“I can’t believe he did that. I can’t fucking believe it.”
“Honey, if you don’t go to that man right this minute, I will grow a dick and go after him myself,” Rhianna warned. “Go get that man and love on him.”
Eli thought for a moment to deny it, that he couldn’t go to Lee, that it would never work, and it would hurt all over again, but his heart outran his mind, and he was standing, shaking, and trying to think of what he should do.
“Get in the car, Romeo,” Sandy ordered. “I’m driving.”
When they got to the gate of the neighborhood where Lee lived, he expected to have to give a long explanation about why they were there and beg the guard to let him in, but that wasn’t the case. “Mr. Bloom, you’ve been expected. Please, go on through.
Sandy laughed as they pulled away and said, “That speech was for you, to get you here, and it worked! Why can’t I get a chick this way?”
“You’re not rich, you’re not a Senator, and you say things like chick.”
“Oh, right!”
Eli was still nauseated, but he thought he could keep the coffee down, as that was all he’d had in his stomach since Mars’s call. Still, pulling up to that house, seeing the size of it, knowing how much he’d missed it…
Mars came outside in an instant, and Eli got out of the car to hug him. “God, it’s so good to see you.”
“No time for reunions with me, Eli. He’s gone.”
“Well, of course he is. The speech was in another state, but he’ll be back here, right? I mean as soon as his plane can get here.”
“After the speech, Eli, he left. His bodyguards told me he dismissed all of them and took a car that had been waiting for him, I’m guessing. Anyway, they said he had the keys and everything.”
Eli’s heart was broken all over again. “Mars…where did he go?”
“I don’t know, Eli. I don’t know.”