“You’re insane.”
“Yeah, like that frightens me. So you think about it. In any case, you don’t wanna contest the fact that my name’s on her birth certificate, then you send me some sort of affidavit to that effect, giving me full and permanent custody.”
“Then you have to swear not to tell her about me.”
“Ever? You know I can’t do that.”
“Then no deal,” Cole said, and hung up.
As Tony sat there, softly banging the phone against his forehead, he heard the screen door open, saw out of the corner of his eye Rudy come out onto the porch.
“Where’re the boys?” Tony asked.
“In their room, playing some video game.” He crossed to the railing, leaned against it. “Wanna share?” the big dude asked quietly, folding his arms over a white T-shirt probably a size smaller than it should’ve been.
Tony’s mouth pulled tight. “How much did you hear?”
“Enough to wanna smack you upside the head for not sayin’ anything.” Those weird blue eyes seared right through him. “Rissa cheated on you?”
Leave it to Rudy to not mince words. “Yeah. I didn’t find out until a few weeks ago. The day of the party, actually.” He filled Rudy in on the few details he had—although he left Cole’s name out if it, for the moment—then sagged back in the chair, spent.
Rudy muttered a choice word, then shook his head. “Violet swore something was off, but I figured what does she know, the two of you have only met a cuppla times. Today, though, up at the falls? Hate to tell ya, but you were doing a damn lousy job of hiding your feelings.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem. But let me guess—nobody else knows, either.”
“No. Well, Lili. But that’s…” Another mess entirely.
“What that is, is something else you suck at hiding your feelings about.” When Tony’s eyes shifted to his cousin’s, the other man smirked. “And yes, it’s that obvious.”
Tony sighed. “She’s…”
“Yeah, can’t wait to hear how you’re gonna finish that sentence.”
“It doesn’t matter how I finish that sentence—it’s all the rest of it I can’t finish!”
The words practically exploded in Tony’s brain. Rudy’s lips curved.
“Why? Because it’s too soon? Or were you plannin’ on waitin’ twelve years like I did?”
“I wasn’t plannin’ on anything. I—” His lips pressed together, Tony leaned forward again. “If being with Rissa taught me anything, it’s how much energy relationships take. You lose focus, you’re screwed. With everything else goin’ on in my life right now? Starting a relationship…not gonna happen. And why’re you lookin’ at me like that?”
“You honest to God think you’re to blame for Rissa’s havin’ an affair?”
“You sound like Lili.”
“Knew I liked that woman.”
Tony almost smiled, then sighed again. “These things don’t happen in a vacuum, Rudy—”
“And maybe your wife had issues that had nothin’ to do with you.” Rudy downright glowered at him. “We grew up together, Tone, I know you better than I know at least half my brothers. I watched you with the girls, watched you with Rissa…” Shaking his head, he looked away, his mouth set. “True, nobody knows what goes on inside a marriage except the two people involved. Hell, sometimes even they don’t. But…” He faced Tony again. “Whatever reasons Marissa had for doing what she did? It wasn’t you, Tone. It just wasn’t.”
Tony got to his feet, walking over to the top of the steps. Dark gray clouds had begun to slide in from the north; a damp breeze whipped through Tony’s T-shirt, chilling his skin. “Whatever. It doesn’t change anything. That I’m in no position to, to…”
“Get something goin’ with Lili?”
“Yeah. Or no, in this case.” He frowned at Rudy. “There’s the kids, for one thing. And Rissa’s parents, for another.” Sighed, he looked out over the front yard. “Even if I was ready, they’re not.”
“Not so sure Daphne’d agree with you there,” Rudy said, and Tony smiled.
“Just because she gets along with Lil doesn’t mean she’s ready to accept her as her mom. Claire wears all her emotions on the outside—I may not totally understand what she’s feeling, but I always know that she’s feeling. Daph, though…she’s like me. Show must go on and all that crap.”
Rudy chuckled. “Kids are bizarre, aren’t they?” Then he said, “Okay, I know the timing sucks. But it just seems to me…” He crossed his arms high on his chest. “We both fell hard the first time, when we were too young to know what hit us. Sometimes that works out and sometimes that doesn’t. But when things happen that early, that intensely, you don’t realize for most people, it doesn’t come that easy.”
Grunting softly, he rubbed his bristly head. “Until suddenly you’re alone again. Only, like you said, there’s all this stuff in the way there wasn’t the first time, most of which is all in here—” he tapped his temple “—all these expectations and anxieties and crap, and suddenly building a nuclear reactor seems easier than finding somebody to share your life with.”
“But I’m not—”
“Shut up, I’m not done. Maybe you don’t think you want or need somebody right now, or the kids can’t deal, whatever. But let me tell you something—one day you’re gonna wake up and realize you’ve done everything for everybody else and haven’t done a damn thing for you, and you’re gonna be pissed. Especially when it hits you what you let slip through your fingers—”
“And maybe you should just butt out, okay? I get what you’re saying. I do. But right now, it’s not about me. And even if…” Tony shoved out a breath. “I’m not sayin’ there’s not a spark. I’m not even sayin’, if things were different, I wouldn’t mind acting on that spark. But I gotta think about Lili, too, you know? She’s just now getting back on her feet after all that time she spent with her mother, the last thing she needs is to get dragged into this craziness.”
At the sound of Violet’s minivan crunching down the gravel path, both men turned. A few seconds later, doors popped and slid open and females poured out, laden with bags. Naturally Tony’s gaze swept over both his daughters first, but they settled on Lili, laughing about something with Violet as they brought up the rear, and she looked so…honest and real, with her don’t-give-a-damn hair and kitty-wampus glasses. Then, still laughing, she looked up and their gazes caught, her smile faltering slightly, like she could read his mind.
Or maybe sort out the mess inside it. Because it was hard to look at her and feel her presence and not think about everything that Rudy’d said, not wonder if maybe she’d bring a little bit of normalcy to the craziness, maybe…
“Maybe,” Rudy said quietly beside him, before the rest were close enough to hear, “you should give the woman the chance to make her own decisions.” When Troy glared at him, he lifted his hands, smiling. “Just sayin’.” Then he grinned for his daughter, stomping up the steps wearing a printed top with the designer name taking up most of the front.
“Huh. That’s new.”
“See?” she said, turning to Violet. “Told you he’d notice. Like it?” she said, twirling. “It’s Tommy Hilfiger.”
“I can read, Stace,” he said, and she stuck her tongue out at him, just as Lili and the girls reached the top of the steps and Tony noticed they were wearing nearly identical, enormous hoodies in different retina-searing colors. With beads. And stuff. Lili in beads? Claire in beads? Noticing his gawking, Claire looked down, then back up, blushing.
“Lili bought ’em for us—”
“No, no…it’s okay…” Smiling, Tony hugged her to him. “It’s just I’ve never seen you in anything like that before. It looks good on you.”
Lili grinned, looked pleased as all hell. “Doesn’t it? The color’s so pretty with her hair—”
“Mom said we could do cookout tonight,” Stacey said to her father.
Rudy squinted up at the nasty sky
; a late day storm was quickly bearing down on them. “Not sure about that. But I suppose I could make a fire in the gathering room, we could do hot dogs and roast marshmallows and—” The rest of his sentence was lost in the roar of approval from Daph and the boys. “Then everybody inside,” Rudy said, waving them all through the door. He looked back at Tony. “You coming?”
“In a sec,” he said, walking back over to the porch steps. A second later he heard rustling bags as Lili settled one hip on the railing.
“Stupid question, I know,” she said, “but how are you doing?”
His chest actually ached when he hauled in a lungful of rain-and-pine scented air. “You know, it would help if you weren’t so damned nice all the time.”
Chuckling, she looked out as the first fat drops began to pounce on the rhododendrons lining the base of the porch. “I could say the same thing,” she said quietly. “It would definitely make things easier.”
“Dammit, Lil…I didn’t expect…I can’t…”
“You don’t have to explain. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t. We both know all the reasons why this can’t work. But sometimes, knowing someone cares…” She turned, smiling slightly. “It’s lovely, Tony. Truly.” She set down the bags to prop her back against a support post, crossing her arms. “But you didn’t answer my question.”
Tony let his eyes caress hers. “After what you just said? How do you think I’m doing?”
“Sorry. But I wasn’t talking about…that. I meant the other.”
“Right.” Pressing his fingers into the back of his neck, he said. “I called Cole.”
Lili’s brows shot up. “Already?”
“Yeah. I guess he’s been thinking about it and…” He lowered his voice, even though the rain was now pounding the porch roof so hard it was highly unlikely anyone could hear them in the house. “He doesn’t want her.”
Her head tilted. “Why aren’t we sounding happier about that?”
“Because it’s not that simple. Nothing’s that simple,” he said on a sigh. “I asked him to put it in writing. He wants me to swear I’ll never tell her.”
“You can’t…” Lili glanced over her shoulder, then whispered, “You can’t keep a secret like that forever!”
“Exactly what I said. Bastard hung up on me. So everything’s still up in the air.” He leaned on his forearms, out far enough to feel a slight spray on his face. “I can just see it now, him showing up out of the blue however many years from now, contrite as all hell and deciding he wants to play dad.”
“Surely the law would be on your side, though? If you’ve been raising her…?”
“You would think. And God knows he’d have a fight on his hands. But that’s part of everything I have to sort out.” A flash of lightning, then a thunderclap, ripped open the sky. Tony watched the poor rhododendrons cowering in the onslaught, then said, “When are you leaving, exactly?”
He glanced over, saw she wasn’t looking at him. “A week from today.”
“That soon? Wow.”
A smile slid in his direction. “I know, it surprised me, too, when I realized it this morning.”
“It’ll…be good to get home, right?”
She stretched out one arm, letting the water bounce off her palm. “I suppose,” she said, pulling her hand back in and rubbing it on her jeans. “If nothing else, it’s time to get serious about sorting out my mother’s apartment—” Cutting herself off, she frowned at him. “Do you know I’ve never lived entirely on my own before?”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Lookin’ forward to that?”
Lili faced front again. “I don’t know, to tell you the truth. I always thought I’d like the quiet. The autonomy. Now I’m not so sure. Not that I’m afraid to be by myself, not like my mother was. I just…” Shaking her head, she let the sentence drift off.
Tony cleared his throat. “I—we—should come visit sometime,” he said, but she shook her head a second time.
“People always say they’ll come visit, but they almost never do.” Her eyes swung to his. “I know you’re going through hell right now. But you will get through it. You, and the girls. And then you’ll go on with your lives and this summer will become another memory.” She smiled. “As will I.”
His chest seized up. “You sayin’ you’re never comin’ back?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t rule it out. But probably not for a long time.” She paused. “For obvious reasons.”
“I’m sorry, Lil,” Tony breathed out.
“For what? For something you can’t control? For not being in a position to be what I’d need you to be?”
“Yeah, actually,” he said, more pissed about it than he’d expected. “Because you were wrong, the other day, when you said I look at you and just see an older version of the kid I played five million video games with that summer. Believe me, that’s not who I’m seeing, Lil. Not who I—”
He jerked away, the rest of the sentence caught in his throat. Thank God she didn’t press him to finish it. Instead, she sighed.
“There was a time I used to envy some of my girlfriends, the ones who could fall in love without thinking it to death. It all seemed so easy for them. Until I realized how rarely those relationships stuck.” She smiled. “Even a wildflower has to have deep roots to survive. And these gals…so often they looked to the other person to complete them, or they confused love with admiration or infatuation or lust or…” Another sigh. “Or sympathy.”
“You feel sorry for me?”
“No,” Lili said on a half laugh. “But I am angry for you, which I’m not sure is much better. Angry for the mess you’re in, especially angry for what your wife did to you…” She sighed. “I suppose I’m too pragmatic for love to be simple.” A pause, then: “And I want to be absolutely sure I’m not confusing it with something else.”
“Yeah,” Tony said on a breath. “I know what you mean.” He rubbed his jaw, then said, “So what now?”
“Now? We go back to Springfield tomorrow and get on with our lives.”
“And that’s it?”
She smiled at him. “Seems a better alternative to constant frustration, don’t you think?”
“Not really, no,” he said softly, and she averted her gaze again. “The girls will be with their grandparents again on Saturday, though—”
“And you want me to come clean your bathrooms?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Lili! No, I don’t want you to come clean, I want to take you out to dinner! To a real restaurant with tablecloths and candles and everything.” Yeah, he had no idea that was coming, either. But as soon as he said it, it made total sense. As much sense as anything made these days, at least. However, judging from her frown, maybe it wasn’t making as much sense to her as it did to him.
“W-why?”
“Because I don’t want to inflict dry hamburgers on you a second time?”
“No,” she said, smiling. “I mean—”
“I know what you mean,” Tony said gently, wanting to cup her jaw, to touch that soft skin, to feel her mouth open and warm and giving underneath his again. Still wanting more than he had any right to want. “I just wanna show my appreciation for everything you’ve done, okay? Just you and me. No kids, no grandparents, no dog. Nobody but us.”
Finally, she nodded. “Okay.”
“Really?”
“Honestly, Tony…yes. Really.”
“You like Italian? Because there’s this great little place not far from me, close to the park. We could eat, then go for a walk. Or the other way around, I don’t care.”
She smiled. “I don’t, either. I’ll leave it up to you,” she said, as a just-awake Josie came barreling outside to graft herself to his legs. Claire stood in the doorway, still in her new hoodie, looking from Tony to Lili, then back.
“You didn’t hear her, so I got her up.”
“Thanks, honey,” he said, flying Josie up into his arms.
“I had a good sleep,
Daddy!” the baby said, hugging his neck, and he realized he would kill for her. For all of them. For Lili, too, although he’d keep that to himself.
“Good for you!”
“An’ guess what? I went potty, too!”
“No kidding?” he said to Claire.
“No kidding,” she said, and they shared a quiet moment of triumph. Every woman in the family had been giving him grief because the kid wasn’t potty-trained yet—Susan, especially, had been quite vocal on the subject, insisting she could have Josie out of diapers in a week if Tony would just leave the baby with her—but forcing a kid to use the toilet hadn’t been high on Tony’s list. He’d figured when she was ready, she’d train. Apparently she was.
Good to know, he thought, looking from Claire to Lili, that somebody was ready for something.
Claire lay awake for a long time, listening to the rain pound the inn’s roof and thanking God they were going home tomorrow.
Not that she hated it here or anything—the inn was actually kinda neat and the food was good and it was fun hanging out with Stacey and stuff—but she was really tired of feeling like something was going on but nobody would talk about it. Like when they’d been at the falls, and Dad suddenly got that phone call? Don’t tell her something bad hadn’t happened, she could feel it in her bones.
Then there’d been the really strange thing with Lili, after dinner. Since Stacey was, like, texting everybody in the entire universe, Claire’d gotten bored, so she’d gone out onto the porch. The rain had made it darker than usual, except for the light from the gathering room coming through the screen door and windows. So she didn’t realize at first Lili was there, too, sitting in the glider at the end of the porch. When the glider squeaked, Claire’d nearly jumped out of her skin.
A second later Claire realized Lili’d been crying, which seemed really weird since she’d been so happy and stuff when they’d gone shopping. Claire hated when grownups cried, because if they weren’t in control of things, who was? She meant to go back inside, but instead she heard herself ask Lili if she was okay. Of course Lili said she was fine, trying to make her voice sound normal. But it made Claire uncomfortable and more confused than ever, so she left. Lili came back in a couple minutes after that, but she went up to her room without saying much to anybody—
From Friends to Forever Page 15
