Lani

My birthday has never been a big thing to me; I never wanted it to be celebrated in the past years because no one was ever really around. For some reason my 24th birthday was one that I was extremely excited about, and I don’t really know why. I finally had two weekends off in a row, which was something that I’ve never had since I started bartending, and the people that knew how to have a good time were spending the week with me.

My dad and Gianni drove into the city the night of my birthday so we could have a family dinner, family meaning the three of us, at a restaurant of my choice (which was something that never happened); my dad is very picky about where and what he eats so he always makes the decisions when we do go out. The three of us were making our way to La Caverna when discussions about the Hamptons started.

“So do you guys know who exactly is coming with us tomorrow? I need to know so I can go grocery shopping.” My dad asked me and my brother after a few minutes of being silent in the car.

“Well I know that Trace, Rae, and Justin are gonna try to come for the week and then whoever Gianni brings. But we can do all that once we get up there so don’t worry about it.”

“Justin eh? You’ve been spending a lot of time with him, are you guys dating or something?” Ha, yeah right. I wish.

“No.”

“Diego tells me that Larissa told him you and Justin have been getting pretty close since the incident.” The ‘incident’ is what we refer to the night that guy broke in as. I hate talking about it with anyone in my family because they get pissed and vindictive, which is not a pretty sight so we call it the incident and leave it at that.

“Zio {uncle} Diego tells you a lot of things Dad. It doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s right.” We got out of Gianni’s car and made our way into the restaurant where we were seated at a table in the back. Everything was going good until I saw my dad shoot daggers with his eyes across the room, a look that all of us Violanos use as a warning to people we aren’t too fond of.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing Melania.” I shot a glance over to Gianni who didn’t buy his answer either.

“You may be able to lie to other people but you’ve always been horrible at lying to us old man.” Thank you Gianni.

“Remember Randy Timberlake?” The two of us nodded, not really knowing what was going on. “Well he just got seated across the room with his family.” I went to turn around in my chair to look but was scolded by my dad to turn back around and ignore them.

We ended up staying at the restaurant longer to wait for them to leave because my dad didn’t want to start a confrontation on my birthday, how sweet of him right? Eventually I saw my dad grin evilly at someone and turned around in my seat, even if he didn’t want me to. The guy he was grinning at, Randy Timberlake I assumed, was grinning right back at him as if he were challenging my dad. I didn’t catch a glimpse of who he was with because the restaurant was so dimly lit, but I saw the back of an older male and two younger ones who were already making their way outside. We left quickly after them; my dad made some sort of bullshit excuse that since Randy knew where we were we needed to leave because of the problems between the two of them at the moment. Leave it up to the family business to ruin my birthday, once again…

Although dinner ended early, Rae, Justin, Trace and I all went down to Marquee for free drinks, that is the only perk of working there, and we ended up treating it like it were any other Friday night and got a little wasted with some of my coworkers. I knew we had to get up early to head out but it was the first night in a while that I was the out of control girl at the club and it felt damn good.

The next day we all packed up the three cars (my dad’s, Gianni’s, and Justin’s) and headed to the Hamptons to start a week free of busy cities and full of relaxation, or so I thought. The second we pulled into the gates of my dad’s Hamptons beach house I noticed something was off. Sitting in front of one of the garage doors was a car that I had never seen before. I looked over at Rae who was sitting next to me in the back seat of Justin’s BMW and she just shrugged her shoulders. The four of us left unpacking until later and got out so I could show Trace and Justin around the house.

After the tour Rae and Trace went swimming down at the beach with Gianni and his friend Joe and my dad went out to check on the club he owns in town and to “do some business” which left Justin and I alone. For the first time since the night I went back to his house after work we were alone with no one else around and it was extremely weird. For about an hour we just sat on the couch, not talking, and watching a movie and then he got up and walked out of the room mumbling that he was going shopping. After a few minutes of eerie silence in the house I figured that he left so I got up from the couch and made my way towards the room I was staying in. I was tired from going out the night before so while everyone was gone I figured I could go a take a nap until dinner time, but I was wrong.

“Hey what’r you up to?” I stopped on the step and turned around and saw Justin who had changed from his basketball shorts into plaid AE shorts and a dark blue t-shirt.

“I was gonna go take a nap, I’m pretty beat. I thought you were gonna go down to Main St and look around?”

“I decided to save my money for something better. Mind if I join you? I’m still sorta hung over from last night, as I’m sure you can see.” I laughed because it was true; even though he was well groomed he looked like shit from too much partying. I wasn’t really sure about my dad’s reaction to Justin and I sleeping in the same bed if he came home, but at that point I was so tired that I didn’t even care.

“Sure, come on.” He followed me up the stairs and down to the end of the hallway where my room was but ran into my back when I stopped short in the doorway.

“What the…” I looked over at the bed where there was a big white box sitting on top of it with a green bow.

“It looks like someone’s got a late birthday gift.” We sat down on the bed and I picked up the box and put it in my lap and opened it. Inside was something that I definitely didn’t expect; a car brochure and car keys.

“Holy shit, that car is mine.” I saw the face Justin made from the corner of my eye.

“What car? And don’t you hate driving?”

“That Porsche Cayenne outside in the driveway. And I do hate driving, mainly in the city. I’m fine on the roads back home though.”

“I’d like to hope that you’re better then that horrible driving you did that night. I thought I was going to die.”

“Oh shut up, you were way too intoxicated to realize what was going on. Let’s go look inside this bad boy.”

Justin

I was thinking at that point ‘whoever got her that car was stupid, they must have wanted her to die (or commit mass murder)’. Seriously, when I say that she’s a bad driver I’m being nice, because she’s fucking horrible. I know you can’t judge someone based on one incident, but I’ve never seen anything worse in my life. I was hoping as we approached the white truck she didn’t want to take it for a joyride, because I wanted to enjoy my vacation not end up in the morgue.

I’ve never seen her so excited about something the way she was when we were looking over her new car. It was sexy to see her smiling and acting like a 16 year old getting their first car. I made a mental note to tell her that she should smile more often. After a while of looking at the car we decided to take a drive into town to start the shopping trip I had intended on before. We made our way through the stores on Main St. and then headed over to Blue & Cream to shut her up, which she’s been talking about since we got here. On our way out of the store to her car I saw Jocelyn get out of a Benz by the curb, so put on my aviators that were sitting on my head and pulled my hat really low down on my face so she wouldn’t see me, but she did.

“Oh gosh! Hey Justin, we just keep seeing each other everywhere.” I hadn’t made contact with her for almost two years until that day at Café Metro, and here she was again just a week later.

“Hey Jocelyn.” I saw the smirk on Lani’s face when she realized who the girl was that I was talking to. I should have never told her about Jocelyn.

“Jay, this is Jocelyn?” Jocelyn glared at Lani up and down before speaking up.

“This must be Melania. I’ve heard so much about you, I pictured you to be prettier though.” Oh god, she didn’t go there. I wrapped my arm around Lani’s waist tightly to keep her from bitching out Jocelyn.

“I’m happy you’ve heard a lot about me, it’s funny though because I haven’t heard a thing about you. Hmm, I guess you’re just not that important.” For once in her life Jocelyn was left speechless and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Ready to go baby? I’m getting kinda hungry.” She looked up at me and smiled then looked back at Jocelyn and did the same. Wait a second. Did she just call me Baby? Shit, Jocelyn needed to be around more often if this was the treatment I got from Lani.

“Yeah.” We walked to the car and put our bags in before driving off back towards the house.

“Funny, I pictured her to be prettier.” I laughed and turned down the radio that was blasting.

“She’s a bitch. You’re gorgeous don’t even let her get to you.”

“I’m not. Aw but you think I’m gorgeous?” I must have turned four shades of red because I hadn’t even realized I said that.

“I mean, you’re okay.”

“Whatever Justy, don’t even try to hide it now. If it makes you feel any better you’re not too hard on the eyes yourself.”

“Thanks. And stop calling me Justy, that shit’s annoying.”

“Aw, is the baby embarrassed by his Momma’s nickname? Oh yeah, how has that skank hoe heard so much about me?”

“The guys at the office. She’s still straight with a few of them and they told her about you coming in with dinner for me that week. Nosy ass pricks.”

“Ha, they think we’re together?”

“Pretty much. I haven’t told them otherwise.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t feel a need to. It’s not like being with you affects my work, they don’t really have a right to know who I’m dating, or in this case who I’m not.”

“Interesting.”

“I mean, do you tell your coworkers who you’re dating?”

“No.”

“Alright then. They can think I’m with you all they want to. It’s better for me that they do.” I looked at her confused face as I turned into the driveway.

“Why?”

“I’m trying to change how I am with women and they only encourage the one night stands I used to have, especially when we all go out after a project is finished. Where do you think I learned how to party so hard from? But since they’ve thought I’m with you they don’t even mention me talking to other girls. And they know better to say smart shit when you come around, I don’t play that.”

“Is someone defensive of me?”

“Somebody’s gotta be. They may be professional but they’re assholes when it comes to women.”

“You mean like you are?”

“Like I was. I’m a changed man. I’m ready for a relationship now.”

“Really, and who exactly are you looking to have a relationship with?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“It would be nice.”

“I want to be with you. We’ve come a long way since you hated my guts. I mean, I know that you’ve told me you aren’t with anyone because you’re not ready to be, but would it hurt to try something new? I’ve thought about doing what we did that night at my house everyday for the past week. I want to be able to kiss you and hold you when we go to bed on a regular basis Lani. You are the one who loves change, aren’t you?”

“Wow, I don’t know what to say.” I was expecting her to say that.

“You don’t even have to say anything, I don’t expect you to. I just want you to know that the offer is out there when or if you’re ready to take it.”