by Jade Kerrion
Marisa could feel the warmth drain from her cheeks. “And then I walked by, and Michael gave me Daisy, as if he had gotten her for me.”
Gloria nodded. “He acted on the spur of the moment. He didn’t think it through or he would have realized how wrong it was. He did realize how wrong it was later, but he was in love with you too and he saw how the gift of Daisy sealed your budding relationship. He was convinced you would soon come to love him as much as you loved Nicholas, if only he had a chance—and Daisy gave him that chance.”
“But it was Nicky’s dog.” Nicky’s gift to me.
“And Michael stole it.” Gloria looked stricken. “That night before the wedding, Michael was convinced he had stolen you too, that if Nicholas had given Daisy to you, Nicholas would have been the one waiting for you at the end of the aisle instead.”
“Why didn’t Nicky tell me?”
“Michael said Nicholas insisted he tell you the truth, but Michael shut him out, and monopolized your time so that you, not intentionally, shut Nicholas out too.”
Marisa’s breath shuddered out of her. She remembered the early days of their relationship when they had spent practically every waking moment together. All this time, she had thought it was merely the youthful flush of an infatuation, the eager hunger to spend every minute in each other’s company. She had never imagined for an instant that Michael had done so deliberately, to freeze Nicky out of her life. “I don’t understand. Michael and Nicky were friends. Why would he do that to Nicky?”
Gloria shrugged. “Michael loved you. He wanted you, and he didn’t think he could compete with Nicholas fair and square. He knew you held Nicholas’s heart, and I think he was surprised when Nicholas walked away without putting up much of a fight. But Nicholas stayed away, and the guilt in Michael kept growing. On the night before the wedding, he finally realized he permanently broke his friendship with Nicholas the day he stole the dog, and that his friend would never forgive him, and never come back.”
“And he didn’t. Nicky didn’t even come back for Michael’s funeral.”
“But in a way, he did. He came by our house to see us the day before the funeral.”
“He what?”
“He stopped by for only a few minutes to offer his condolences and asked if you and Eva were financially secure. I told him that things were tight, but we would manage. Still, he insisted on helping.”
“How?”
Gloria looked flustered. “The life insurance that we said we’d purchased for Michael…there wasn’t any insurance.”
“Wait, so the money came from Nicky?” Marisa’s mind reeled. “The money you gave me to buy my partnership in the clinic came from Nicky?”
“Yes, that, as well as gifts on your birthdays and at Christmases. He sent money to us, and told us to buy gifts for you and Eva.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Nicholas never wanted you to know.”
“But why not?”
“He said he didn’t want to complicate the gift, that it didn’t matter who it was from as long as you were provided for. As long as you were happy,” Gloria said.
Marisa drew a deep breath. “Like Daisy.”
Gloria nodded. “He loves you, Marisa, but I think you already know that. I just don’t think you knew how much.”
No, she had never realized how much a man could love a woman, and for how long without any evidence that it was reciprocated.
The oven timer buzzed; the green bean casserole and mashed potatoes were ready.
“Is Nicholas coming tonight?” Gloria asked as she helped Marisa set the table.
“He didn’t want to.”
Gloria hummed softly. Her gaze remained lowered as she arranged forks and knives.
Marisa knew a stalling tactic when she saw it. “What is it?”
“He’s at the cemetery.”
“What?”
“We drove by before coming here. We just wanted to stop by Michael’s grave for a few minutes, bring him some flowers, but we saw Nicholas’s parents’ car there—except that his parents are out of town for Christmas.”
Marisa nodded.
“And that’s when we saw him. Sitting and leaning back against Michael’s headstone, just hanging out, like two buddies sharing a six-pack.”
“I never thought…I have to see it for myself.”
Gloria nodded. “Things are all set up here; we’re fine for a bit without you. See if you can bring Nicholas back to the party. He’s welcome here, and he should know it.”
Rain had started falling by the time Marisa arrived at the cemetery, and the sky was darkening to night. She parked her car near the entrance and walked through the familiar paths trodden into the grass. She was several feet away from Michael’s grave when Nicky’s voice carried through the still night. “You were a bastard, Mike, but I was one, too. I stayed angry for a day…an hour…longer than I should have, and I came back too late for words to make any difference.”
Marisa ducked low to the ground and crept closer, hugging the shadows and the trees that formed a perimeter around the grave.
Nicky continued in a casual tone, apparently content to carry on a one-way conversation with his dead friend. “Lacey…Daisy was hit in a car accident two days ago, but she’s going to be okay. Maybe it’ll finally break her of her traffic-surfing habit. She may have been the black streak that ran across the road the day I crashed my bike—Thanksgiving.” Nicky chuckled, the sound low and without humor. “If only you knew how much has happened since that day when I came out here to hang out with you.”
Marisa’s eyes widened. Nicky had been out here at Thanksgiving?
“My back is better. Not quite all there but enough to ease back into classes at ABT, so I’ll be headed back to New York soon.” He sighed. “I know I promised I’d look out for Marisa and Eva. They’re both fine, by the way. Marisa’s doing a wonderful job raising Eva. You’d be proud of her. Eva’s a great kid—smart, curious, lots of attitude.”
Sound rustled, and Marisa peeked out to see Nicky pull out a small yogurt carton from his backpack. She stifled a chuckle. Of course Nicky would consume yogurt instead of a calorie-laden six-pack of beer. For several moments, Nicky ate in silence, apparently in no rush to go anywhere.
Marisa’s chest ached. Nicky had chosen to eat yogurt alone at Michael’s grave instead join a Christmas party filled with Michael’s family and friends.
A week before Christmas, he had nowhere else to be.
“Marisa and Eva will be all right,” Nicky continued. “I’ll keep an eye on things. Your parents know to call me if anything comes up. Lacey…Daisy’s going to be all right, too. I promise.” Nicky tossed his empty yogurt carton into his backpack and pulled out another. He peeled the cover off and dug his spoon into the yogurt. “Anyway, Marisa’s having a Christmas party tonight. I’m here because I figured you might want someone keeping you company while your friends and family are all at her place. I’m not bad company…except for Eva and Marisa.” His breath shuddered out in a sigh. “She invited me to the party, but she doesn’t want me there. She doesn’t approve of the people I chose to include in my life.”
Sheridan. He thinks I despise him for it.
But of course he would. They had not spoken about it since that night when he walked out of her house. What else was he supposed to think?
Nicky’s voice resonated with quiet pain. “I know it was crazy, but I just needed something for myself, someone for when the nights got too lonely.”
And he had been lonely for eight years, finding intermittent sexual release, if not emotional satisfaction, in the arms of an escort he had rescued from a life of a streetwalker—an escort who looked like the woman he had loved and lost to a man he had considered a friend.
Marisa swallowed hard through the lump of tears clogging her throat. How could she hate Sheridan? Sheridan had been around for Nicky when she hadn’t.
Nicky continued so quietly she had to strain to hear his words. “I
f I didn’t think too hard, didn’t dig too deep, it was okay. I was okay. Writing checks, sending money was easy. But coming home, being here, near her, I stopped being okay.” His breath whispered out of him in a sigh. “Being okay was too hard when she reminded me, with every breath, why I loved her so much—why I still love her so much. That’s why I have to leave. I have to get back to what’s waiting for me. It’s not much, but at least it’s mine for the night, if I pay for it.” His chuckle was ironic.
She crept away as silently as she had arrived. She could not bring herself to interrupt Nicky’s conversation with Michael. The two men needed time together; they needed time to rebuild their friendship.
Besides, she had heard enough to break her heart.
Chapter 11
The Christmas party lasted late into the night, the festivities and music carrying through the neighborhood until the neighbors came over to join the party. When Marisa closed the door on her final departing guest, it was early the next morning. Eva had been fast asleep for several hours, and Marisa hurried through the most critical clean up without interruptions. Exhausted, she collapsed into bed.
Mere minutes must have passed before Eva roused her by tugging on the bedcovers. Blearily, Marisa stared at the clock on the far wall. She had been asleep for four hours, but goodness, she was tired.
“Doggy!” Eva insisted.
“You want to see Daisy?”
Eva nodded.
“We’ll go see Daisy later, when Mommy’s fully awake, all right? Can you go back to sleep for another four hours?”
Eva pointed imperiously at the bedroom door.
Marisa sighed and flung the covers aside. So much for sleeping in.
She gave Eva whipped cream and strawberries for breakfast, served over waffles drizzled with maple syrup. After breakfast, Eva was content to play in the yard, giving Marisa time to finish picking up after the party.
When it was done, when the house was presentable once more, there was no escaping the inevitable drifting of her thoughts to Nicky.
“I’m sorry,” sounded too trite for all the misunderstandings, mostly hers, compounded by his attempts to keep her from finding out—
The truth.
Why hadn’t Nicky just come out with the truth?
A stray memory of Nicky flickered through her mind—of the relief in his eyes when she told him she had been happy with Michael.
If she hadn’t been happy, if Michael had not treated her well, Nicky would have stepped in.
But she had been happy, so Nicky had kept his distance and allowed her to keep her happiness.
But I’m not happy now. Not anymore. Not when she finally realized how much love had always been waiting for her.
Eva toddled in to the kitchen. “Doggy!”
“All right. Let’s get your shoes on. We’ll go see Daisy.”
The hunt for Eva’s shoes took the better part of fifteen minutes. Marisa finally found one in the hallway bathroom and the other beneath Eva’s bed. They arrived at the vet’s clinic shortly before noon, and as Marisa and Eva walked up to the clinic, the door swung open and Nicky stepped out.
Marisa gaped at him. Eva grinned and flung her arms around his legs. “Nicky.”
He bent and kissed her hair. “How are you, Eva?”
“Doggy.”
“Your doggy is inside. The vet is taking good care of her.”
Eva grinned, let go of Nicky’s legs, and ran into the clinic.
Marisa fiddled with the sling of her handbag against her shoulder. “Did you come to see Daisy?”
“Yes. She’s doing well.”
“Great.” She pressed her lips together. The entrance of the vet’s clinic was not the place for the heart-to-heart conversation she needed with Nicky. Her gaze followed Eva into the clinic. “I should keep up with her.”
Nicky nodded. “Goodbye,” he said with a smile that did not reach his eyes. He held the door open until she stepped past him, before allowing it to swing close.
“Oh, wait.” Marisa spun around. If he could wait for a few minutes while she and Eva visited Daisy, perhaps they could get lunch together and talk about things that should have been said eight years earlier.
But she saw Nicky enter a waiting cab, and it quickly vanished around the corner.
No matter. She could call him when she and Eva were done with their visit with Daisy.
Daisy was sitting upright in a large crate, and she wobbled to her feet when Eva and Marisa approached.
“Should she be standing?” Marisa asked, concerned.
“Not really, but it’s hard to keep a stubborn dog down,” Robert said. “The bandages and cast keep the bones from moving around while they heal.”
“And she’s doing okay?”
“With care and therapy, she’s going to be fine. She’s a trooper, and she’s soaking up all the attention.” Robert grinned.
“Yes, I saw Nicky on the way out.”
“That’s right. He came by to say goodbye.”
Marisa stiffened. “Goodbye?”
Robert gave her a wary look. “He said he was heading back to New York City.”
The cab! If he were just visiting Daisy, he would have driven his parents’ car on the short errand, but the cab had been waiting to take him back to Manhattan.
The sharp ache in her chest caught her off guard. Nicky had come to say goodbye to Daisy, but he had not bothered to say goodbye to her and Eva. She would not even have known if she had not accidentally run into him at the veterinarian clinic.
The issue wasn’t his love.
I’ve hurt him so badly that he doesn’t even believe I’d care if he left.
She squeezed her eyes shut to hold back the tears. What on Earth am I going to do now?
Nicky returned to a thin layer of dust spread over his studio apartment in a residential complex two blocks from the American Ballet Theatre. The sparsely furnished space had already taken on an unlived-in feel during the three weeks of his absence. The food in his refrigerator had spoiled or expired. His mailbox was stuffed with envelopes and catalogs.
Settling back into his life kept him occupied for the better part of the next hour, but after he had tossed out the food, changed and laundered his sheets, wiped down the surfaces, and vacuumed the rugs, he was at a loss for what to do.
In spite of the frenetic activity of New York City outside his door, he felt isolated and alone. Closing his eyes, he gently massaged at the knots along his shoulder blade. How different it had been when Marisa had touched him. She knew how to coax those stubborn muscles into relaxed submission.
It’s all in the past.
It was time to start thinking about his future.
He hit the first number on speed dial and reached Sheridan’s answering service. “I’d like to speak to her please, if she’s available.”
“For you, Nicholas, always,” the sultry voice receptionist said.
Nicky waited through the ringing tone as the receptionist transferred the call. Moments later, Sheridan’s voice—happy and lilting—answered. “Hello, Nicholas. I’m so glad to hear from you. How have you been?”
“Recovering, but I’m back in New York now, and I was wondering if you’d like to meet for dinner.”
“The room service at the Millennial Hotel is excellent.”
Nicky drew a deep breath. “I thought we might go out to a restaurant.”
A stunned silence followed.
“Sheridan, are you there?” Nicky asked.
“You want to go out in public with me? You realize there will be lots of attention on you, especially now that you’re back in New York and on the mend. Can you afford the publicity?”
“I date who I choose.”
“Yes, but I’m not a typical date.”
“I’d like you to be.”
The silence that followed lasted even longer. “What are you saying?”
“That I’m finally ready to move on. I’m ready for a real relationship. I don’t know if w
e can work it out, given our history, but I like you, and I’d like to try, if you’re willing.”
“It…will be complicated.”
“I know, but we can start with dinner and take it from there.”
“Okay,” Sheridan said. He could hear the smile in her voice. “Perhaps you should start by calling me Elyse. What should I call you?”
Not Nicky, although he had started thinking of himself as Nicky again. It had been Marisa’s name for him, and although he had begun his emotional healing, he was honest enough to know he was not quite put together yet. “Just Nicholas.”
“Very well, Nicholas. When would you like to meet for dinner?”
“Are you doing anything on Christmas Eve?”
A light drizzle fell over the Westchester cemetery, sending most of the visitors scurrying for cover. Marisa stayed at Michael’s gravesite, however, and tugged her jacket close to ward off the chill and the wind.
“I know Nicky’s been keeping you company the past few weeks, but he’s left. He went back to New York City this morning. He stopped by the vet to say goodbye to Daisy, but he would have left without saying goodbye to me if I hadn’t run into him on his way out.” Marisa’s voice quivered. “It bothers me that he said goodbye to a dead man and to a dog, but not to me. It really bothers me. I’d blame him, but I know it’s my fault. He didn’t think I cared. But I do, Michael, and I think you’ve always known that. That’s why you stole Daisy. That’s why you never told me the truth.
“I wish you would have trusted me. I don’t know whom I would have chosen, but I would have liked to make my own decision. If I chose you, you would have known that my love was truer and not based on a lie.
“But it’s all in the past now.” She chuckled at the irony of her words. “All I have right now is nothing. Nicky walked away again. But this time, I’m going after him. I don’t know how we’re going to make it work, but whatever it is, it will be based on the truth this time.” Marisa hugged herself and pressed her lips together to hold back the tears. “He loves me, Michael, so very much, and I think it’s time he knows how I feel.”
She reached out and touched the headstone. “I loved you, Michael, and I will treasure the life we had together, but I’m moving on. I’m going to find Nicky.” She managed a tight smile. “Wish me luck.”
