The Hook-up

Chapter 218

After hanging up the phone with Damaris Bruno moved his hand across his phone to call Lauren. Please answer the phone. Please answer the phone. He pleaded as it rang without being answered. "Lauren..." he said softly into the phone. "I didn't want it to happen this way. You are everything...." he paused starting to cry as he held her ring in his hand. "I have your ring." he finished getting out hanging up the phone sliding back into the couch covering his face with his hand to try to stop the tears from coming down his cheek. I had no idea that it would be like this, I thought she would understand and I would be able to go to Damaris. But this is too much. I just want to hold her and tell her I'm sorry. He picked up the phone again leaving her another message leaving her his thoughts. "I just want to hold you and tell you I'm sorry, Elle. I am so sorry." He hung up the phone crying again. He stayed there for sometime before hearing his phone buzz to let someone in. Without thinking he pressed the button thinking it would be Lauren. He wiped his eyes still sitting where he was.

"Brunooo! What the hell!" he heard Ryan yell. "I've been calling you all morning." he said walking into the living room seeing him sitting there. "We were going to go to the gym, remember?"

"Oh. Right. Let me go change." he said standing up trying to get himself together.

"Are you okay, bro?" Ryan asked his friend.

"Yeah. I'm good." he said lying through his teeth.

"Where's Laur and the kids?" Ryan asked. "Their stuff isn't here."

"We got in a fight last night." Bruno yelled from the bedroom where he was changing.

"When do you think she'll be back? Like after your trip?" Ryan sked, having the same conversation they had every time she left. It had almost become a game for the two of them to figure out when she would come back home and they would get back together.

"I think it's going to take her a while." Bruno said going to the kitchen to get a bottle of water.

"Oh. What happened this time?" Ryan asked.

"This is how it ended...." Bruno answered showing him her ring.

"Oh. Wow. Yeah. Did you call her?" Ryan asked taking the dog with him to go outside.

"What the fuck do you think I was doing? Of course I called her." Bruno snapped. "Damn. Let's get to the gym before I start to kill people."

After going to the gym and almost forgetting how much of a wreck things were that very moment, he heard his mother's ringtone to his phone. Oh no. He thought picking it up. "Bruno, how was Christmas? You didn't call like you said you would...we were worried."

"I know mom. I'm sorry. Ezra got sick and we got really busy..." he lied through his teeth.

"Well that's a different story than the one I heard from Lauren.." Bernie answered almost yelling at him. "Tell me what the hell is going on, Bruno."

"It's a mess mom." he said waving good bye to Ryan who was leaving. He heard the silence on her end of the phone. "What else do you want to know?"

"Why are you doing this?" she asked him.

"I don't know, mom. I don't know. I don't want to hurt her. But it's not what I want..." he explained.

"So what are you going to have instead?" she wondered.

"I don't know. Right now I feel like I won't have anything." he sighed. "When did you talk to her?"

"I called her because you weren't answering your phone..." she told him. "Then she said you two got in another fight. But she didn't say anything else. You two have to stop fighting."

What? She didn't tell her why we got in a fight? So she doesn't know? No one there knows. "Oh. Is she okay?"

"She sounded like she had been crying." Bernie told her son.

"No...." Bruno said almost upset at himself.

"What were you fighting about, Brunito?" Bernie questioned.

"Things I did in New York." he said trying not to expose his story.

"And what was that?" she asked him expecting silence but instead hearing him tell her everything.

"Damaris and I slept together last February. Right after I found out she was pregnant. And then I did it again..." he paused counting. "Just two more times. But I see her all the time, Mom. She listens to me and doesn't judge me and let's me be the fucked up me I am. Lauren tries to change me. And I can't change for her. So I told her. And I hurt her. I hurt her so so bad, Mom. I can't believe I did it. And I haven't talked to her since she left last night." he said now crying. "She gave me her ring back."

"So that's where you got the bruise..." she answered remembering his sisters talking about a random bump on his eye. "One of them hit you...."

"Lauren hit me. She went back to work and Damaris came over...." Bruno said through his tears. "I don't know what I did..." he told his mother.

"Bruno, did you break her wrist?" Bernie asked putting together all the fights and injuries together.

"Yes." he admitted.

"Peter, yo have to fix this. She isn't just a girlfriend, like Giselle, that you can fuck over and then move on. She's your wife. You married her. Till death do us part."

He sighed in frustration at his mother's last statement. "She says that too, Mom. It's not helping at all."

"You need a reminder every once in a while, Bruno." Bernie replied.

"When did you and dad decide that divorce was the best, momma?" Bruno asked.

"There really wasn't one thing, Bruno. It was everything put together." she told him. "It was the fighting and the shows and everything that you all needed that we weren't giving you."

"I don't know what to do, mom. I just don't know what to do." he repeated laying on the couch. "I hurt her so bad. And I love her. She's everything. And the twins are my everything but she just does this thing that drives me crazy..."

"And you've done some things that have driven her crazy, I'm sure." Bernie reminded him.

"Mom! I fucking know I fucked up!" he snapped.

"I will hang up the phone, Peter." she snapped back.

"I'm sorry..." he started. "What do I say to her?"

"Bruno, you are too old for me to fix this for you. You have to fix it on your own. Okay?"

"I don't know if I can. What do I do?" he half cried.

"First talk to her." Bernie told him.