Scars Left By Memories - Book II

The Jealousy Plan

One Week Later

Sofia and I brought in the paper bags from 'Shoprite' Tom along with Jo came to help bring in the groceries. I noticed that Francisco was pacing around the living room on his phone.

As usual he was still upset with me. I thought he would get over it since I did apologize plenty of time. Martinez didn't want to talk to me about it. Every time I would bring it up, he would just shut it down.

"Francisco's still mad at you?" Tom ask placing the can of pineapples on the cutting board.

"Yep, it still hasn't changed since the last seven days. It was just a simple joke. I've tried to text him and dm him about it. I get left on read." I answer placing the box of 'Lucky Charms' into the cabinet.

"Well, I have a deal for you." Tom says as I looked over at Francisco who sat down on the dark brown sofa.

"And that is?" I ask.

"Francisco overreacted over what you had said on the life stream. So maybe we can pretend date." Tom suggests.

"So he will be more upset?" I ask chuckling. Tom shook his head.

"No, it will make him realize that you don't deal with men who get upset over tiny things." Tom answer.

"Okay, fine." I reply setting the vitamin gummy bear down on the counter.

"It's official everyone! Sage and I are now a thing!" Tom announces out loud.

"Tom, what the heck." I whisper.

"Francisco needs to know, so why instead of telling him privately. Let everyone know." Tom whispers back.

Francisco turns, he gave Tom and I a dark deep glare. Then returned to his resting face. Tom looked at me. I shrugged my arms, knowing this would cause more tension between Francisco and Tom.

"Congratulations Sage!" Halle says above an indoor voice, embracing me out of the blue. I pull away.

"Listen Halle, this is just apart of Tom's plan. We aren't actually dating. This is direct to Francisco." I whisper.

"He's going to find out sooner or later." Halle replies tucking her dirty blonde hair behind her ears.

"Well that's all part of the plan." I say.

"Let's just hope things work out." Halle suggest. She seemed annoyed.

***

It was about eight thirty at night. I was unsure since I was currently helping Sofia wash the dishes. It was a pain since lasagna is the hardest thing to clean off the plates.

"Where's Francisco?" I ask concerned.

"He's doing something in the training room downstairs. He skipped dinner. He didn't seem to happy earlier." Sofia answers.

Francisco

My fist slammed against the hard punching bag. I didn't care wether my knuckles were going to be purple once I was done.

I heard footsteps walking down the stairs. If it was Tom. I was daring to fight him, no matter what. I turn to find him walking down the stairs.

"Throwing your anger into a punching bag? Hilarious." Tom taunts.

I kept hitting the punching bag. Tom grabbed a red boxing glove from the drawer. He started to hit the punching bag besides me.

"Why are you and Sage a fucking thing?" I ask so suddenly. I did feel a little bit of bitterness in that sentence.

"Why are you mad at her over something so small as 'asshole' and 'dickhead'. She is just telling the truth." Tom answers continuing to punch the punching bag.

"And why is that any of your business? Just because you were in the car doesn't mean it's your business. It's between Sage and I." I reply giving him a deep stare.

"If it was just you and Sage's business why did you tell everyone at the meeting she was overreacting. It's obvious who it really was." Tom says.

I backed away from the punching bag. I threw the gloves off my hands. Tom chuckles before looking at me.

"Come on Francisco, don't start this. We already have enough disagreement already." Tom turns to me dropping his arms towards the floor.

"Why are you scared?" I reply taunting him, getting close to him.

"Back up." Tom says shoving me back with the boxing glove.

"Scared little Tom." I taunt him.

Tom takes the gloves from his hands. He strikes a punch on my left cheek. My left hand slams against Tom's cheek. We started to shove each other trying to get one of us towards the ground.

"This is going to ruin the mafia." Tom says. I used my arms and push him against the cabinets.

He regains himself quickly before slamming his fist against my cheek. Tom throws me into the blue padded wall. It didn't really faze me at all.

We ran up to each other. Shoving out arms as it lined up. He started push against me. Tom gave me a lost sad puppy face.

"Francisco, if one of us ends up badly hurt. Martinez is going to be the one dealing with us. Sage won't get any benefit but guilt." Tom replies in his calm voice.

"You don't know her at all." I argue, except 'at all' was a nearly a yell. I knew that Sofia and anyone else upstairs would hear.

"Francisco, I know her well enough that she's going to feel horrible for all of this. This won't help both of your situations. You're an adult, she's still nearly a teenager incapable of what she does." Tom explains. He was right. I pushed him back. He shoves up, I attempted to throw my fist at his cheek.

He dodged shoving them back at me. I heard someone walking down the stairs. I didn't both to look as that would make me vulnerable to Tom.

I hear them running. But Tom and I were too focused on fighting. The shorter person came between the both of us. I didn't care who it was.

When the small fingers pushed against my mouth. I smacked my fist against what I felt like was a cheekbone. Their presence dropped to the ground.

Tom walked off, before kneeling down to the person, who I should've known and it was one person I did care about.

Sage.