Hold Him Like Gravity (Lombardi Family #4)

Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

Kick

I stared up at the building, the morning chill sinking in through my long-sleeve tee and hoodie, and mentally added shopping for a new winter jacket to my list of things to do. Winter was coming on fast. Even the early morning sun bathing the city in romantic light wasn’t providing much warmth.

I sighed, seeing a woman about to head out with a stroller, knowing this would be my only chance to get in. Whether I was ready or not.

I rushed up the steps to pull open the door for her, accepting her gratitude even though she was the one technically doing me a favor.

The hallway smelled familiar. The hint of something spicy simmering in a crock pot for an easy dinner after work, cigarette smoke, and the traces of the weed from the night before.

I tamped down the anxiety as it started to grow and forced my legs to carry me over to the elevator, to go in, and to stab my finger into the button for the eighth floor.

I dug for a key I was suddenly glad I hadn’t tossed in the garbage like I’d been planning, then marched down to the door before I could lose my nerve.

I stuck the key in the lock and pushed open the door, then slammed it behind me to announce my presence.

The man who was asleep reclined in his gaming chair at the desk across the room jerked upright, his arms flying out to grab the desk as his brown eyes looked around wildly.

“Where is he?” I demanded as I walked into the apartment.

It was the kind of place you walked into and knew immediately belonged to a guy. No curtains. No framed art on the walls. No throw pillows or rugs. Nothing to make it feel homey. But there were leather recliners, a massive TV, multiple gaming consoles, and two computer set-ups over by the windows that overlooked the back alley.

Hookers like to bring their Johns back there to suck ‘em off where the cops won’t see , I’d been told once.

I hadn’t been able to help but wonder if that was why the desks were set up there. With some voyeuristic urge to witness something like that on a regular basis.

Gross.

“Where is he, Bobby?” I demanded, rushing down the hallway to push open the bathroom and bedroom doors. But finding nothing. Save for unmade beds and piles of laundry that I could smell from the hallway. Sweat, garlic, and other scents I didn’t want to think about. “Where. Is. He?” I snarled as I marched toward the desk, reaching down, grabbing the footrest, and whipping it up, making the chair flip backward.

Bobby hit the ground with a grunt, his eyes huge, like he couldn’t believe what I’d done.

“What the hell, Kick?” he asked, flopping over onto all fours, then working his way up to his feet, showing off no small amount of buttcrack in the process.

Bobby was what you tended to think of when someone told you they were a gamer. Average height, a little overweight, greasy hair that was overdue for several trims, a superhero t-shirt on, and an actual dent in his head from wearing headphones so often.

Honestly, I didn’t mind Bobby.

Sure, he had slightly incel leanings, thanks to spending almost all of his time online with other guys who’d likely never been kissed, let alone gotten laid, so they spewed nasty-ass misogynist shit to the occasional female gamer, or about the big-boobed female characters.

But if you got him away from his gaming systems, he was kind of funny, a bit of a teddy bear, honestly. Sure, he perpetually was in need of a shower. And he could use a sharp razor and some deodorant. Still, he was an alright guy.

It was just bad luck on his part that he had such a dick for a roommate.

“Where is he?”

“He’s not here,” Bobby said, rolling his shoulders that had this perpetual tilt forward from leaning inward and clutching his controls. I bought him a posture corrector once. I was pretty sure it was still in the packaging in the closet.

“I see that, Bobby. Where is he?”

Bobby moved away from me, heading toward the little kitchen, complete with cabinets hanging off their hinges and the silverware drawer that had been stuck for what had to be two years at that point. Instead of fixing it, they’d bought new, mismatched silverware that they kept in a cardboard box on the counter.

“I don’t know,” Bobby said, reaching into the cabinet to pull out a cup of ramen, then setting it under the single-serve coffee maker that I was pretty sure was only ever used for hot water, not coffee. Since Bobby was an energy drink kind of guy. In case you didn’t know that about him based on the shelves full of various cans that served as the only real decor in the living room.

“I don’t have time for this shit,” I snapped, making him turn to look at me for the first time.

He wasn’t great with eye contact. I imagine it came from having a shitty dad who was always telling him what a piece of crap he was. But when he looked at you, he was usually looking past your ear or down at your chin.

“What happened to your face?” he asked, eyes going a little sad.

“That’s why I need to find Jake.”

“Wait. No. Jake didn’t do that,” he said, shaking his head, ready to go to bat for his friend. Even if his belief in Jake’s goodness was wholly misplaced.

“Jake stood by and let it happen. Which is just as bad. So where the fuck can I find him?”

“I don’t believe that,” Bobby said, setting his spoon on the top of his noodles to keep the seal over it so the noodles would soften up.

“This isn’t religion, Bobby. You can’t choose not to believe a fact. He was there. He let this happen to me,” I told him, waving at my face.

“He must have had a good reason,” he insisted, shaking his head, refusing to believe his only real-life friend in the world could be the shithead he actually was.

“A good reason,” I scoffed. “Do you seriously think there is ever a good reason for a guy to stand by and let a woman’s face get fucked up?”

“I dunno. Maybe if he stepped in, he woulda gotten shot or something.”

“Wow. Just… wow,” I said, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.

“It’s possible.”

“Don’t go putting Jake on a pedestal, Bobby. He doesn’t deserve it. Would any of the guys in your comics or movies stand by and let a girl get beat up?” I asked, knowing that the only ‘people’ he looked up more to than Jake were the fictional ones that had pretty much raised him.

“But they have superpowers.”

“You don’t think that Jake’s size and strength was more of a superpower than what I have going on?” I asked, waving down at myself.

To his credit, he did give that some thought for a moment.

Ultimately, though, his loyalty to his friend was stronger than his own moral code.

“Jake wouldn’t have let it happen if he didn’t have a good reason.”

He did.

He fucking did.

But arguing with Bobby on this was like screaming into a void.

I didn’t need Bobby to believe me. Even if, in a small way, it did hurt that he didn’t. That he wouldn’t side with me. After all the shit he’d seen me put up with when it came to Jake.

Especially after everything I’d done for Bobby.

Including once agreeing to go in cosplay with him to one of his comic conventions just so he could show off to his friends that he could get a girl to go out with him. And that outfit had consisted of little more than a bra, a skirt that would show everyone my Playstation if I bent over, and eyelashes so big that it was hard to keep my lids open.

Oh, well.

I wasn’t really losing something if I never had it in the first place. Bobby would always side with Jake. No matter how wrong he was.

“You know what, whatever. I don’t care if you agree with me or not,” I said, and I got a small bit of satisfaction from him looking a little wounded by that. “I just need to know where he is. Fuck knows he doesn’t have a real job. So where is he right now?”

“I don’t know. Really!” he said when I advanced on him in a way that no one else in the world would probably find threatening, considering I was half his size. But he actually backed up against the counter and held out his hands. “He hasn’t been here in a while. That’s the truth,” he added with a frantic nod.

“How long is a while?” I asked, brows furrowing. Where the hell else would he go? He was paying rent to live here. And, lord knows, he never had much money to spare.

“Couple weeks, I guess.”

“A couple weeks ?” I asked, spine straightening.

“Yeah.”

“What about rent? Bills?”

To that, Bobby shrugged.

“You’re covering for him?” I asked, shaking my head. That was a new low. I mean, Bobby did okay. He worked a nighttime job doing IT over the phone. Still. It was asking a lot to make him carry all the bills. “He hasn’t been back at all? To get clothes? Nothing?”

“No.”

“What happened the last time you saw him?”

“Nothing really. I was in the middle of a video call D&D game. So, I wasn’t really paying too close of attention,” he admitted. “But he came in—“

“Alone?”

“Yeah, alone. He came in. Then he went into his room. Maybe he came out with his backpack. I don’t really remember. But he said he’d see me in a bit. Then he left.”

“Have you called him? Texted?”

“No. Didn’t have a reason to.”

Save for the rent being due. But Bobby was, by nature, a pushover. Which was what his old man raised him to be. It was sad, though. Especially because guys like Jake didn’t hesitate to take advantage of that kind of character flaw in someone.

Look at what I’d put up with from him.

No.

Nope.

I wasn’t going to go back there.

I needed to focus on the present. On finding that asshole.

“Can you call him?” I asked.

“Why don’t you call him?”

“Bobby, come on. Be a pal. Just this once,” I said, sounding tired. Because I was. I was so fucking tired of thinking about Jake.

“Okay,” he said, taking his noodles over to his desk, righting his chair, sitting down, and reaching for his phone. The movement made some sort of motion-detecting neon lights flash on in a short little pattern.

“That’s kind of cool,” I admitted.

“Right? I got sent them.”

“Sent? By who?”

“The company.”

“Why would a company send them?” I asked, and watched as his neck and cheeks went red. “What?”

“I started streaming,” he said, unable to look up at me as his elbow nudged his mouse, making his screen wake up, showing the home screen of his channel.

He had almost half a million followers.

“Holy shit, Bobby,” I said, eyes going round.

“I’m making money and everything,” he said, smiling.

“That was your dream, right?” I asked.

“I mean, kind of,” he said, playing it down. Meanwhile, I’d listened to him gush on and on about his favorite streamers and how cool it was that they made a living from doing their favorite thing.

“That’s really cool, Bobby. I mean it. Good for you.”

For all his faults, I didn’t actually wish the guy bad. If anything, I wished he would get out of the apartment more and live a bit more of a normal life. If this was the life he truly wanted, though, who the hell was I to judge?

“Thanks,” he said, smiling to himself as he unlocked his phone and scrolled his contacts.

He lifted his phone to his ear, but it was just a few seconds before his brows scrunched.

“What is it?” I asked.

Bobby hung up, then switched it to speaker, and called again.

“We’re sorry. The number you are trying to reach is disconnected or no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this message in error, please check the number and try again.”

“What the fuck?” I asked aloud. “Jake has had that line… forever.”

Bobby had nothing to add to that, just shook his head.

“Was he acting weird before he left?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Was he hanging out with anyone new? Right before you saw him last.”

“Not that he brought around here. He was always texting people, though.”

“Fuck,” I hissed, whipping around to stalk across the apartment. “Fuck,” I added, more defeated.

This was supposed to be easy.

Pop in, give Jake a piece of my mind, tell him to stay the fuck away from me. And then that was it. It was over. I was done with this old life of mine. For good this time.

Now?

Now, I had to worry about that idiot and what he’d gotten himself into.

I wanted to tell myself not to care, to just walk away and not look back.

The problem with that was, despite myself, some part of me did still care. The other part was also worried that this wouldn’t be the last time. That, maybe, those guys would come back to the meat shop, that the one guy would finish what he started.

Damnit.

“Alright,” I said, walking back over to Bobby’s desk, grabbing a sticky note, and jotting down my new email address onto it. I’d be damned if I gave Bobby, and possibly by extension, Jake, access to my new phone number. “If you hear from him, email me.”

“Should I tell him you stopped by?” Bobby asked as I made my way to the door.

“If I told you not to, you wouldn’t listen to me anyway,” I said, shrugging, then making my way out into the hall.

I waited until I was in the elevator to lean against the wall and take several deep, steadying breaths.

I never wanted to get wrapped up with Jake and his bullshit again.

But I couldn’t just walk away when things looked… off.

Could I?

No.

No, of course not.

He was my brother, after all.