by Leigh Landry
“Can’t complain,” Robin said. “And a heck of a lot better seeing you now.”
Heidi’s joyous smile fell slightly under the weight of regret, even though it was regret for things out of both their control. Or at least that’s what Robin told herself. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You too, babe.” Robin leaned forward and hugged her friend again, gripping both Heidi and the gift bag like lifelines.
“Well.” Matt cleared his throat. “You two don’t need me, I guess.”
Robin released her grip on her long-lost friend, and they both looked at Heidi’s interrupting brother. The man who was also—in some bizarre plot twist of the universe she hadn’t quite figured out yet—Robin’s date.
“Nope. Not at all,” Heidi said, shooing him away.
“Fine then. I’ve got someone more important to see anyway.” Matt winked at Robin and turned to the gaggle of children nearby. He swooped into their huddle and scooped up the smallest of the bunch, cradling her in his strong arms and tilting her upside down as she giggled with uncontrollable glee. He was completely unfazed by the layer of mud transferring from child to clothing, and something about that carefree brand of love warmed Robin’s heart with an unexpected swell of affection.
“So.”
Crap.
Robin turned her attention back to Heidi, who had apparently moved on from greetings to interrogations. Because as much as Heidi felt like a long-lost sister, she was first and foremost a Blanchard sister. The whole reason they’d gone so long without seeing each other in the first place. No one, not even Robin, would come between Heidi and her brothers. And if there was a potential for one of her brothers getting hurt somehow? Sweet, sassy Heidi turned into scrappy mama wildcat Heidi.
The only reason Robin made it out of that family alive was because she hadn’t been the one doing the hurting. At least not intentionally. Robin and Dustin’s marriage had been a failed venture from the start. They’d both just been too blind to see it.
“So,” Robin repeated.
“You and Matt, huh?”
“There’s no me and anyone.”
Heidi’s right eyebrow rose, in that way Robin had always been so envious of. “Does he know that?”
“I’ve made it clear,” she said. “I can’t control what he’s thinking. He’s a Blanchard, you know. Stubborn, the whole lot of you.”
“Which is why you love us.” Heidi fought back a smile, despite her challenging glare. “Any particular reason you’ve made that clear? Also, any particular reason you’re denying the fact that you’re obviously over the moon for my little brother? More so, from what it looks like, than you ever were for the other one.”
Robin ignored that last part. Just being around Matt lately rendered her incapable of denying her feelings. Despite knowing there wasn’t a chance in hell they could do anything about that.
“You know exactly why.”
Heidi looked around the yard, making a big, wide gesture with her hand. “I don’t see that brother anywhere around here, so try again.”
“It isn’t Dustin I’m concerned about.” They’d ended things civilly. Things didn’t work out, and they were both the type to shrug off a misstep and move on to better choices. But dating his brother, even years later, felt like another version of that same misstep dance.
“You know I’m your biggest cheerleader. Both of you. Tell me who I have to fight.”
Robin took a nervous glance around the party. Everyone seemed to be avoiding eye contact with her. Everyone except the owner of one angry pair of eyes. Their aunt Mae, Dustin’s godmother. She’d never been fond of Robin, and the divorce did nothing to improve that. By the looks of things, she still held a grudge against Robin for defiling her favorite godchild. If only she knew just how many other women had defiled her precious nephew long before Robin ever showed up on the scene.
But Mae wasn’t the only one here who’d go to the mat defending Dustin’s honor. She just happened to be the only one who let her glares and threats hang out in the open. The rest of them had chased off plenty of potential suitors and cut loose former spouses they didn’t approve of through sneakier means, usually with nasty gossip and well-timed snitching.
“There’s nothing to fight for,” Robin said. “I love you, and I promise to let you know when there is.”
“When?” Heidi’s mouth quirked.
“If,” Robin corrected.
“Fine.” Heidi let out an exasperated huff, then looped her arm to link with Robin’s. “Time for cake. Fighting’s later.”
Cake first. Then fighting. It might as well be the Blanchard motto. T-shirts and everything.
Well, for all the Blanchards except the one Robin had arrived with.
While Heidi dragged her toward the house and made a grand announcement about presents and cake, Robin’s attention remained glued to Matt in the center of the yard. He ran in tight circles while tiny legs ran after him, arms lunging to tag silly Uncle Matt. It was a glorious sight.
She tore herself away from the scene and continued walking, with Heidi acting like a human shield to anyone who dared question the party guest on her arm. But not even Heidi could shield her forever. Not from this crowd.
When Heidi released her to light the candles, Robin placed the gift bag on the table and felt instantly naked and defenseless. She focused on the little girl’s wide smile behind the glow of the candle flames. She sang at the top of her lungs along with everyone else tightly packed in the house. The best defense in this group was to be loud and brash and sing your heart out, no matter what was on fire around you.
A hand pressed softly against Robin’s lower back. She shivered as warm, soft breath approached her ear. “Not so bad, huh?”
Something about his smooth voice rang out sweeter than any song his brother had ever sung. Just those four little words made her woozy.
Dang, she was in trouble.
* * * * *
During the course of the cake slicing, Matt’s hand slid from Robin’s back to around her side, then settled onto the luscious curve of her hip. He had no intention of removing that hand any time soon. Forever, if he could swing it.
A firm pat on his back followed by a shoulder grip and a rough shake knocked him back to reality. “Matty! How you doing?”
“Good man, good.” Since one hand held a plastic cup half-filled with Coke, Matt reluctantly removed his other hand from Robin’s jeans to shake his cousin Scotty’s outstretched hand. At least this was one of the cousins he actually liked. The house and yard were filled with plenty he didn’t. “How about you?”
Matt hesitated as he glanced around the table where all the kids anxiously awaited their paper plates topped with cake and the sweetest buttercream his sister had made from scratch. He and his cousins were all about the age where the next question was a bit of a minefield. He hadn’t heard any rumors running through the family gossip channels, but that didn’t count for much since he generally avoided that chatter.
He chanced the question anyway. “Jess and the kids here somewhere? I haven’t seen them yet.”
Scotty frowned, and Matt’s heart dropped. Shit. He knew he shouldn’t have said a damn thing. “Nah, the girls both got that norovirus or whatever’s going around. Jess is home with ’em on saltine and ice chips duty.”
Matt never thought he’d be so relieved to hear about a stomach bug. “Aw, that sucks, man. Sorry. Hope you and Jess stay clear of it.”
Scotty raised his beer bottle in a toasting gesture. “You and me both.”
Matt was about to ask him how work was, but Scotty’s eyes flashed wide with surprise. Matt followed his cousin’s gaze and found Robin in the line of fire. Instinctively, Matt’s muscles tensed, prepared for battle.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Scotty’s eyes danced with the promise of scandal. The whole lot of them were messy as hell, but Scotty’s family was the worst. “I did not expect to see you here today.”
Robin appeared to be holding her b
reath right along with Matt. “Hey, Scotty. How’ve you been?”
Scotty shoved past Matt to wrap his lanky arms around her. “Good, good.”
When he released her, the genuine smile on his face reminded Matt that he had nothing to fear from Scotty. He’d always been Team Robin. They’d spent many a Sunday watching the Saints play—Robin on the couch right along with them—while Dustin was off playing in some janky little town or another or spending his weekend in a recording studio.
“Good to see you.” With a similar hesitation, she asked, “Jess?”
“Home. Sick kids,” he said. “She’s gonna be ticked she missed you.” Scotty pressed his lips together in an unprecedented display of restraint as he looked back and forth between Matt and Robin. “Maybe she’ll catch you next time.” Then he winked and elbowed Matt, not at all as subtle as he surely thought he was being.
“Well, tell her hi for me.”
“Will do.”
There was a long awkward silence, which Matt had no idea how to fill. He was good at smoothing things over for clients, knowing exactly what to say to them and exactly what they needed to communicate for their businesses. But he didn’t have a clue how to manage small talk with family. Especially his family.
Luckily, he’d brought someone who knew exactly what to say, at least in this situation.
“You still owe me twenty bucks,” she said.
Scotty nearly choked on the big swig of beer he’d taken during their pause. “Damn. Thought for sure you’d forgotten that.”
“You mean you hoped I had forgotten you’d taken that idiotic bet?”
“Aw, come on. There was no way Lutz should’ve made that kick.”
“The man just passed Morten Andersen’s consecutive kicks record,” Robin said. “You dare doubt him?”
“That was before that! How was I supposed to know the dude would turn out to be a damn prodigy or some shit?”
“You were only supposed to know not to bet against me.”
Scotty nodded in concession. “True enough.” He raised that beer bottle in a toast once again, this time to honor Robin’s legacy. But that sly grin was back. “I’ll bring it next time. Promise.” He winked at Robin, all three of them knowing exactly what he was getting at. Then he excused himself to get a slice of cake.
“See, this isn’t so bad, is it?” Matt asked.
“Sure, the same way shingles aren’t so bad.”
“Oh, stop it. You know you’re having a good time.”
Robin narrowed her eyes at him, failing to hide her amusement. “Fine. This is a somewhat enjoyable event. Happy?”
“Only somewhat?” he asked, feigning insult. “Well then, I’ll have to up my game to show you a real enjoyable time after this.”
“That sounds like quite the challenge.” She gestured at the table full of children scraping the remaining bits of frosting from their paper plates while his niece opened the last of her gifts. “I mean, this event has cake.”
“Oh, I can top cake.”
“Oh, can you?”
“Damn straight I can.”
He didn’t know where this bluster came from, because he didn’t have any confidence at all that he could keep that smile on her face. All he knew was that he needed to. More than anything, he needed to show her that they could have this. All of this. That he could be something other than her ex-brother-in-law.
He didn’t have a clue how to do that, but this afternoon made him see that he had to try.
“Let me hit the bathroom, then we can slip out of here and have some real fun, okay?”
Robin smiled. “If you say so.”
He made it all the way through the gauntlet of relatives to the hall bathroom, then took the fastest piss of his life. His return through the gauntlet, however, was not so smooth.
“Matthew Blanchard.”
He froze mid-step before he even made it halfway down the hall. That voice had stopped him in his tracks many times over the decades. Usually when he and Dustin and his cousins had gotten into some kind of trouble like playing hide-and-seek in their grandma’s closet and Matthew hid on the top shelf behind her old dusty hat boxes or like the time they didn’t want to eat their great aunt Dee’s dry mac-n-cheese so they took turns scraping it out the bathroom window. He wasn’t a kid anymore, but that voice still turned his blood to ice.
“Hey, Tante Mae. Where’ve you been hiding?” He forced his voice to sound confident and lighthearted, not as shaky as his insides felt.
“Don’t hey me. What do you think you’re doing bringing that girl back here?”
“Girl?” He looked over each of his shoulders in mock confusion. “I brought a girl?”
“Don’t play stupid with me. I saw her.”
“Oh, do you mean Robin? Oh, well, last I checked she’s…” He pretended to count on his fingers. “Almost thirty-five now. Not exactly a girl anymore.”
His aunt glared at him. “What kind of mess are you trying to stir up bringing her here?”
Tante Mae wasn’t as messy as most of his clan, since she spent more time perfecting her mean streak. But she took her role mitigating the messes others stirred up very seriously. Matt wasn’t normally the one in her line of fire, and he didn’t like this kind of heat one bit. Especially not when he didn’t deserve it. And extra especially not when she had her ire set on Robin.
“There’s no mess, Tante Mae.”
“Hmph.” She snorted. “Not yet, maybe.”
“No one’s stirring any mess either.” He should have let it go, walked away right then. But he didn’t. “No one except maybe you right now.”
And that’s when he decided to walk away, high-tailing it toward Robin and the safety of the crowd and the chaos of mud-coated, sugar-fueled kids running back outside.
He tapped Robin on the shoulder, and when she turned to face him his breath caught in his throat for a moment. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her this happy. This carefree. This…not worrying about the store or Dustin or the weather next weekend. She was smiling ear to ear, her cheeks slightly flushed from the warm, crowded house. Her chin-length chestnut waves had a spring to them, too. For half a second, he considered staying a little longer. To let her be in this place a little longer. To be with all these people she’d loved and lost through no fault of her own.
But he couldn’t risk his aunt or anyone else spoiling that. Better to leave on a high note, while he could still sell her on the idea that she belonged here. With him.
A cell phone rang out loudly from its resting spot on the unicorn and rainbow patterned tablecloth. The birthday girl’s eyes lit up brighter than they had when she sat behind that gigantic sheet cake, and Heidi snatched the phone with a huge grin. She waved the ringing phone in the air.
“I wonder who that could be?” But the final word choked off as her now-frozen expression shifted to face Robin and Matt in the crowd.
“Answer it!” the little girl shouted.
Matt laced his fingers with Robin’s and squeezed her hand, steadying himself for the blow as much as reassuring her that she wasn’t in this line of fire alone.
Heidi turned back to her daughter with a fresh smile plastered on her face and hit the green button. A second later, the one person Matt hadn’t accounted for today appeared on the phone screen.
“Where’s that birthday girl!” Dustin shouted from Jacksonville. His short blond hair was a sloppy mess—off-day Dustin. The video call was not kind to his image, highlighting the bags under his eyes, evidence of being midway through a long tour. His guitar took up the bottom half of the screen.
Heidi turned the phone around, and Robin relaxed slightly beside him. Only slightly.
“Hi, Uncle Dustin!”
“There she is. Did you save me any cake?”
“Nope.” The girl pressed her lips together into a sneaky grin and shook her head.
The whole rest of the room was silent. It took far too long for Matt to realize they weren’t enthralled
by the sweet conversation, but rather they were all staring at Matt and Robin, waiting for a reaction. Waiting for drama. Waiting for…something.
Robin stiffened again beside him, no doubt fully aware of the eyes on them. Matt wanted to swoop her out of there, but an exit now would only draw more attention. At least Dustin hadn’t caught sight of them in the crowd when Heidi answered the call.
“Ready for your birthday song?”
“Yes!” the girl shouted.
Dustin began strumming his guitar and sang a sweet, bouncy tune about a little girl and her pet unicorn and how much joy she brought everyone who loved her. It was a birthday tradition. Dustin made up a short song for each of his own kids and for Heidi’s kids on each of their birthdays, and he sang it at their parties, in person or just like this if he had to be on the road.
Matt had a lot of issues with his brother—maybe even some resentments—but this redeemed just about everything. This was the Dustin he was proud to call his brother. The Dustin only he and Robin and a handful of others knew.
When the song ended, Matt and Robin joined the room in a round of applause. Dustin said his goodbyes and wished everyone a happy day, then Heidi ended the call. She gave another quick glance and a nervous smile to Robin and Matt before turning her attention to cleaning up the cake mess and shooing the kids back outside.
An uncomfortable energy still filled the air, but people slowly returned to their clusters and resumed their conversations, now fueled with new gossip fodder.
Matt squeezed Robin’s hand again and whispered in her ear. “You ready to get out of here?”
Robin turned to him, her eyes wide, and nodded. “Please.”
-5-
Matt sat on a tall stool across from Robin. So far they were the only people at this bar-top table, but the restaurant was filling up quickly. Since it was pretty much the hottest new spot in town, he was glad they left the party early and felt lucky to get seated at all without a reservation.
He had no idea what kind of food they were in for here, but it was new and cool and exactly the kind of place he wanted to bring Robin for their first official date. The kind of place he needed to take her.
