Chapter Twenty-Seven: Fall Hard, Fight Forever-4

Haters are good at the only thing they know how to do-hate. So really, you should feel sorry for their one-dimensional life. At the front hall, I scanned through the selection of car keys. The peg boards they hung from were labeled but I didn't really know what they all looked like so I picked one I knew not to be a sports car-a Benz-and called the valet to have it brought up front. Despite Luke's insistence that I let him get me a car of my own, he had no problem letting me use any of his half a dozen toys. Today was the first time I'd actually taken up the open offer. I was going to text him that I was out but I didn't want him to panic about it and mess up his focus in a very important meeting. I wrote him a short email instead which I knew he wasn't going to read until he was done. I was grinning when I headed out to make my errands. It had been ages since I'd been behind a wheel. As much as I loved Gramps old car, this one cruised like a dream. Avoiding the mall, I went to a couple of small boutiques and walked out with a new sweater and a couple of blouses. Then I went to a gift shop to find something we could give Charles as a thank-you gift because I liked the old man. Other than the invitation to Barrett House, he personally called me a few days after the news came out just to check on me and to assure me that he was doing his best to help Luke. In the end, I got him a nice, elegant set of chopsticks because he'd teased before that he didn't own any since no one ever made stir-fry at his house. We were going to change that. I drove to a drug store close to the condo and picked up all the travel essentials I needed. I was just closing the door of the driver's seat when the door on the passenger side swung open and a woman in a flowy black dress slid into the seat. Her big, floppy hat and dark sunglasses covered much of her face but I knew exactly who she was the moment she glanced toward me, her dark red lips curving into a serenely sinister smile. "Hello, Max," Lola said. "Can't say it's nice to see you again. It hurts my eyes to look at you." My heart started a stuttered rhythm as my brain tried to wrap around the fact that Lola, the most recent and still on-going disaster in our lives, was sitting in the car next to me. My left elbow twitched against the door and her face snapped back toward me as she frowned. "I just want to talk," she said, placing her small black clutch on her lap with surprising elegance. It was hard to tell her shape in the dress she wore but for a pregnant woman, her face was a bit drawn, almost gaunt, with her hollow cheeks and sharply defined jaw. "I just want to see if we can come to an agreement where we both win." "We've got nothing to talk about because all conversations are between the lawyers," I said calmly. Lola snorted. "Those idiots have absolutely no idea what they're doing but they won't listen so I have to take matters into my own hands. This doesn't have to go through the courts and all kinds of nasty, you know? I just need Luke to cooperate-to take accountability of his actions." "Last time I heard, all the action was from some married producer you should've known better than to sleep with," I said, enjoying the flash of satisfaction at Lola's scowl. "This is why you're the weed that's choking up all my plans, Max," Lola said dramatically. "You're the virus that's slowly eating away at everything that I deserve." I didn't have to see her eyes behind the sunglasses to know that they were probably cutting me into pieces right now. Without making any visible movement, I slowly, painstakingly, started to slip my cellphone out of my jacket's left pocket near my hip, blindly feeling for the touch screen. It was going to be tough tracking the screen with a finger when I couldn't see the placements but I had to try and rely on memory. I had to get this confession out of her-for me, for Luke, for herself. Maybe that would set the record straight and clear the last of her lies. "You know, at first, I didn't think you mattered enough for me to waste my breath on," she went on, her voice almost catching a dreamy quality to it. "I thought you were just a temporary distraction-one of Luke's many considering his short attention span when it comes to women. I should've picked up on it a lot sooner that night when we went to Peggy's party. He'd never been so mad at me like that. It was ridiculous, of course, considering who I am and you being, well, you." There was no missing the disdain on her last word as if it burned on her tongue. Fumbling slowly with the side buttons on the phone, I attempted to lightly tap the spots where I thought the call log icon would be. Luke would be at the top of my list as he was my last call from yesterday. I pressed the volume down button on the sides to keep Lola from hearing anything as the call rang through. His voicemail would pick up-I just hoped to God that it would run on long enough to save most of this conversation. "I couldn't have him mad at me-not when he was the only one who could help me," she said, turning to me with almost an angelic smile. "But I couldn't help it, you know? He really, really upset me so I got mad at him, too. He had no right to abandon me-no right." I was certain I'd pressed the call icon and only when Lola glanced to the side was I able to avert my eyes down to the side to look at the screen. Luke picked up the call just at that second I had before Lola focused back on me. Time to talk now, Max. "You can't force him to take responsibility for a child he had no involvement in making, Lola," I said my voice firm and steady. "And if you think you can convince me to talk him into believing you, you're even more detached from reality than I think. I trust Luke to be a grown man capable of making his own decisions. If he says it's not his baby, it's not his baby." A shrill, brittle sound which suspiciously seemed like Lola's laugh filled the car. "I don't give a fuck about the baby. In fact, I've already gotten rid of it for all the good it did me. Did you think I relished the idea of getting fat with that child? I kept it because I thought it would soften Luke toward me. He's a gentle heart behind all that, you know? He was the only one who ever gave a shit about me. He loved me." I forced down the awful sound that had gotten stuck in my throat at Lola's dismissive admission about aborting her child, and told myself to focus on what could still be salvaged out of this nightmare. I had to keep talking. "And this is how you intend to repay Luke for all the kindness he'd shown you?"