Julie nodded. She liked her brother-in-law, but he’d always been a bit too self-righteous for her taste. She said nothing, wanting Jolene to be able to have her say uninterrupted.
“Well, he’s almost mortally ashamed of himself at this point. So I have to ask you if you can show him respect when he comes back.” Jolene looked into Julie’s eyes so intently it made her uncomfortable.
“Well, of course I’m going to be polite and compassionate. I want him to have a good adjustment back into family life. I’m going to be a nurse. I have some understanding of how addiction works.”
“He’s concerned you’re going to be quietly judging him.” Jolene found a small bit of fuzz on her sleeve and concentrated on picking it off.
“I don’t judge him for accidentally getting addicted to painkillers,” Julie said. “I might judge him for leaving you in the lurch, but I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
“You can’t judge him for anything. I need him to feel completely accepted in his home.”
“Jolene, the man abandoned you days after getting you pregnant!” She pointed to the obvious bulge of Jolene’s pregnancy. “Are we all supposed to just pretend that never happened?”
“Yes. That is exactly what I need everyone to do. He can’t come back here and be shamed. The kids will just be happy to have him home, and they aren’t going to know anything except that Daddy has been sick and now he’s better. I’m not going to disrespect him. But I have a feeling this is going to be tough for you.” She sank down on the edge of her bed and Julie sat next to her.
“Jolene, I’m not going to say anything rude. I don’t believe in kicking people when they’re down. And I 100 percent want you and Ken and your whole family to heal. But you can’t expect me to not to secretly think he handled the whole thing completely wrong.”
Jolene sighed. “Of course he handled it badly. I’m not defending his behavior. I’m saying we need to forgive him and we need to mean it. He’s going to be able to tell if we don’t mean it. So you decide whether you can do that, because if you can’t, well ….”
“You’re kicking me out. Even though I moved in to help you because he moved out.”
“I appreciate everything you did. You’ve been great.” Jolene did not look at Julie as she continued. “But you got several months free living expenses out of this, so don’t pretend you didn’t benefit. And if I have to choose between my sister or my husband living with me, well. You have a couple of weeks to decide. If you can treat Ken with respect, you’re welcome to stay. Of course you are.”
Jolene stood up and walked to her bedroom door and Julie followed her lead. “I just thought we should have this little talk as soon as possible. I know you’re dying to see Nick now, so I won’t keep you.” She opened the door and Julie left.
Her mood considerably subdued, she drove to the apartment, where Nick would be moving in his clothing and few other belongings. He’d hoped to have all that stuff moved in and organized before Julie came over to help him choose other household needs.
He was in high spirits, and Julie pushed aside all the stress of clinicals and her talk with Jolene. This was a time to be happy. So she walked into Nick’s open arms and he swung her around.
“Hey you. Excited?”
“Very excited! Do you have all your basics moved in?” She walked around the apartment, noticing a few additions here and there.
“Patty gave me a bunch of stuff. The janky toaster Brad had when they met, which had been in a box in the basement. Some towels that matched the bathroom in their old house. I have the plastic dishes I had in my dorm room and the mismatched crap Brad and Patty used before they got married and received nice stuff. A couple of pots and pans she never used. So you wanna help me figure out what I’m missing that I really need?”
The toaster in question was on the counter, next to the little coffee maker and microwave Julie had seen in Nick’s basement room.
Julie looked through the cabinets one by one.
“You have two forks and three spoons. Maybe a set of silverware would come in handy. Dish towels? Measuring spoons? Mixing bowls? How much cooking do you think you’ll do?” She continued poking around.
“You’ll need some wooden spoons, a pancake turner, maybe a pizza cutter. I don’t think you need to get fancy, but you don’t want to be unable to do the basics.” She whipped out her phone and started tapping out a list.
“There will be stuff you won’t even think of until the moment you need it. Like a corkscrew for wine. And what about a dish rack?”
“I’ll probably just use the dishwasher,” he said.
“Vacuum cleaner? Catarina left a lot of cool rugs. You’ll want something that can do the wood floors and rugs, both. You’ll need all the standard cleaning supplies.”
“Let’s just go to the store and start buying,” Nick said. “I don’t have to have every single conceivable thing today. Just the basics will be fine.”
They used Nick’s car, which was larger than hers. Again, she felt like they presented the perfect appearance of a stable, established couple, just doing a little household shopping together, and she tried to push the scene with Jolene out of her head. Julie couldn’t remember having enjoyed a shopping trip so much since she’d chosen all the bedding and accessories for her dorm room. It was fun to fill the cart with so many new things. New sheets. New silverware. New gizmos of all kinds. It was all adding up quickly.
“I have a vacuum cleaner you can borrow,” she said suddenly. “It’s just sitting in Jolene’s basement. I’ll bring it over. The good ones are expensive, so you can put off buying one for now.”
“Thanks,” he said. “You sure you don’t mind?”
“No, frankly, Jolene would be happy if I got more of my stuff out of her basement. Not to mention me entirely.”
Nick put down the two spatulas he was comparing. “I thought she liked you living there. You seem to be a big help to her, especially with everything going on.”
“Uh. Big story. Can we get some coffee?” The store had a coffeeshop in the front of it, and they navigated their full cart through the store, not talking. Julie wanted to wait until they were sitting down, and Nick stayed quiet.
She took a seat. “I’ll watch the cart. Just get me something indulgent with lots of whipped cream,” she asked. Nick returned several minutes later with two tall cups holding beverages that barely qualified as coffee. They were more whipped cream and chocolate than anything else.
“OK. What’s wrong?” he asked.
Julie used the straw to deliver a dollop of whipped cream to her tongue.
“Oh, I don’t want to ruin our fun shopping trip. It’s just that right before I came here, Jolene took me aside and pretty much spelled out that if I can’t sincerely respect Ken, I will need to move out before he moves back in. And it’s not that I’m planning to be rude, but come on. To insist that I not even accidentally betray my feelings about what he did in even the smallest way? I mean, this guy got her pregnant and bailed! Not to mention he bailed on the four young kids they already have.”
“Addiction is pretty powerful,” Nick said. He had already sucked down half of his drink. “I can’t even control myself with chocolate. I’d hate to see what I’d be like with drugs.”
“I know that. That’s not what the problem is. It’s that he couldn’t just admit he had a problem and get help. Oh, no. Mr. Perfect had to try to fix it secretly on his own and not tell anybody, even if keeping his secret meant abandoning his wife and kids. That’s the part I find pretty impossible to forgive. You don’t just deal with an opioid addiction with willpower.”
“The arrest was probably a good thing, in all honesty. And the company is handling it pretty well. If I didn’t know through you, I’d have no idea. They just announced he’s on a medical leave.” He sucked up the last of his coffee with a loud slurp and pushed it aside.
“That’s good to know.” She took another big drink, trying to catch up to Nick. “I hope he will be able
to pick up right where he left off. If he has issues, they have a maintenance program he’s a candidate for. I thought Jolene would insist on total abstinence, but she surprised me. She wants whatever works, and if that’s him being on methadone forever, so be it. Not sure how Mr. Perfect feels about that.”
“I don’t know your sister well, but she’s a force of nature. I bet a lot of people don’t see that. They see a stay-at-home mom having babies every two years and assume she’s a pushover.”
“She’s not, at all. She’s shrewd and determined, and anybody who doesn’t see that isn’t looking clearly. If Ken thinks she’s going to just sit back and let him screw things up, he better think again. She pretends he’s the man of the house, but she’s really the one in charge.”
“Does Ken know that?”
“If he doesn’t, he will soon. And I’ve got less than three weeks to figure out if I want to stay or go.” She left unspoken the obvious option — of her moving into the apartment. It was too soon to even discuss — regardless of what Tanya thought she’d seen in the tea leaves.
“Well, you have a little time to think about it. She’s not going to put you out on the street, right? And in the meantime, let’s have fun getting the apartment set up. I’m expecting you to spend a lot of time visiting me there. I’m not wrong about that, right?”
“I’m sorry! I really didn’t want to put a damper on a happy occasion. Forgive me?” She gave him her best smile.
“Depends,” he said. “Are you going to finish that?” He pointedly looked at her half-finished drink.
“It’s all yours,” she said, pushing it toward him.
“All is forgiven,” he said, loudly slurping the rest of it down. “If in doubt, give me sugar and chocolate and that usually fixes it.”
They threw out their empty cups and resumed their shopping.
“What about toiletries and aspirin and stuff?” she asked, pointing toward that section of the store. Nick did the hair thing.
“I didn’t even think about toilet paper. Yeah. Maybe I better buy a few rolls, ya think?” He gave her a convincingly goofy grin and she laughed.
“It’s a good thing I came with you. Otherwise you’d face a heck of a predicament pretty soon,” she said. She had taken control of the cart and she steered it down the toilet tissue aisle.
“Don’t cheap out on this. Trust me,” she said. “Cut your corners somewhere else.”
Nick tossed a four-pack into the now-overflowing cart. “I moved over my shampoo and toothpaste and stuff,” he said. Julie put an extra toothbrush into the cart anyway
“I hope I’m not being presumptuous in wanting to have an extra toothbrush at your place,” she said, pushing the cart onward.
“That depends,” Nick said. “Am I presumptuous in my next purchase?” They’d arrived at the contraception aisle. Nick picked up an economy-sized box of condoms and held it up for her consideration, a quizzical look on his face. Of course, just at that moment an older woman happened to enter the same aisle, and the disapproving look on her face made Julie blush.
Nick, however, reacted rather differently. “What do you think? Two or three boxes for this weekend’s party?”
Julie wanted to joke back, but she didn’t have it in her. Not with the older woman’s eyes shooting daggers at both of them. She just stood there with a burning red face while Nick pretended to be oblivious to the woman’s shocked and indignant stare.
“Four boxes? Five? How many swingers did you invite this week?” The look on his face was as absolutely straight as if he were asking her how many boxes of cereal they should purchase.
Finally, the woman apparently had her fill of moral outrage, and she made a dismissive little sound and flounced off. Nick laughed, and when he saw Julie’s blazing face, he just laughed harder.
“Don’t feel bad,” he said. “We made her day. She’s going to tell all her friends at bridge this story and she’s going to feel like the high priestess of morality.”
He changed his voice to an exaggeratedly high pitch. “Oh, Mildred, the young people today have no morals. You would not believe the horrible thing I saw at the store while I happened to just be hanging around in the contraception aisle. There was a young couple there who were in the very act of buying you-know-whats so they could do wicked, wicked things. I can’t even tell you what the devastatingly handsome young man said. It was just too horrible. I tell you, Mildred, I stayed awake all night thinking about him, and wicked thoughts they were, too.”
He was still holding the box of contraceptives. Julie took them out of his hands and placed them in the cart, carefully placing them inside the folds of a new dish towel they’d chosen.
“We’ve scandalized the good people of Fairview enough tonight,” she said. “Let’s keep these covered until we actually get to the checkout line, OK?”
“I really think we have about everything we really need for now, right? I mean, I can come back when we think of other stuff.”
“Groceries? Do you have any at all?”
Nick slapped his head. “Not a damned thing. Off to the grocery section.” Julie steered the now-overflowing cart to the store’s grocery area.
“Just get the most basic stuff,” Julie advised. “For one thing, the cart is stuffed.” She picked up a little plastic marketing basket, and they filled it with bread, butter, milk, peanut butter, bananas, apples and a box of cereal. “You can get groceries for real later,” she said.
Nick had taken the helm of the cart. It was precarious to steer because of the protruding broom and mop handles that threatened to take out the unwary. But they made it to the checkout at last. Nick winced at the total but Julie thought it was a pretty reasonable amount.
They filled the trunk and put the last few bags in the back seat.
“This is so exciting,” Julie said. She held the groceries on her lap to avoid them getting crushed in the mix of everything else. “It reminds me of the big shopping trip I did before I went off to college. Just picking out what colors and styles I wanted. It was fun.”
She paused, and her voice grew more solemn. “I was making plans for what kind of house and decor I wanted when my engagement ended. Fortunately, I hadn’t bought much of anything. I do have a really kick-ass vacuum though. I’ll bring it next time I come over. It was a splurge.”
Nick reached across the seat and took her hand. He gave it a squeeze and pulled her toward him and gave her a quick kiss.
“This is a happy time for us, OK? We’re going to have good times in this apartment.”
Julie forced a smile.
“You’re right. It’s exciting.” She placed her hand on his thigh as he drove to his new home. He needed his hand occasionally to shift, but she wanted to maintain a physical connection to him.
When they arrived, Nick popped the trunk and picked up as many bags as he could handle, then struggled to unlock the door. “This is the first big downside I’ve seen to this place,” he said. “If you are carrying up a lot of stuff, you’re going to get a workout.”
“Just get it all in the entryway for now,” Julie advised. Nick moved everything from the car to the foyer, and from there they transferred everything to the upstairs. Nick had been right — it was a workout. But they were too excited to be bothered by that. Soon they had a big, unorganized pile in the middle of the room. Julie put away the few refrigerated items first, leaving the bread, cereal and peanut butter on the counter.
“Might I suggest we make up the bed first?” Nick asked.
“By rights, you should wash the sheets before you put them on the bed, you know,” Julie said. “But that’s not happening. Actually, you’re going to have to haul your dirty laundry somewhere every week, aren't you?”
“I’ll probably take a load to Patty’s house when I visit,” he said. He was dumping the bags one by one, looking for the sheets. When he found them, he unwrapped them and then looked around.
“I know one thing we forgot,” he said. “I need a trash can.”
“Just use the empty shopping bags for now,” Julie said. “Here.” She hung a couple of empty shopping bags from the back of the closest kitchen chair. “Until you get a garbage can, just use these. Is there a dumpster in back, maybe?”
“I better ask Catarina. That never occurred to me.” He shook out the sheet set and carried it down the hall. Julie helped him get the bottom sheet lined up and then she laughed.
“No pillows, either, I see.”
“Oops.”
“You better write down ‘pillows’ and ‘trash can’ on your list,” Julie said.
“I can do without pillows for one night,” he said.
“I have a better idea,” Julie said. She went through his closet, where he had already put away his clothing, and selected two sweatshirts. She formed them into a pillow shape and stuffed them into one of the pillow cases. “Ta da! Instant, temporary pillow,” she said.
Then she walked out of the room.
“Hey, where are you going?” he asked.
“I’m looking for … something.”
Nick got it instantly. “Oh, yeah. I’ll help you find them,” he said. They sorted through a pile of kitchen gadgets, toiletries, cleaning supplies and mounds of miscellaneous stuff until she triumphantly held up the box of condoms. The two of them locked gazes for several seconds, and then they both smiled and raced into the bedroom.
Chapter 17
Now that the moment had come, Julie suddenly felt shy. She didn't feel overcome with lust. She just felt nervous. Nick came up to her, and, sensing her mood, kissed her very gently. And unlike their previous times together, Nick kept the kiss soft. Gentle. Undemanding. That is, until Julie forgot her nervousness and became caught up in the minute. Nick noticed the difference immediately, and his kisses became more aggressive.
Julie had dressed with the assumption that tonight was the night, so when Nick started to unbutton her shirt, she smiled in anticipation; she’d worn the only sexy bra and panty set she owned.
Perfect Fit (Small-Town Secrets-Fairview Series Book 4) Page 16
