Love at First Fight - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Twenty-Two

"Okay, but you're still totally in love with her, right?"

Alice skipped across cobblestone, the Ambassador just at her side. She could've looked carefree, just like every other teenager walking those streets through Rome, but I knew the truth. I knew that Alice Anderson hadn't been carefree in a very, very long time.

Preston looked to Alice, ever polite. "Love was never the problem," he told us. "But there came a time when we stopped working well together, so we decided to split."

Alice looked up at him, her level of skepticism almost making up for the fact that she was a good fourteen inches shorter. "Right," she said. "And by decided to split, you mean she left you, right?"

"It was a mutual decision," he said, but Alice and I were trained in the art of deception. We knew a lie when we saw one.

A black and white ball crossed our path, distracting us from the more important topics such as the Ambassador's love life. Preston kicked it, sending it back into the courtyard where a group of kids were playing some variation of soccer. The kids all waved back, excited whispers floating from ear to ear, discussing, I assume, just how dreamy the American Ambassador looked.

"You ask a lot of questions," he said, completely unfazed by his daily dose of diplomacy. The surprise in his voice seemed misplaced, due to the fact that he had known Aunt Liz, so he probably should have expected questions from Alice. "What if I were to start asking you about your love life? Like that boy who carried you back to your room last night."

Alice laughed. "Collins?" she said. "Oh no, no, no. He's Maggie's boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend," I cut in, but apparently, Ambassador Winters was no schmuck when it came to detecting lies either, so I defended my case further. "We fight more than anything else."

The Ambassador shrugged. It was an act that didn't look like it belonged underneath pressed polyester. "Fighting can be good," he told me. "Macey and I never fought, until we did. One long night and a lot of hurtful words later"—he popped his lips—"suddenly I didn't have a fiancée anymore."

It sounded like a drastic measure in a drastic time, but I knew better than to underestimate the power of angry words on a sleepless night. I wanted to ask him if there was any going back. I wanted to know if, after words were said and punches were thrown, a person could possibly forgive another person. I wanted to ask the Ambassador a lot of questions on that sunny Sunday morning, but before I got the chance, I ran into my brother's back.

The thing about brothers is that you know them whether you want to or not. You know their smile and you know their frown. You know their anger and you know their hopelessness. I had seen Matt tell very bad lies to very good people and I had seen him tell very good lies to very bad people. I had seen him strong and confident and proud, then I had seen him beaten and broken and nearly dead. I knew my brother, and just then, I knew that he didn't like what he was seeing.

"What's up?" I asked.

He was shaking his head before I could even finish the question. "I've got a bad feeling about this."

"Which part?"

"All of it."

There are stories in this world that are capable of stuffing fear beneath your skin. There are stories that make you shake and make you scared, even when you've got no logical reason for it. I had once read a story like that, about my mother when she had stood in this very same place, and then had been attacked just moments later. That story had scared me. That story had made me paranoid.