Because of Low (Sea Breeze #2)(54)

“Who else is here? My God we just moved in.”

Tawny stormed off to answer the door and I stood staring blankly into the fire. She was right. What good was this doing? I wasn’t going to get an answer by sharing with them how royally they’d screwed up so many lives. They simply didn’t care. And even if they did what did I expect them to do about it?

“Low,” Marcus voice broke into my thoughts and I jerked my gaze from the fire to find Tawny standing in the living room entrance with her arms crossed over her chest scowling.

“Look who else is here,” Tawny spat walking back to Jefferson and staking her claim by slipping her arm around his.

“Marcus.” I didn’t know what else to say. I just stood there and watched the whole awful scene unfold. His eyes shifted from Tawny to me. I knew the moment he saw it. The resemblance. It was unmistakable. Especially with us standing in the same room. The emotions on his face went from shock to pain to despair to fury within seconds.

“You’re her sister. This is,” he stopped and looked at his dad.

“Oh god no,” he started shaking his head.

“Larissa. She’s not. She can’t be.”

He was shattered. I could see the moment it happened. I knew the feeling. I’d just experienced it myself.

“Martus pay,” Larissa squealed when Cage walked into the room holding her.

Marcus looked back at Larissa with horror in his eyes. Then he looked at me and I could see the betrayal there. He thought I’d known all along. I could see it as he just stared at me. Larissa continued to try and get his attention by chanting his name and demanding he play.

Marcus stared at me as his anger turned to numbness. The tick in his jaw and his rigid stance only grew more severe the longer we stood there staring at each other. I could feel him slipping away with each second but there was nothing I could say. I didn’t know how to stop this. How to explain.

“You. Are. Dead. To. Me.” He said in a hard emotionless voice. Then he turned and left. Those short clipped words woke me up from my trance. I ran after him.

“Marcus, wait! Please wait!” I called out and he didn’t stop. He didn’t look back.

“MARCUS PLEASE,” I screamed as he opened the front door. This time he paused and turned slowly around. The hatred in his eyes directed at me was crippling.

“Do you know where I’ve been Willow? Of course you don’t. You’ve been here with your sister and my father playing house. While I’ve been by my mother’s hospital bed. As she recovered from an overdose of painkillers that she took after receiving the divorce papers my father so thoughtfully brought to the house today to inform her he was leaving her for another woman. That’s where I’ve been all day. So please don’t say one more word. I never want to see you or even hear your name again. I’ll be completely moved out of the apartment in a matter of hours. Stay away until I’m gone. If you ever felt anything for me at all. Stay. Away. From. Me.”





Chapter Twenty-One





Two Months Later





Marcus



“A sober Marcus Hardy, I do believe my eyes deceive me,” Dewayne drawled as I pulled out a chair and sat down beside Rock at the table they’d taken over at Live Bay to hear Jackdown perform.

“He just got here. It’s early yet. Give him time,” Preston chimed in as he plopped back down with a girl apparently attached to him. She wiggled on his lap and he licked her ear. Usual Preston behavior. The tourists were piling in and there was fresh meat everywhere. Preston would screw his way through the best looking ones for the next three months.

“I’m not drinking tonight. I dropped out of all my classes this semester before I failed them. So I figure it’s time I sober up and play makeup with a few summer courses.”

Rock patted me on the back, “There’s the old Marcus we know and love. Knew you were in there somewhere. Glad you’re back.”

I didn’t look over at him. Because I wasn’t back. I was just as dead inside sober as I was drunk. The old Marcus had been completely destroyed. Never to return.

“Smile brother, there are hot barely clothed girls crawling all over this place. And all they want are one night stands. It’s freaking heaven on earth,” Preston said grinning like a little boy in a candy store.

“Screwing faceless girls is getting old. I need a break from them too,” I said and turned down the beer a waitress offered me. I had a bottled water. It was going to take a lot of water to cleanse me of all the alcohol I’d forced on myself.

“Break from *? Whatever man,” Dewayne replied with disbelief in his tone.

“I thought you were going on that road trip with uh,” Rock paused and glanced at me.

“You can say his name. I’m not an idiot and I don’t care. How many times do I have to tell you that it doesn’t matter to me.”

“Okay, um, so that road trip you were talking about with Cage. You decided to pass it up?”

Preston shrugged, “I don’t know. Cage seems to be backing out of it. He’s kind of changed lately.” He trailed off and I could feel the tension at the table. They were so worried that one mention of Willow would send me into a blind rage. I was past that. Sure I’d gone a little mental at the mention of her name or anything that reminded me of her for a while but I was over it. Completely numb where she was concerned.