Test Drive - Samantha Chase Page 0,81

charming, but…okay.

“How dare you come here in the middle of the night after what you did!” Jen said, equally loud, and Levi had to wonder if all the neighbors were going to come out and join the discussion.

And knowing how much everyone in the complex loved Willow, no doubt it would turn into an angry mob instantly.

Taking a step forward, he decided to keep his voice softer in hopes of them following suit. “Okay, I get it. I screwed up. But I really need to talk to Willow.”

“Oh, now you want to talk to Willow?” Donna demanded, still loud. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait another seven or eight hours? Maybe another day? Or hey, maybe even another month?” She took a menacing step toward him.

At least, he imagined she thought she was menacing.

“Yeah, you had months–lots of months to tell her the truth,” Jen chimed in. “And you thought coming here at this hour was the perfect time? Well…screw you!”

“Hey, shut up down there!”

They all turned to see where the voice was coming from, and while Jen yelled back, Levi did his best to get everyone to quiet down. When he reached out and touched Donna’s arm, she smacked him away.

“You don’t get to come here to our best friend’s home and tell us what to do!” This time she wasn’t quite yelling, but she wasn’t being particularly quiet either.

“And screw you too, buddy!” Jen shouted to the anonymous voice. “We’ll quiet down when we’re done putting Mr. Lying Liarson in his place!”

“Um…”

“In case you didn’t get the reference, she was talking about you.”

“Uh, yeah. I got that.”

“Oh, so you know you’re a liar, and yet here we are arguing about it,” Jen said, rejoining the conversation.

“I didn’t think that was exactly what we were fighting about,” he argued carefully.

“Don’t try to get us on a technicality, Levi. We’re arguing about you being a liar and everything that goes with it.”

This was getting him nowhere.

“If I could just talk to Willow for five minutes…just to apologize…”

“She doesn’t want to talk to you,” Jen stated firmly, arms crossed again. “And even if she did, she wouldn’t believe anything you had to say anymore.”

“I’d really like to hear that from Willow…”

“Aren’t you listening?” This coming from Donna. Honestly, it was like watching a tennis match trying to keep up with these two. “You’re not going to get to talk to her tonight. Or any other night until she decides to. Which she won’t. We won’t let her.”

“Hey, wait…”

“We can’t totally stop her from talking to him,” Jen said, looking at Donna. “It’s not like we can babysit her twenty-four hours a day.”

Donna glanced at him and then back to Jen before whispering, “Yeah, I know that, but he doesn’t.” She huffed. “Why would you bring that up with him standing right here?”

“What? I just think it was a pretty bold statement for you to make and not even a little bit believable.”

“Oh, I’m not believable? What would you have said then? Go ahead. Tell me what great words of wisdom you would have said to get him to go away.”

It would be wrong of him to point out that not only could he hear them, but he wasn’t going anywhere.

At least, not yet.

He stood by patiently for another minute before he decided to go to the source. Casually, Levi made his move to walk around them only to stop in his tracks.

Willow had opened her door and was coming toward him.

“Willow,” he said urgently, going to her. “I’m so sorry. Really. Can we just…”

She held up a hand to stop him. “I appreciate you stopping by, Levi, but…”

“No,” he interrupted quickly. “No buts. Please. Just give me five minutes.”

But she shook her head. “No,” she said sadly. “Not tonight. I just…I can’t.”

He heard the sadness, the disappointment in her voice, and it gutted him. His first instinct was to go and hold her, hug her, and never let her go, but he had a feeling that wouldn’t get him far and then there’d definitely be an angry mob on him.

“Just go, Levi,” she whispered. “This is all just too much.”

“You have to know…I never meant to hurt you. It wasn’t supposed to…”

“It wasn’t real,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “None of it. And that makes me an idiot.”

“No! It was real! All of it! I made a mistake. Please, just listen to me,” he begged.

“I’ve been listening to you for weeks. Months, actually,” she added with a mirthless