Exclusively Yours

by Shannon Stacey

  “Time for my question then, huh?”

  “Yes, and it’s your final shot, so make it a good one.” She braced herself for some outrageous question. Had she ever masturbated in public or some such ridiculousness. Even Joe would have to think hard to top whether or not she’d ever faked an orgasm or if she’d pretended past bedmates were him.

  But there was no smile, no dimples. “Would you stay if I asked you to?”

  Keri felt as if the air had been sucked, if not from the entire room, at least from her lungs. “I don’t…what?”

  “I’m asking you to come home and give us a chance, babe. A second chance.”

  “My home is in California,” she said in reflex, without thinking first.

  Joe sighed and leaned against the bunk bed frame. “Your job is in California. You have a residence there. But the people who love you are here.”

  People like him? If he was trying to get away with confessing his love without actually saying the words, she wouldn’t let him weasel out of it. And, honestly, even if he said those three small and scary words out loud, would it make a difference? Could it?

  “There are a ton of newspapers and magazines out of Boston, you know.”

  “And you can sit in front of your computer anywhere. If you’re so sure we have a future, why can’t you move to Los Angeles?”

  The depth of sorrow in his eyes widened the crack in her breaking heart. “I can’t be that far from my family. I love you. There, I said it. I love you, but I can’t move to California.”

  I love you, but… Keri took a deep breath, then stared down at her hands. “And I think I might be in love with you, too, but I can’t walk away from the woman I worked my ass off becoming.”

  Keri was amazed the words coming out of her mouth sounded like those of a reasonably rational adult while inside she was a teenager again, sobbing into her stuffed animals while Lisa Lisa sang about being all cried out. Even though Keri had done the leaving, she thought at the time she’d never be all cried out.

  “Well,” Joe said in a flat voice, pushing away from the bunks, “at least this time I asked you to stay.”

  “And I asked you to go with me.” In an effort to keep the impending tears at bay, she double-checked the bags waiting to be carried to her midget rental.

  “Keri.” Joe grabbed her wrist and didn’t let go until she looked him in the eye. “I don’t think we have a future. I know we do. I want to marry you and have kids and be a stay-at-home writer dad while you take Boston journalism by storm. I want to wake up beside you every day for the rest of my life.”

  The tears broke through her will and flowed over her cheeks. Being Mrs. Kowalski and so-and-so’s mom and babe didn’t sound as bad as it had almost twenty years ago. But she wasn’t sure she was done with being Keri Daniels yet.

  She hadn’t been faced with a choice this confusing and potentially devastating since the last time she’d left Joe. And the worst part was not having the slightest clue whether or not she’d made the right choice then. If not, wouldn’t she be an idiot to make the same mistake again? But she’d been pretty happy—more or less—in California, right up until she’d been tossed unceremoniously back into the bosom of the Kowalski family, so how wrong could it have been?

  Her temples started throbbing and Keri buried her face in her hands—maybe to stem the tears or maybe to block out the kicked puppy look in Joe’s eyes.

  “I’ll put your bags in the car,” he finally said, and the moment for choices seemed to have passed. “You should dry your eyes and then say goodbye to the family. We’ll be a few hours yet loading everything up.”

  Saying goodbye to the Kowalskis was excruciating, and it took every ounce of her willpower not to break down again. The hugs and kisses were hard enough, but Bobby not understanding she was going back to Los Angeles almost killed her.

  “But I told Mommy to invite you to my birthday party. It’s next week.”

  “I know sweetie, but you know I live in California. That’s all the way on the other side of the country.”

  “But you’re my friend and friends go to birthday parties!”

  She was about to dissolve in a puddle of tears when Lisa put her hand on Bobby’s shoulder. “We’ll send her an invitation and maybe she can try to make it. We’ll see.”

  We’ll see. Keri had forgotten that magic maternal phrase from her youth. The noncommittal way to get out of a situation that wasn’t going to end the way the child wanted.

  She handed Terry one of her business cards and was surprised to find herself wrapped in a fierce hug. She wrapped her arms around the woman who’d been her best friend and let a few tears through.

  “I’d be so pissed off at you right now,” Terry said in her ear, “but you’re hurting as bad as he is.”

  Keri nodded, unable to squeeze any words out of her throat. Then she broke free of Terry’s embrace and sent a final wave and a wobbly smile in the family’s general direction.

  It took her three tries to fasten her seatbelt and it was a miracle she kept the car on the road because she couldn’t see a damn thing through the tears.

  It would pass, she tried to tell herself. Just like it had before. Once she was back in her chic apartment with a spa day behind her and a promotion ahead of her, the pain would fade into slight, nostalgic longing.

  She hoped.

  Joe probably would have been okay if it had been anybody but his mother who finally came looking for him.

  He was slumped in one of the chairs, staring off into space, when the cabin door opened and closed behind him. Then he smelled the unique blend of lavender lotion and bug spray and was crumbling inside before she even stepped up behind him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.She pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Joseph.”

  “I asked her to stay,” he said, a little embarrassed by the breaking in his voice.

  “What did she say?”

  “She asked me to go with her.”

  “Then why are you still here?”

  Did she think they meant so little to him and his life he’d just pack up and move thousands of miles from them? He knew the near future was going to hurt without Keri in it, but he couldn’t even conceive of a future isolated from his family.

  But he couldn’t explain that to Ma. Even if he wanted to do, the knot in his throat had choked off his voice and all he could do was sit and shake while tears streamed down his face.

  His mother’s chin rested on his shoulder so she could press her cheek to his. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

  He nodded, relieved when she gave him a squeeze and then backed off. “I’ll go tell your brothers to start loading the machines up without you.”

  “No.” He stopped to clear his throat, swiping angrily at his face. “Gimme a few minutes and I’ll be down.”

  “We can do this, Joseph. You can pack up and sneak off if you want.”

  “I know. Not in the mood for being alone right now.”

  He wasn’t surprised when she walked around the chair to peer into his face. Her eyes were soft and warm, but her mouth had that set to it that let him know it didn’t matter how big he was or how old he was. He’d get the wooden spoon upside his head if he didn’t listen.

  “You should come home with us. Stay in your old bedroom for a while.”

  Now that would drive anybody to drink. “I don’t need a sleepover, Ma. And I don’t need kid gloves. I’d just rather move on with things than sit here and sulk.”

  She kissed his cheek, unmindful of the wetness lingering there. “Fine. I’ll tell your brothers you’ll be over in a few minutes to help them.”

  When he finally got his shit together and walked down to help the four-wheelers onto the trailers, everybody acted more or less normally. As normal as Kowalskis got on leaving day, anyway.

  They drove four-wheelers onto trailers, tying them down with ratchet straps, and made sure all the gear was back in the bins. They risked hernias to get the massive grill loaded and spent twe
nty minutes looking for Brian’s left shoe. While the women packed the RVs, the guys took down tarps and folded up awnings.

  Finally the Kowalski debris was stowed or tossed away and there was nothing left to do but leave behind the place Joe had just spent the happiest two weeks of his life.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Keri rode the elevator up to the top floor of the Spotlight Magazine offices, staring at her reflection in the mirrored walls.

  She looked like crap. Oh, she’d tried. With her delicious assortment of beauty essentials back at her disposal, she’d put up a good fight. But when a woman tossed and turned half the night before crying herself to sleep, she looked like crap the next day. It was a law of nature.Only fifteen minutes had passed between emailing the Joseph Kowalski piece to Tina and the summons to the top floor, which didn’t bode well for her promotion. The elevator chimed—it was much too classy to merely ding—and the doors swished open.

  Taking a deep breath, Keri stepped out and took a right, heading into the mouth of hell. Her heels clicked on the polished marble floor in a steady rhythm, though she faltered a little when Tina’s executive assistant wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  “Go in, Ms. Daniels. She’s waiting for you.”

  And that she was. Perched on the edge of her luxurious leather chair, tension emanating from her like a toxic cloud. Keri closed the door behind her. There wasn’t much she could do about the puffy eyes, but she could try not to look as though her stomach was tumbling like a Laundromat dryer.

  Tina held up what looked like a hard copy of the interview. “You spent two weeks with the man and all you give me is this Stock Interview 101 shit?”

  “You told me to get an exclusive interview with Joseph Kowalski. You got one.”

  Tina threw the pages in her direction, but they fluttered harmlessly to the ground. She must have been really pissed if she printed the article just to throw it in her face. “Do you honestly think anybody gives a flying fuck that he puts mayonnaise on his hot dogs?”

  “A lot of people find that disgusting. And did you skip right over his struggle to write alcohol-free?”

  Tina leaned back in her chair and ran her tongue over freshly-whitened teeth. “I’ve read FBI most wanted posters with more personal dirt than you handed me. I want to know who he sleeps with, whose picture’s in his wallet. What laws he’s breaking. Boxers or briefs.”

  That would be Keri and Keri again. The only thing being broken was her heart. And boxer briefs. “That’s all he approved.”

  “You know those sharks in the legal department we feed fresh interns once a week? That’s why we pay them the big bucks.” Tina sat upright again, her glare trying to burn a hole through Keri. “And speaking of the big bucks, you have two hours. Go sit in that cushy office that’s just one of the many perks I choose to give you, think back over the last two weeks and write me shit I can use. If you don’t have the balls for this job anymore, Daniels, then get the fuck out of my building.”

  Two minutes later, Keri tried to slam the door to said cushy office, but it caught on the plush, ivory carpet and stopped an inch short. She was halfway to her desk and didn’t bother going back to close it.

  Tina thought she didn’t have the balls for the job anymore? That was bullshit, plain and simple. Keri slapped her mouse to wake her computer up and pulled out the keyboard drawer.

  She didn’t even have to close her eyes for the Kowalski family dramas to replay in her mind. Terry’s marital problems and Stephanie’s tears. Mike’s fist denting the side of his RV. Danny’s writing aspirations. The story of Joe’s relationship with Lauren. Kevin was a goldmine of violence, sex and politics. She’d seen the family at their best and at their worst.

  Swiping the tears from her eyes so she could see the screen, Keri opened a new document file and started to type.

  Joe really wanted a beer. Just one.

  The problem with wanting one beer, of course, was that they came most readily in packs of six and he wasn’t likely to pour the other five down the drain. That would be wasteful.It was the ticking of the clock getting to him. Or it would be if his clocks weren’t all digital.

  He’d told himself he’d wait thirty-four hours before he called her. He’d started with twenty-four, but then realized that would be smack dab in the middle of her first morning back at work. Another twelve tacked on made it probably too late to call, so he’d gone with thirty-four.

  Seemed very logical at the time. Now it seemed like some stupid, random number that did nothing but fuck with his head.

  So here he was at two o’clock in the afternoon of his first full day back at home and he’d spent the last who knew how many hours staring out the window and wanting a beer.

  He hadn’t slept for shit. He missed Keri’s body next to him. He missed her warmth. Even her snoring. His nerves were shot and his mood was as sour as the milk he’d forgotten to throw away before heading north.

  A cold, foaming brewski would take the edge off. Just one.

  The phone rang and he picked it up without looking at the caller ID because if it wasn’t Keri he wouldn’t answer it and then he’d continue to sit there and think about beer. “Hello?”

  “Joseph,” his mother said, “it’s your mother.”

  As if it was necessary to tell him that despite her being the only person on the planet who called him Joseph on a regular basis.

  “If you’re working, I can call back later, but I was hoping you’d—”

  “I want a beer, Ma.”

  That rendered her speechless for a couple of seconds but, as was her way, she rallied quickly. “Have you had one?”

  “No. But I’ve been thinking about it. A lot.”

  “Well, you’re not going to have one. You’re going to write down the list of things we need at the hardware store and then, after you stop and pick them up, you’re going to come over here and help your father change the garbage disposal thing in the sink.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “My youngest grandson.”

  Joe laughed and rummaged around for a pen on his desk. He really needed to declutter it. Again. “Give me the list, Ma.”

  Two hours later, Ma had a new garbage disposal unit and it still wasn’t time to call Keri. But he’d decided against having a beer.

  “We should have stretched this out a little longer,” Pop said. “God only knows what your mother’s going to come up with for us to do now.”

  “I was thinking about taking a ride down to see Kevin.”

  “Your brother owns a bar. You think anybody in this family will have a moment’s peace if your mother finds out you went to a bar?”

  “I’m at Jasper’s all the time.” The place had been called Jasper’s Bar Grille when Kevin bought it and, rather than pay for a new sign, Jasper’s it had remained.

  “Not today.”

  Joe sighed. “I’ll probably go home and try to call Keri.”

  “You got your cell. Call her from here and if it don’t go well, we’ll find something else to do around here.” Pop walked away to give him some privacy.

  He got her voicemail. “Hi, babe. It’s me. Joe. I was just…checking to make sure you got home okay. So…gimme a call, okay?”

  He’d helped his Pop do the maintenance on the lawn tractor and put in a few hours cleaning the garage before he finally gave up on her and crashed in his old room—in the twin sized bed with the brown comforter.

  Evan was already seated at a back corner table when Terry walked into the restaurant, three nights after she got home, and she had to admit watching him watch her walk across the room made her feel pretty damn special. He only had eyes for her, as the saying went, and, for the first time in a very long time, she appreciated the old sappy lyrics.

  He even stood as she reached the table and when he handed her a single pink rose she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Sure, it was sweet, but a romantic gesture on one date wasn’t enough to save a floundering marriage. It was the day-to-day crap
they were drowning in.She did crack a smile, though, when he pulled her chair out for her. Corny, but he was trying. “Thank you.”

  “Steph get off to her sleepover okay?”

  “There was some matinee they wanted to see, I guess, so I dropped her off earlier this afternoon.”

  Turning his water glass around in his hands, he gave her a sheepish smile. “Sorry. We’re supposed to talk about something besides parent stuff.”

  “There’s no sense in pretending to be people we’re not.” She flipped open the menu, trying not to look for the obvious comfort foods. She’d struggled enough keeping the weight off during the recent months of stress and loneliness. “If we can’t be together for an hour without acting, there’s no point in even being here.”

  “I don’t think not talking about our daughter or our work or whatever is pretending to be somebody we’re not. We should have been having a night out alone for years, with no worrying about anything but us.”

  She took a sip of water. “So what are we going to talk about, then? No Steph and no work doesn’t leave a wide open field.”

  “Did you know if you wash your jeans with tissues left in the pockets, you never see them coming out of the washer, but it takes three hours to pick all the shredded tissue off after the dryer cycle?”

  The perplexed look on his face made her laugh loudly enough to make the hostess look in her direction. “You didn’t know that?”

  “I don’t remember ever doing laundry before in my life.”

  It would have been easy to point out it was his own damn fault he had to do it now, but ruining the mood before they’d even gotten their drinks probably wouldn’t be a good thing. “You only pick shredded tissues off your clothes a few times before you start remembering to check the pockets before you wash them.”

  He leaned forward suddenly, amusement fading into seriousness as he rested his elbows on the table. “I want to come home, Theresa.”

  The time it took for her to register the sudden change in his tone was just long enough to allow her to resist sliding to the floor in a sobbing puddle of relief. Even as she drew in what seemed like her first full breath in three months, she knew she couldn’t make it that easy for him.