by Leigh Landry
“Right. So.” He cleared his throat, then rattled through the details of his plan for the next week of promo. His plan for a quick giveaway. What images he wanted to use. Variations for each social media channel, and which he planned to focus on.
When he finished his explanation, the glazed look in her eyes said everything her mouth didn’t. Or couldn’t.
He didn’t often see Robin flustered. Even when she was in over her head, she always maintained an air of control.
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
“Would you rather me handle everything without bugging you about any of it?” he asked.
Her shoulders relaxed, and she visibly exhaled. “Dear Lord, yes. Please.”
“Okay then. Consider it done.” He closed his folder and smiled at her. “You worry about that band of yours and the music. I’ll handle this.”
“Thanks, Matt.”
“No problem.”
“No, I mean it.” She bit her lip. “You’re too good to me. You’re gonna have to tell me how to repay you for this.”
“I’m not taking your money.”
“Then let me do something in return for you.”
“Can’t you just let someone do something nice for you without owing them?”
“I could.” She frowned. “But you know it’ll eat at me, and I’ll just bug you about it until we’re even.”
She was right, he had to think of some way for her to repay him or she’d make his life miserable hounding him until he did. But he could only think of one thing he wanted from her.
“Fine then. Come with me to Heidi’s tomorrow.”
“Heidi’s,” she repeated in confusion.
“I told you, it was my niece’s birthday yesterday. Her party’s tomorrow. You know I hate those things.”
“Yeah, but you love those babies. And your sister.”
“I do,” he said. “When was the last time you saw her?”
Robin frowned. “Too long, I guess.”
“Well then, come with me tomorrow.” The more he said it, the better the idea sounded.
“You know I didn’t get family birthday parties in the divorce.”
“Dustin and his crew are in…Jacksonville. I think.” Truth was, he didn’t know where Dustin was half the time. Didn’t know what state much less what city. But the last time he and Robin had lunch together, they’d discussed their mutual love of The Good Place. So Jason Mendoza was the first thing he thought of when Dustin said he was going to Jacksonville. It stuck in his head.
Robin was quiet for a moment. A rare occurrence, and usually one that didn’t bode well for whoever she was with. Finally, she said, “Maybe. I’ll think about it.”
“Great. I’m assuming you’ll be at the store in the morning? I’ll pick you up there at one.”
“Matthew Blanchard, I said I’ll think about it.”
Her eyes were dancing, and she fought a smile on that gorgeous mouth of hers. He loved teasing her. Loved making her laugh even more. They used to do a lot more laughing together, and he missed that. Only she wasn’t his to make laugh. Never was. Certainly wasn’t now. He just wished like hell things were different.
But what if Heidi was right? What if Robin and Dustin and their divorce had nothing at all to do with him? Or, more importantly, with him and Robin. What if he was making all of this more complicated than it had to be?
Hell, it was complicated enough without him mucking things up. And once he brought her around his family again, the complication factor would surely go through the roof. His family didn’t do simple. And they definitely wouldn’t make a return visit easy for their golden boy’s ex-wife.
He looked across the table, at Robin’s big brown eyes. Yup. Complicated enough.
“You all right there?” Robin asked. “You look a little lost.”
Lost? If only she knew just how lost he was. Not that he would be the one to tell her. Not now. Not ever.
“Nope. Everything’s just fine,” he lied.
* * * * *
Matt followed the big, bug-eyed creature’s path back and forth through the aquarium tank on his bedroom dresser. Did fish get bored? Was this tank big enough? Blaire, his former employee, had assured him it was fine when she dropped it off, but he also knew she was just grateful to have someone take the thing before she and her boyfriend moved across the country. He’d waited until the week before they left to offer, hoping someone else would volunteer instead, but of course, no one did.
He tossed a couple brine shrimp in the tank, then walked back to his desk in the dining nook/office. Break time was over. It was almost nine o’clock, and he wanted to finish drafting the band’s posts for the week so he could schedule them all tomorrow morning.
As he opened his laptop again, his phone lit up on the desk beside him with a message from Heidi.
Did you do something about it yet?
His first instinct was to ignore her, but he knew better than to think Heidi would give up.
You know you want to
Case. In. Point.
She wasn’t wrong, though. Not entirely. He did want to do something about it. Mainly because he would have had all of this drafted and scheduled two hours ago if he hadn’t been replaying today’s lunch in his head. All they did was eat sandwiches and discuss a little business and talk about…life. But it was the highlight of his week.
Damn it.
He needed to stop obsessing about his ex-sister-in-law. Robin had everything she needed. There literally wasn’t a single thing he could offer her that his way more interesting brother hadn’t even been able to provide. So sitting here on a Friday night thinking about someone he could never have was a colossal waste of time.
Bring her tomorrow.
Matt finally answered. Already arranged
Hot damn! Good.
Not good. Because now all he could think about was tomorrow. Seeing Robin again. Hanging out with Robin with his family. How it would be like tiptoeing through a minefield but also how it would feel so, so right.
Damn it.
Unable to resist the temptation any longer, he picked up the phone.
“Hey,” Robin said in her smooth, deep voice. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“Well,” he said, “there’s kind of a problem.”
“There’s a problem?”
“Yes, a big one.”
Was he really going to say this? Do this?
Yes, of course he was. Because the sooner he did, the sooner he could clear things up to his deluded brain and get back to work. To focus. To stop obsessing about potentials and things that would never be.
“What kind of problem is too big for a Blanchard?” She chuckled, but her unease rang out clearly through the phone.
“The kind where I can’t stop thinking about you.”
He didn’t know what he expected her to say in response. Something sassy or clever or dismissive. But he did expect something. Anything. Instead he got a whole lot of silence.
When he couldn’t stand that silence any longer, he filled it. “I mean, I really enjoyed lunch with you today.”
“I…I did, too.”
“And it got me thinking.”
“Thinking,” she repeated.
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. Why was the air in here so damn dry? “I was thinking I’d like to do more of that.”
More silence.
Damn.
“So I was thinking after the birthday party maybe we could grab something to eat again. Tomorrow night.”
“I don’t recall actually agreeing to go to that party.”
Shit. He was scaring her off for sure. He’d been right all along. This was a ridiculous idea. Nothing would ever happen between them—never could. But at least now that he’d pushed the issue she could lay it out plain for him, and he could get back to focusing on everything else instead of some fantasy about something that would never happen.
“Well, I’d love for you to come with me. Same as I said earlier today. I’m just…well…I’m not exactly sure what I’m asking here.” He sounded like an idiot.
“You were asking about dinner,” she said. “You asked clearly enough to me.”
“Dinner. Right.”
“So is that still the question?”
That and so much more. But that would do for now. That simple no would be enough. “Would you like to go to the party and then dinner with me tomorrow?”
This was officially the fewest words he’d ever heard Robin utter in a conversation. But he only needed one word from her. One single no and he could get on with his life.
After a few long, torturous moments, Robin said, “Sure.”
Sure wasn’t no.
He’d been so caught up in what he’d expected her to say, what he practically needed her to say, that he had no idea how to deal now with what she actually said.
“Great.” Except he wasn’t at all sure this was great.
“Great,” she repeated, her voice as shaky and unsure as he felt.
Neither rejection nor reassurance. Yeah, this was real great.
“Okay, I’ll pick you up at the store at one.”
“Okay,” she said. “See you then.”
He put the phone down and stared at it. That was the most awkward conversation he’d ever had with just about anyone, much less with this woman. His conversations with Robin had always been easy.
But this…he didn’t know what the hell just happened in that phone call. Not what he’d planned, that was for sure.
For half a second, he was downright pissed off. Why on earth had Robin agreed to go out with him? Didn’t she know what kind of mess this would start? What a disaster of an idea this was?
But then he remembered it was his disaster of an idea. Not Robin’s. And the responsibility was on him. He only had himself to be angry at. He’d asked the question, and it wasn’t her responsibility to manage his feelings or answer the way he’d wanted her to.
Or the way he didn’t want her to answer.
Hell, he’d twisted all of this around so much he didn’t even know what he wanted anymore.
Liar.
He knew exactly what he wanted. And he was getting it.
He had a date. With Robin. Tomorrow. At a family event.
Heaven help them both.
-4-
Would you like to go to the party and then dinner with me tomorrow?
No. How hard would it have been to say that one little word?
She had an easy enough time saying no normally.
No.
See? Easy.
Except when it came to saying it to the dang Blanchards.
Every single person in that family made her question her actions some kind of way, and she found herself struggling time and time again to deny them anything they asked. Small or large.
And this happened to be a huge ask, even if this particular Blanchard didn’t realize it.
“Shouldn’t you be wrapping things up in here?”
Robin looked over her laptop at Lauren, who leaned against the doorway raising her eyebrows at the piles of invoices scattered across the desk.
“Shouldn’t you be counting?” she shot back.
She didn’t normally sass back and forth with her employees, but Lauren was becoming more like family with every day that passed. They’d known each other since they were kids growing up in the music scene playing in separate family bands, but they’d really started growing closer since Lauren joined Les Cinq Couillons. Lauren was almost a decade younger and felt like a little sister to Robin. She was glad to take on the role of older sibling-figure, especially after Lauren lost her actual sister last year.
Lauren handed over another invoice to add to Robin’s piles. “Everything matches up. I handed them over to Larry for printing.”
“Good.”
A ding rang out through the front of the building. Lauren looked over her shoulder, then turned back with a sly smile. “Cap’s here.”
“Crap. He’s early.”
“Crap? That’s no way to talk about Cap.”
“His name is Matt,” Robin said. “Is it too late to sneak out the back and tell him I’m not here?”
“Maybe. If I were gonna let you do that. Which I’m not.”
Robin narrowed her eyes. “Traitor.”
“Hey, you want to turn that man down, that’s your business. But you’re gonna tell him face to face, because that’s exactly what you’d make me do.”
Dang it. She’d done a good job training this one. Too good. “Fine.”
Lauren flashed a satisfied grin, then left the office. A moment later, Matt replaced her.
“You ready for Blanchard Family Fun Times?”
He leaned against the doorway with his hands in his pockets, wearing dark jeans and a blue plaid short-sleeved shirt over a black tee—one of her designs with the Acadian flag on it. His expression was genuine and inviting, as always, but there was a slight vulnerability there, a crack in his armor. He looked at her with those welcoming gray eyes of his, waiting expectantly for her answer, and she suddenly forgot why she ever wanted to back out of this.
But he must have caught a whiff of her hesitation before it vanished. “You aren’t bailing on me, are you? Because I already told Heidi you’re coming, so you’ll have to answer to her if you don’t show up now.”
“You mean you’ll have to answer to her if I don’t show up.”
“Right. And you wouldn’t do something that horrible to me, would you?”
She felt a grin despite her reluctance. “Never. No one deserves that fate.”
He smiled, the joy reaching up to his slightly squinting eyes. She wanted nothing more than to run her fingers through that beard and pull his face to hers.
Holy crap. What was wrong with her?
“Ready?”
Robin looked down at her desk, hesitating. Stalling. Looking for some excuse to stay. But all that surrounded her were piles of invoices and receipts and to-do lists. “I’ve…really got a lot of work.”
It wasn’t a lie. But she always had a lot of work.
“I know, and this is a busy week,” he said. “Which is exactly why you need a break. Have a little fun. Rest up and energize before the wild week ahead of you.”
Dang it. She’d forgotten how frustratingly persuasive his logic could be.
She pulled out the gift bag from under her desk—the gift she’d bought just in case she went and lost her dang mind, exactly like this.
“You’re right.” She bit her lip for a second, then shut the laptop and looked back up at Matt’s expectant face. “Let’s get out of here.”
* * * * *
The panic didn’t grip Robin again until they reached the wooden gate leading into Heidi’s backyard. Delighted squeals and slow, mournful Cajun music soared through the air, along with the occasional clank of a washer toss game from somewhere near the back of the property.
“Wait.” She put a hand over Matt’s as he grasped the gate handle. “This is a bad idea.”
He stared at her, his eyes soft and sympathetic, and for a moment she believed he might take pity on her. But instead, he said, “Well then, it’s a bad idea we’re gonna tackle together.”
Before she could protest more, he pushed the gate open, revealing a scene beyond anything Robin had imagined. She’d been to many Blanchard birthdays and barbecues, but nothing like this.
The week’s unrelenting rains had rendered the yard a sloppy, muddy mess. Everywhere you looked, children ran in circles, chasing each other through the muck with their palms held out, completely coated in mud and their party clothes speckled and soaked at the edges. They giggled and shouted with glee as Heidi’s formerly yellow lab, Linus, trotted and barked alongside them.
Robin resisted the urge to run over and wrap her arms around the muddy dog that hadn’t yet noticed their arrival. She’d spent most of the family gatherings she’d attende
d here sitting in a lawn chair with Linus at her feet or on the couch watching football with him snuggled up beside her. Robin hadn’t realized how much she’d missed that dog until she saw him gleefully running with those kids, and she had to blink back a few unexpected tears.
“Matthew.”
And that was the end of the tears as a woman in capri pants and a spring green blouse approached them.
“Robin,” the woman added. “I didn’t realize we’d be seeing you today.” Her voice was cheery and light as she approached Robin for a quick embrace.
“It’s good to see you, Mrs. Blanchard.”
The woman raised her brow. “Regardless which of my children you arrive with, you still call me Vicky.”
Robin fell into an easy smile. She knew this was all as much for politeness as anything, but she still appreciated the warm greeting. “Understood.”
“Hey, Mom.” Matt’s voice had an unusually shaky wobble to it, but he placed a reassuring hand against Robin’s lower back.
His mother placed her own hand against the side of her son’s face, frowning at his beard. “I’m still not used to this thing on you.” She patted his cheek. “You two have fun. It’s good to see you again, Robin.”
“You too, Vicky.”
His mother left to join a crowd of women across the yard, either to douse any budding gossip or stir the pot herself. Matt rubbed his hand against Robin’s back.
“See? It’s going to be fine.”
“Uh huh,” she said. “Sure. Just remember that was only the warning shot.”
“There were no shots fired. She genuinely likes you. Always has.”
“Oh, this is different and you know it.”
“Maybe. But it’ll be fine. I promise.”
A blonde wisp of a woman creeped out from around a large man nursing a local beer beside the ice chest. She sneaked toward Matt and Robin, a crooked, mischievous grin on her face. Jeez, Robin missed that face.
Heidi’s rail-thin arms wrapped tightly around Robin, carrying with them a deceptive strength. The strength that comes with birthing and lugging four kids in seven years.
She released her grip and held Robin at arm’s length. “Look at you. How the hell are you?”
