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

by Rachel Schurig

  I didn’t hear it, though, couldn’t hear anything except my mother’s words over and over. She would trade me for Dad if she could. I’d always suspected she felt that way, but to actually hear it, in her own voice—

  “You’re okay,” Andrew kept repeating, his words slowly coming into my consciousness, replacing those of my mother. “You’re okay, Riley. I’m right here.”

  “Andrew,” I breathed out, and he pulled me around so that I was facing him, burying my face against his chest.

  “You’re okay,” he repeated. “Everything is fine.”

  “It’s not,” I sobbed. “She hates me.”

  “She’s a sick woman, Riley.”

  “She said…she said…”

  “I heard. It was an awful, awful thing to say. An awful, untrue thing to say.”

  I only cried harder. “She meant it. I know she did.”

  “I don’t think she did, Riley. She’s just so broken up in her grief and—”

  “What about my grief?” I cried. “He was my dad! And I was there, I saw it and—and—my mother blames me!”

  “Riley.” His voice was anguished, and he tightened his arms around me until I felt like I’d never be able to breathe again. “If she really feels that way, then fuck her, okay? You don’t deserve that. You never did.”

  He loosened his grip a little, and I felt a rush of panic, knowing I couldn’t possibly stand if he let me go. But he was only making room to look down at me, to make sure I could see his face. His eyes were fierce in the darkness.

  “Riley, I knew your father. Gill was a good man. And he loved you and your sister more than anything else in the world. He would be so proud of you. I know he would. If your mother can’t see that then she can go to hell.”

  I slumped against him once more.

  “She’s already in hell, Andrew. And she thinks I put her there.”

  “Come on,” he said softly. “Let’s get you home.”

  I stiffened as I realized who exactly had just left with my mother. “Rebecca is alone,” I said pulling away. “Jake left, I need to go and makes sure she’s okay and—”

  He shook his head at me. “Edward and Zane have it.”

  I blinked up at him, confused.

  “I asked Eddie and Zane to take her home. She’s fine. The kids didn’t see anything.” He took my hands, his eyes on mine. “You don’t have to worry about them. Let me walk you back to your apartment.”

  I shook my head, feeling panicked. I couldn’t be where she was. I knew it was selfish and cowardly—someone needed to take care of her—but I just couldn’t. Not yet.

  “I can’t go back there,” I whispered, my voice croaky and sharp. “Jake was going to take her to my place.”

  “No, Riley. He took her to the station to sleep it off.”

  “What?”

  “He’s booking her on drunk and disorderly.”

  My panic at the thought of spending the night with her was nothing compared to this fear. “He can’t! He’s her son-in-law, he can’t put her in jail.”

  “She needs to sleep it off somewhere safe, Ri. And you and Rebecca don’t need to be responsible for her. Not tonight.”

  “But—”

  “It’s his family, too. Riley. He gets to make this choice.” He slid his hands up my arms to my shoulders, steadying me. “You don’t have to worry about it. It’s not your job. You can just worry about you. Okay?”

  And just like that, all of the fight went out of me.

  I felt suddenly weak, my body actually swaying until Andrew pulled me up against his side, his arm around my shoulders.

  “It’s the adrenaline,” he said, and I recognized the sensation at once. It was the way I used to feel after a particularly big race. “Come on,” he was saying. “Let’s get you home to Gordie.”

  “He’ll be so happy to see you,” I said, and for some reason that set me off again, the tears coming hot and face down my face. “Will you stay?” I sobbed.

  Andrew made a scathing sound in the back of his throat. “Like I would leave.” He gave my shoulder a little squeeze. “Besides, who’s going to feed me in the morning?”

  I snorted through my tears, and he laughed softly.

  “Come on. If you’re lucky I might even stick around to watch Heather Dale.”

  It was the strangest thing. I usually lived with a constant sense of guilt for my mother. Because I couldn’t help her, because a lot of the time I didn’t want to. But tonight, one of the worst nights we’d had in a while, I didn’t feel guilty at all.

  As Andrew led me down the quiet, dark streets of Lilac Bay, I didn’t feel anything except relieved. Someone else could worry tonight.

  Chapter 14

  I woke up the next morning to a splitting headache and a throat as dry as the Sahara.

  “Shit,” I muttered, rubbing my eyes. The living room was bright as hell and my position on the couch was causing a crick in my neck that I was sure I would be feeling all day. Why was I out here? I never fell asleep out in the living room—

  My eyes snapped all the way open to see that Andrew was sitting on the far end of the couch, my bare feet in his lap, his head back against the cushion. He was snoring softly, Gordie curled up next to him.

  In spite of the pain in my head and neck I smiled at the sight of him. He looked like an overgrown kid when he was sleeping. Was that drool on his chin? He was still wearing his suit but had ditched the jacket and tie, the top few buttons of his shirt undone.

  Andrew in a suit. Hmm. That was a nice image. He flashed though my mind, the way he had looked yesterday, right before he asked me to dance—and the whole night came crashing back.

  My mom showing up, trying to drag her to my apartment. Her almost hitting me. Jake getting her into the cop car. The terrible things she’d said. Andrew showing up to take me home.

  “Hey.” My eyes snapped back to his face to see that he was awake now, watching me. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I pulled myself up into a sitting position, feeling overwhelmingly vulnerable knowing that he had been watching me while those thoughts raced through my head. “You want some coffee?”

  “You don’t have to—”

  But I was already up off the couch, trying to ignore the way my head was pounding. I just needed coffee. And a few buckets worth of water. And, if I was honest with myself, a little distance.

  To my consternation, Andrew followed me into the kitchen.

  “I was just joking about you feeding me in the morning,” he said, and I managed a small laugh. “Riley, seriously, come sit down.”

  “I have a headache,” I said. “I could really use the coffee.”

  “Well, why don’t you let me do it, then?” he said. “Gordie, seriously? Move!”

  I finally stopped moving to glare at him, a hand on my hip. “Are you yelling at my cat?”

  “Look at him, he’s all tangled up in my feet. He’ll trip me.”

  “He’s hungry,” I said. “And he’s overjoyed to realize that the man of his dreams has spent the night.”

  “It’s nice to see at least one of you is.”

  We glared at each other across the kitchen for a beat, but then Andrew’s mouth twitched and I was laughing and just like that the tension I’d felt on the couch was gone.

  “Why don’t you quit your bitching and feed him? Then he’ll chill.”

  I made the coffee as Andrew got out Gordie’s food dish, carefully measuring the scoops while the cat went ballistic at his feet. It was clearly too much for his little kitten mind, to not only find Andrew in his house first thing in the morning but to actually have his idol feed him, too.

  “’Scuse me,” Andrew said, stepping around me to fill up the water dish. Once he’d set Gordie’s things on the floor, he grabbed two mugs from the cabinet and pulled down the sugar bowl before moving over to the fridge to grab milk.

  “I could do eggs,” he said, peering into the fridge.

  “I thought you couldn’t cook?” />
  He grinned that smirky grin at me. “I can cook eggs.”

  So he scrambled up a few eggs while I put bread in the toaster and got the dishes out. In just a few moments we were sitting at the table, Gordie twisting himself around Andrew’s feet, his own breakfast either forgotten or finished.

  “Do you have any Tylenol?” Andrew asked, rubbing his forehead, and I popped up from my chair.

  “No acetaminophen when you’ve been drinking. I’ll get you something else.”

  He raised an eyebrow but didn’t question me, probably guessing it was too soon to bring up my years of experience in taking care of people who’d had too much to drink.

  He'd made eggs for my mom, too, I remembered suddenly, as I fumbled though the cabinet for the bottle of painkillers. The day he took me to her house. I rested my head against the edge of the open door, a wave of weariness washing over me.

  “You okay?” he asked, his voice soft.

  “Yeah,” I said, turning away and pasting a smile on my face. “Just hungry.”

  To my relief, Andrew didn’t say a word about the events of the evening before, choosing instead to rehash all the details from the flash mob.

  “Oh, I was supposed to ask you,” he said at one point. “Eddie and Zane want to have a little party at Rose’s later this week, to celebrate the anniversary of the reopening.”

  “Wow, it’s really been a whole year,” I mused. Prior to Eddie and Zane deciding to run the place, Rose’s had sat empty for years following Frank Powell’s first heart attack. But now that it had been open again for so long, it almost felt like it had never been gone.

  “I know,” he said. “I kind of can’t believe they made it this far. They want to celebrate with a little dinner, nothing too extravagant. You want to come?”

  I had a sudden flash of Chase asking me to share dinner with him at Rose’s last night, and how terrible it had made me feel. And then I had ditched him on the dance floor, I realized. Probably not so eager to take me out now.

  “Riley?” Andrew asked.

  “Oh, sorry. Yeah, I definitely want to come.”

  “Good. Give you something to take your mind off the contest while we wait for the next episode to air.”

  For the rest of the meal, Andrew talked pretty steadily so that I didn’t have to say much at all. Another thing to be grateful for. And when we’d finished eating, he insisted that I go and shower while he did the dishes.

  I paused in the doorway to the kitchen, watching him move around, comfortable in this space he’d spent so much time in. For one moment I let myself think about what the previous night would have been like if he hadn’t showed up. I shuddered slightly and then went to take a shower, thankful that a life without him wasn’t something I ever really needed to worry about.

  Dinner with the Powell clan could take a little getting used to. There were a lot of them, and they were all very talkative and involved in each other’s life. We needed a table for eighteen just to fit us all—between Andrew’s cousins, their significant others, Posey’s nephews, and the aunts and uncles, we were a pretty large group. Even Paul was there, and he never came to family stuff. For the first ten minutes of dinner I didn’t say much of anything, plenty happy to let them dominate the conversation. It felt like the first time in weeks that no one had asked me a question about the show.

  Which, unsurprisingly, didn’t last. The trivia episode had aired the night before, and we had found out that we made it another week. Which meant that no matter what, our flash mob was going to be broadcast.

  “You should have seen Mimi out there,” Posey was telling her brother. Greg and his wife Sage lived on the mainland along with their three kids, and they hadn’t been able to make it out to the island for the flash mob. “She was the best one.”

  “Yeah, that’s because we did a twenties theme,” Andrew said, smiling sweetly at his grandmother. “And she was the only one old enough to remember actually dancing in the twenties.”

  To my delight, she reached out and smacked him on the side of the head.

  “So what’s up next, Riley?” Sage asked me.

  “I’m not totally sure,” I said. “They’re coming out on the last day of the Lilac Festival and they’re going to tape part of that. I’m sure we’ll have a challenge or something, but so far they haven’t told me anything.”

  “Ooh, David has been trying out these vanilla-lilac macaroons for the festival,” Iris said. “They’re so good. Just really delicate and yummy. We have to have them at the cafe’s booth.”

  “Why in the hell do you think you get David’s desserts?” Edward asked. “Last I checked, he works at this restaurant.”

  “Yeah, but I’m the one who’s sleeping with him,” she shot back. David, quite smartly, I thought, concentrated on his dinner while the cousins argued over him.

  “That was pretty sneaky of you,” Andrew whispered in my ear.

  “What?”

  “Mentioning the Lilac Festival. Now they’ll forget all about the show.”

  I winked. I knew as well as anyone that mentioning the festival was a surefire way to get anyone on this island distracted for hours. It was the biggest event of the entire season, and people around here had strong feelings about it. Making sure the weeklong event went off without a hitch was one of my primary responsibilities of the summer, with or without a camera crew in tow.

  “Actually, I did need to talk to you about that. Will you be on the stage-building team again this year?”

  “No problem. Who else is volunteering?”

  “Uh, I was kinda hoping you could find some guys.” He made an exasperated face and I smiled sweetly. “Pretty please?”

  “Fine, I’ll get it organized. If nothing else I’m sure Eddie and David will help.”

  “You know,” his father said from a few seats down—I jumped a little, not having realized that he was listening to us—“It would be pretty easy to get some help if you were in charge of one of my crews.”

  Andrew’s entire body went tense next to me and I wanted to kick myself for bringing it up. Frank Powell Jr. owned the largest construction company on the island. For years he had been trying to convince Andrew and Edward to come and work for him, to help him run the company. Eddie had managed to get off the hook by re-opening the family restaurant. Which meant all the pressure to go to work for the family had shifted to Andrew.

  “You’re right, Dad,” Andrew said. “I should totally switch careers just so it’s easier to help build the stage for the Lilac Festival.”

  Frank’s face went from teasing to serious in a split second. “You should switch careers so that you’re actually doing something productive and worthwhile with your life, Andrew. Instead of sitting around in an office playing solitaire on your computer half the day.”

  Andrew’s eyes flashed, and I knew this was about to turn into an all-out fight—one of many that I had witnessed between the two. Luckily, Rose was listening in.

  “That’s enough of that, Frank,” she said firmly. “This is a nice night for Eddie and Zane and we’re not spending it arguing.”

  “Sure, Mom,” he said, visibly relaxing as he patted her hand. But Andrew remained tense next to me.

  “Speaking of a nice night for me and Zane,” Edward said, standing up at the head of the table. “We have an announcement.”

  “Oh my God!” Posey squealed, slapping her hands over her mouth.

  Edward grinned down at his boyfriend. “I asked Zane to marry me last night. And he agreed.”

  The entire table exploded, everyone jumping up, offering hugs and congratulations, Posey squealing and jumping up and down.

  My eyes went to Andrew. He was still sitting at the table, looking more than a little shell-shocked at the news. My heart squeezed painfully for him. I knew he loved Zane, knew he wanted his brother to be happy. But I also knew that neither of those two facts necessarily made something like this easier. His identical twin was getting married. That was a huge change.
/>   But then he got up and went around the table to hug his brother. They embraced for a long moment, Andrew saying something to his twin in a quiet voice. When he let go, Eddie’s eyes were wet. I felt a lump come to my own throat and happened to catch Rose’s eye. She smiled at me, and I knew she’d noticed the exchange as well.

  The rest of the evening was even more of a celebration as Zane broke out several bottles of the restaurant’s most expensive champagne. Andrew laughed and joked right along with his cousins and brother, but I thought he looked pensive during the quieter moments.

  When it was time to go home, I asked him if he would walk me, figuring he might want to talk about it.

  But as Andrew and I walked home, the silence stretched between us.

  “How are you holding up?” I finally asked him. He jumped a little, like he had forgotten I was there.

  “I’m fine,” he said quickly. Too quickly.

  “You sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Why wouldn’t I be fine?”

  “You just looked a little bit down back there, that’s all,” I told him. “After Eddie and Zane shared their news.”

  “Why would I be down about that?” he asked, and he genuinely sounded shocked. “We all love Zane. Eddie’s never been happier.”

  “Of course you’re happy for them,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “But things are going to change now, you know? I think it’s normal to have kind of mixed feeling about it.”

  “I don’t have mixed feelings.”

  “He’s your twin brother, Andrew. The person you’re closest with in the entire world. And now he’s going to have a husband and his own family.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel bad about it?” he asked, laughing. “You make it sound so grim.”

  I pushed on his arm. “I’m not saying it’s grim. I’m just saying it might feel different. And it’s fine if you feel a little sad about that.”

  “I really don’t, Riley,” he said, his voice sure. He was quiet for a minute, and I decided to stop pushing it if he obviously didn’t want to talk about it. So I was surprised when he was the one that came back to the topic a moment later.