Fighting Solitude (On The Ropes #3)(23)

Using my thumbs, I wiped away the black makeup smudges under her eyes. “I can tell.”

“I’m serious.” She swatted my hands away. “But Mia wasn’t like that.” Swallowing hard, she looked back to the door. “I asked her a few years ago what had made her reach out to me and she had no real answer. She avoided the question by saying that she could just tell I was cool. I suddenly have this sick feeling that our friendship was formed on nothing more than the theory of ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’”

I barked a laugh, but her gaze stayed locked on the door.

“Jesus Christ, women are weird,” I mumbled at the ceiling before refocusing on Liv. “You seriously think she spent over three years being your friend because she was jealous? Liv, she liked you more than she did me half the time! Once, we got into a huge fight because I’d taken her to a nice restaurant for our anniversary and she spent the whole dinner texting you about your prom dress. She loved you!”

I was still chuckling when her tortured eyes met mine.

“‘Take care of Quarry.’”

“Huh?”

“That’s what my letter said. ‘Take care of Quarry.’ That’s it.”

My stomach fell.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

What the hell had Mia been thinking?

Then my stomach dipped even lower.

What if mine only said ‘Take care of Liv’?

I’d spent over a year obsessing over all the words I hoped she’d written. Just because I wasn’t man enough to actually read them didn’t mean I hadn’t envisioned what they would say a million different times. I’d drafted that letter in my head more often than I’d ever admit, but never once had it been about Liv.

The disappointment must have shown on my face, because she immediately said, “I’m sure yours is better.”

I wasn’t.

But, suddenly, I had every intention of finding out.

Had Mia been capable of being friends with Liv just to keep an eye on her? Yup. She had even been crazy enough to pull it off. I was already going to be livid if that were the case. But, if I found out that her final words to me had been written out of jealousy, I was going to lose my f*cking mind.

There was only one way to truly know.

After the world’s quickest shower, I donned my hearing aids and headed out in search of the only remaining pieces of Mia March.




Twenty minutes later, Liv and I stood on the front porch of a familiar, brick, two-story house in the middle of the suburbs. Liv had called when we’d left the gym and said that Mrs. March seemed excited that I was finally coming by. I was so damn nervous about what I was going to find in my letter that I couldn’t even bring myself to worry about what I was going to say to Mia’s parents.

That all changed when Mrs. March opened the door.

Mia had gotten her mom’s deep, green eyes, and the sight of them smiling up at me caused my heart to wrench.

“Hey there,” she said cheerfully, pushing to her toes to give me a hug.

It wasn’t quite the greeting I had been expecting, but I wouldn’t complain.

Mr. March was standing behind her, and no sooner had his wife released me than he extended a hand in my direction.

“Good to see you again, son.”

“You too, sir.”

“I saw your last fight on HBO. You should be proud.” He smiled as if I hadn’t threatened his life the last time he’d seen me.

“Thank you,” I said, following him into the large family room I’d spent numerous nights in with Mia.

I’d never been so thankful for the distraction of that letter until I was in that room. It would have been easy to get lost in the memories, and I had a feeling I wouldn’t have been left in one piece on the other end of that journey back in time.

Mrs. March stepped in front of me and offered a hot-pink envelope in my direction. “As much as we’d love to catch up, I’m sure you’re eager to read this.”

I stared at the envelope for several seconds before gathering the nerve to take it from her hands. You would have thought it was filled with anthrax for the way my pulse spiked when my fingers made contact.

“We’ll give you a minute,” Liv said, squeezing my forearm. The quiver in her voice was obvious to everyone—but especially me.

I never tore my eyes away from my name written in Mia’s handwriting as I caught her elbow. “Stay.”

“Are you sure?”

My words might have been firm, but my eyes were pleading as I looked up at her. “If this goes downhill, I’m going to need someone to keep me from losing it.”

She released a loud sigh of relief. “Okay. I’ll stay.”

Walking from the room, Mrs. March called out, “Well, if you two need anything, just holler. Oh, and, Quarry, my wedding china is in that cabinet.” She pointed across the room. “Please leave it standing.”

It was a joke, but I still felt like a dick that she’d felt the need to make it.

“Look, I’m really sorry about…well, everything.”

She smiled warmly. “We may have known about the tumor, but we got letters from Mia, too. The second paragraph of mine was devoted to apologizing for whatever hell you caused after finding out she was gone. She threatened to haunt me if I had you arrested for any of it.” She giggled, but her eyes filled with tears, revealing her true emotions. “I miss her so much. I wouldn’t even mind a ghost right about now. So don’t tempt me, okay?”