Homecoming (Speakeasy)

by Rebecca Norinne

  “Yup,” my sister chuckled. “And unlike Mom and Dad, his parents are taking the news quite well. Mr. Barlowe even put up a big old rainbow flag beneath their American one.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I said, maybe even more shocked by this than I’d been over Drake coming out. The Barlowes were very Republican.

  “Nope,” she said, her lips popping on the p. “Of course, this means Mom’s now intent on trotting out her lesbian daughter every chance she gets. I haven’t gotten this much attention since … well … since ever, actually.”

  “Ugh, I’m sorry, Bri. That sucks.” All my youngest sister had ever wanted was for our parents to accept her for who she was. That it took the unspoken, years-long competition with Mrs. Barlowe for our mother to even pretend to accept Briana’s sexuality was heartbreaking.

  “It is what it is,” she said resignedly. “I may as well ride the high while it lasts.”

  Not for the first time, I wished that our mom was the type of parent who would support you through life’s trials and tribulations instead of adding to them.

  “Anyhow,” Bri said with false brightness. “Think about it, okay? At the very least, you’ll get to see the LGBTQ-inspired rainbow tree Mom is planning for the foyer.”

  “You’re kidding!” I laughed as the truck bounced over the deep rut in the drive I kept meaning to fill with gravel. That tree alone would almost be worth the trip down to Boston.

  “Alas, I am not,” she said in a tone of voice that conveyed just how little she enjoyed our mother’s new-found gay pride. “Honestly, it would be funny if it weren’t so fucking tragic.”

  “Story of our lives, sis.”

  She sighed. “Yeah. And don’t worry about the holidays. I understand why you don’t want to come.”

  “Thanks, Bri,” I said as my headlights panned across the yard, illuminating a woman sitting alone on the farmhouse’s front steps, her head tilted back as she glugged deeply from what appeared to be a bottle of wine. “Talk soon?”

  “Sure thing,” she answered as I ended the call and hopped out of my truck, padding quietly toward Rosalie so as not to startle her.

  When I was still about twenty feet away, she tipped her head back for another long swallow from the bottle. Damn. She looked how I felt.

  I wished I could say it was only the stuff with my family that made me want to reach for a bottle of my own, but this renovation was turning out to be more of a shitshow than I’d expected. Sure, every job had its ups and downs, but this one would go down in history as the most difficult one I’d taken on yet—and it had absolutely nothing to do with the property itself. The early eighteen hundreds antique farmhouse was a dream. The owners? Not so much. They’d blown up my phone all day wanting to switch out the slate flooring we’d installed the week before and replace it with something graphic and modern they’d seen on Pinterest yesterday.

  At the beginning of this project, I’d been excited to work with the type of clients where money was no object, but this also meant they didn’t think twice about tossing out materials they’d already paid for. Costs aside, it was also a colossal waste of our time. Thankfully, I’d managed to convince them to keep the slate we’d laid in the mudroom and laundry room, but I hadn’t been able to get them to commit to keeping the master bathroom the way the original design had called for. These changes would put us at least a week behind schedule in that part of the house.

  But that was a problem for tomorrow, I decided, as I felt my lips twitch to the side in a small smile as Rosalie muttered under her breath about someone needing to get bent. Not wanting to startle her, I cleared my throat to alert her to my presence.

  She swiveled to face me, lowering the wine from her lips and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “You look how I feel,” she said matter-of-factly, her voice coming out surprisingly clear for someone who’d taken to drinking straight from the bottle.“Care to join me?”

  I glanced back over my shoulder toward the direction of my house. The only thing waiting for me inside was a leftover bowl of mac and cheese that sounded like a terrible idea. Still, I wasn’t sure that joining Rosalie’s little wine party for one was a good idea either. Even as I weighed my options, I found myself moving closer.

  “By the way, I think my mom’s in love with you,” she said, jiggling the outstretched bottle.

  I stepped forward and accepted her offering, studying the label in the dim glow of the porch light. I was more of a beer guy, but I knew enough about red wine to know which ones to steer clear of to avoid a hangover. Thankfully, this was a fairly well-known brand from Napa Valley that you could get in just about any grocery or liquor store. I’d had it at least a few times before.

  Without waiting for me to acknowledge her preposterous statement, Rosalie barreled onward. “I mean, I get it. You’re very attractive. And you’re very nice to her, helping out around the house and all. But you should probably know you’re way too young for her. How old are you anyway?”

  When I opened my mouth to assure her nothing was going on between her mom and me, I noticed the twinkling gleam in her eye. Oh. She was kidding. “Haha,” I deadpanned. “Very funny.”

  Rosalie snickered. “I thought so.” She patted the ground next to her. “Sit and stay awhile?”

  What the hell, I thought with a shrug as I settled my large frame down next to her, only wincing slightly at the cold from the wooden porch leeching through my denim to freeze my ass cheeks. I took a swig from the bottle, hoping the wine would warm me up, before passing it back to her. “I’m thirty-four, by the way.”

  She nodded thoughtfully, then asked, “Can I tell you a secret?”

  6

  Preston

  I turned to glance at Rosalie, unsure what sort of secret she was looking to share and wondering if we were even at the secret-sharing stage of our acquaintance yet. Sure, I felt strangely comfortable sitting here with her, but I had to remind myself that we didn’t actually know each other that well. Up until this past Friday, I’d assumed she was a self-involved ice princess who wasn’t worth the breath it took to speak to her.

  But the woman sitting next to me tonight in tight black leggings that hugged her curves to perfection and long, blonde hair piled messily on top of her head was precisely the type of woman I didn’t mind spending time with. Hell, she was basically the sort of woman I preferred these days: sweet, slightly sarcastic, low maintenance, and zero drama.

  I nodded. “What’s up?”

  Rosalie took a deep breath and set the bottle of wine down between us. “Blake called today. He wanted to discuss the insurance settlement from the fire at the gallery.” Her eyes flicked a worried path over my face. I didn’t think she meant for her anxiety to be so transparent, but from the uneasy look she wore, I knew she was truly worried about how this would all play out.

  When the gallery had first burned down a couple of months back, Gloria had mentioned it in passing, but I hadn’t thought much of it at the time. Sure, it was unfortunate, but people lost their businesses all the time. The fact that Blake seemed to be holding it over her head as part of their divorce made him sound more and more like the piece of shit her mom claimed him to be.

  But Rosalie’s apprehension also served as a stark and necessary reminder that her situation made her the opposite of zero drama. She came with a shit-ton of baggage, and I needed to tread carefully here. No matter how hot she was, she was still a married woman. Not to mention, she was also my neighbor … something that made my attraction to her even more complicated.

  If Mikey’s brief fling with Stella Carmody—a finish carpenter on one of our crews—last year had taught me anything, it was not to shit where you ate. A crude but effective life rule if ever there was one. I needed to keep myself in check.

  But this wasn’t about me. Rosalie was obviously upset by the events of the day, and she’d had the courage to open up to me about them. “I take it that didn’t go well,” I said, keeping my tone gentle but curious.

&n
bsp; She shook her head. “I’m not sure we’ve had a civil conversation in over a year.” She blew out a breath and crumpled forward, resting her elbows on her thighs and her face in her palms. From behind her hands, she continued, “I know I shouldn’t have answered, but I must be some sort of masochist.” Her head bounced up, her eyes fiery with emotion. “I mean, how stupid do I have to be? I know how it’s going to go. Every. Damn. Time. And yet I answer anyway.”

  I huffed out a cynical laugh. “You might not believe this, but I know exactly what you’re talking about.”

  “You do?” Her crinkled nose and furrowed brow matched her skeptical tone.

  I scratched at my beard in discomfort. Besides Mikey, I’d never really discussed how dysfunctional my family could be with anyone who wasn’t a licensed therapist. But for some reason I couldn’t explain, I found the walls I usually hid behind falling away with this woman. Maybe it was because I knew she’d understand better than most. “I spent the entire drive home fielding calls from various members of my family trying to convince me to come home for Thanksgiving or Christmas.”

  She rolled her eyes. “So not the same thing.” She hefted the bottle to her lips and tilted back her head for another deep pull.

  When she lowered it back down, I reached out and took it from her, indulging in my own liquid courage. When I swallowed, I swiped at my mouth with the sleeve of my thick Carhartt jacket, not caring about any potential stains I might leave behind. It was already covered in so many different paint shades that it resembled a poorly executed Jackson Pollock knock-off painting. “No, definitely not the same thing,” I agreed. “But since my brother slept with my fiancée and then married her, not exactly a walk in the park, either.”

  Her head swung quickly back around, her mouth agape. “No way.”

  “Yes, way.” I watched her face for even the slightest hint of pity. I hated it when people found out about Margaux and me and their first reaction was to stare at me like I was the biggest sucker in the world. Rosalie looked downright perplexed.

  “Wow,” she breathed out. “That was not what I expected you to say. First of all, what kind of woman has you in her bed and decides that’s not good enough?” Her eyes went wide with shock as if she hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

  Her words sparked a jolt of awareness that traveled straight from the pit of my stomach down to my cock. I laughed to cover my reaction. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Her cheeks glowed in the porch light before she covered her face with her palms again. “I can’t believe I said that.”

  “We can pretend you didn’t if that’ll make you feel better,” I offered, secretly thrilled to learn that she liked what she saw in me as much as I did with her. I knew this could never be more than friendship. Still, it never hurt a man’s ego to be appreciated by a beautiful woman—and my ego had suffered plenty in the months after I found Colton and Margaux together.

  She split her fingers, and one eyeball peeped out at me from the break. “That would be amazing.”

  “What would be amazing?” I asked in a joking tone, winking at her.

  She dropped her hands from her face and smiled at me. “Exactly.” We stared at each other for a few long moments, smiles splitting both our faces, as the sounds of nightfall in the country grew louder around us. Eventually, she shook her head, and the moment was broken. “Is that why you moved up here? I remember my mom saying you weren’t from around here when you first started renting from her.”

  “Partially,” I admitted. “Also, my dad was my boss, and even though I’m damn good at what I do, he treated me like an apprentice most of the time. It got even worse after Colton and Margaux hooked up—as if their affair was somehow my fault. Like I wasn’t man enough to keep my woman from straying.” I snorted. “This from a serial fucking cheater. Pardon my French.”

  She took the bottle from my hands, gripping it tightly around its neck. “Well, fuck him.”

  I stared at her for a beat, my lips stretching into another broad smile. It had been so long since I’d had someone so unabashedly in my corner. The fact that she’d immediately jumped to my defense was a startling rush, and I felt intoxicated by her support. Or maybe that was just the bottle of wine we were swilling like a couple of drunk hobos.

  Even Mikey trode lightly when it came to speaking ill of my dad. After all, if my company ever went belly-up, he’d likely head back to Boston in the hopes of finding a new job. It wouldn’t be smart to get on the wrong side of a man who could make or break his career with one well-placed word.

  “Fuck him,” I agreed as a landmine of a question popped to the forefront of my brain. If I hadn’t just essentially chugged a bunch of wine, I wasn’t sure I’d have had the courage to ask it, but sitting here with her, I felt both loose-limbed and loose-lipped.

  “Speaking of fucking him,” I continued, only realizing when Rosalie’s eyes widened a fraction of an inch that my words had the makings of a lewd proposition. I rushed to finish my question. “How’d you wind up with a man like Blake anyhow? Obviously, you and I don’t know each other all that well, but you don’t strike me as the type of woman who’s swayed by the size of a man’s … wallet.” I winked, letting her know that I understood how she must have interpreted the start of my sentence. The lousy joke had been to hide my own mortification.

  She chuckled, but then grew quiet as she stared down at her hands clenched tightly together in her lap. Briefly, I wondered if I’d overstepped my bounds. After all, hadn’t I just said that we didn’t know one another? What if I’d offended her? Before my thoughts could spiral further, she lifted her face back up to mine and smiled ruefully. “How much has my mom told you about me?”

  I shrugged, feeling guilty for the assumptions I’d made about her in the past. “Not a whole lot. Most of what she had to say was reserved for your ex. But if I’m being honest, from what she did tell me, I might not have drawn the most favorable impression of you. I kind of figured you for a rich, spoiled princess type.”

  Her eyes flicked between mine and then the right side of her mouth hitched to the side in a small smile. “Ah, so that explains all the scowling when she roped you into helping me unload the car.”

  “Yeah,” I admitted sheepishly. “Visions of Margaux dancing in my head.”

  “It’s okay. I get it.” She turned to look out into the yard, the darkness stretching out vast and wide in front of us.

  “Obviously, I don’t think that now,” I rushed to say, wanting to erase the look of disquiet that had taken over hear features.

  “As a teenager,” she said, ignoring my interjection. “I had dreams of getting out of Colebury. It’s not that it was a bad place to grow up or anything, but you may have noticed it’s pretty small, and everyone knows everyone else’s business.”

  She glanced back at me for confirmation, and I nodded minutely. I knew exactly what she meant. The first time I’d stopped at the Busy Bean to pick up a coffee on my way to work, an older woman sitting at one of the tables had hopped up from her seat, excited to finally meet “that young man renting Gloria’s carriage house.” When I’d inquired as to how she’d known who I was, she’d looked at me like I’d lost my damn mind. I’d since learned her name was Patricia Peale, and she was the town librarian. Also, as it turned out, one of my landlady’s closest friends.

  “As a joke,” I told her, “my youngest sister bought me a pillow with the saying, ‘The nice thing about living in a small town is that when you don’t know what you’re doing, someone else does’ embroidered on it. I might have experienced that once or twice since I moved here. But at the same time, I’ve also met some of the warmest, most genuine people, too. It’s actually a really great place, Rosalie, if you just give it a chance.” Was it weird that I felt compelled to defend Colebury to someone who’d grown up here when I’d only been in town for a little over six months?

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong,” she rushed to say, “I’m not dissing it. I moved back here, didn’t
I? But you have to understand that the Colebury of my youth was much different from what you see now. Back then, places like Speakeasy would never have even opened, much less thrived. And I get that a town is more than a fancy gastropub or what have you, but for a shy, quiet girl whose artistic soul cried out for more than a bunch of falling down brick buildings to photograph, leaving seemed like the only option.”

  “You’re a photographer?” I asked, latching onto that small glimpse into who this woman was at her core and wondering how this was the first I’d heard of her talent. For as much as Gloria had bragged about her daughter’s gallery back in San Francisco, I couldn’t recall her ever mentioning that Rosalie was an artist herself.

  Her face screwed up in a grimace just before she brushed the question aside. “At the time, I liked to think I was. Unfortunately, portraits and landscapes are the extent of my abilities. Which sort of brings me back around to your original question.

  “After college, I realized that I needed to get a ‘real’ job”—she used her fingers to make air quotes—“so I answered an ad on Craigslist for a gallery associate position in San Francisco. As it turned out, I was much better equipped to run a gallery than exhibit in one. After eighteen months, I was promoted to manager.”

  “Wow, that’s great. Congratulations. You must have been so proud of yourself.”

  “You know what?” Rosalie mused, “I was proud. I also thought I was so sophisticated and worldly, but the reality was I still hadn’t done any of the things I’d dreamed about while growing up here. Then along comes Blake—someone who actually was sophisticated—and against all logic and reason, he found me fascinating. What can I say? He swept me off my feet.” She paused then, and her eyes found mine. “You probably think the worst of me, don’t you?”