Shelby and Emmy sprang to their feet and dragged me to the bathroom. I hadn’t seen them move that fast in a long time.
They held my hair while I purged brisket and whiskey. Then they ran a cold washcloth over my face and told me it was all going to be alright. Kyle would understand because he was an amazing man.
I believed them, but then I was drunk.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Kyle
All the way back to my house, I vacillated between anger and hurt, never quite settling on the correct emotion. I was pissed that Ashlyn would back away from us because her grandmother had issues. What those issues were I didn’t know, but they clearly had shaped the older woman’s decision-making when it came to her marriage and her daughter’s. I was also hurt because I’d thought that we had something special, something…more.
I didn’t like being in limbo, wondering where our relationship stood. In Florida it had all been so easy. We were the center of each other’s world. Here at home it was far more complicated.
George’s car was sitting in my driveway when I pulled into the garage. Working out of my house had its advantages but today it sucked. I wanted to drink a few beers and veg out in front of the television. George was going to wonder what the fuck was wrong with me and then he’d want to fucking talk about it.
There was a box of cupcakes on the kitchen counter when I walked in. Sam greeting me at the door, tail wagging. After some sloppy kisses I headed straight for the box. I wasn’t the prom queen who had just been dumped by the captain of the football team but I was on those little cakes in a New York minute, shoving a mouthful of chocolate and buttercream into my mouth. Then I wouldn’t have to talk.
George must have heard me because he wandered out of the office, giving Sam a pet before the canine retired to his spot on the cushion. I’d taken him on a long walk this morning and for all I knew George had done the same thing while I’d been gone. “I was going to tell you that I stopped at the bakery, but I see you already know. The lemon were for you and the chocolate for me but hey, whatever.”
I took another huge bite out of the cupcake, crumbs dribbling down on my shirt. I didn’t give a shit.
He eyed me from head to toe as I finished off the chocolate confection, wiping my fingers on my blue jeans. “Rough lunch?”
“What makes you say that?”
I reached for another cupcake. Lemon this time. I wasn’t a complete jerk.
“Just a gut feeling. How are the cupcakes?”
“They’re great,” I said, my mouth stuffed full of lemon curd. “Fantastic.”
“Good. That’s good.” George slid onto a barstool at the kitchen island. Here we go. “Anything you want to tell me?”
“Not particularly.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely sure.”
“Okay, then I have news for you. If you want to hear it.”
I finished the lemon and licked my fingers. “I’m listening.”
“I hope so. I talked to the city council members and they’ve verbally agreed to let us move the campus to that large lot on the edge of town. It was our second choice. Lots of space and parking.”
“But not many amenities nearby,” I finished for him. “That’s why it was second.”
Not that any of this mattered anymore. I’d wanted to move the campus because of Ashlyn but now I wasn’t even sure she was part of the equation.
“Right,” George agreed. “The council said that they might be able to offer businesses some sort of incentives if they relocated closer so we wouldn’t be so isolated out there.”
I reached for another cupcake. I already wanted to puke so I might as well go all the way. George’s brows shot up in surprise.
“Easy there,” he cautioned, pushing the box of cupcakes away. He’d bought a dozen. I wondered how many I could eat before I threw up. All of them? Maybe. “Pace yourself.”
“Fuck you.”
“And there’s your problem again.”
“Okay, fuck you twice.”
“I shouldn’t tell you my other news, either. You don’t deserve it.”
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll fire you.”
George just snorted at my threat as I assumed he would. I would never fire him and he knew it.
“You couldn’t get through one day without me so go ahead and try it. You’d be begging me to come back before lunch.” He reached into the box and pulled out his own cupcake. “Now do you want my other news?”
“I do.”
“I received the engineering report today. With a bucketload of money and time, two of those houses can be saved.”
This was the second surprise of the day, and under different circumstances, would have been terrific news.
“That’s great.”
“You look underwhelmed. I’d thought you’d be happy. In fact, I was so sure you would be happy I invited the head engineer here this afternoon to discuss what it would entail. I doubt the city council would be upset if we told them ‘never mind’ on that other lot. They’re just thrilled we’re going to build here.”
“That’s fine,” I replied automatically, my mind still whirling with the news. I’d already made up my mind. If I could save even one of those houses I wanted to, whether I was with Ashlyn or not. “I’ll take the meeting.”
“I can do it–”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll do it.”
“You might want to take some Pepto before she gets here. You look green.”
I felt it, too. My stomach lurched dangerously as I ate the last bite of the cupcake. How many was that?
“I’ve felt better. I think I just need to lie down for a few minutes.”
“You need to lie down in the middle of the day?” George asked. “That’s…different. Are you coming down with something? Because if you are–”
George was a huge germaphobe.
“I’m not. I shouldn’t have eaten those cupcakes so quickly.”
“I have to agree with that. Now do you want to tell me why I found you shoving chocolate ganache into your piehole?”
“We covered this earlier. No, I don’t.”
George shrugged carelessly. “It can only be one thing. Ashlyn. So just turn right around and go back and apologize for whatever bonehead shit you did.”
“What makes you think it was me? Maybe it was her.”
“It was you.”
I’d had enough today and it wasn’t even two fucking o’clock in the fucking afternoon.
“It wasn’t me,” I replied hotly. “She’s the one–”
I broke off when I realized I was about to say it out loud. Would that make it more real?
“She’s the one that what? What did Ashlyn do?”
George was going to find out anyway. If not now, eventually.
“She wants to take a break while her grandmother is in town.”
George digested the information for a moment and then nodded. “Sounds like a good plan. It should make her life a lot easier.”
Shit, even my best friend had turned against me.
“I take it you don’t agree?” he asked, taking a bite from the chocolate cupcake. “What do you think she should do?”
Anything other than this.
I threw up my hands, suddenly glad to be able to let all my anger out. “She just sprung it on me. No warning. Nothing. Just…I think we should take a break while my grandmother is here. What the fuck is that about?”
“I’m guessing it’s about keeping her sanity. The senator is a real piece of work. Can you imagine living with that woman for years on end? She would have made me crazy within a month. Ashlyn should be making rag rugs with blunt scissors in a padded room. The fact that she’s a functioning member of society says a hell of a lot about her strength.”
“Strength? She folded to her grandmother’s wishes. Roslyn Caldwell wants Ashlyn to think about our relationship.”
“And you don’t want her to do that? That sounds a little insecure,
dude.”
“I’m not insecure.”
“You sound insecure.”
“You sound like an asshole.”
“There’s that language again,” George chuckled. “You’re so predictable. Listen, try and see this from Ashlyn’s point of view.”
Turning, I grabbed two beers from the refrigerator, handing one to George. “I do see it from her perspective. I get that she’s grateful to Roslyn for taking her in and all of that. I get that she doesn’t want to rock the boat for the next few days. I get it, alright? But still…”
George winced when I took a swig of my beer. “Can I recommend something to you? Cupcakes and beer are a lousy combination. You’ll make yourself sick. Personally, I would find that funny as hell, but you might not enjoy it as much.”
My friend had a point. The taste combination was vile.
“Just fucking fantastic. Now I can’t even enjoy a beer.”
George stood and put the beers back into the fridge and then poured me a glass of water. “Drink this. It might make you feel better. Now what the hell is going on with you? She asked you to take a break and you lost your shit? Is that what I’m hearing?”
“I was mad,” I admitted, taking a gulp of the water. It did taste good after all that sugar. “Upset that she was giving in so easily to her grandmother.”
“You don’t know if it was easy.”
“It felt like it.”
“I still maintain that you don’t know. So go on. She asked you to take a break while the senator is here?”
“She said it would only be for a few days, but I assured her that I could handle her grandmother. I’ve had worse.”
“That’s true. Lots of people hate your guts,” George replied cheerfully. “You get death threats on a weekly basis.”
“You don’t have to sound so happy about it.”
“Just making an observation. Touchy, aren’t we? So you got mad and stomped out of the place? Is that about right?”
“It is not,” I said succinctly. “I tried to control my temper, but I certainly did let her know that I wasn’t happy about this. We ate our meal. I picked up the check and then offered to walk her back to her store. She said she had a stop to make on the way so I should head on back home. Personally, I think she was only making an excuse but what do I know? I’m a brain-dead idiot with a genius IQ.”
“So call her and make nice. And for the love of Pete, stop stuffing your face with buttercream. It’s not a manly look, dude.”
“I can’t call her.”
Rubbing his face, George sighed. “Why not?”
“Because I think we might have broken up at lunch. I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure,” he repeated. “But you might have? Don’t you think you’d know?”
“Normally I would but this was like an out of body experience.”
“My parents begged me to go to med school,” George said to no one in particular, not even looking at me. “Don’t work for the genius, they said. He’ll be weird, they said. Work at a regular company for a regular guy. I could have taken their advice, but no, I knew better. I wanted excitement and adventure.”
“You got that.”
George butted the heel of his hand against my forehead. “What in the fuck is wrong with you? Okay, listen up because I’m only going to say this once. I know that you have issues with interpersonal relationships and all that crap, but this is really common sense, my friend. You and Ashlyn haven’t been together all that long. You are a new couple. Did you hear that part? Because it’s important. You and she barely know each other and don’t bother interrupting me and telling me how much you love each other. That’s fantastic. Everyone loves a lover, right? But you haven’t known one another for years. Her grandmother, however, has been in Ashlyn’s life since she was a little girl. And whether we like it or not, our families have power over us. When I go home I let my mom do my laundry, for fuck’s sake. She even butters my toast. I’m perfectly capable but I go back to being a little kid and for a few days I love it. I couldn’t do it all the time, but it’s okay for a weekend.”
“What is your point?” I growled, already tired of being lectured to. “Get to it.”
“I will.” George pointed at me, his finger digging into my chest. “If Ashlyn needed you to hang back and stay out of sight for a few days then you should have been happy to do it. She asked you for a few days, not a few months or years. A few days. Shit, I’ve seen you disappear into the lab for a week at a time only surfacing when you couldn’t stand the smell of yourself. So what she was asking you to do really wasn’t a big deal. As for giving into her grandmother…of course she did. She might be a grown woman but that’s her family. She’s going to err on that side for awhile. Not forever hopefully, but for a time. You would have done the same thing for your parents and you know it.”
“They would never ask that of me.”
“That’s not the point. The point is that you need to cut that poor girl some slack. She’s like a chew toy in a tug of war between two mean dogs. You got your feelings hurt. Get the hell over it. Pick up your phone and call her. Work it out. You won’t be happy until you do.”
George had made a good argument and I couldn’t fight it. I had been butthurt and I had let it cloud my logic. Roslyn had to be putting tremendous pressure on Ashlyn. I should have been more understanding and patient.
“I’ll call her now.”
“Call her in an hour.” George nodded toward the front window where we could see a car parking in front of the house. From a sound sleep, Sam’s ears perked up. “That engineer is here to talk about the houses. If you’re still interested in saving them, that is.”
I was. Even if Ashlyn didn’t want me. But I hoped she still did. Want both of us, that is.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Ashlyn
After all of that whiskey I wasn’t in any shape to drive, but then neither were my friends. They’d drank as much as I did. We waited a few hours and also ate some cheese and crackers. It wasn’t too bad on my now pissed-off stomach and I did feel somewhat better, although not a hundred percent.
I wanted to head straight to Kyle’s house, but Katie had a dentist appointment and I’d promised her the time off, so Shelby drove me back to the store. Katie was thrilled to see me in better shape than when I had left.
“I can stay here with you,” Shelby said, her gaze running from my toes to the top of my head. “You know…keep you company.”
“You don’t have to do that. Don’t you have classes to teach or something?”
Shelby had a private practice, but she also taught a few classes at the local junior college.
“I cancelled them for the day. I can stay here if you want me to.”
I did want her to.
“That would be great, although I should probably work on all that paperwork.”
Wrinkling her nose in distaste, Shelby shook her head. “It can wait one more day. What you need to do is relax a little. Do you have any games in this store?”
Did I? What a silly question.
“Have you ever played Mousetrap?”
Shelby’s eyes lit up. “It’s one of my favorites.”
“I’ll set up the board.”
“I’ll grab us a couple of ginger ales from the back,” Shelby said. “It will settle your stomach.”
It was a plan. I was beginning to feel like an actual human being again.
Shelby beat me three games out of five, but then that was our Shelby. She liked to win and she did it often. I didn’t mind. I really just wanted the company. After the games, she helped me dust some shelves and reorganize the vinyl albums.
At one point, I thought about sending Kyle a text but that wasn’t my style at all. I wanted to talk to him face to face. It was the old-fashioned part of me, I guess. I wanted to see his face when we talked and a text message with absolutely no nuance wasn’t going to do it.
“What will you say to Kyle when you see him?”
> Shelby was now helping me organize the toy shelves. She’d even waited on a customer. She might have missed her calling.
“First I’ll say that I’m sorry. I handled the entire situation badly. Then I’ll tell him I want our relationship to work. I just need a little space to deal with Gran.”
“And how do you intend to deal with your grandmother?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, stacking a Slinky on the shelf. “I just know that I have to stop caring about what Gran thinks. I have to stop letting her…what is it you and Emmy said? Fly in and shit all over my life and then fly out. She can’t do that anymore.”
“That’s a big step,” Shelby said quietly. “It won’t be easy and Roslyn isn’t going to give in quietly. She’s going to fight to keep the status quo.”
I was going to fight, too.
“I’ll deal with it. With her. I love her, but she doesn’t get to control my love life. She doesn’t get to control my life at all, as a matter of fact.” I took a deep breath. “The fact is I should probably talk to her before I speak with Kyle. I need him to know that I took some action. Otherwise, it’s just words and they don’t mean much.”
“Our little girl is becoming a woman,” Shelby sighed.
“It’s far past time.”
“Yes, but one of the things that makes you special is your tender heart, Ash. You desperately want everyone to be happy and you want to believe in fairy tales and happily ever-afters. We love that about you. It’s only unhealthy when you let people take advantage of that. Like your gran. It’s only natural to want to make our families happy, so don’t beat yourself up about this.”
“I hurt Kyle.”
“Yes, and you probably will again. He’ll do it, too. It’s part of being in a relationship. Hopefully you learn and grow, do it less. But it’s going to happen. It’s how you deal with it that’s important.”
“Communication?” I guessed. That was Shelby’s favorite word.
“You bet.” She grinned and held up an old train engine. “And if you can’t make it work with Kyle, we can all hop a train to nowhere. See the world. Or something like that. He adores you. It’s as plain as the nose on my face. It’s all going to be fine.”
Tease Him (ManTrap Book 2) Page 18
