Circle of Friends, Part 2

by Susan Mallery

  She laughed. “Dev, it can’t be like that. We’re talking about people, not an assembly line. Everyone is different.”

  “Why do they have to be? Rules would help. It’s just the word you object to. What if I said ‘guidelines’?”

  “I’m not sure it makes a difference. Besides, we’re going to have a long time before we have to worry about anything but midnight feedings and changing diapers.” She touched her stomach. “I’m barely showing.”

  She wasn’t taking this seriously, but then she didn’t have his track record.

  “I want more information,” he said. “When we get home, I want to go online and see what I can find out.”

  “But it’s late,” she said. “I’m tired.”

  “You go to bed. I’ll be along in a while.”

  Her silence told him she wasn’t happy with his decision. He thought about explaining, but took the coward’s way out and didn’t.

  He couldn’t do anything to help Jimmy, but with a little luck and a lot of determination, he could keep history from repeating itself with Jimmy’s child.

  * * *

  NOELLE HAD BEEN looking forward to the Sunday picnic at her parents’ house all week. The day was sunny and warm and she’d brought two kinds of salad.

  Everything had changed in the past couple of weeks. She wanted to share the information with her mom, but knew that was impossible. Not without first revealing the real reason she’d married Dev, and Noelle wasn’t ready to do that yet. Or maybe ever.

  “We’re here,” she called as they walked through the empty house and out into the backyard. “Hi!”

  Noelle looked out at the crowd. Her parents were there, of course, along with a couple of neighbors. Her sisters had dates instead of girlfriends, except for Tiffany, who sat on a lounge chair by the pool, reading.

  “You made it,” her mother said, crossing the patio and kissing them both, then taking the salad bowl from Dev. “Bob is dying for another guy to talk to. Please go rescue him.”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  Dev smiled at Noelle, then walked over to her father. The two men shook hands.

  “How are you?” her mother asked, linking arms with her and leading her into the kitchen. “I’m still getting used to having you gone.”

  “I know,” Noelle said as she set her bowl on the counter. “I’m still getting used to living somewhere else.”

  Her mother opened the refrigerator and made room. “Hmmm, I might buy that, if you weren’t so happy. I swear, Noelle, I’ve never seen you look so...” She straightened and studied her daughter. “Content.”

  “I’m happy,” Noelle said honestly, knowing she’d felt things for Dev she’d never felt before. “I love my life.”

  “Then I’m happy, too. I’ll admit I was a little nervous when you ran off and got married. It was so unlike you.”

  “I know, Mom. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you or Dad.”

  “We weren’t hurt. Just surprised. But it’s worked out for the best and that’s all I could hope for.”

  Tiffany walked into the kitchen. “I’m bored,” she announced with all the pain inherent in a moody fifteen-year-old.

  “I told you to invite some friends,” her mother said.

  “I hate that we have to talk about how something happened in our week that changed us. It’s stupid.” She sighed heavily. “Why do there have to be so many rules?”

  Noelle had always felt she and her sisters stood against their parents, but suddenly she found herself on the other side of things. “The rules are good,” she said. “They give you boundaries. Trust me, rules are better than no rules.”

  Tiffany rolled her eyes. “What do you know? You got married and left. You don’t have any rules anymore. You can do anything you want. I want that. I want people to stop telling me what to do all the time!”

  With that, she stalked out of the kitchen and let the back door slam behind her.

  Noelle winced. “Tell me I wasn’t that bad.”

  “Most teenagers are a challenge, in their own way. She’ll get through it.”

  Noelle watched Tiffany walk around the pool and flop down in a chair. “I remember feeling lost and confused about the world when I was her age. It wasn’t fun.”

  Her gaze strayed to where Dev stood talking to her father. At the sight of him, she felt her heartbeat increase. The need to move close, to touch him and kiss him nearly overwhelmed her. But it was more than that. She also wanted to hear his voice and see him smile at her. Life was better when he was with her.

  Beside her, her mother sighed. “I remember those days.”

  Noelle glanced at her. “Being fifteen?”

  Her mother smiled. “Being in love and newly married. I couldn’t take my eyes off of your dad. Every day was magic and there weren’t enough hours for us to express our feelings. What a wonderful time. I wouldn’t want to live through being a teenager again, but I wouldn’t mind revisiting that romantic intensity for a few days.”

  Noelle felt herself flush. “We’re, um... It’s just...”

  Her mother laughed. “You don’t have to explain it to me. I know exactly what you’re thinking.”

  Noelle doubted that. She and Dev weren’t in love the way her mother thought. They were just...

  What? What were they? Married, of course. Having a baby together. Living in the same house, caring about each other, building a life. It certainly looked like a strong, healthy relationship. They had respect, mutual affection, attraction.

  Her gaze returned to Dev. Whatever they had felt wonderful.

  “Noelle, did you mention the medical bills to Dev?”

  She blinked and turned her attention to the question. “What? Oh, my bills? I don’t think so.” She remembered one of their earlier conversations, where she’d confessed she would marry him and had explained the reasons why. That she didn’t want to financially burden her family.

  She grimaced. “Wait. I did mention them. Should I not have said anything?”

  Her mother shrugged. “I can’t decide. They’ve been paid. Anonymously, of course. At first I thought it was someone in the congregations, but we know who all the large contributors are and they generally want us to know they’re giving. Plus, this is a personal matter and no one knew. Which made it a mystery. Then I thought of Dev.”

  “He never said anything,” Noelle admitted, not sure how to react to the information. “I don’t know if it was him.”

  “There isn’t anyone else with both the information and the money.”

  Had he done that for her? Helped out her family without expecting anything in return? Her chest tightened slightly and she felt all warm and gooey inside.

  “I both appreciate the act and respect his desire for privacy,” her mother said. “I like that he didn’t feel the need to brag about what he’d done. You’ve chosen well, Noelle. Dev is a good man.”

  She looked back at the man she’d married. “Yes, he is.”

  * * *

  SUMMER’S BOYFRIEND DRONED on endlessly about the advantages of dual exhaust in his car. Noelle stretched out in the sun and ignored the conversation, even when Dev joined in on the pitfalls of retrofitting something like that on an older car.

  Tiffany sat by Noelle’s feet on the lounge chair.

  “So what’s it like being married?” her baby sister asked. “Do you like being on your own?”

  Noelle opened her eyes. “I do. I know you think there aren’t any rules, but there also isn’t anyone else to do the work. Chores don’t get split four ways anymore.” She didn’t mention the cleaning service Dev employed. They came every week and took care of all the big jobs, such as floors, the kitchen, the bathrooms and windows.

  Tiffany sniffed. “Chores don’t get split four ways here, now, either.
With you gone, they’re only split three ways. And when Lily goes to college, it’s just going to be Summer and me. It’s not fair.”

  “You think Mom should do everything?” Noelle asked.

  Tiffany glared at her. “I knew you’d say something like that. No, I don’t think Mom should do everything, but I shouldn’t, either. You didn’t have to. I hate being the youngest. Everyone is leaving me behind.”

  Noelle hadn’t thought of things from that perspective. “You know I still love you.”

  Tiffany rolled her eyes. “Yes, and yuck. I’m not talking about that. It’s just with you gone and Lily gone, there will be too much attention on Summer and me. Summer’s older and she can drive, which means it’s just me. I hate that. They’re starting to ask questions. Where am I going? Who’s going to be there?”

  Noelle held in a smile. “They’ve always done that.”

  “Yeah, but now they’re listening to the answers. I have their attention and I don’t like it.”

  Noelle glanced up and saw Dev listening in on the conversation. His combination of half smile and shoulder shrug told her he didn’t know what to make of this, either.

  “Would you rather they didn’t care?” Noelle asked.

  “Maybe. Sometimes. It’s just all wrong. It’s like my name.”

  “What’s wrong with your name?”

  “It’s stupid.” Tiffany rolled her eyes. “Do you know how many other girls have my name? It’s a joke. Last year there were three Tiffanys in my geometry class and two different ones in my English class. This guy, David, says he’s never going to date a girl named Tiffany because no one will know who he’s talking about.”

  “Then David’s an idiot.”

  “Maybe, but he’s really cute.”

  “So you like him.”

  Tiffany sighed. “Maybe. But he’s not going to be interested in me.”

  “I wouldn’t let the name thing get you down. Boys have a way of changing their mind about things like that.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he’ll like a different Tiffany.” She looked at Dev, then back at Noelle. “He’s nice, you know. Better than Summer’s stupid boyfriend who only talks about cars.”

  Noelle looked at her husband and smiled. “He’s very nice.”

  * * *

  THEY ARRIVED HOME late and tired. “You were great with my family,” Noelle said as Dev followed her inside. “Tiffany was in a mood today.”

  “She’s a teenager. It happens.”

  She smiled at him over her shoulder. “Still, all that girl-talk. You were very patient and I appreciate it.”

  “I didn’t mind. I like your family.”

  “They like you, too. My mom said...”

  Noelle’s voice trailed off as she stared at him. He was handsome, she thought absently, but that wasn’t important. What mattered was the man inside. How he treated her and everyone else in his life. How he was honorable and kind and caring and gentle, yet the strongest man she knew.

  She trusted him—not just with herself, but with her child. She trusted him with her heart.

  “I love you,” she said without meaning to. The words just popped out.

  Dev’s expression froze.

  “I love you,” she repeated. She braced herself for a rush of humiliation or regret, but there was only a second of rightness.

  She grinned. “Wow. That came from nowhere. I know that’s not part of our agreement, but there we are. You’re amazing, Dev. I don’t know why you’re not already married with a bunch of kids. Maybe I got lucky. Whatever the reasons, we’re together and I love you.”

  Until that moment, she’d wondered how she would know what love felt like. Now she knew—she was as certain about her feelings as she had ever been about anything in her life.

  He stared at her as if she’d become a stranger. “You can’t.”

  Not exactly the response she would have picked, she thought, trying not to give in to sudden fear. “Well, I do.”

  “Noelle, stop it. I don’t want to talk about this.” He took several steps back. “You don’t know what you’re saying. It’s the sex.”

  “It’s more than that,” she said, annoyance taking the place of fear. “You don’t get to dictate my feelings.”

  Dev didn’t know what kind of game Noelle was playing, but he had to get her to stop. This was not supposed to happen.

  “We had a deal,” he told her, knowing it was a completely stupid thing to say.

  “I broke the rules. Sorry.”

  It was more than the rules, he thought grimly. There were reasons.

  She couldn’t love him. People didn’t love him. They wanted him like his women, or hated him like Jimmy, or left him like his parents, but they didn’t love him.

  He walked around her and left the kitchen. She caught up with him in the hallway.

  “You can’t pretend this didn’t happen,” she said as she grabbed his arms. “You can’t make my words go away.”

  “I can try.”

  “Doesn’t it mean anything to you?”

  He didn’t want to look at her, but he couldn’t help himself. He stared into her eyes, into that uncomfortable mixture of pain and hope and knew he’d made a fundamental mistake where she was concerned. Noelle was so damn together, he’d forgotten she wasn’t used to playing his kind of game. The one where no one got involved. No one got hurt.

  “It means you don’t really know me,” he said quietly. “If you did, you could never claim to love me.”

  “There’s no claiming,” she snapped. “I mean it. I know what I’m talking about. And I do know you. You’re good and kind and smart and caring. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a man.”

  Her words cut him down to the bone. There wasn’t blood, but there should have been. Gallons of it. Maybe then, if he shed enough out of guilt, he could make it all right.

  “You don’t understand,” he told her. “I’m not that man. I’ve screwed up everything important. Everything. My father left because of me. He told me himself. He wanted to go away so I wouldn’t be like him. I didn’t know what he meant so I didn’t know what to change. And Jimmy.” He closed his eyes, which only made things worse. Suddenly he could see his kid brother and hear every word of their last, angry conversation.

  “Jimmy was the most important person in my life,” he said, staring at her. “I was determined to be the best brother, best parent, best everything for him. But it didn’t work. Nothing helped. I couldn’t get him to care about school or college or getting a job. He wouldn’t go to class in high school, he partied, he ran with some pretty bad kids. He got kicked out his junior year. Did he tell you that? Did he tell you he’d tried to set the gym on fire?”

  Noelle stared at him, her eyes wide. She slowly shook her head.

  “Obviously he never graduated. I hounded him until he got his GED. When that arrived, he told me he was done with me. Not that he moved out—that would have meant taking responsibility for paying bills and he didn’t want that.” He drew in a breath. “Do you know why you met him at the company? Do you know what he was doing there?”

  She shook her head again. “I thought he was working.”

  “Working.” Dev tried to laugh, but there was nothing funny about the situation. “I guess you could call it that. He was stealing parts and selling them on the street. The specialized airplane parts weren’t that useful to him, but we have a lot of components that would work with most types of engines. I caught him myself and he wasn’t even sorry.”

  Noelle drew in a breath, but didn’t speak.

  Dev continued. “I’d had it with him. There had been too many chances, so many screw-ups. I didn’t care. Honest to God, in that moment, I hated my brother. I told him he had two choices. He could join the military and grow up, or I would have him ar
rested and prosecuted. The army or jail. Those were his choices.”

  Dev shook his head as he tried not to remember the fight he’d had with his brother, the names they’d called each other. Jimmy had said he would never forgive Dev and Dev had said, “Right back at you.” They’d nearly punched each other.

  “You know what he chose,” Dev told her. “That’s why he enlisted. He told me where they were sending him and I said it was a good thing. He would have to grow up over there. Learn about responsibility. Quit being such a spoiled little shit. Instead he got dead.”

  Dev looked at her. “That’s what I did, Noelle. I took the easy way out with Jimmy, and because of that, he’s dead. There’s nothing I can do to change that, no matter how much I want to. I have to live with the consequences of my actions for the rest of my life. I failed my brother. Worse, I killed him. So you might want to think twice about claiming to be in love with someone like me.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  DEV WALKED OUT of the kitchen. Noelle heard the door to the garage close behind him, then the sound of his car starting.

  He was leaving. That shocked her nearly as much as what he’d told her. How could he dump all that on her and then leave?

  She stood in the silence for several minutes, then slowly turned off lights and made her way to the bedroom she shared with the man she’d married. A thousand different thoughts flowed through her brain. She didn’t know what to think, what to believe. The only thing she completely understood was that Dev was out of reach in ways she couldn’t begin to understand.

  * * *

  HE NEVER CAME home the whole night. Noelle tried to sleep, but couldn’t, and was up and prowling restlessly before dawn. She made a large pot of coffee in anticipation of his arrival, which never happened, then turned it off before she left for school.

  As she drove to the campus, she once again went over what he’d told her. She’d known Jimmy well enough to see how he could easily make someone like Dev completely crazy. Jimmy had been on a slick, steep road to destruction and, one way or another, he was going to have to pay for that.

  But not with his life, she thought sadly as she parked and collected her books. No one should have to pay that high a price. And what about Dev, left behind, with only his guilt to keep him company?