by Gina LaManna
“Don’t worry,” Clay said, drawing me back to reality. “We’ll figure this out, Lacey. You’re doing a great job. You can’t predict everything, okay? Tomorrow night will go just fine.”
I swallowed, thinking I should give Anthony a call and get his advice, just to be on the safe side. “I sure hope so.”
CHAPTER 19
By the time we got home, I was feeling a bit better. Mack, Meg, and Clay were champs – they’d spent most of the ride telling me stories of times when their jobs had gone utterly, completely wrong. When I stepped into Lizabeth’s garage, I was smiling.
We’d learned something. We’d take extra precautions for tomorrow night. Nobody had gotten hurt, and the cleaning crew had whipped the restroom into decent shape. It would all work out okay. Mack would meet with Lizabeth’s other team to give them an update, and Clay would look deeper into Amanda Stork, Janie Silvers, and anyone else who might have it out for Lizabeth.
“I’m gonna go take a bath,” Meg said. “This house has got the fanciest bubbles I’ve ever seen. I could eat them right up.”
“Don’t eat the soap, Meg,” I cautioned. “It’s bad for your intestines.”
“Really?”
I nodded.
“Fine, I’ll settle for sniffing it, then, I suppose. What are you gonna do now?”
“I have a meeting with Lizabeth,” I said, wishing I could cancel the dress fitting. But it’d be good to talk to her, and I did need something to wear. “She should be here anytime. I’m going to take a quick shower first, then see her up in my room. If you’re still awake after, I’ll stop by. If not, I’ll see you in the morning.”
“You got it. I might take two baths, and have a snack afterwards. Make that two snacks.” She grinned. “I like this place.”
“Me too.” My gaze fell to my hands. “Hey, I owe you a thank you. A serious, non-joking one.”
“For what?” Meg looked my way.
“Well, for rescuing me, I suppose,” I said. “If you hadn’t run into the bathroom at that exact moment, I would’ve been jumping out the window and into the van.”
“It’s a good thing that didn’t happen,” Meg said. “Or else Anthony’s foot would’ve been lodged someplace impolite to talk about. I was just doing my job, girlfriend.”
“It means a lot to me that you came out here on a whim. What with the holidays and all.”
“Who else would I spend the holidays with, you silly thing?” Meg clasped a hand on my shoulder. “I’m just glad we’ll be home on Christmas Eve, just in time for Santa Claus to find us. Speaking of, did you mail those letters to the North Pole?”
“Yes,” I lied, reminding myself that I needed to go shopping, stat. Maybe one of my family members back home could help – Nora, or even Vivian. I filed it on my mental To-Do list along with providing successful security for a dog and finding Anthony the perfect gift. “I’m sure Santa’s preparing your stash now. We’ll be back by Christmas Eve, plenty of time to wake up Christmas morning and open presents like we always do.”
“I asked for a double sled,” Meg whispered, leaning in. “Remember that one time, back when we were little? The first snow of the year?”
I nodded, the memories as fresh as if they’d happened yesterday. Meg and I had never had enough money for a real sled, but on the first snow of every year, we’d always cut up the old liquor cartons outside of TANGO, and then rush outside to fly down the hill next to the highway. Looking back, it might’ve been a bit dangerous to ride a hill so close to the highway, but we didn’t have a lot of options; my mom allowed us a one block “wandering” radius on our own, and that was the only slope worth mentioning on the block.
“Why did we ever think the first snow was so important?” Meg shook her head. “If we were smarter, we would’ve just waited until we had at least a foot of the stuff. In those first flurries, our sleds never went anywhere. I’m tellin’ you, chickie, we were nuts back then.”
“Has anything changed?” I laughed.
Meg grinned. “At least this year, we’ve got enough snow. Remember that one Halloween when we got some flakes? What were we, ten at the time?”
“Yeah, except none of the snow stuck to the ground, so if I remember right, you made me pull you down a dirt hill. Do you remember my mom’s face when we showed up outside covered in mud? We had to take three showers that night.”
“She made us get undressed before we even came inside,” Meg said, tears leaking from her eyes at the memory. “Now that I think about it, that might’ve been my very first streaking experience. She made us shed those muddy pants right on the front steps.”
“Well, you did learn from the best,” I said. “Not everyone learns how to strip from the star of TANGO.”
“No wonder I’m so good at it now,” Meg said, as we lapsed into a pleasant, nostalgic silence. “I always miss her during the holidays.”
“Me too.” My voice softened as I looked towards my toes. “I try not to think about it too much. Christmas is the hardest. Christmas and birthdays. She made them both so magical.”
“You’re the same, you know?” Meg said, squeezing my shoulder. “And that’s a compliment. But anyway, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
“It’s okay.” I forced a smile. “Getting the call for this job worked out for the best. I like to stay busy during the holiday season, and these last few days, I’ve hardly had time to focus on anything but Lizabeth.”
“It’s not wrong to remember the good times,” Meg said, her eyes gentle. “It’s not wrong to feel sad.”
I swallowed. Then I nodded. When I couldn’t muster the vocal cords to speak, I leaned into my friend, letting my head rest on her shoulder, her arms clasping behind my back.
“We’ll always have each other,” Meg said. “You know that, right?”
I sniffed against her shirt. “Yes.”
“And you have Nora, Carlos, Anthony…you have lots of family members who love you.”
“They love you too, you know,” I spoke into her shoulder. “Even Carlos.”
Meg patted my head. “I know. He just doesn’t know how to show it.”
“Exactly.”
“Everyone loves me,” Meg said. “I’m confident in myself. And if they don’t, that’s okay, too. Know why that is?”
I shook my head, and Meg put both her hands on my arms, pushing me back until she met my gaze. “Because I know you love me. You do a good job showing it, and that’s all I need. So whenever you feel lonely, or whenever you think you’re doing a crappy job at life, you have to stop and remember that without you, I’d be alone, and I’d be sad, and I’d be miserable. So even on your worst of days, you’re making someone’s life better. And that counts for a helluva lot more than you getting every detail of some job perfect. You got it?”
My eyes smarted. “How did I get so lucky to have a friend like you?”
“Well, the way I look at it, you take the good with the bad,” Meg said, offering a sly smile and a shrug. “I got a lot of…I don’t want to say bad, but…dangerous qualities might be the appropriate word. So when I got someone like you who puts up with me at my worst, then you sure as hell deserve the best I can give, too. And I think the badder someone can be, the gooder they can be, too.”
“Your grammar is so wrong, I don’t even know where to start fixing it,” I said, swiping at my cheeks as I laughed. “Ahh, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“See?” Meg smiled. “My grammar might be shit, but check out this hug.”
With that, she opened her arms wide and clasped me to her chest in the most welcoming hug I’d ever experienced. And some time later when she let go, I had no doubt in my mind that I had the best friend in the world. One who made me feel loved, needed, and appreciated, and one who…
“Stop that, Meg!” I leapt away from her. “Don’t pinch my butt!”
“Well, we had to end the hug somehow, and I didn’t wanna make things awkward,
” she said. “Wanted to go out on a good note, make you smile. Are you okay, chickadee? I’m thinking of taking a shower now.”
“Go ahead.” I grinned. “I have a meeting with Lizabeth. And Meg, thanks for everything.”
“Just make sure Santa sees this stuff, too, all right?” She looked up towards the ceiling, as if the fat guy in the red suit might be watching. “Let’s keep that little bomb incident between you and me.” Meg winked. “For most guys, I’d prefer to find my name on the naughty list, but not this one. For Santa Claus, I want to be on the nice list.”
“I’ll put in a special word,” I said, walking down the hall to my room. “Double sled it is.”
CHAPTER 20
I crawled under my covers. I had twenty minutes to kill before Lizabeth arrived, and I intended to make the most of it.
“Hey you,” I said, speaking softly into the phone. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” Anthony said, his soothing tone familiar and comforting. “More importantly, how are you?”
The simple question was so loaded I didn’t know where to get started. So I went with the simplest answer. “I’m okay,” I said. “I’m under the covers right now, and I taped a pillow over the intercom, so I think we should be safe to talk tonight.”
“Very high tech. Resourceful, as always.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” I smiled into my pillow. “So, can you tell me what you’ve been working on, yet?”
Anthony exhaled. “I’m almost done. I might catch a slightly earlier flight out tomorrow, hit the end of your event.” He paused. “I can’t wait to see you.”
“Me neither. How sappy are we? It’s been hardly a day and I sound like I’m pining for you over here.”
“I wouldn’t call it sappy,” Anthony said. “I like it.”
“Well, if it’s not sappy, then what would you call it?”
“I’d call it sweet.”
I pounded my head into the pillow. Mack’s advice rushed back from earlier today, the L-word business hovering just on the perimeter of my consciousness. But even if I did scrounge up the courage to say it first, it still wasn’t something I wanted to announce over the phone. That was the sort of stuff to say in person.
“Are you okay? What is that thumping noise?” Anthony asked.
I stopped trying to give myself a concussion with a bag of feathers. “Nothing. You must be hearing things. But more importantly…when can you tell me about your project?”
“It’s not something I want to tell you,” Anthony said. “It’s something I want to show you.”
Mental images of the diamond on the bracelet flashed through my brain. And instead of asking probing questions that could lead to uncomfortable topics, I did what any sane person would do; I changed the subject to a safer one. “A bomb went off today.”
“What?”
I thumped my head a few more times. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to drop the…uh, bomb on you like that.”
“Is there a good transition to tell me a bomb exploded?”
“As a matter of fact, I haven’t found one yet. And I’m getting up there with my experience level, so I’m going to venture a guess and say no.” I scrunched up my face. I waited a beat to see if Anthony would speak, but he didn’t. “And I suppose you want to know the full story?”
“That’d be nice.”
“You probably wouldn’t be happy if I said it’s nothing to worry about?”
“If you don’t start talking, I’m going to hang up and call Clay or Meg.”
“Because you’ve threatened them?” I flipped over and lay on my back. “You didn’t have to threaten them, Anthony. They would’ve taken care of me without the looming fear of your foot up their private places.”
“Don’t make this conversation about me.”
“But—”
“I’ll threaten anyone I have to if it helps me feel a little better about you being three thousand miles away from me, poking around into a dangerous situation.” Anthony’s voice grew louder. “I can hardly watch out for you when you’re next to me. How do you expect me to feel when you go traipsing across the country, putting yourself in harm’s way?”
“Anthony, I didn’t know. Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because I’m trying my best to let you have your freedom, Lacey. I know all about the girl I fell for, and I know she’s independent. I know she doesn’t listen to a damn thing I say. Trying to control you, or telling you not to do something would only give fuel to your fire, and push you away.” Anthony hesitated. “I don’t want to do that. How do I keep you safe, but let you have your freedom? Can you tell me that?”
I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Anthony.”
“When we first started dating, Meg sat me down.” Anthony paused. “She made me promise not to say anything about it, so I’ll keep this very brief. But one of the things she told me that day, while she held a gun to my head—”
“Hold on, Meg held a gun to your head?”
“Don’t say anything to her about it,” Anthony said. “She did it out of love. For you.”
“That’s a strange way to show love,” I said, at the same time thinking that very few of my relationships at the moment could qualify as normal. “How did she pull one on you, by the way? No offense to Meg, but I think you’re quicker on the draw.”
“That’s why I don’t trust people,” Anthony grumbled. “I let my guard down one time, thinking she was honestly emotional. She was crying, Lacey. Crying.”
“Meg? Crying?”
“Well, it turned out to be an act.” I could picture Anthony shifting uncomfortably as he spoke. “I made a move to pat her shoulder, and the next thing I knew she had a gun to my temple.”
“Wow.”
“That’s not the point. The point is that she warned me, Lacey. She warned me that if I were to try and stifle you, to put your spirit under wraps and make you all domesticated, that you’d not only be miserable, but she’d cut off a body part that I’d prefer not to lose.” Anthony made a tsking sound. “And the scary thing is that I believe her. When it comes to your and Meg’s friendship, she’ll fight to protect it, I don’t doubt that for a second.”
Despite the not-particularly-lovely images of Meg terrorizing Anthony, I couldn’t help the grateful sensation blooming in my chest. She was the reason I only had one best friend. I only needed one. In fact, I could only handle one, when that best friend came in a package as feisty as Meg. “That’s sweet…I suppose?”
“I would’ve used a different phrase, but I’m no wordsmith.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because it’s really hard to let you out of my sight,” Anthony said. “I care about you, Lace. It used to be humorous, cute even, how much trouble you got yourself into. But I don’t know how much I can handle of my girlfriend calling me up, chatting the night away about normal things, and then all of a sudden you pepper explosions into the conversation. Literally, a bomb.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it.
“Stop apologizing,” Anthony said, his tone resigned. “I knew what I was getting into when I asked you to be my girlfriend. But something’s changed. I can’t laugh anymore when I hear you were on the verge of getting blown up.”
“What’s changed?” My heart clutched. “Do you not want to be with me anymore?”
As soon as I said the words, I realized how much I didn’t want my worst fears to come true. The thought was a visceral pain streaking through my body, clamping down on my stomach, constricting my lungs.
“Anthony,” I said. “Is that it?”
He was quiet for a moment. “No.”
I breathed easier, but not by much.
“It’s the opposite,” he continued. “I want a long life with you. I want you next to me, always. I want you to come home to me, Lacey, to fall asleep with me at night. To wake up with me in the morning. I hate that you’re working by yourself, alone in that bed. That I can’t come to you now, tell
you everything will be okay. That I can’t find the bastard who set off a bomb near you, and give him a…” He coughed. “A stern talking to.”
I didn’t bother to tell him that the “bastard” happened to be Meg, but there’d be time for clarifications later.
“I want that too,” I whispered. “I thought I might scare you away if I told you that.”
“Scare me away?” Anthony laughed, though it was a wry one, not filled with his normal humor. “I thought I might have just pushed you away, dumping that all on you at once.”
“No, you didn’t, Anthony.” I curled into a ball, suddenly feeling very small, very alone in the bed. “I miss you. I wish you were here.”
“Can we make a deal?”
“What sort of deal?”
“Next time you’re traveling for business, I’m coming with you,” Anthony said. “No matter what I have on my plate.”
“And if you can’t come, I’ll cancel it,” I said. “I don’t need the money that bad.”
Anthony’s silence stretched long. “Are you telling me you took the job because of the money?”
“Not entirely,” I hedged. “A little bit the money, a little bit the challenge, a little bit the pride. I like the idea of having my own business, Anthony. I rely on Carlos for every little scrap right now, and that’s hard for me. I don’t like owing people, being indebted to them, counting on them. My mom took care of herself, and she taught me to do the same.”
“You can count on me,” Anthony said, his voice but a whisper. “Your mom didn’t have someone to lean on, but I bet she’d want differently for you. I have enough money to retire with you tomorrow, Lacey. Please don’t worry about that.”
“But I like—”
