Living Hell (Lost and Found Book 2)

by Elizabeth Lynx

  Truth be told, that sounded like an awesome diet. Wish my trainer had me eating that.

  “Right. The mysterious emails . . .” He air-quoted with his fingers.

  “Why is it so hard to believe that I used to email Debbie? You know her, she’s a sweet lady.”

  He shook his head and strolled past me, heading toward the stairs.

  I told him the day after meeting with Babette in the diner that I had been emailing Debbie ever since I had left. He didn’t believe me, and I had no idea why.

  “Because for one, she never mentioned anything to me. She knew we had dated. And on top of that, she would ask if I had heard from you. Why would a person, who you claim is super nice, ask if I heard from someone when she was getting weekly updates from said person? It makes no sense.”

  I followed him and when he hopped off the last step he turned. “And before you tell me to ask her about it, I already did. She said she hadn’t heard from you. Why would Debbie—who is such a nice person—lie like that?”

  I bit my lower lip. This was more stressful than I had originally planned. Debbie shouldn’t be dragged into the hot mess that was my life.

  Tyler turned his back to me and made his way past the living room and into the kitchen. I followed and sat on the stool, resting my arms on the marble island bench. He puttered around the kitchen, removing ingredients from the refrigerator and pans from under the counter.

  Despite our morning fights, I enjoyed watching him cook. He was like a sexy chef I didn’t have to pay.

  “Okay, blame me. I’m at fault.”

  He raised his head from under the counter. “Ah ha!” He stood and leaned toward me. “I knew it. You know, Iona, it feels good to tell the truth. I’m sure when you moved to Hollywood you were brainwashed into thinking it’s normal to lie, but it isn’t. It’s healthier to tell the truth, no matter if it might hurt you. The truth frees your soul.” He demonstrated with a large breath and then released it as if I didn’t know how to use my lungs.

  “It’s not what you think. When I first emailed Debbie back when I was eighteen, I felt lost. I was a teenager who moved to the other side of the country and was surrounded by people who were only drawn to dollar signs. I had no friends. My mother was fighting her own demons, so I didn’t want to burden her.”

  Tyler tilted his head to the side. “What demons?”

  He didn’t know the whole truth about my mom. He saw a generous woman who helped him when he needed it. I loved my mother with everything in my heart, but our roles were reversed. I took care of her. I was the mother in our relationship, and she was the child.

  I shook my head, unwilling to talk about that. “The point is, I needed someone who I wasn’t related to but still knew me. Someone who didn’t want to use me.” With a wild pounding in my chest, my eyes began to burn. Saying it out loud like that shook me. “Back then, I needed help and she was the only one I had ever known who was there when I needed something.”

  Tyler placed the pan on the counter and came around the island. His warm hands gripped my arms. I wanted them to comfort me, but it wouldn’t happen. He hated me and I wanted to run away from him all over again.

  “What about me? Why couldn’t you text me? Call me?”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He had some nerve.

  Ripping my arms away from him, I stood. “I did. I called and texted you so many times. But you never answered. And if you had an email, I would have contacted through that, too.”

  His head reared back as if I had slapped him—and boy, did I want to. “First of all, you know my position on emails. My father would have used my email account the first chance he got for some scheme. I was not about to put myself in danger just for an email address.”

  I nodded because he was right. His father had no problem using his own son to cheat others.

  “As for the calls and texts, I would have known if you ever sent me anything.”

  “Don’t lie, Tyler. Remember what you said, ‘the truth is freeing.’” I slid my tongue over my teeth and smirked.

  “I’m telling the truth. When have you ever known me to lie?”

  I pointed to the floor. “Right now.”

  His head fell back as he stared at the ceiling. When he lifted it again confusion clouded his features.

  “I don’t understand. I never got anything from you. Not even a butt dial.”

  He sat down on the stool, lost in his thoughts. Tyler was right, he never lied. It’s one of the reasons—despite the ghosting—that I never spoke ill of him.

  “Fine. I believe you. But then why didn’t you reach out to me?”

  I was his girlfriend at the time. I thought he cared about me. It would have made sense to get at least one text message from him after I had moved.

  His eyes grew in disbelief. “I did. I called you but some guy kept answering and said you weren’t around. After a while, I assumed you just moved on.”

  Now it was my turn to be confused. “A guy? It was only my mom and me. She never answered my cell phone.”

  “It’s as if someone was purposely keeping us apart,” Tyler said under his breath but I heard.

  “But who would do that?”

  He held up a finger and ran out of the room. I heard his feet stomp up the stairs and after a few moments, he was racing back down. When he walked into the room, he was holding his phone.

  “Did you get a new number since you moved to Hollywood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Crap. Then it won’t work.” He slid the phone on the island.

  “What?”

  “I was going to show you the number I had for you and see if it was correct. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  I reached for the phone. “I still remember the number. Let me see.”

  A request for a password came up so I handed it to Tyler.

  He tapped at the phone and when he gave it back, my contact information was on the screen. Almost everything was right except for one thing.

  “That should be a seven . . . not a two.”

  Taking his phone, he stared at it for a moment before he whispered, “All that time I was calling a wrong number. But the guy said you weren’t there. Iona isn’t the most common name. What were the chances?”

  Something didn’t feel right but instead of thinking Tyler was messing with me, I believed him. I may not have been in Tyler’s life for eleven years, but I knew when Tyler was confused. And right now the man was baffled.

  If that was true, then he didn’t know the truth about what had happened to me. Our worlds changed because of one missed number. Maybe we’d still be together or maybe we would have broken up because long-distance relationships rarely work. But at least it would have been on our terms.

  “But I texted you and called you. It’s not like your number had changed,” I said. He refused to meet my eye. “Tyler?”

  He gave an exaggerated nod. “It did, actually.”

  I shook my head and reached for the phone and placed it on the counter.

  “Fine. This was a misunderstanding that really fucked everything up.”

  “You could say that again.”

  “No, it did more than you know. I need to tell you something. And I understand if you want to break this fake engagement agreement after I explain it to you,” I said and took a deep breath to gather courage.

  “You gave me the wrong number? Did you do this on purpose?”

  “No, no. That’s not it. It’s not about the number. I mean, it’s the reason I never told you. Technically, I did tell you, but you never got the message.”

  He stood, towering over me with his big man body. The desire to reach for him and wrap my arms around his middle was potent. I wanted to bury my face in his chest because seeing the look in his eyes when I let it out would be difficult.

  “So then, what is it?”

  “You remember the night . . . on the edge of town, a few months before I left. In the grass by the stream in May?”
<
br />   He rolled his eyes. “There were lots of nights we hung out there. You’ll have to be more specific—”

  I didn’t say anything. I waited for the realization to hit him, and when it did, his cheeks reddened and he nodded. “Oh, that night. After the dance.”

  Yeah, the night you took my virginity. The night I confessed my love to him. The night he said he would never let me go.

  “I got pregnant that night.”

  TEN

  Tyler

  “PREGNANT?” THE WORD didn’t sound right—as if I was saying it wrong. Maybe it needed another n or I should emphasize the g more . . .

  “Preg, no, not right. Preggaanant. Is that it?”

  Her fascinating brown eyes squinted. “Are you having an aneurysm?”

  “Maybe, Iona. Maybe I am. I should sit.”

  Iona hopped off the stool and directed me until I was seated.

  “Would an aneurysm give you the sweats?”

  “No. Let me look at your eyes.” She grabbed my face and pushed my eyelid open. I wanted to blink but my fake fiancée was doing her best as a fake doctor.

  “It’s not an aneurysm. Do you feel nauseous? Have a stiff neck?”

  I pushed her hand away and moved my head from side to side. No pain. While I was sweaty, I didn’t feel like I was going to throw up.

  “No.”

  “Perhaps it’s only a reaction to the news of my pregnancy.”

  That’s the truth.

  I thought back to the time right before she left. She was sick a lot—some stomach bug. I thought Iona was making it up so she didn’t have to see me. That maybe she regretted sleeping with me and couldn’t bear to see my face without envisioning the awfulness that happened between us.

  I was horribly mistaken.

  “So, uh, did we have a boy or girl?”

  This was so awkward. The sweating intensified the longer she took to answer. Thankfully, I wasn’t wearing my work shirt.

  She folded her arms and glanced out toward the living room. “I don’t know . . . I had a miscarriage.”

  I shook my head and couldn’t stop. “No. Iona, no.” I quickly stood and didn’t care that I felt like a wet noodle, I pulled her into an embrace.

  Her body trembled in my arms as she took a deep breath. She went through that without me at her side. I felt guilty and angry and utterly heartbroken.

  The silence was shattered by her tiny whimpers. The eighteen-year-old me would have done anything to get her to stop crying. But after witnessing many pet owners lose the animals they loved, some they thought of like their children, I found it was best to let people grieve.

  But this was different. This was a living being we both created, something that bonded us together. It died and I wasn’t there to grieve with her.

  “I’m sorry, Iona. I’m so sorry.”

  “You didn’t cause the miscarriage. Most people don’t talk about it, but first trimester miscarriages are the most common.” She pulled away and straightened, taking on the hardened pose of someone invincible. Iona liked everyone to believe nothing would hurt her, but I knew better.

  I reached for a napkin left on the island and handed it to her.

  She quickly wiped at her tears and balled it up in her hand. It broke me to see her mask the pain she still felt after so many years. So, I did what I should have done over a decade ago. I reached down and took her in my arms, lifting her.

  “What are you doing, Tyler?”

  “Taking you to bed.”

  I twisted my body so she wouldn’t bang her head as I made my way out of the kitchen and through the living room. Glancing at the stairs, I took a deep breath.

  “Whoa, do not try to carry me up the steps. If you drop me, I’ll kill you.”

  My lip twitched as I grunted. She was heavier than she looked. The movies made this appear easy. Movies lied.

  “If your unconscious then you can’t cry, so I feel like if I make it up the stairs with you or not, I’ve done my duty.”

  Each step was harder than the last and by the time I reached the top, I fell to my knees. She scurried out of my arms, which was fine with me because they were useless now.

  “Great. Now I’m going to have to carry you to bed,” she said sitting on the floor beside me.

  My knees were still on the last step, so I bent over and lowered my chest onto the floor with my ass in the air. The wooden floorboards were cool and refreshing. I was so exhausted that I didn’t care I was breathing in dust and dirt as I gasped for breath.

  “Are you having a heart attack?”

  “Why do you keep thinking I’m dying?”

  “Because you don’t react well to stuff. I didn’t need to be carried upstairs. It’s a fake engagement, remember? No carrying me across the threshold.”

  “That’s not why I was doing it.” I wasn’t panting anymore so I tried to push myself up, but my arms were as helpful as silly string. Admitting defeat of my baby arms, I rolled over. “I was carrying you because that’s what I always imagined when I was a teenager.”

  “That an old flame would discuss her miscarriage, so you whisked her off her feet and then into the bedroom? That’s not right, Tyler. And, if I’m being completely honest, a bit disturbing to be fantasizing about it.”

  I rolled my head back and forth on the hard floor. It hurt but my neck muscles were too weak to lift my head.

  “Stop making everything weird. When I was young, I always imagined my first time would be with the woman I loved. We’d be so wrapped in passion that I would carry her in my arms and gently lay her onto the bed. But,” I managed to raise my hand and flap it back and forth between us, “we had sex in the grass surrounded by mosquitoes. Not as romantic as I thought it would be.”

  She didn’t say anything, just stared at my chest. Normally, when a woman was ogling my body, I would ask her if she liked what she saw, but it didn’t seem appropriate at the moment.

  “I gave her a name. I didn’t tell anyone, not even my mom. But I felt she deserved a name,” she whispered.

  “It was a girl?”

  She shrugged and pulled her knees to her chest. “I don’t know as it was too early in the first trimester, but I felt that our baby would be a girl. Or maybe I just wanted a girl.”

  With some effort, I pushed myself up to sit next to her. When we were younger, I would pull her into my lap when she was upset. I put my arms around her and tried to lift but my floppy muscles didn’t like the idea of lifting anything.

  “You’re going to have to get into my lap. My arms don’t work anymore.”

  There was a hint of a smile that I noticed as she tucked her hair behind her ear. I had been angry at Iona for all these years for nothing. Every molecule of resentment melted away and all I wanted to do was hold her.

  “Look, Tyler, you’re sexy and I wouldn’t mind having your body wrapped around mine, but have you seen your chest?” She took one finger and wiped down the middle of my pecs. Lifting it to show me, the tip of her finger was covered in brown dirt.

  I frowned. “Wow, I need to clean these floors.”

  “And maybe yourself, too.”

  I nodded and tried to stand but my body went on strike. Iona helped me up and then guided me into the master bathroom.

  “You know I can walk myself.”

  “I know, but I feel guilty for almost breaking your body.”

  I turned just before I went into the bathroom. “Hey, would you mind if we continued this after I get out of the shower? I miss talking to you.”

  Her eyes focused on my chest, lost in some thought. Finally, she nodded. “I’ll wait right here.”

  Shutting the door, I stood there taking in everything from the past twenty minutes. I was angry that one number had caused so much damage. It ripped two people apart all because my fat fingers typed too fast way back when I got her number.

  Turing on the hot water I had the quickest shower in the world. There was a moment while I was soaping up my dick where the slickness of the
soap felt good and my thoughts had drifted to who sat on my bed. But that was too creepy, even for me. To jack off while the woman I was fantasizing about was ten feet away? Nope.

  After I hopped out, I realized I hadn’t brought in any clean clothes. I’d have to wrap the towel around myself and go grab something from the dresser in the bedroom. Then I could come back and change.

  Opening the door, the cool, dry air of the bedroom was refreshing. Iona was lying on the bed with her back to me. I heard her whimper and her back began to tremble.

  She was crying.

  I crawled over the bed and pulled her into my arms. When I did, she turned and something hard hit my chest. Her phone.

  “Why are you still in a towel? Is this part of another fantasy of yours?”

  “No, I thought you were crying.”

  She picked up the phone and on the screen was a video of a late-night talk show host talking to the camera.

  “I was laughing. Just entertaining myself while you cleaned up.” Her eyes slid down my body, stopping at my damp white towel. “Were you entertaining yourself in there, too?”

  I pushed my head back. “What? No. Eww. No.”

  “Eww? Stop acting like some twelve-year-old. You think masturbating is gross? Oh, Tyler, no wonder you’re on edge all the time.”

  “I don’t think it’s gross. I’m just not about to do that while you were sitting right here.”

  She pursed her lips and gave me a look that said she didn’t believe me.

  I sat up and stared down at her smug smirk. “I’ve masturbated many times in my life.”

  “Are you saying that to convince me or yourself?”

  She actually believed I never jacked off. It’s not like I was raised in some overly religious household that gave me a complex about masturbation. When we were dating, I pulled my sausage probably a thousand times thinking of her thick lips wrapped around it.

  Fuck. That image shouldn’t have popped up in my head.

  “I’m not trying to convince anyone. I know what I do to my own body and frankly, it’s none of your business.”

  She rolled onto her back and put her hands behind her head. The red T-shirt she was wearing slid up, exposing her smooth stomach. My eyes flipped from her cute as sin belly button to her thick, juicy lips and back again.