Lost in Silence (The Lost Series Book 1)(72)

“Gross Missy, that’s your brother,” Dizzy shakes his face, a disgusted look replaces his smile.

“I didn’t say I want to hear about it,” she shrugs, pouring milk into the bowl before stirring the mixture. “Besides I can always run the blender when that subject comes up, drown out all the details.”

*****

I lick my lips tasting the salt from the glass of my third margarita. My face is numb, my limbs are like jelly but my body is completely relaxed. I’ve never felt this good and I liked it. My mind was free for the first time in years. I couldn’t keep a thought even if I tried.

Damn, who ever invented the margarita should be given a gold medal.

“What about you Alice,” Kelly sipped her drink, her green eyes were cat-like, a feature I always wanted. “Where’s the craziest place you’ve had sex?”

“Kelly,” Missy’s clear voice quips, there’s a worried crease in-between her brows.

“What? I’m just trying to include her,” Kelly shrugs, her face is flush. She’s had a few drinks herself.

“It’s all right, Missy,” I slur, my words were becoming harder to form. It was a sobering moment because these women didn’t know what my past held or the nightmares I lived. I wasn’t about to tell them what’d I’d been through, not even Missy knew the details. These women though, there was something about them taking me in, making me apart of their group without question, I felt like I could say anything. “I haven’t had a conventional sex life, in fact up until Hudson, I doubt you could call what I experienced sex at all.”

I don’t know if it was lack of inhibitions or the weight of my secrets but I couldn’t keep them in anymore. I didn’t want to.

“I told him,” I stare off into the nothing around, conjuring the image of Hudson’s face the night I told him everything. “I told him everything. Didn’t hold back. Gave it all to him. It was ugly but I needed him to know, needed him to understand why I’m no good for him. He stood there, looking at me, listening to the words and took it all in without flinching. In the end, when I had bared the worst of it to him, I was sure he’d turn me out, tell me to get lost. He didn’t. He pulled me into his arms and explained just how precious I am to him and that I had it all wrong. He wasn’t good enough for me.”

“Oh my word,” Marge breathed. I blink back the tears that had fallen during my story and notice how many sets of eyes were on me at the moment. They each looked at me with love and compassion.

“What kind of man does that, says those beautiful words and then doesn’t call?” my frustrations of the last week finally bubbles over. “I need to know he’s all right.”

“I’m sure he is just fine darlin’,” Bobbi reaches over and squeezes my hand.

“I know but it’s frustrating,” my killer buzz is fading fast and I’m starting to feel the knot return into the middle of my chest. “I told him I loved him.”

“You did?” Missy squeals excitedly. “What did he say?”

“Nothing, which is fine, I didn’t expect him to say it back but he seemed alright with it,” I explain, staring down at my fingers. They aren’t flying wildly with movement, another thing that’s changed with me. “At least I thought he was but maybe he wasn’t. I mean, why else would he cut me out like this?”

“Alice, honey, it’s always like this when he goes on a job” Missy explains, sitting down next to me. She looks at me with a sad smile.

“It’s easier for him, for all of them actually, to concentrate on the job,” Annabelle, whom I’ve come to adore since meeting this evening, cuts in. She’s the only woman whose eyes aren’t filled with pity. “It’s hard for them if they have to worry about what’s going on at home. I’m not surprised you haven’t heard from him honestly, it means he trusts his brothers to do their job so he can do his.”

I stare at her for a moment, taking in her calm and collected self. She may be the oldest of our group but I could see her heart was young. I appreciated her honesty and I was surprised to find how much it helped.

“I’m a mess, aren’t I?” I ask Annabelle, needing her honesty.

“I wouldn’t say that, given this is probably all new for you. Now you have a better understanding of things and the way of it,” she nods, placing her hands on her hips and smiles. “The alcohol hasn’t helped your emotions tonight but don’t feel bad.”

“I feel better talking to you all,” I giggle, wiping my nose on a napkin. “Probably doesn’t help I’ve never had a drink before tonight.”