“I’m allowed,” Coop argued. “They said I was allowed to use the stairs as long as it wasn’t an athletic marathon. If it makes you feel any better, I won’t go back up until tonight.”
He could’ve argued. He could’ve denied the accusations that flashed across his face, but he evaded the subject instead. “It’s good to see you out of bed.”
“I was out of bed yesterday,” Coop pointed out.
“You’re glowing today,” Tate replied.
“I wasn’t glowing yesterday?” Coop countered.
“You were…worried yesterday,” Tate explained.
“I was on bedrest yesterday,” Coop argued.
With each retort, they drew closer together. I could practically feel the magnetic attraction between them. It was palpable and fucking engulfing. I was envious. Henry and I had barely said a word to each other on our best of days.
“Jesus H Christ,” Carter complained, dragging me from my lament. “They’re either going to fornicate right here in the hall or they’re going to break out in a rendition of Grease.” Pausing beside me, Carter polished off the last of a beer. “They’ve been known to do that, you know.”
“Fornicate in the hall?”
“Baha!” I earned an elbow in the ribs for that one. “Break out in a rendition of Grease, Violet.”
“Isn’t it kinda early for that?” I pointed at the empty beer bottle in his hand. Carter looked at it and shrugged.
“Not if you haven’t gone to bed yet.”
Behind me, the front door opened with a bang. Marshall stumbled in with my bags. Obviously struggling, he readjusted his grip and looked up. “Why don’t ya give me a hand, Strickland?”
“With those?” Carter declined. “You can’t handle a few knapsacks?”
“Nah, she’s got a fuckin’ steamer trunk on the stoop.”
Carter laughed in disbelief. “He’s joking, right?”
I hid a smile. “What can I say—I love shoes.”
“She’s showing you up, Emelia,” said Shane, coming through the door. Em was a stride behind him. Their hands were linked. “We went to the shoe capital of the world and you didn’t come home with that many pairs.”
“I’m sure my entire collection cost just as much as the few pairs you purchased in Italy,” I assured. With names like Prada, Gucci and Ferragamo, I’m sure she put my shoes to shame. “It’s all about quality, not quantity.”
“Fuck that,” Em laughed. “Quantity still matters.”
“Let’s see ‘em,” Tate said. I thought he had meant my shoes, and was about to tell him Marshall was joking, but I realized he was talking to Shane. The recipient of his attention flashed his pearly whites in an extra-wide smile. “Nice, man!” Tate commended. The two shared a fist bump and a shoulder hug.
“He had some dental work done,” Em explained. “Not a big deal except that he hates dentists. He thinks they all went to school with Orin Scrivello from Little Shop of Horrors.”
“He could’ve gotten meds for the anxiety.”
“Shane’s drug free for six months now. Well, except for his lapse back in January. He won’t take as much as an aspirin.”
“Wow, well, that’s great.”
“It is.”
“You must be proud of him.”
“Proud of me for what?” Though he’d never let go of Em’s hand, Shane pulled her against his chest and nuzzled his face into the crook of her neck.
“Because you were so incredibly brave today.” Laughing, Em pulled a lollipop from her pocket and held it up. “I almost forgot to give you this.”
Shane looked at the Dum Dum as if she held the key to his heart. “Is that butter rum?”
“Do you really think I don’t know it’s your favorite?”
A slow smile spread across Shane’s face. He angled his head, brushing his nose along hers until their lips met.
“This isn’t the tunnel of fuckin’ love, people,” Cater scoffed. “What the fuck’s with the pussy fest?”
“Don’t worry, Carter,” Em stated, “your girlfriends get dismissed in a few hours. Just make sure you don’t speed in the school zone on your way to pick them up.”
“You know, Jake breaks the rules and nobody picks on him.”
I stifled a glare. Why did he have to bring up Jake?
“Jake’s slip wasn’t as egregious as yours,” Em excused. “Besides, Paisley’s an adult.”
I wanted to smile and stick my tongue out, but Carter beat me to it, the corners of his lips curling into a nefarious grin. He didn’t have anything personal against me, but he was totally going to take me down in the process of outing Jake. I was going to be collateral damage in his effort to deflect everyone’s attention from his own mistakes. A fool could see that in his smile.
“Guess what, Emster?”
“You figured out how to use the brain in your big head instead of the little one?” Em said dryly.
“This place is full of ‘em today,” Carter complained. Meanwhile, he sidled closer to the center of the group. “Jake-off paid Violet a personal home visit yesterday.”
It was two days ago, but that was beside the point.
All eyes centered on me. I could feel the color bleed from my face, and then rush back in with a horrid flush. My mouth bobbed, but I was at a loss for words.
“He told her Tate set him,” Carter gloated with a smirk. “Buuuuttt we all know that’s complete bullshit.”
“No. Fucking. Way.” Coop exclaimed, foregoing the voice rest. “Are you kidding me? Jake? Our Jake? Where is he?” Her head turned left and right, searching for said male.
“Hiding in the studio.”
“You’re scaring the kid,” Marshall voiced, returning from carrying my bags up the stairs. “She’s eyeing the door.”
Denying his accusation, I shook my head, still unable to form words. I totally eyed the door. In my mind, I was already through the thing and driving away.
Tate stepped in my line of vision.
“She ain’t gonna leave without her clothes,” Carter pointed out.
I considered that fleetingly. I didn’t really need the clothes Marshall had just delivered to my room. It would be a shame to lose them, but they might be worth the sacrifice in exchange for removing myself from the center of everyone’s attention. I would’ve went through with it if they weren’t the best and most expensive articles of clothing I owned.
“He only came over to tell me it was ok to take the job,” I reiterated, finally finding my voice. “That’s all.”
“Bullshit,” Carter coughed around his fist. I think he was cut from the same cloth as Peter, and, well, most men with dicks.
I cut him an acidic glare.
“Better put on your waders, Violet, you’re knee deep, too.”
“Fuck off, Carter.”
Snickers echoed through the foyer. Carter’s self-satisfied smirk faded from his face. “So uncool.” He looked at Tate, who was hiding a smile with his hand. “You’re going to let her get away with that?”
“Vaffanculo,” Carter,” said Em with a smile. I didn’t need to be Italian to know what she’d said.
“Yeah, Carter,” Coop joined in, “fuck off.” Looping her arm around mine, she began leading me from the hall.
“That’s real matronly of you, Coop!” Carter called after her. To which she responded by flipping him the bird.
We entered the den, which looked pretty fuckin’ posh. Though, the furnishings paid second fiddle to my state of mind. I’d just told Carter Strickland to fuck off. Any sane employer would’ve fired me on the spot. I shook it off. Tate himself had told me to use the expression. The ordinary rules obviously didn’t apply in this job position. The notion was relieving, yet tempting because it only supported my desire to even out the score between Jake and me.
Coop released my arm and waddled to the sofa. She moved a large pillow to the center and dropped onto the cushion, falling indelicately back. Her hands rested just below the peak of her stomach, emp
hasizing the size. “Who knew getting out of bed could be so damn exhausting?”
Em closed the French doors behind us and took a spot on the sofa beside Coop. “Maybe those contractions were nature’s way of telling you to slow down.”
“If I went any slower I’d be going backwards.”
“Let me get out my tiny violin.”
“Don’t you have a chef or a baker to interview?”
“Actually, we’re onto hostesses and servers. I have an hour to spare, though.” Both girls looked at me expectantly. Blue eyes and brown, sparkled with anticipation.
“If you need to go, I’m here,” I assured. “I’m not leaving. Swear.” I held up my hand, as if I knew what the scouts honor was, and they both rolled their eyes.
“We want to know what happened with Jake,” Em spelled out.
“Everything,” Cooper expounded. “Feel free to start with last weekend. Em used to be really good at gossip but she dropped the ball the night you guys went out.”
“I didn’t ride in the car with her, and I was backstage watching Jaxon play,” Em said defensively. “You wanted me to record his performance.”
“It wasn’t Jaxon’s first or last performance,” Coop argued. “I would’ve forfeited if it meant knowing the details of Jake’s fall from grace.”
“There’s really not much to tell,” I interjected, hoping to somehow steer the conversation away from Jake. “We hooked up. He didn’t call. The end.”
“That can’t be it,” Coop complained. “Carter might be a jerk, but he calls it like it is. If he’s says bullshit, it’s usually bullshit.”
I huffed a breath, not quite a sigh. It was laced with reticence.
“I was coming home from work one afternoon when this Escalade started tailgating me,” Coop began. “It followed me into the parking lot of an ice cream shop. I thought they were going to harass me about my driving. It turned out to be Tate and the rest of the band. When Tate introduced himself, I—”
“Hightailed it out of there,” Em jumped in.
“My ex was stalking me,” Coop explained. “The last thing I needed was my face plastered in the tabloids. I was trying to lay low. But, the next night, Tate showed up at The Loft. Eventually, I agreed to go out with him.”
“To go home with him,” Em laughed. “She agreed to a road gig, thinking—”
“He was in a rock band.” Coop scowled at her friend, who was stifling her laughter. “The last thing I pegged him for was the type to commit. I thought he’d move on. I’d never see him again. A few weeks later, I woke up on his private jet, hung over and married.”
“And pregnant,” Em added. “Can’t forget that.” Obviously. There was no ignoring her present state of health.
“My point is,” Coop continued, “if you’re meant to be together, it’s going to happen. You can’t ignore fate.”
Fate. There was that word again.
“I think she just rolled her eyes at you, Coop,” Em observed. Each passing moment she seemed increasingly amused.
“Sorry, you sounded like my mother.”
“You don’t believe?”
“I’m an agnostic. Not proclaimed. I mean, I’m actually Episcopal, but unpracticed. But, no, I guess you could say I don’t believe in God or Fate or any of that stuff.”
Coop elbowed her friend. “Tell her, Em.”
Em’s smile faded. Her gaze dropped to Coop’s belly. Clearly, she was uncomfortable with whatever Coop wanted her to share.
“You don’t have to talk about it,” I interjected. “It’s ok.”
“No, I don’t mind,” Em quickly assured. “You’ll probably think I’m a fruitcake, or that Shane fabricated the story so that I’d be at peace, but I’ve always believed in the existence of God, so I found it spiritualizing.
“In any case, I came from an abusive marriage. My husband came home drunk one night. I was about six months pregnant at the time. I fell and lost the baby. As a result, I can’t have children. Needless to say, I didn’t cope well. I’d written off life. I’d contemplated suicide. So I reached out for help and joined a support group. That’s how Marshall, Coop and I know each other. And consequently, through Coop, I met Shane.
“For a couple months, I refused to date him. He was an alcoholic and an addict. Because of my past, it wasn’t something I could deal with. But Shane was persistent.” She gave a watery smile. “He quit drinking and doing drugs. He cleaned himself up. I finally gave in, but not without a fight. It wasn’t pretty. He said some things. Some of them were true. I was clinging to my past, to the memory of my daughter. He was trying to persuade me to let go. He told me there was no Heaven, and proceeded to describe what he recalled from his near death after his overdose.” Looking at me, she gave me a matter-of-factly shake of the head. “Not something you say to a woman who’s lost a child. Although, in his case it was a push that I badly needed. I wasn’t living. I was dying, slowly. In his opinion, she wasn’t waiting for me on the other side, because it didn’t exist. I will admit, I questioned my faith, but that was never his goal. Like I said, he was trying to persuade me to move on. It worked.
“Fast forward to this past January in Nampa when he fell off the wagon. He overdosed—went into aFib twice and flat-lined once. He was clinically dead for thirty seconds while they worked on him at the hospital. Slept for nearly three days afterward. When he woke, he said he had been wrong about Heaven, that he had seen Giovanna, along with my papa—who he’d never met. My papa called her ‘bella’ which is what he used to call me. I’d never told anyone that, not even Shane. Funny thing is, Shane calls me beautiful. Of all the terms he could’ve chosen…”
Bella meant beautiful in Italian. I have to admit it was ironic.
“I’ve heard stories like that before.” Working in the hospital, it was hard to avoid them, especially in recovery when your patients finally gained enough strength to talk about their experience.
“Mine’s not a story. It’s real. So do I believe in higher beings and larger forces at work…damn right I do. But like I said, I was always a believer.”
“That’s amazing, but even if higher beings exist, and they’ve deigned to toil over my relationship with Jake, he’s made it clear that he’s not acting on it.”
Coop sat up, her interest piqued. “What did he say, exactly?”
“He doesn’t date acquaintances or sisters of friends.”
Em rolled her eyes. “That’s our Jake.”
“That’s an hors-d'oeuvre,” Coop complained. “We want the main course. Stop teasing us with trifle tidbits and give us something we can sink our teeth into.”
Laughing, Em stared at her friend in wonder. “Who are you?”
“Shut up,” Coop pouted, “I’ve been in bed for two weeks, watching ‘reality’ shows. It’s nice to deal with something real and unscripted.”
Em’s eyes softened guiltily. “You should’ve called.”
“You have the restaurant to deal with and a house to decorate. You’ve spent as much time here as you could.”
“I would’ve made time.”
“Whatever,” Coop stated. “I have Paisley to entertain me now.”
Em could’ve taken offense. Instead, she turned to me with a look of determination. “Come on, kid. Spill it. It’d make Coop’s day. She has nothing better to do than dawdle on your love life.”
I stared down at my feet, my thoughts as jumbled as the pattern in the Persian rug under my feet. I really did want to talk about it. It would be nice to have someone else’s take. Maybe they could make sense of Jake’s behavior. Not to mention that they were his people. Talking to Monica wouldn’t have helped me at all, even if we still spoke. She saw him as an immortal. She couldn’t provide an impartial opinion. Coop and Em, however, they knew he was just a man.
Resolved, I dropped onto the chair behind me. “He showed up at my parents’ house Sunday afternoon. We were just sitting down for dinner. I might have been rude, but only because he hadn’t called in two weeks,
and then he hid behind a Ficus tree when I was here Saturday, trying to avoid me. I guess because I was rude, he was rude back. He kept insisting that I take the job. I kept refusing. I mean, he was just being a jerk. Why would I want to deal with him every day if he was going to act so immature? He hid behind a ficus tree.”
Coop’s eyes brightened. Her belly shook with suppressed laughter. Despite the subject at hand, a smile crept across my own face.
“In the middle of our argument,” I continued, “my mother invited him to have dinner with us. I was mortified. At first, I thought he’d accepted because he didn’t want to be rude to my mother, but I gave him every opportunity to back out, and he kept shooting them down.”
“Merda.” Em rubbed her temples, trying to dispel the thought. “With your family? On Easter Sunday? After your brother gave him a black eye?”
“He was blackmailing me to take the job.”
“He admitted to it?”
I smiled indulgently. “And then reminded me that he didn’t date acquaintances of friends or employees. Which—” I held up my hand, bidding their pause. Objections perched on the edge of their lips. “Which I promised wouldn’t be a problem, because I wasn’t interested.”
“Burned,” Em drawled with satisfaction.
“How did he take that?” Coop inquired. She wedged her hand in the back of the sofa and pushed herself upright, intent on the conversation.
“He kissed me.”
Coop slapped the cushion, crowing in delight. “I knew it! I knew it!”
Wish I shared her enthusiasm. “So he’s attracted to me.” I shrugged, revealing my feelings on the matter. “He made it clear to me and my family at Easter dinner that we were not and would not be dating.”
All humor was wiped from the girls’ faces, their hopes and expectations annihilated over a few spoken words.
“You don’t have to feel bad for me. My mom—the matchmaker—made a comment about love and….fate. Jake choked on a glazed carrot. I had to give him the Heimlich. It came out of his mouth, bounced off the Easter ham, and then landed in the green bean casserole.”
Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing (Hautboy Series Book 3) Page 12
