by Lauren Layne
Sam’s palms began to sweat. So she’d told the rest of her family. It would explain the voice mails from Erin. And Josh.
And Meg.
And Kate.
Even Patrick had called from Boston.
Damn it, Riley.
Still, he supposed that was a good sign. They’d still called him instead of showing up at his door with torture devices.
And nobody had threatened death, so that was a positive.
Except … none of them had been Liam, so she hadn’t told him.
She’d left that to him.
He didn’t know if he was incredibly grateful or disappointed.
“So what did the article say?” Sam hated himself for asking, but maybe it was better that he hear about it here and now, where Liam’s fist would prevent him from doing what he wanted more than anything.
Which was going to her.
“Honestly?” Liam asked, flipping through the pages. “It’s got kind of a man-hating thing going on. Apparently this guy stomped on her heart, but Riley, being Riley, isn’t heartbroken. She’s pissed. And she let the entire Stiletto readership base know it.”
Sam tossed back the rest of his drink.
Her heart wasn’t broken?
His chest felt like it was splitting further and further apart every day.
Sam flicked his finger toward the bartender. Another.
“Give me the magazine.”
“What?”
“Give. Me. The. Magazine.”
Liam slid the glossy pages in front of him, and Sam’s eyes went first to the tiny picture of Riley next to her name, his eyes taking in her perfect, familiar features. She was smiling here. She hadn’t been smiling when she’d called him on his bullshit and walked away.
He hadn’t been smiling when he’d let her.
His eyes finally moved up to the bolded headline.
CAUGHT IN A BAD ROMANCE
The anger in the headline surprised him a bit.
Well then. At least she was finally getting it. Good.
But the ache in his throat didn’t feel good. Especially when his eyes skimmed over the bolded highlights of the article’s content.
“… I fell in love with a boy—but it took me more than ten years to realize the boy never grew into a man.”
Ouch.
“I thought if I just said the right things and did all the right girlfriend things, that he’d love me back. But listen up, ladies: No tips and tricks between these pages can fix a broken soul. Don’t break yourself trying.”
Broken? He was only broken when he wasn’t with her.
“For a long time I mourned the loneliness of not being in a relationship, but I’d rather have no romance than be caught in a bad one …”
“Damn it. Damn it!”
Sam didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud until the bartender and the couple to his left gave him a wary look.
Liam, on the other hand, didn’t look at all surprised.
“So just one question,” Liam said as he took another sip of his whisky. “Exactly which one of you was going to tell me that you’ve been dating?”
There it was.
The bomb that Sam had been avoiding since the day he’d seen Riley’s skinny, sexy legs in those damn soccer shorts over ten years earlier. He’d been expecting a thunderbolt or maybe an earthquake.
At the very least, he’d been prepared for an up-front encounter with Liam’s knuckles.
Gathering his courage, he turned to look at his best friend, braced for disgust, anger, betrayal, or all of the above.
Instead he saw …
Curiosity? Maybe even concern.
“It didn’t go well,” Sam muttered, tipping his glass to his lips and staring straight ahead.
Liam thumped a hand lightly against the magazine article. “Nah. Really?”
“Why aren’t you more mad?” Sam asked. “Or are you just saving it until we step outside?”
“Well, I am a little mad. Mad that you didn’t tell me. And I’m mad that Riley apparently wants to barbecue your balls for some reason.”
“But you’re not mad that we … you know …”
“Screwed? No. I mean, I’m totally repulsed. But angry?” Liam considered. “I don’t think so. I guess I figured it was bound to happen some way. The way you were always trying so damn hard not to look at her when the rest of the pervs openly stared.”
Sam’s world tilted a little bit sideways. “But you told me never to touch her. You made me promise.”
Liam frowned. “When?”
“Over ten years ago! Right after I met Riley for the first time.”
His friend tilted his head, clearly trying to remember. “Huh.”
Huh. Huh? I’ve spent the past decade putting aside my own happiness for something you can’t even remember?
But …
Was that fair?
Had Sam ever gone to his best friend and said, “Look, I’ve got feelings for your sister. Thoughts?”
And after he’d acted on those feelings, had he called up his friend and said, “Punch me if you want, but I’m in love with your sister, and you’ll have to deal.”
Sam choked a little on his whisky.
Love?
Love.
Wait, that wasn’t right. Sam didn’t do love.
Did he?
Liam held up the magazine. “Are you telling me the reason you dumped Riley and sent her on this man-hating tirade is because you thought I wouldn’t like it?”
Sam wanted to say yes. He wanted to tell Liam and the whole world that he pushed Riley away because he was a good and loyal friend. Hell, it was part of what he’d been telling himself.
But it wasn’t true.
Liam’s long-ago don’t-touch-my-sister speech hadn’t been the reason Sam stayed away from Riley. It had simply been the excuse.
If he’d had half the guts she’d had when she came to him and suggested they act on what had always been there … if he’d been a little less of a pansy-assed weenie, maybe he could have had it all.
His friendship with Liam, his relationship with the entire McKenna family … he could have had the distillery, and hell, even the little dog that had wiggled its way into his heart in such a short amount of time.
Most important, he could have had Riley.
His eyes fell on her article and her well-deserved disdain. “I’m an idiot.”
Liam nodded once, although he clapped Sam on the shoulder to soften the blow. “Another drink?”
“Will it make it hurt less?”
Liam looked a little stunned at the admission. “I was about to give you the required lecture about hurting my baby sister, but now I’m wondering if I need to have a talk with baby sister about hurting my best friend.”
“No,” Sam said, digging his fingers into his eyes and trying to sort out the unfamiliar feelings. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Really? Because she pretty much castrated you with words. I mean I’d die for Riley, but this article is—”
“Completely deserved,” Sam said, running his hands over his face and turning to look at his friend. “Things were going great, and then I pushed her away like a little boy who decided he’d rather play videogames than kiss the cute girl simply because it was easier.”
“Wait, is she the one who got you the dog?” Liam asked.
“Yup.”
His friend winced. “So that was her bra I saw?”
“You really want me to answer that?”
“No. No, I do not. So what’s next? Because I’ve gotta tell you, family dinners are going to be really awkward as long as she’s mad and you’re smitten, but you probably know that.”
“Yeah,” Sam said glumly. “I thought if we ended it quickly enough, nobody would get hurt, and things could go on unchanged, but …”
“But …?”
“I don’t know how I can face her. Not as a boyfriend, because I forfeited that right, and worse, not as a friend, because I’ve bee
n a terrible one.”
Liam took another sip and put on his thinking face. “You care about her?”
“Yes. More than—”
Liam winced. “Okay, don’t get sappy.”
“Just wait until it happens to you.”
“Not gonna happen. I’m a lone stallion.”
“Yeah. Stick with that.”
Liam rolled up the magazine and tapped it against his palm. “I figure I’ve got two choices here. One: challenge you to a duel.”
“Um, pass?”
“Or two: help get you two weirdos back together so I can continue to eat my mother’s mediocre cooking with my best friend and my sister.”
Sam’s spirits perked up slightly, but he felt far from hopeful. He replayed her words over and over: I’d rather have no romance than be caught in a bad one …
“How drastic do you want to get?” Liam asked.
Key moments from the previous few months flitted through Sam’s mind.
Riley and the brave hope in her eyes when she’d boldly suggested they sleep together.
Their first kiss in that cramped room with her mother’s Christmas tree jabbing him in the hip.
The look on her face when she won the softball game. The noises she made when he touched her in the middle of the night.
The fact that she bought him a dog he didn’t know he wanted.
And the most painful memory of all: her telling him she loved him even when he was pushing her away.
He wanted it all back. Desperately.
But there was no brokenhearted Riley waiting by the phone, no pleading magazine article begging him to reconsider. It would take more than a casual drop-by apology.
“I’ll do anything,” he said quietly.
Liam nodded. “Good answer. Also, I don’t want any of those fussy little flowers on my lapel at the wedding.”
Sam’s stomach dropped. “Easy there. Nobody said anything about a wedding.”
“Wanna bet on it?”
Sam looked down at Liam’s outstretched hand.
Then he pictured the white dress. Her walking toward him with forever on her lips.
He pictured waking up every morning to Riley’s sassy comebacks and messy dark hair.
“Put that away.” He swiped his friend’s hand out of the way. No bet.
Liam grinned. “Thought so.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Riley wiped a glob of cream cheese off her chin as she looked at the piles of mail covering both her and Grace’s desk, not to mention the smaller piles on Julie and Emma’s chairs.
“Why do I have to select the letter to the editor?” she muttered.
“Because your article got the most responses,” Grace said reasonably as she dug one of her sugar-free birdseed breakfast bars out from under a stack of envelopes. “It’s easy. Just pick two to feature in next month’s issue and do a quick little response.”
“But I don’t wanna respond,” she said around her cinnamon bagel. “It’s nobody’s business but mine.”
“Yours and Bruce Dinkle’s,” Emma muttered.
“Hey,” Riley said, holding up a finger. “Camille put the kibosh on Samuel Condon. I had to get creative.”
“Yeah, I’m sure Sam had noooo idea you were referring to him.”
Riley’s head snapped up. “Do you think he read it?”
Her friends looked away, and their silence said it all. If Sam had read the article, he apparently hadn’t cared.
Because there had been nothing. Not one word. Not in the week’s grace period she gave him to figure his shit out. Not in the week between her writing the article and its going to press. Not since the magazine had been on the newsstands.
Even her family didn’t know what was going on. She didn’t mind that they’d tried to keep in touch with him—he needed them. But as far as she knew, he hadn’t returned her sisters’ phone calls.
And Riley’s mother, while solidly on her daughter’s side, had sent the guy potato chocolate cake as a cheer-up gesture after Riley’s article had come out and gotten little more than a terse thank-you on their machine.
Although that, Riley had to admit, might have been because her mother’s potato chocolate cake could double as a doorstop. She didn’t want to think about her mom’s reaction if Sam didn’t show his face at Christmas, which was right around the corner. Potato-stuffed fruitcake for sure.
She hadn’t expected him to stay away. Not after his whole reason for dumping her was his relationship with her family. So every Wednesday night, she’d braced for the possibility that he’d be there.
But since they’d broken up, Wednesday night had come and gone without Sam Compton. And every time, she’d tried to tell herself she was glad, even when she had to wear sunglasses on the subway ride home to hide the unwanted tears.
The only missing piece of the puzzle was Liam, who’d been more or less absent from her life.
Sure, he’d done the whole I’m-here-if-you-need-me big-brother thing. But then he’d calmly and plainly asked her not to make him choose sides. So she hadn’t.
Halfheartedly, Riley ripped open one of the letters. It was short, sweet, and a little scary.
Dear Ms. McKenna—
Thank you for publicly declaring what I’ve always known: Men are shits. I’ve dated eight of my own “Bruces” and I hope every last one of them dies alone and miserable. If you ever move to Georgia, let me know. I’ve started a club. Forty-two members of proud, man-hating divas. Think about it.
Bitter but happy,
Ashley
“Yikes,” Riley muttered, tossing the letter to the side to start a rejection pile. “Do you guys think I’m a man hater?”
“In the literal sense of hating one man? Sure,” Emma said, tossing aside a letter of her own.
“I don’t hate Sam,” Riley said quietly. “Although sometimes I wish I could.”
Julie squeezed her knee gently. “What do you mean?”
Riley let her eyes meet her friend’s. “I just … miss him. The damn article was supposed to be therapeutic. But saying in writing that you can’t make someone love you only makes the realization more final.”
Julie nodded sympathetically, and Riley’s head dipped down to her chin as she let out the painful admission that had been on her chest for weeks. “It hurts.”
“I know, honey,” Julie said, her eyes watering.
Oh no. Not so long ago, Julie Greene never cried. Not watching Titanic or commercials with dogs, not when the bakery was out of chocolate croissants (so okay, maybe only Riley cried about that).
And then Julie met Mitchell, and she became all but useless. She cried if she saw a bird by itself because she thought it had no friends. She cried watching bank commercials, and at jewelry advertisements, and if she saw a cloud she liked. And most especially, she cried when her friends were hurting.
Riley heard Grace sniff from behind her. “Don’t,” Riley said on a watery laugh as she pushed Julie’s damp face away. “You guys are the worst.”
“Indeed,” Emma said, pretending to get an eyelash out of her eye.
“I did the right thing, right?” she said as she picked up another envelope. “Writing it? Even if it did get all these crazies riled up?”
“You owed it to yourself,” Grace said firmly. “And nobody but us and your family knows it was about Sam. It’s not like you publicly humiliated the guy. And I think it’s good that Stiletto tackled a bad relationship in the same no-nonsense way that we approach good ones. Not every relationship is forever, but it’s easy to forget that until your own happily-ever-after goes sideways.”
“Plus, Sam knew what he was getting into when he hopped into bed with your sexy ass,” Julie added. “It’s the price one pays for dating a Stiletto babe.”
“Can we not call ourselves that?” Emma muttered. “Hey, what about this letter? It’s from a teen girl who wants to know at what point in the relationship you can tell if it’s going to be bad.”
“I actually
do have an answer for that,” Riley muttered. “It’s called hindsight. Because Fate has a fantastic poker face. You never know what’s in the cards until someone dumps the deck all over the ground.”
“What inspiring advice for a ninth-grader,” Emma said, quickly putting the letter into the rejection pile.
“Oooh, this lady claims that she’s dated your Bruce Dinkle and that he tried to push her off a mechanical bull for drinking his Bud Light. Has Sam ever spent some time in Denver?”
Riley pointed to the no pile.
“Here’s one that’s actually legit,” Julie said. “Alyssa from San Diego wants to know what you do after the guy who couldn’t commit to you commits to someone else.”
Riley felt like someone had kicked her in the stomach. It was hard enough to accept that Sam couldn’t love her. What would happen the day she had to watch him love someone else? Because even if he stayed true to his never-getting-married plan, he wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life celibate. He’d eventually sleep with another woman.
Maybe even care about one.
“Not ready for that one,” she said quietly. “Isn’t there some harmless, fluffy letter asking for recommendations on breakup movies or something?”
Something that won’t rip my heart out?
“The real question is, who are these people who write letters? I don’t even know where to buy a stamp if I wanted to,” Julie said. “Has email gone out of style?”
“Uh-uh,” Grace said. “We haven’t even gotten to those yet.”
“Greaaaat.”
An hour and a half later, the four women had amassed at least a handful of viable options, and Riley was on the verge of telling her friends to just pick two at random so that she could write a generic response and be done with this whole business.
But just as Julie and Grace were arguing over whether they should go with the letter from Nina in Seattle, who wanted to know if she should invite her Bruce to her sister’s wedding, or Kerry from St. Paul, who needed advice on whether she had to return her Bruce’s cat, Camille appeared in the doorway.
“What are you wearing?” Julie asked their boss in horror.
Camille glanced down. “It’s new. Purple is the new black, Greene.”
“Not when it’s shaped like a tent, it’s not.”
Their boss ignored her important reporter. “What are you girls doing in here? I haven’t seen this much paper since college.”
