All Chapters of JUST LOVERS: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

CARL.A little more than fifteen days later..."Cheers." We clinked our glasses.It was already Friday. We barely saw each other's faces almost halfway through February.I confess to being on the verge of exploding. Olivia had become a little hermetic with me, more than I have been in my whole life, and I didn't want to pressure her, but I couldn't help asking myself a thousand questions.I spoke to Leonidas. He informed me of the amount of work they had, since the director of the insurance company was starting to expand the grounds, it was normal to get involved. That's why I had to delay the placement of her bodyguard.No, correction. I delayed telling her that she already had one assigned.We were in a new location. It was night... On a nice terrace, we could see the lake in front of us.The attraction of the place is its boats and yachts parked in front of a concrete and wooden dock, especially having been built in the middle of the city and not in the official port of Maracaibo,

OLIVIA."Please come in," Carl asked the two men who had just arrived at the apartment.I had already seen them the night before, especially the jet-black-haired mastodon who had been accompanying us during dinner.Although the guy in the vehicle that had followed us there, I'd not been able to see him well until now, being a man with hair level with his skull, well shaved in military style, dark brown the color of his bristles, quite corpulent, almost like his counterpart, seconding in the same way the face of few friends that he had."Boys, meet Olivia Quintero, my girlfriend." I nodded, smiling pleasantly. They looked polite and attentive at the same time. They seemed uncomfortable too. "Baby, this is Juan and Ray Finol." He pointed first to the black-haired Juan, then to the other one, Ray.We shook hands, but I couldn't help but ask them:"Are you family?" I did it because of the last name.Carl smiled. Ray decided to answer:"Yes, ma'am. We're brothers."«Ahh...», I thought, mak

OLIVIA.My mother and I were well taken care of at the hospital. It is a good thing to work in an insurance company, our policies are always the best, besides, the real estate company where my mother works, had a large part of its payroll enrolled in the insurance company where I worked. We had to make it worth the money she was deducted each month.The downside of taking her there was herself. Being stubborn as ever, she pretended that she was not in pain and that the high fever she had been carrying for hours (many hours) was due to a viral process that —according to her— would pass in no time.Sometimes I don't understand Mom.Generally, she is a haughty, active woman, with energy, intelligence, and a lot of kindness to give. It was not so easy to notice her old age, many did not believe that she was almost seventy years old. On the contrary when she got sick. She aged suddenly, she looked older. No exaggeration, that she looked like a ten or twelve-year-old girl who must be persua

CARL.I don't know what the hell was wrong with Francis. She used to stay out of my business, never came into my house, never even went to my work, nothing at all. If she needed someone to take care of Mark, she looked for someone else, I was always the plan C or D of her life and I knew, until then, that this decision was not because of me, or any annoyance with me, she just didn't like to meddle in my business, because she hated it when I did it with hers.Now, what the hell was wrong with her? The thing at her house in December, I attributed it to the moment, the late night, the alcohol, what do I know. To say that, in that moment, and a tone of loud voice, became crazy to me, stupid.It's enough just to understand that after having broken off the relationship ten years ago with her, a furtive encounter between the two of us was what made us parents. We weren't even a couple, we're nothing and we succumbed to a surrender to this day I only understand it as a twist of fate for Mark

NANCY.Things happen for a reason, I'm one of those who manages that discourse. But sometimes I would like to think that this is not so. That fortuitous things happen to us all the time and that despite carving out our destiny, we continue to be victims of unthinkable scenarios in deliberate scenes of life.Six o'clock in the evening. February. I stood at the curb on the other side of the garage door of my house, watching the vehicle parked next to the gray and white gates of my home, diagonally across from me, right in front of the main entrance.It was Tony.Despite what my life might be like, I didn't used to have many enemies. My life was partially quiet. I knew it was him without to see. I didn't know his cars, it was impossible to tell and much harder to identify them when he made a life out of the country. Despite not being able to see his face thanks to the tinted windows of the black luxury van, it was him, no doubt about it.Behind me, I could see through my center rearview