Playing the Field (Hot-Lanta Series) (36 page)

             
Lucy just stood there. “Is she telling the truth?” Connor asked.

             
Everyone plastered their eyes on Lucy and watched her slowly nod her head yes, as tears streamed down her face.

             
Molly gathered her stuff and said, “My job here is done. Austin if you still want to see me you know where I am. If not, your loss.” With that she left them behind pondering about what kind of sick love triangle they were in.

                                          ***

              Patty’s heart pounded in her chest. She didn’t want to kiss Gino but she also didn’t want anything to happen to Marc. She couldn’t imagine if her actions caused him any kind of physical pain. If she needed to get back together with Gino in order to assure Marc was going to be safe, then she would do it. She had no clue what Gino wanted from her but all she knew was she needed to make sure that Marc was going to be ok.

             
When Marc strode past her and Gino on the dance floor, she thought she was going to throw up. What he must think of her. She couldn’t give herself over to him, heart and soul but she could kiss the one person that destroyed her life. Marc must want to scream in frustration.

She chased after him in hopes of trying to calm him down. She knew she could not tell him the reason why Gino was here or else Gino would do something,
something bad and Patty didn’t want to venture down that path.

             
“Marc, wait. Please.”

             
Marc whirled around, nearly knocking her down in her tracks. The look in her eyes split her heart in half. They were full of anger and hurt. She could not believe this was happening. All she wanted to do was wrap him in her arms and hung him until the hurt in his eyes was gone, but she knew he would not let her touch him and neither would Gino.

             
He just stood there staring at her waiting for her to say something so she said, “It’s not what you think.”

             
Probably not the smartest thing she ever said but she was so blown over by his anger, he couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say.              

             
“Tell me what I think Patty, please enlighten me.”

             
Well the truth was not an option especially since she could feel Gino’s presence watching their every movement. She couldn’t possibly say she was back together with him because even speaking the words would make her gag. How does she explain this?

Her thoughts were interrupted when he said, “Here let me help you. It seems to me that after two years of being friends with you, supporting you and falling in love with you
, I’m thrown to the trash in one night so you can be with the one man who truly fucked up your life. You chose the person who beat the shit out of you over me, someone who genuinely cared about you, loved you and wanted to be a part of your life. That is what I think. Please tell me if I’m wrong.”

Patty could not
stop the tears from falling from her eyes. He wanted to be a part of her life, well that should have been obvious from the get go. He had been nothing but sweet, considerate, thoughtful and loving toward her. He had been patient through all her ups and downs and helped her get through one of the hardest times of her life. Why didn’t she give him a chance before? Why did she push her feelings aside to save her heart from being broken again?

Now she is in a situation where if she says anything, someone is going to be killed and she will most likely end up having to stay with Gino for the rest of her life. The mere thought made her cry even more.

“Are you just going to stand there and cry, or are you actually going to act like an adult and own up to your actions?”

Patty had never seen Marc so angry. He was always so kind to her, she didn’t like this side of him and she would bet her life that he didn’t like this side of her either. She gathered all the courage she could muster and decided to lie to him, for his own good. If she couldn’t save herself
, she could at least save Marc.

“You’
re right Sully. I’m back together with Gino.” When the words fell out of her mouth Marc flew his hands up in frustration.

“You ha
ve got to be fucking kidding me! I can’t even believe this.”

             
He grabbed patty by the waist and shocked the hell out of her when he planted his lips directly on hers and ravaged her mouth with his. Every sense in her body exploded with wanting, wanting for this man. Why was she such an idiot before?

She wrapped her hands around his neck and
deepened the kiss. He was practically animalistic with his tongue, exploring every last inch of her mouth. She felt her limbs starting to go numb with pleasure and she was tingling all over. He ended to the passionate kiss by pushing her away, wiping his mouth and breathing hard.

             
She was breathing heavily and didn’t realize Gino’s hand was on her back until she saw Marc scowl at somebody behind her.

             
Apparently, he didn’t give two shits about Gino’s presence because he said, “You can’t tell me you didn’t just feel something there Patty. You can’t tell me you want to end what we could have together because that is what is going to happen if you get back together with that sick fuck standing behind you.”

             
Patty cringed at Marc’s words. She didn’t want him upsetting Gino to the point that Gino took the situation in his own hands. He was known to not show any type of kindness when he was upset. Patty had the scars to prove it. She felt something sharp press against her back, clearly Gino was indicating he wanted her to finish up this scene or someone was going to get hurt. Once again she gathered all the courage she could muster.

             
She wrapped her arm around Gino and said, “I’m sorry Marc. We are through here.”

             
Patty’s heart was no longer existent, it was completely black because she just threw it away the moment she saw complete and utter devastation span across Marc’s face.

She turned around and walked away wit
h Gino because she couldn’t bear to look at Marc anymore. That was it. Everything was over before it even began. She would never forgive herself for being so foolish, for thinking that by avoiding any kind of relationship with someone she was saving herself from heartache. No, she was an idiot. She caused herself more heartache than she had ever thought imaginable by not allowing herself to acknowledge the love she had for Marc. She no longer had a heart. Her chest was an empty void filled with pure blackness.

                            ***

              Austin stood with Lucy and Connor completely numb. He didn’t know what to do or say. Obviously Connor and Lucy were really close and had a great relationship, so he was unaware of how this news was going to affect them or not.

Frankly, the fact that Lucy was pregnant was the last thing on his mind. He could not get the image of Molly fucking some other guy out of his mind. She told him she was going to go check up on her daughter. Was that a lie? Did she actually check in on her daughter? Was her daughter actually with Luke’s parents or was that a lie too?

              Austin’s heart dropped when he thought about the last week and how he couldn’t get in touch with her. Was she actually upset and trying to find herself during that time or was she fucking every man in Atlanta? He needed to get to the bottom of his questions. He left Lucy and Connor to deal with their pregnancy scare and chased after Molly. If he was the father of Lucy’s baby, than he would deal with that later.

             
He found Molly standing outside by the hotel, smoking a cigarette, acting like nothing just happened. Was she always an evil bitch and he never saw it? She saw him approaching, threw the cigarette on the ground and stomped on it with her annoyingly gorgeous toes. Toes that he once sucked on and licked. He shook the thought out of his head.

             
“Pretty exciting news in there huh? Lucy has quite the predicament on her hands.” Molly said avoiding eye contact with him.

             
“Quit the crap Molly. What the hell were you doing with that guy?”

             
“I think it was pretty obvious what I was doing.”

             
Austin’s blood boiled, he would never hit a woman but by God he wanted to shake some sense into Molly. He was pretty sure she saw the rage in his eyes and she added, “It’s nothing against you Austin.”

             
“How could I not take that personally Molly, when you said a couple of weeks ago that you wanted to be exclusive. Did you just say that because you didn’t want me fucking Lucy?”

             
“If I didn’t say that, would you still be fucking her now?”

             
Would he? He thought about that. Dear sweet Lucy, there was no way she was going to allow him back in her bed. But would he want to be back in her bed? He was too confused to even think about it.

             
“That doesn’t even matter, what matter’s here is that we had an agreement and you broke it. I thought we were in a committed relationship.”

             
“That was where you thought wrong Austin.”

             
“How could you go and fuck that guy when you’re making love to me?”

             
Austin noticed a stroke of anger hit Molly’s eyes and he thought she was going to explode. Her face started to turn red, a trait he never noticed before.

             
“By no means have I ever made love to you Austin, so you can get that out of your dense head. I have only made love with one person in my life and it’s going to stay that way.”

             
Damn, that was a low blow. So this was about Luke.

             
“Is that how you’re going to live your life Molly? Fucking any man who will have you, while you still pine after your dead fiancé. Newsflash, Luke it not coming back!”

             
Molly slapped him across the face so hard he thought his eye ball flew out of its socket. Holy crap he didn’t think a girl could slap that hard.

             
“Don’t you ever talk about Luke again. You have no clue what the hell you’re saying.”

             
“Don’t I? I’ve been the guy who you have been leaning on to get you through the brunt of the loss you were experiencing. You dragged me along your crazy ass life, convincing me you just needed time and how you want to be with me but you’re not ready yet. But in actuality, you are never going to get over him. I’m right, aren’t I? You’re still in love with Luke and there is not a damn thing I can do about it.”

             
Austin watched tears run down Molly’s cheeks. The mascara she wore made race tracks stream down her face and she hiccupped trying to catch her breath.

             
“You will never be better than him Austin, so I don’t even know why you tried.”

             
“I don’t even know why I did either. Face it Molly your life is fucked up. I’m sick of living in a dead man’s shadow. I’m done. Good luck with your life and thank you for cutting me loose before I got too caught up in your crazy hell of a world.”

             
“Fuck you Austin, you have no clue what I went through.”

             
“Well if you actually talked to me like a human instead of sucking my dick every time I tried to get close to you, maybe I could have found out how hard your life has been. You can’t blame anyone but yourself. A little food for thought; I would seek council, Luke is not coming back and you have a daughter who needs you. Get your shit together Molly and stop playing the victim card. Be a role model for your daughter.”

             
Austin turned around and headed up to his hotel room. There was no way he would be going home tonight. Nope he planned on drinking all the contents in his mini fridge and passing out into oblivion.

                                          ***

              Lucy watched Austin run off without a word about Molly’s outburst. What a coward. He was not even going to face the problem head on? No, he was going to once again go chase after Molly. Why was he always picking Molly over her? She could not bear to look at Connor. How did Molly even find out about the pregnancy? She only told Jane and Patty and they wouldn’t tell Molly, especially since they both knew Lucy was on rocky terms with Molly.

             
What a typical Molly thing to do in the first place. She was the one who got caught red-handed and instead of taking the blame she turned the attention off her and made Lucy the evil bitch. What the hell was she going to do?

She glanced over at Connor who looked like
he just ate a bad piece of chicken. He lost all coloring in his face and was rubbing his hand through his hair as if he was contemplating suicide. This was so not good.