Casanova(28)

Except if I got to do it again, I’d do it differently.

I wouldn’t just kiss her.

I’d drown in her.

I brought my head back up, rubbing my fingertips down my face. I’m greeted by the sight of my pops and great aunt for my troubles. “Hey, Pops, Aunt Bel.”

“Hmm.” Pops pulled out a seat for Great Aunt Bel and waited until she was sitting down before doing the same for himself. “That was a nice conversation with your sister.”

Fuck it, Camille.

“Sorry. I didn’t know you were here.” It was the lamest response ever, but it was all I had. I didn’t know they were here, so at least it was truthful.

Great Aunt Bel waggled her gray eyebrows at me. “Lani’s back, huh?”

She looked so comical, being almost eighty and giving the expression of a cheesy fifteen-year-old boy, that it took everything I had not to burst into laughter and keep going until it physically hurt me to laugh anymore.

“Yes, Lani Montana is back,” Pops answered for me.

Great Aunt Bel jolted backward. “Fuck me, Brett. When’dja start sounding like this old bastard?”

Pops took a deep breath.

“Aunt Bel,” I said, fighting my smile. “You know Pops prefers us to control our language.”

“He’s younger than me. He can kiss my—”

“I see your meetings with Lani are going well,” Pops interrupted. “If your conversation with your sister is anything to go by.”

“Perfectly,” I answered. “Camille has her panties in a twist, that’s all.”

“There’s enough to get in a twist,” Aunt Bel cackles.

Pops ignored her. “I hope you’re not making Lani’s life hard for her. You remember what happens if this doesn’t work.”

“Why her?” The question burst out of me before I could stop it. “Of all the damn people, Pops, why her?”

He looked wholly unaffected by my mini outburst. “Because she’s a damn good journalist and an even better writer. Have you bothered to look up her credentials?”

“No.”

Aunt Bel snorted.

Pops ignored that too. He leaned forward and tapped my laptop. “Open it. She’s all over the Internet. She’s not a wannabe, Brett. She’s the real thing.”

I kept my eyes on him as I opened the laptop and tapped the space bar to wake it up. The screen whirred to life, and I only dropped my gaze to log into Windows. The moment the desktop loaded, I double-clicked my browser icon and brought it up.

Lani Montana, journalist

I hit the ‘enter’ key and watched as thousands of hits came up. “Where do I start?”

Great Aunt Bel rose and walked around the table before Pops had a chance. “On her bloody website, boy!”

“And that’s enough Downtown Abbey for you,” I muttered, clicking the link to her website.

“Downton.”

“What?”

“Downton,” she insisted. “It’s not Downtown Abbey. It’s not in central Miami, brat.”

“Pops, why is she here?” I turned to my grandfather.

He raised a shoulder in an ‘I don’t know’ motion and joined me behind the laptop. “Click here,” he instructed. “The bio. And read.”

I clicked and I read.



Lani Montana is a freelance journalist from Whiskey Key, Florida. An Arizona State summa cum laude graduate, Montana studied journalism and English literature.

After interning with the Phoenix Weekly, Montana garnered accolades for her work with San Diego Daily and the San Francisco Times covering topics as varied as local and national news and celebrity and industry gossip.

Currently situated just outside of Los Angeles, California, Montana continues her coverage on celebrity and entertainment industry news as well as the crime beat for the LA Today to the popular online journal, the Southwest Times.



The page went on to list her contact details and some links to her most notable articles.

I rubbed my hand over my mouth. Shit. She was as smart as I always knew she was. Freelance or not, she had steady work.

Why was she leaving that behind just to come home?

Pops reached over me. He swept his finger over the mousepad and clicked on one of the stories. “Read this one.”

As soon as the page loaded, I did as he said. It was a coverage for the Southwest Times on a murder victim. The body was found on train tracks twenty miles outside of L.A., and she covered it for them. I was nothing but disgusted as I read the details of the victim’s decapitation, but Lani made it sound almost poetic.

She had a way with words that was kinda magical.

I’ve never been much of a reader, but as my eyes took in her words, I knew I could have read her articles forever.

Cheesy? Perhaps. But, fuck. She could write. She could write her way out of a fucking execution.

When I didn’t say anything, Pops took his chance. He rapped his knuckles against the table, said, “Exactly,” and then strolled right on out of the kitchen.

I finished reading the article, and when I was done, looked up.

Great Aunt Bel slammed the lid on the cookie jar and shuffled backward, half a cookie in her mouth, muttering about how she’d kill me if I told.

I threw her a wink and clicked on the next link on Lani’s webpage.