Last Words (Morelli Family 7)

Carly’s head hits the bed and she sighs. “What?”

“I’m so sorry. Can I get the wifi password? These walls are really thin. Like, really thin. And I want to watch something on my iPad and put my ear buds in, that way… you know, I won’t hear everything and feel like a creep.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter, covering my face with my hands.

“Hang on,” Carly says, rolling off the bed and grabbing a white robe. Peeking back at me over her shoulder, she says, “I’ll be right back.”

I nod and relax back against her pillows, but I accept that I am not getting laid tonight. I’ve had sex enough times with an audience; I’d like for my days of supervised sex to be over and done with. I need to find out how long Laurel is in town for. I’m glad Carly has her sister here and everything, but Jesus Christ.

Something buzzes to my left. I look over and see Carly left her cell phone on the night stand, plugged in to charge while she sleeps tonight. My old Mia instincts kick in and I want to check it. It’s past 11; who is texting her this late?

I tell myself not to touch the phone. Carly isn’t Mia. She just told me today how faithful she’s going to be. There’s no reason for me to distrust her.

But it’s just right there.

I sit forward, looking over at the screen as it goes dark. I wouldn’t even have to open it. Just light up the screen and I’ll see who the text is from. That’s barely an invasion of her privacy. I could spot that, just walking by the damn phone.

Yeah, I could see it innocently. Phones vibrate and light up a second time if you don’t check them quickly enough; maybe I’ll just stand and stretch, hang out there for a minute. Not my fault if I see it then.

Of course, she may not be gone two more minutes.

Fuck it. I’m already up, and her phone’s just right here. I check the doorway to make sure she hasn’t come back yet and light up the phone.

My heart drops when I see “Boss Man” as the contact name. The message is short, so I can read the whole thing without opening the message. “I don’t know. I’m going to bed. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

Fuck it. Now I’m opening the goddamn message. I yank her phone right off the charger and slide open the message. Disappointment burns through me when I open the fucking message and it’s the only one. She deleted the message chain after she sent whatever the question was.

“What the hell are you doing?”

My gaze snaps to Carly, standing in the doorway, staring at me. Anger surges through my veins, finding the cracks my old life made and filling them with rage. “Who the fuck are you talking to, Carly?”

“What are you talking about?” She scowls, walking over to retrieve the phone.

I hold it up out of her reach. “Who the fuck is boss man?”

“Seriously? My boss. Is that not clear?”

“You got fired,” I remind her.

She sighs, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes. “From the restaurant. Not from my internship. You knew I came here for an internship. It’s literally why I’m not in Chicago right now, Vince. We’ve talked about it.”

“Barely. You’ve mentioned it, we haven’t talked about it. I don’t even know what the internship is. I damn sure don’t know why he would be texting you at nearly midnight. That doesn’t seem like appropriate intern-boss communication to me.”

Carly nods, annoyed with me. “Okay.” Holding her hand out expectantly, she says, “Can I have my phone back?”

“No. I’m going to call and find out who it is.”

“Be my guest,” she says, her tone even, with just a tinge of annoyance. “You can explain to his wife why I’m calling him in the middle of the fucking night.”

My eyes widen. “You texted him in the middle of the fucking night.”

“No, I texted him before we went to the movie tonight,” she responds. “He’s disorganized and takes forever to respond to things. He probably doesn’t even realize what time it is and that he shouldn’t be texting me; he’s an academic, his mind is pretty much always in three different places. By all means, if you want to humiliate me in front of someone whose respect I would like to have, go ahead and call the 60-year-old man I work for and demand to know why he’s texting me. That would be fucking fantastic. I’m sure he’ll take me very seriously after that.”

That last comment gets at me. My paranoid mind, the lessons taught to me by enduring Mateo makes me crazy with rage over this bullshit. I don’t even think Mia ever had Mateo’s number when we were together, but I still always felt like she was talking to him. If not Mateo, then she was probably talking to Mark. If not Mark, she could stroll down the fucking street and meet some asshole who would throw his body over a puddle so she didn’t have to step in it—maybe she’d be texting him.