I nodded, my chest constricting with the memory. The pang of loss echoed inside of me. “Saw it and ran. I caught up to him, but then Kyle followed and made fun of Javi’s stutter. Javi just—he went crazy, Christian. He punched Kyle so hard I can still hear the crack of it.”
I shuddered, seeing Kyle in my mind as he dropped to the ground like a sack of grain. “The moment I saw the blood and I saw Kyle on the ground and I just reacted to that. I went to him instead of Javi. And Javi hasn’t spoken to me since. He won’t come home, he won’t answer my calls, and no one will tell me where he is.”
I gripped my knees and worked to take in slow, measured breaths.
“Can I give you some advice?” Christian asked before scooping Giuliana up and picking some sticks and grass out of her curls.
“Please.” I needed all the help I could get.
“You keep saying you love Javi and you want to protect him. But he’s your boyfriend, not a child. If you keep things from him, even with good intentions, it means he’ll never be able to believe you. He’ll never know how you feel, because you won’t let him share in all that you feel.
“I think you’re in love with Javi. But you’ve been in this mode since Giuliana where you have to plan and work hard and take care of everyone. There’s a reason we refer to significant others as ‘partners’, Gordo. Prove that to Javi, because there is nothing worse than having someone not know what you truly feel for them.”
His words rang true, but at the end, Christian was looking toward some joggers, some cars passing, everywhere but me. He was looking at something—or someone—who wasn’t there, and I knew he was talking as much to himself as to me. I was burning to know what, but the shuttered look on Christian’s face screamed don’t push it.
“I do love him,” I said. “I want him in my life and in Giuliana’s life. I feel more for Javi in this short time than I ever did in six years of being married to Kyle. He just… is it too cheesy to say that he completes me? Because that’s what it feels like—except not just me. He completes our family.”
Christian rolled his eyes. “Totally cheesy. More importantly, though, I’m not the person you should be saying this to. Find Javi and tell him, Gordo.”
There was another message that went unsaid: Before it’s too late.
Later, after my attempts at finding Javi had turned out to be fruitless, the work for a new client was not providing the distraction I’d hoped it would. I kept checking next door, my email, and my phone for messages from Javi. There was still nothing. All I could think about was how I wanted nothing more than to tear the town apart until I found him and told him how much I loved him and how very sorry I was.
But I also had Giuliana to think of, so I worked, even though my head just wasn’t in it.
When the phone rang, I practically flung my mouse away in an effort to answer it. But the ID said Reagan, and my heart leaped into my throat. I desperately needed him to have news on how I could reach Javi.
“Reagan, I’m so glad you called—have you convinced him to talk to me?” In my eagerness, I didn’t bother with normal phone etiquette. Because with the state my mind was in? Fuck etiquette.
The man inhaled sharply enough I heard it over the line. My stomach dropped.
“Gordo, Javi’s been in an accident,” he said, his voice cracking. “He’s in the hospital. I’m on my way there now, but it sounds like it was bad.”
Blood rushed in my ears, blocking out everything but my own naked terror. Javi was in the hospital. Reagan sounded like it could be...oh, god, how hurt was he? Was I going to lose him? It felt as if all my blood had drained from me at once, leaving me a shell of a person, unable to move. To know what to do.
“Gordo? Are you there?” Reagan’s rough voice snapped me back to the present. “Look, I’m not sure if he’ll want to see you”—he sniffed hard and I realized he was as close to tears as I was—“or if he’ll be able to see any of us, but I thought you should know.”