Always You: A Lilac Bay Novel (Friends with Benefits)

by Rachel Schurig

  “It’s what happens when you get too big for your britches," Rebecca said, ruffling her oldest son's hair. It was white blonde, just like his mother's, just like mine. Jayden had the darker hair of his father, while Aiden was another blonde, just like the rest of us.

  “Britches?” Aidan asked, and I bent over to grab him, swinging the little boy up into my arms again.

  “Don’t you worry about it, buddy. You’ll be a star baseball player just like your Auntie one day. And then you’ll know all about it.”

  “With just a touch more humility, one can hope,” Rebecca added dryly. “So what's next tonight? Are you guys heading over to Cora’s?”

  “That’s the plan.” I looked down at my nephews, who had been distracted by a particularly cool anthill in the dirt. Beside them, Rebecca's full stroller seemed to overflow with the older boy's bicycle helmets, a diaper bag, a multitude of sippy cups, and a few Ziploc baggies filled with goldfish crackers and fruit snacks. Pretty much everything a mother needed when taking three children under the age of seven out for an evening.

  “Can you join us?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

  My little sister was shaking her head before the words had even left my mouth. Rebecca would never have time to join the gang for a night out after a game. Not without first planning for a babysitter, at least. And though she complained often about the need for a night out, she rarely ever went the babysitter route. Complaints or not, the truth was, there was nothing my little sister loved more than hanging out with her three children. It was sweet, for sure.

  But it also made me a little sad sometimes. It would be nice to see her away from the kids, even just every once in a while. To see her out of mom mode. To get to talk to her about something besides what the kids had done at school that day, or what she thought she might make for dinner.

  “No, I need to go home and get dinner on the table," she said, as if on cue, sounding entirely too cheerful about the task at hand. “Jake should be home pretty soon and I’m sure he’ll be hungry.”

  Jake was my sister’s husband. They had been married for seven years. In other words, since two weeks after she graduated from high school. Jake was a good guy, a police officer here on Lilac Bay and a member of the volunteer fire department. He loved my sister, loved his children. Tolerated the old-maid-sister and the not-so-easy-to-tolerate mother-in-law with a smile, most of the time. And if I still felt some lingering resentment that he had married her at such a young age, ending her plans to go to college, well, that was my problem.

  "We haven't seen you around the house lately," Rebecca said, watching my face closely. “Why don’t you come over for dinner this weekend?”

  “Yeah, Auntie!" Mason cried, abandoning his close inspection of the ant colony and looking up at me. “Can you come tonight?”

  “Not tonight, buddy," I told him, making a face. “Your mom told me she’s making liver for dinner, and I hate liver.”

  Mason looked up at my sister, his expression nothing short of horrified. “Liver? You're going to make us eat liver? How could you do that to me?”

  “Thanks for that,” Rebecca said, shooting me a disapproving look.

  “What’s liver?” Jayden asked.

  “It's disgusting!” Mason cried, making a face. “It’s so gross, you’ll throw up! Right on the dinner table.”

  Aiden giggled, because apparently nothing is funnier to a three-year-old than the topic of vomit.

  “You’ve never even had liver,” Rebecca pointed out. “So how would you know? Besides, we’re not having liver for dinner. Your aunt was just teasing you.”

  “You're too easy to tease,” I told them. “You better smarten up, buddies, if you want to get the best of me.”

  Jayden giggled. “You’re weird, Aunt Riley.”

  I leaned down and kissed his cheek. “I take that as a compliment. It’s good to be weird sometimes. Otherwise, wouldn’t life get boring?”

  “You didn’t answer me about dinner,” Rebecca said, once I had straightened. “Is this going to be another one of those things that you just act all vague about and then never show up?”

  I shifted uncomfortably in my cleats. I supposed I did have a habit of doing that. It was just hard for me, sometimes, to be in her tiny little house for dinner, surrounded by her husband and kids, all of them so young, and not think about all the things she could have been. Which, in turn, made me feel so guilty I could puke—as if I was resenting my nephews, who I adored.

  There was also that little matter of the not-so-easy-to-tolerate mother. And how conversation at Rebecca’s eventually found its way to an update on Mom and how she was. Another thing to feel guilty about.

  All in all, it was easier to see my family like this, or take the boys out to the park or out on the water. Maybe that made me a shitty aunt—it definitely made me a shitty sister—but it was a hard impulse to fight.

  And from the way Rebecca was looking at me right now, I had a feeling that she knew exactly what I was thinking.

  “Hey,” Andrew said, appearing at my side. I was so grateful for the distraction that I could have kissed him. “You about ready to head over? The rest of the team has gone.”

  I looked around to see the last stragglers making their way across the park towards the street.

  “We should get going,” I told Rebecca, ignoring the way her eyes narrowed at me and bending down to hug my nephews. “I’ll see you guys real soon, okay?”

  “Okay!”

  “Bye, Wiley!”

  “Don’t forget about teaching us to catch fly balls,” Mason said. “And how to steal second like you did the last game.”

  “Like you could do it anyway,” I teased him. “You’re way too slow.”

  “I’ll show you!” he cried, then took off running. “Look how fast I am!”

  Of course his brothers took off after him, sprinting away across the field, all of them laughing.

  “Don’t go past the sidewalk!” Rebecca called after them. She turned back to us. “Hey, Andrew. Good to see you.”

  “Hey, Beccs.” He leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Everything going good?”

  “Crazy as always,” she said, but couldn’t quite hide the smile around the edges of her lips that betrayed the fact that she wouldn’t have it any other way. “Speaking of crazy, I better try to catch up with the hooligans.” She gave me a stern look. “I’m going to call you about dinner.”

  “Okay.” I gave her a quick hug and she turned, pushing her stroller across the grass, calling for the boys to slow down.

  “You guys okay?” Andrew asked, watching her go.

  I sighed, not at all in the mood to get into it with him. “I’m starving. Let’s get to Cora’s.”

  And because Andrew has always known when to push something and when to let it go, he nodded and followed me across the field in the opposite direction of my family.

  Chapter 3

  I made Andrew take a detour over to my apartment before we hit the pub so I could feed my cat. Predictably, he moaned and complained the entire walk over, telling me that he was starving, and warning me that our teammates would drink up all the good beer before we could get there.

  “You do realize that my apartment is two blocks from Cora’s, right?” I asked as we turned onto my street. The truth was, nothing in Lilac Bay was very far from anything else, but I was particularly happy about the convenience of my apartment.

  I had moved into the place only a year ago, and I absolutely loved it. It was on the third floor of a sprawling old Victorian mansion that had been converted into apartments. My two bedroom flat wasn’t nearly as big as the condo I had shared with Jenny, but it was all mine.

  Well, technically it was my landlord’s, but it was a nice feeing to know that I was paying for the rent myself and not relying on Jenny’s parents or her trust fund. The building’s owner, Sherry, was a member of the Libbies club with me, and a good friend. Even better, she had told me I was fr
ee to paint the walls and decorate however I wanted, as long as I returned it to its white and boring state when I moved out.

  I had taken her permission to heart, painting every room of the apartment a different color. Jenny’s condo had been all about modern minimalism, everything painted a cool shade of cream, the furniture relegated to shades of white with sterling silver accents. Even the decor had been colorless—black and white prints from some Manhattan gallery that I was sure cost as much as all the furniture in the house. Now that I had my own place, I indulged in my yearning for bright, bold colors. My living room was a cheery yellow, my bedroom a cool, beachy blue, the kitchen fire-engine red. I had hung bright prints on the walls, sewn coral colored curtains myself, and scattered throws and pillows over all the comfy, slightly worn furniture I had collected from yard sales and resale shops on the mainland. It was cozy and a little cluttered and exactly what I wanted. Best of all, from the bay window in my bedroom I was high enough to see a sliver of the bay through the branches of the trees that dotted this street.

  “I’ll never understand why you didn’t take the first floor place instead,” Andrew muttered as he followed me up the creaky wooden stairs to the third floor.

  “Because the first floor apartment was way too big for one person,” I told him for the hundredth time. “Besides, it doesn’t have a view.”

  “It also doesn’t have stairs.”

  I reached the landing on the third floor ahead of him, slipping my key into the lock as I called over my shoulder, “You’re such a wimp. It’s no wonder I kicked your ass tonight on the field.”

  Before he could argue with me about our respective performances, I got the door open and stepped into my apartment. My cat, a fluffy orange tabby that I had rescued right after moving in, immediately jumped from his perch on the coffee table to wind himself around my legs, mewing loudly.

  “Hello, Mr. Howe,” I told him, reaching to pick him up. But he shot through my legs like a dart, heading straight for the landing where Andrew stood.

  “Hello, cat,” Andrew said with little enthusiasm.

  “Be nice to him! You’re his favorite person.” It was true, no matter how annoying I might find it. Though I was the one who had rescued him from the shelter and provided him with daily food and a warm bed—not to mention all the kitty toys he might want, scratching towers, and the fishy treats that he loved so much—it was Andrew that he had fallen head over heels with at first sight. Andrew, who had no special love for cats, could barely tolerate Mr. Howe—though he did approve of the name, an homage to the greatest hockey player to ever live.

  “Hello, Gordie,” Andrew said dutifully, picking him up and allowing the cat to nuzzle into his ear and cheek. “Did you miss me?”

  Gordie purred, clearly blissed out at being held by the great Andrew Powell.

  “I’ll just go get your food,” I said. “You ungrateful cat, you.”

  “Now, don’t be jealous,” Andrew said, stepping into the apartment and shutting the door behind him. “It’s not Gordie’s fault that he has such good read on human character.”

  “He only likes you because you have the same hair color. He thinks you’re just a bigger version of a tabby.”

  “Ouch.”

  I left Andrew to cuddle Gordie while I went into the kitchen to get his food. The moment the cat heard the cabinet door open, he came running in after me. “Fickle cat,” Andrew called after him. I had to agree with him as Gordie rubbed up against my shin while I filled his food bowl, purring and flicking his tail.

  “Sure, now you love me best,” I said, placing his bowl on the floor and scratching him behind the ears before heading back to the living room.

  “You ready?” Andrew asked.

  “Let’s just wait until he’s done eating.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You do know that people leave their cats to eat on their own all the time, right?”

  “And you do know that the beer will still be there when we get to Cora’s? So just calm down.”

  He sighed dramatically but didn’t argue, instead grabbing an old issue of Sports Illustrated and sitting on the couch. We had covered my Gordie-can’t-eat-alone rule a number of times. He would call me overprotective, and I would call him mean. He would try to convince me that just because my little sister had once choked on a grape when I was babysitting, terrifying me and scarring me forever, that didn’t mean my cat was going to choke and die when he was alone. And I would tell him that there was no point in risking it.

  Knowing we’d be waiting a few minutes, I went to my bedroom to change out of my dirty baseball clothes. Showing up to Cora’s in cleats and a muddy uniform was hardly unacceptable, but I figured it would be nice to look presentable—particularly when I knew Andrew’s cousin Iris, who also happened to be David’s girlfriend, would be there looking immaculate as always.

  I appeared in the living room a few minutes later in skinny dark-washed jeans, a black tank top, and my high black boots, my hair loose over my shoulders. Andrew looked up at me over his magazine and his mouth dropped open a bit. I felt a rush of somewhat smug pleasure. It was always so hard to get a reaction out of him. Sure, he would gape at and flirt with just about every creature with a pulse, but the most I could usually get out of him was a grunt and a “shirt looks clean” whenever I asked him how I looked.

  But the satisfaction melted away when he returned to his magazine. “Pretty fancy for Cora’s.”

  “Who knows,” I said. “Maybe I’ll meet a cute guy.”

  For some reason he seemed to find that absolutely hysterical. He was still chuckling as we made our way outside a few minutes later—once I was sure Gordie’s bowl was safely empty.

  Cora’s pub is one of the few eating establishments on the island that remains open all year long. Located two blocks from the Town Square, it feels slightly removed from the heavily traveled sidewalks of Main Street. For those reasons, the pub is a favorite amongst full-time islanders. The fact that it serves some of the best burgers in Northern Michigan makes it worth seeking out for the tourists as well. In the spring and summer months the place is almost always packed.

  Andrew and I entered to find the dining room full, as was typical for Friday nights any time of the year. A quick glance around the room told me that I recognized about seventy-five percent of the faces. Most of the players from our team had ended up here after the game, as well as many of those who had watched in the stands. We said hello to a good dozen people before spotting Edward and Zane. Or, rather, Posey, who was sitting with Edward and Zane, and was now standing and waving her arms around.

  “Hey! Riley! Andrew, we’re over here!”

  I grinned at Andrew, who rolled his eyes. I had known his cousin—only a year younger than us—my entire life. To say Posey Conley was enthusiastic would be an understatement.

  Andrew and I made our way across the room to their table, which I could now see was crowded with several more people. “Hey!” Posey said, sliding down so I could take a seat. “Great game!”

  “I didn't see you in the stands,” Andrew said, sitting next to me.

  “I did the announcing, moron,” Posey said, glaring at her cousin. “Are you seriously going to tell me you didn’t notice me there?”

  Andrew grinned and grabbed a fry from his cousin’s plate. “Nope. I just like to mess with you.”

  Posey slapped his hand. “You’re the worst. Next time I announce I’m totally going to mess up your name.”

  “They’re as bad as little kids, aren’t they?” Iris asked me from the other side of the table. I smiled at her, telling myself not to feel shy.

  There was something about Andrew’s other cousin that had intimidated me from the time she had first moved to Lilac Bay last summer. Maybe it was the fact that she had lived in Chicago for most of her life while I had been stuck here on this island in the middle of nowhere. Or maybe it was the flashy job she used to have, developing big name properties in the city. Or that she had arrived on this island a
nd promptly landed David Jenkins, who had steadfastly refused to get involved with any of the island girls for years. Or maybe it was just the fact that she always looked like she’d just stepped out of a fashion magazine. Whatever the reason, she and I hadn’t quite hit it off yet, despite the fact that she was related to my best friend.

  “Hey, Ri!” Jenny called from the other end of the table, where she was sandwiched between Edward and David, both of whom had several inches and dozens of pounds on her—I would have completely missed her if she hadn’t called out.

  I waved at her, then nudged Andrew. “Go switch with Jenny,” I muttered in his ear. “She’s stuck down there between the guys.”

  “So? They won’t hurt her.”

  “Yeah, but Eddie is all wrapped up in Zane and you know how lovey-dovey Iris and David get after a few drinks. She’ll have no one to talk to.”

  “So I have to go be the third wheel?” he grumbled, but he stood anyway and made his way through the crowd around us to the other end of the table. A moment later, Jenny sank into the seat next to me, grinning from ear to ear. “Isn’t this fun? Andrew said I should come and sit with you. There are so many people here!”

  I made a mental note to invite Jenny out more. When we'd lived together, she’d had a tendency to be kind of a homebody, which she always assured me she preferred. But maybe staying in hadn’t been as much of her choice as she had insisted, judging from the slightly wide-eyed way she looked around the bar.

  “Hey, Posey,” she said, leaning across the table. “Where’s Paul tonight?”

  My eyes automatically flicked down the table. Sure enough, Andrew, Edward and Zane all rolled their eyes at the name of their cousin’s fiancé.

  “He’s on call tonight,” she said, apparently missing the way her cousins were looking at each other. Even Iris was joining in.

  “He must be pretty busy, huh?” Jenny asked. “Being a doctor and all.”

  “He is,” Posey said. “I miss him when he’s working so much.”

  “But it’s probably so worth it,” Jenny said, a little dreamily. “Knowing he’s out there saving lives.”