She looked up at me, and her eyes were shiny and wet. “Last weekend… when I asked you to let me sleep in one of your guest bedrooms? I didn’t want you to hear me throwing up. The morning sickness started only a few weeks ago, but I haven’t been able to keep anything down. I wasn’t sick, Levi. I’m not sick. I’m pregnant.”
I waited a couple of seconds because nothing came to mind when I opened my mouth to speak. I waited for her to keep talking, to… I don’t know, qualify that statement or something. That wasn’t all there was to say, was there? I’m pregnant? I’m pregnant and what? Levi, I’m pregnant, and it’s yours. Levi, I’m pregnant and what… I’m sorry? I’m pregnant, and I just lost it. The thought shook me for a second. What if she had-? No, she hadn’t. She said she was still pregnant.
“How long have you known?” I asked.
“I found out during the week after we had our first date,” she said.
“What? So you’ve just been sitting on this information? When were you going to tell me? Were you even going to tell me?” I said, more angrily than I wanted. I was mad. I was pissed. Why didn’t she tell me? Why didn’t she tell me when she found out? Why didn’t she tell me every day when we talked on the phone, last weekend when we were together for three days, why didn’t she fucking say anything?
What if she just wasn’t going to? What if she had no intention of ever letting me know in the first place? I was enraged and I hardly even knew what it was that I was angry about. It was everything. The fact that she hadn’t told me. The fact that I hadn’t fucking figured it out. Having to hear from someone else that she was in the hospital. It was everything. I was angry at her.
Levi (Heartbreakers & Troublemakers Book 4) Page 17