The Man Cave Collection: Manservant, Man Flu, Man Handler, and Man Buns

by Ryan, Shari J.

  “I have feelings for Liam . . . a lot of feelings for him.”

  “But are they only sexual?” I’m the one usually giving the relationship advice, but I guess it’s me who needs it this time.

  I’m going through the thoughts lingering in my head of every encounter I’ve had with Liam, and while most of them are of pranks or sexual escapades, he was truly sweet when I was upset about Dad yesterday. Plus, watching him with Dylan . . . it kind of makes my ovaries hurt a little. “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, it’s been a week. I think you have time to make up your mind,” she says.

  “You’re right.” She is. I have time. I have the whole summer, and then I go back home, which won’t work out for either situation. So, I’m not sure what I’m worried about here.

  I take a deep breath, push every dizzying thought out of my head, and glance into the mirror to fluff my hair a little. “Ready?” Jade asks.

  I open the door, and she walks out first. “So, you’re just like loosely fooling around with Cleary all of the time?”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of fun . . . harmless, you know?”

  “I gotcha.” I wrap my arm around her shoulders, and we head back outside to a scene I’ve been fearful of.

  Liam and Sterling are in a heated conversation in the middle of a circle of people who are watching with excitement in their eyes. Oh no.

  I step in between the two of them. “Stop, what are you doing?”

  “Julia, this has nothing to do with you,” Liam says, nudging me away.

  “Don’t touch her like that,” Sterling snaps at him. “You did not go through that backdoor the other day. What’s with you and making up stories, eh?”

  “Dude, you weren’t there, and why are you getting all pissy about this? Oh, I know, it’s because of the Chinese Wax Job, right? It messed up your day yesterday.” Chinese wax job? What the hell? It’s just a Brazilian. Chinese? What kind of wax job is that? Why are they even arguing about my lady bits?

  “Um, excuse me! I’m right here,” I try to interrupt them again.

  “Julia, not now,” Sterling holds a hand up to me.

  “Don’t talk to her like that,” Liam grunts at him.

  Oh my God. Just stop, I mutter to myself.

  “Look I know you caught a good one yesterday, but those conditions were like chowder,” Liam tells Sterling.

  Chowder? I showered. I’m mortified. I think I need to leave here and never come back again. I’m backing away, hoping they don’t notice, but Liam does. “Hold up.” He grabs my wrist, keeping me beside him. But why? So he can embarrass me some more by telling everyone how I smell like chowder down there?

  “You’re the one eating it every day,” Sterling retorts.

  “I’m good at pumping, what can I say?” Liam argues.

  “Yeah until you rail bang.” Um, what? What is Sterling suggesting?

  “Liam, what is Sterling talking about?”

  “Coming from a paddlepuss, really?” Liam laughs.

  “Tell you what, brochacho, you get down on one knee tomorrow before dumping, and I’ll take your word for it.” Uh, no. No!

  “You are not proposing to me tomorrow, Liam, I’m sorry. Sterling, what the hell?” I interrupt.

  They both jerk their heads back and turn toward me. “What? Why would Liam propose to you tomorrow?”

  “You just told him to get down on one knee?” Is this some kind of sick joke?

  “What did you think we were talking about, Julia?” Sterling asks.

  “Yeah, what the hell?” Liam asks. He’s pissed at whatever I’m assuming right now, but I’m more pissed at what I just heard.

  “Well, Sterling, Liam was just nice enough to tell you I smell like chowder down there after telling you I have some weird kind of wax job that I don’t. It’s Brazilian by the way, not Chinese. Who has a Chinese wax job? I’ve never even heard of that. And really, Liam, you think it’s appropriate to talk about going into my back door? Is nothing private with you? God.”

  “Uh, Julia,” Liam mutters under his breath.

  He should feel bad. Unbelievable.

  “No, you know what, I thought you were different. I did.” No I didn’t. I was just caught up in the sex and his fucking good looks. Asshole.

  “Julia,” he says again.

  “Whatever, Liam, or should I refer to you as . . . manservant. Shouldn’t you be cleaning something?” I try to laugh, but it comes out sounding like a dying animal. “There you go, you get your wish. I quit. I’m going back to Indiana just like you originally wanted.”

  Liam looks surprised, and he’s quiet. “How nice, coming from the failure of all Mary Poppins here . . .” He’s looking at the few people still standing around us and then back at me.

  “Oh please . . . maybe I have no experience, but you’re the one with ulterior motives. I know your little secret. You don’t really clean houses, you’re just here to reconnect with your long-lost half-brother.”

  “Julia!” Liam shouts again. “First, you should know that Sterling and I were talking about the surf from the other day, not you or your ass.”

  “You were talking about wax jobs, backdoors, and chowder . . . and—”

  “Yeah, surfboards need wax. Backdoor means breaking into the peak of a wave from behind, and chowder just means there was a lot of seaweed and shit in the water.” He laughs . . . and doesn’t sound like a dying animal. He thinks this is all real funny. “You thought I was talking about you?”

  “You two are screwing?” Sterling finally pipes in. “We just went out to dinner last night! What the fuck, Julia?” Everyone is quiet for a minute before the unsuspecting bomb drop. “Wow, well, congrats on the win, Liam. You finally won one of them.” Won?

  This is like one of those awful stories where a woman walks in on the love of her life screwing their best friend, who happens to be a guy. This kind of can’t get any worse right now, and I was a game. It just makes all the sense in the world. How could I have been so stupid?

  I swallow hard, or I try to, but I feel like I might throw up. I turn to run inside, enduring the last of the comments from Liam. “Oh, and thanks a lot for reading my certified letter, which you do know is illegal, right? Don’t start thinking you know a goddamn thing about me!”

  “I’m sorry, Liam, but really? I was a game? I should have known,” I croak out as I run inside, finding Sam in the kitchen. “I—um—”

  “Hey, what’s wrong? Did something happen? Oh shit, did Daniel freaking grab your ass?” What? I was kind of thinking this moment couldn’t get any worse.

  “No, no, why would you think that? He does that? No. Sam, I’m so so sorry, but I have to quit. I never wanted to do this to you, but I can’t stay here. My dad needs me, and Liam . . . ugh, that was such a big mistake. I can’t tell you how you badly I feel right now, but I think I know the reason why you’re losing nannies by the week.”

  Sam’s face contorts with a mess of confusion and sadness. “Wait, please, don’t go. You can’t go, actually, I was going to be talking to you later tonight about something, but—I hope I didn’t overstep my boundaries already .”

  “What are you talking about? Sam, I—”

  “Liam told me about your dad’s situation and asked if we could help somehow. God, Julia, we have more money than I know what to do with sometimes, and I try to help people out when I can.” Where is she going with this?

  “Liam called your dad today. I guess he got the number from your phone. He invited him to come stay in our guest house out back until he can figure things out. Your dad was going to surprise you in the morning.”

  Listening to every word, digesting it all, the sweetness of what Liam did, and Sam . . . just as I destroy their lives. I run to the bathroom and vomit because there’s nowhere else for the acidity in my stomach to go. Why would Liam do that if I was just a game between him and Sterling?

  “Where is she?” I hear Jade frantically ask from the kitchen.

  “Bathroom
,” Sam says. The two of them are in the doorway of the bathroom as I continue to hang my head into the bowl that God knows how many people have wrecked tonight. The thought makes me feel like throwing up again. “What happened?”

  “She confused a surfing conversation for intimate details of Liam and Julia’s sexcapades.” She’s my boss, Jade. Come on. Not that she didn’t already catch us butt naked in the hallway, but I was sort of hoping she was too drunk to remember that scene.

  I rest my head on my arms that are flattened against the toilet seat. “Just, shit,” Sam says, covering her mouth.

  “Then she ratted Liam out on something I’m not getting into.” Thank God Jade just kept her mouth shut. I did not consider the fallout of what could happen if Samantha doesn’t already know Liam’s news. How could I just yell that out? I’m such an asshole. I was so mad.

  “I was just a game to them,” I mutter to Sam and Jade.

  “A game?” Sam asks.

  I shrug. “I don’t know. Sterling said something about Liam winning this one.”

  Sam rolls her eyes. “I think you should talk to Liam,” she says.

  “I was a game. It’s so clear now. He was playing pranks on me, setting me up for disaster dates with Sterling. It’s so obvious that I don’t know how I didn’t figure this out sooner.” My life is a fucking reality game show.

  “I didn’t know anything about this,” Jade says. “I’m so sorry, Jules.”

  “I’m going to go find Leelee and Dylan, and make sure those two aren’t making out behind the maple tree again.” Sam disappears from the bathroom door, and I hear the slider open and close from the kitchen.

  “Just to top this all off, I’ve ruined their party and made the biggest scene I’ve ever made.” Dylan can keep a girl at ten, and I can’t keep one at twenty-two. I can’t even get one who truly likes me. Yet, here I am, crossing off good-looking guys. They’ve probably crossed me off their list anyway.

  “Um, remember Junior year at that frat party when you threw up on that chandelier? You ‘made it rain’,” Jade kneels down beside me and rubs her hand up and down my back. “I’m pretty sure that was the biggest scene you’ve ever made.”

  “True,” I groan.

  “You want to stay at my place tonight?”

  “Yes, please.”

  She helps me up to my feet and grabs a wad of toilet paper, rinsing it under the sink. “Can you just clean the chunks off your face before you get into my car?” My shoulders drop, and I deadpan, staring into her cheery, bright eyes.

  After cleaning up my face up for a minute, I leave the bathroom and make a beeline for the front door. “Meet me in the car. I’m going to get some clothes for you upstairs,” Jade says. “Which room is yours?”

  “First one on the right after the breezeway.” I walk outside and duck into the passenger seat of my car, watching the flicker of lights glowing from behind the house. How did I blow this so badly? I’m my mother. A total, stupid fuck up.

  After a few long minutes, Jade makes her way outside and to the car, dropping down into the driver’s seat. “Sorry it took me an extra minute. I just wanted to let Cleary know I was leaving and make sure the girls were all set.”

  I rest my head on the side window, feeling the cold of the glass soothes the ache that’s beginning in my temples. I wish there was something cold for my chest too.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Jade says.

  She’s just saying that because she has to. It’s written in the best friend guide book. That may be the only thing I can write truthfully. Clearly, I don’t know shit about men, how to date, or how to keep a guy.

  “I embarrassed myself and said something I should never have said. There’s no way this is going to be okay.”

  “Is it true, though?” Jade asks. “Are Liam and Dylan brothers?”

  “Yeah. I saw some DNA results. I was snooping, I should say.”

  “Wow. I wonder if Samantha knows.”

  “No clue. Liam just found out today.”

  “Yikes.” I know.

  Being the slowest ride back to Jade’s apartment, I realize I don’t have my phone, and the fact that Dad is probably driving through the night to surprise me causes more apprehension. I’m sure he’ll call Jade if he can’t reach me, but I hope he doesn’t show up at Sam and Daniel’s house at the crack of dawn.

  A WEEK LATER

  Jade digs her toe into my shoulder, and I look up, finding her dressed and ready for the day. Crap, what time is it? “Dude, it’s been like a week. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” I mutter, wiping the drool from my chin.

  “You have to be getting uncomfortable on my floor.”

  “Well, you won’t let me snuggle with you,” I say, turning away from her.

  “And you won’t let me make out with Cleary in private here, so we’re even.” She has a point. I can’t deal with the dog-licking-privates sound. “Are you meeting with Sterling this morning?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay, that’s it.” Jade grabs me by the arms and pulls me off the ground, falling backward with me onto her bed. “Have you been eating rocks this week?”

  “Why can’t you just leave me here to rot?”

  “I don’t want anything rotting on my floor,” Jade replies.

  I twist my head and look at her with half-lidded eyes. “Shut up.”

  “Get up and get in the shower, please, for the love of God. Then, get your butt down to the beach and talk to Sterling. He’s expecting you, remember?” Through a certain third-party person who has her nose in everyone’s business, Jade, I agreed to meet Sterling this morning, but now I don’t want to.

  “I changed my mind about meeting him.”

  “No, you’re going to go hear what he has to say. I said so,” she says, sternly.

  Well then, if she said so, I suppose I have no choice but to listen to the scary version of Jade. I’ll let her think I’m going because she’s being demanding, but I do want to hear what he has to say, I think. Jade pushes me up to my feet, and I trudge over to the bathroom to take a shower because it has, in fact, been a few days. I’m bored out of my mind without a job. It’s been raining and kind of chilly almost every day this week, so it hasn’t been hard to camp out here. Plus, it makes avoidance much easier. Sam dropped my phone off earlier in the week. She told me to take a few days to reconsider coming back but asked me to let her know by the end of the day today. I guess Liam has been picking up the extra slack. Good. Extra time with his long-lost brother. That’s exactly what he needs.

  I shower and tie my hair up, refusing to look at my miserable reflection before leaving the apartment. As if I weren’t already in my own personal hell, the sun nearly burns my eyes after being inside for so many days. It’s like I have perma-hangover, but I haven’t had a thing to drink since that stupid party.

  I need coffee before breakfast and since Sterling should be at the stupid beach, he won’t be at the stupid bakery. Stupid ass. I pull up front, happy I don’t see his stupid jeep. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Walking in, I’m thrilled there’s no line, and I place my order with the happy girl who has sunshine pouring out of her eyes. Dude, you’re working at seven in the morning. What’s there to be happy about? She hands me my coffee and pastry, which I carry over to the cream and sugar stand, fixing up my large cup of caffeine.

  “I knew it,” I hear. Noooo. Why? Because that is how irony works.

  I turn around, finding Sterling with a serious look stemming from the straight line drawn across his lips. “Thought you were going to be at the beach?” I ask him.

  “You’re always late, so I figured I had time for coffee.”

  “Always?” I argue. “We went out twice.”

  “That would be considered always.”

  “What do you have to say? You can save me a trip to the beach,” I tell him.

  “I wanted to say I was sorry.”

  “Well, now you’ve said it. Feel
better?”

  “No,” he huffs. He takes my arm and drags me outside and in between the two store fronts where some tables are lined against the walls. “Look, Liam and I have been friends for a while, okay? And I’m sure you’ve noticed there aren’t a whole ton of young women who live here during the summer season, so it isn’t unusual to cross paths with the same crowd. Liam has a cold personality and comes off a little strong, so anytime we’ve been interested in the same girl, they’ve usually swayed more to my side. It wasn’t technically a game, but I know it’s always pissed him off.” I want to say it’s Liam’s fault for being a dick to so many people and that Sterling is right in this situation. “But it wasn’t like that in this situation. I really liked you.”

  “Meaning you didn’t just want a one-night stand with me to add another notch to your bedpost?”

  He looks a bit taken aback by this accusation, seeing how little I do know about him, but I sort of went off of what Liam said, even though I shouldn’t exactly be believing anything anyone has said to me. “I would have said it kind of differently, but yeah.”

  “Thanks for your honesty.” I can’t help rolling my eyes as I drown his voice out with the steaming first sip of coffee.

  “It’s true. I liked you more than that, okay?” I don’t say anything as I hold my gaze on his, waiting for the rest of his explanation because I know there’s more. “I got jealous when I saw Liam talking to you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him light up when talking to any woman around here before.” I feel relief in my chest but then it diminishes, as I realize how little any of this matters right now. I said stuff I can’t unsay, and I did things I can’t undo. Whether I have something to be mad at Liam for or not, he has a good reason to never forgive me for what I did. “Anyway, he was into you, and I couldn’t stand the thought of someone as sweet as you preferring Liam over me. I knew it was the case when we had pizza. It was like your body was there, but your mind was somewhere else.”