Bethany eased away, freshly wounded. “I’m pretty much finished out there. I guess I better get.”
And before he could stop her, she raced out the Dream Whip’s front door.
“Damn it.” He headed behind the front counter, pushing through the swinging doors to the industrial kitchen beyond.
Dru was prepping what looked like a batch of the chicken salad that had been a Whip crowd-pleaser as far back as when she and Oliver were kids. He stopped several feet away from her stainless steel work station, expecting her to be pissed after Bethany’s warning.
Dru smiled instead, pointing her chopping knife at him. She pinned Oliver with one of her tell me everything stares.
“Spill,” she demanded.
“You just left Selena there with her mom?” Dru asked after Oliver had recapped yesterday’s misadventure at the Rosenthal house.
“What was I supposed to do once Belinda showed up?”
“What happened to all that fancy talking you do with your clients, to get them to throw money at you when they need something fixed? You need to fix this, Oliver.”
“I tried.”
“Who cares if Belinda was there?”
He’d cared. He’d damn near trampled the woman racing out of her house.
“She’s scary,” he fessed up.
“She’s a pushover these days where Selena and Camille are concerned, everyone can see that.”
His sister looked exhausted. But she was calm. She was definitely a little freaked—it was there in her eyes and the rapid-fire chop-chop-chop of her knife. But she was studying Oliver with a cool confidence that he could no longer feel about any of this.
“Mom’s been obsessed with Selena and Camille, too,” she said. “Does that mean you’re going to run from Marsha, too, the next time she walks into a room?”
“Of course not. I just thought everyone could use a little space yesterday afternoon.”
“Everyone?”
“Okay, I needed space.” Selena didn’t know who her daughter’s father was. And worse, she didn’t want to know.
“A man who needs space doesn’t march into a woman’s house and demand she tell him whether or not he’s her sperm donor.”
“I didn’t want to . . .” What? Start making out with Selena again, right in front of her mother? “I wasn’t going to make more trouble between Selena and Belinda than I’m sure I already have.”
“Trouble?”
His sister lifted her hand, chopping blade pointed up. She wiped her bangs out of her face with the back of her wrist.
“Let me get this straight,” she said. “You stared at Selena across the hedge like a ghost the other morning and intimidated her until she couldn’t speak to you. Then you botched things at the hospital when she came to visit Dad. But you thought cornering her in her mother’s home yesterday about Camille’s paternity, while the poor kid’s sick down the hall, might avoid trouble? Haven’t you learned anything about women?”
“Apparently not.”
“Then when Belinda showed up, you bounced, like you and Selena are still teenagers, and you’d been caught canoodling or something.”
He spun an onion on the counter instead of responding.
“Oliver?”
Damn it. He needed to talk to someone about it. Someone not his mother. Or Travis, who’d gotten an earful about everything else. But he’d never have let Oliver live it down, how Oliver had practically had his hands up Selena’s skirt the first chance he’d gotten her alone.
“I left,” he said, “mostly because just before Belinda showed up, Selena and I were kissing. And even after her mother got there, I wanted to . . .”
“Get you some more of that?”
Oliver shook his head at his sister. “It wasn’t like that.”
But if Selena had been there in the kitchen—Dru or no Dru—he’d have wanted to touch and taste and feel her melt all over him again. She’d been liquid fire in his arms.
His sister set her knife down. “You kissed her?”
“It just happened.” He sounded ridiculous.
“While you grilled her about Camille?”
“I wasn’t grilling her.”
“So she was willing to talk about her daughter’s paternity?”
“No. But—”
“Then you were grilling her.”
“I was asking her to work with me on this, with our family, with you and Brad.”
“And she was angry about it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know women. She was angry and probably scared and feeling off balance and defensive. And instead of giving her some space before her mother showed up, you—”
“Kissed her and scared her even more.” Except for the few moments when she’d been open and giving and loving and wanting. She’d been his Selena again. “I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”
“Of course you do.” Dru rounded the counter and gave him a hug. And it felt good. Solid. Like old times. Except that now his sister was looking a little too closely at him for comfort.
She let the silence stretch between them and got back to working on the celery that would join the baked chicken she’d diced. She was waiting him out, like their mother did.
“You warned me seven years ago,” he finally said, “to be careful with Selena. Even then you thought I was scaring her—or something was. I wish I’d had you nattering that in my ear yesterday.”
“I don’t natter. I talk reasonably about things. And I don’t care how many times my fiancé accuses me of going on and on. I’m an adult now, and adults don’t natter.”
“You’re a downright gorgeous adult,” Oliver corrected.
She grinned her approval at his remembering her reprimand when they’d talked at home. “You’re not imagining it.”
She scooped chopped celery into the metal mixing bowl that held the chicken. Scraps were discarded into the waste bin at the end of the stainless steel counter, into a different container from the one that had received the unwanted poultry parts.
When he’d walked into the kitchen, the bowl had already contained mayonnaise, boiled eggs, and red onion. He watched her add spices next and stir everything together with an enormous metal spoon, its handle half the length of her arm. Then came the plastic wrap, rolled from what looked like a ten-pound box. She covered the mixture with brisk, controlled movements, storing it on a shelf in the industrial cooler. Then she collected everything that needed cleaning and dumped it in one sink. She washed and dried her hands in another, untied her apron and draped it over the sink’s edge.
When he still hadn’t said anything, she gave him her full, frustrated attention. “Look, let’s just cut to the chase. I love you. I love Brad. I’ll love Camille, just like Marsha and Joe will, if she’s ours. All that leaves for us to discuss is whether in the last seven years you’ve learned how to really let yourself love someone, the way Selena and Camille will need you to.”
“Wow.” Brad must not have known what hit him. “Did you know before I told you? About Camille?”
“No. I still don’t, and neither do you. And now you’ve made us getting to the bottom of that harder than ever.” Dru pressed her palms to the counter. “Mom’s pretty worried about Dad.”
Oliver blinked. The zigzag shift in topics made it impossible for him not to pull his sister into his arms again.
“We’re all worried,” he said.
“Are you talking to Selena just because of Mom and Dad?”
. . . whether in the last seven years you’ve learned how to really let yourself love someone . . .
“Marsha and Joe were a lot of it at first.”
“But not all of it?”
Not even close.
Not after holding—kissing—Selena again. Not after speaking to Camille. Not after seeing Bethany and talking with Travis and Dru and Brad. After accepting that coming back home had never been simply just checking on his dad. Oliver had needed all of this, all of them, fo
r months. For years, whether he’d seen it or not. So much that at the moment what he seriously needed was a drink, something cold and biting and mind-numbing, to help him forget the rest of what he was feeling: panic and the absolute certainty that he was going to let everyone down again.
“I need to know . . .” he admitted. “I need to know that you’re going to be okay. You and Brad, and Mom and Dad. But if Camille’s mine, I need her in my life . . . somehow.” No matter how hard her mother fought to push him away. “If she’s not, I don’t want Brad to lose having her in his. Or yours. If she’s family, then—”
“She’s ours.” Dru stepped back. “My advice? Don’t make what you do next about anyone but you and Selena. Dad’s rallying. He’ll get through this. Mom’ll hold herself and everyone else together like she always does. Brad and I are going to be fine. There’s a part of me that’s still a little pissed at Selena and what she did. But what I think about her or any of the rest isn’t important. You need to do what’s right for you this time, Oliver.”
“I don’t want anyone getting hurt again.”
“That’s a pretty unrealistic goal, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’ll get things under control.”
Dru snorted. “Good luck with that.”
Oliver ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll figure something out.”
She checked her watch and winced. “I have a staff meeting in a half hour.”
“You have a staff? I’ve been running my own business for five years, and I’ve never had a staff.”
“Stick with me, kid. I’ll get you to the bigs.” She placed a palm over his heart, her engagement ring flickering like living fire. “Wanting Selena and Camille for yourself is a good thing, Oliver. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m sorry about all of this,” he said.
“I’m sorry you’ve missed so much time with everyone.” His sister’s gaze was steady. Her forgiveness, solid. “And from what I hear, you might not have much time to set things right with Selena before you miss even more.”
“And you’ve heard . . . ?”
Dru backtracked to the sink to deal with the dishes. “Gossip mostly. The Whip is an epicenter for the stuff. I’m never sure what to believe. Talk to Selena again. Get the real story from her.”
“Selena’s not speaking to me.”
“You had her talking yesterday. Get back on that horse, Oliver, and stay on this time.”
“You stretching the musketeer metaphor a bit.”
Dru ignored his sarcasm. “No Belinda.”
“I can work with that.”
“No kissing.”
He avoided her gaze.
“You know I’m right,” she pressed.
He did. He also knew his chances were slim to none of not being all over Selena the next time he saw her.
“You’ve got to smooth things over,” Dru said.
“Smoothing things over is my day job.”
“Then saddle up and get to work.”
His cell phone rang before Oliver could respond. He pulled it from his pocket and saw Marsha’s name on the display.
“This has to be about Dad.” He hugged his sister to his side and answered the call. “Hey, Mom. I’m at the Whip. What’s up?”
“My name is Oliver,” he announced to the room that evening. “And I’m an alcoholic and an addict.”
After talking with his mom over the phone, taking care of Teddy all day, then visiting his dad at the hospital while his sister spelled Oliver again at home instead of getting her afternoon off, he’d officially hit the wall.
Joe’s spirits were still high, though the angio had sapped even more of his energy. And now he was due back in surgery—later that night if Kask could line up a surgical team and an OR. There hadn’t been enough improvement in Joe’s latest tests. Bypass was his best shot at recovery now. And Travis had taken one look at Oliver leaving their dad’s CICU room and agreed to be at the house tonight—because Oliver had needed to be here.
“Hello, Oliver,” replied the AA group gathered in a strip mall just outside the Chandlerville city limits.
Everyone met his gaze, patiently waiting for him to continue. Everyone, except for Selena.
She’d zipped through the doors at the last minute, after he’d caught sight of her barreling into the parking lot practically on two wheels. She’d parked her excuse for a car as far away from the meeting space as possible. He’d considered slipping out the back door and sparing her knowing he’d been there at all.
Except he’d been waiting to speak first, once the opening business of the meeting concluded. He was there to work his program. To cling to his commitment to stay clean. Selena, presumably, was dealing with her own sobriety in an equally responsible way. And she didn’t need him to look out for her anymore. She’d made that clear enough. Now she had her coffee and was sitting at the back of the room, making eye contact with no one. Not since she’d heard his voice and realized he was there.
“I’m only in town for a visit,” he continued. “My father’s having health problems that got a lot worse today. My family needs my help more than ever. Plus there’s a lot more going on than my dad possibly . . . dying.” Oliver clenched his fists. “I’m not coping with things nearly as well as I should be. And the last time I felt this way and didn’t take care of it by working my program, I found myself at the bottom of a bottle of pills, wondering if I’d screwed up everything that was important to me for the second time in my life.”
Selena looked up, the honesty he might never have been able to give her one-on-one connecting them across a roomful of strangers.
“Alcohol,” Oliver continued, “was how I destroyed my best shot at a normal childhood. I haven’t had a drink since I was nineteen. I’ve made something of myself. I had everything in my life exactly the way I wanted it. Then two years ago I chose taking prescription drugs over dealing with things that most days I still don’t want to deal with. I relapsed. Hard. I thought I’d fully recovered from that. The last few days . . . it’s clear I haven’t.”
He took a breath, felt the light-headedness of too little sleep and escalating stress. He saw again the downright frightened look on Travis’s face a few hours ago, when Oliver had nearly lost it in the CICU hallway.
“The meds were legally prescribed. I saw them as necessary, to keep me working harder and faster at an impossible job I do better than most anyone. My career is who I’ve become. It’s how I take care of people. Modifying my workload was out of the question. Time off meant letting people down. Stimulants kept me going, on my feet and functioning. They very nearly trashed my life. I almost blew a contract for a client who could have shot my reputation in the industry. I nearly destroyed my chance to make up for my hell-raising youth to my family. But . . .”
He thought about what Travis had said. And Dru. And Selena. Oliver looked her way again. Made sure he still had her attention.
“I’m starting to wonder if that’s not what I wanted from the start. If my relapse was somehow my excuse to come home. At least close enough to home to feel a little more of it, to want a little more of it, until I got my chance to dive all the way back in. My dad’s health crisis means I’m needed here, not just at work. I get this town back. People care about me here. And maybe I’m letting myself really take that in for the first time.”
He saw tears in Selena’s eyes. That’s when he realized his gaze was wet, too.
“At least,” he said to her, “that’s what I’ve been figuring out the last few days. I’ve made amends with people I didn’t think I’d ever see again. My rehab counselors tried to talk me into doing that from the start. My family’s wanted me back for years. But I knew . . . somehow I knew how hard it would be to come home, and then return to the work I do. And my family will be needing the money my business generates even more now. Especially when it’s looking like . . .”
He kept his attention focused on Selena, which kept him going.
“I don’t know when my dad w
ill be able to work again. If he’ll be able to. So I’ll work my ass off instead. No problem. That’s who I am. Except that will mean leaving him again. All of them . . .” Oliver cleared his throat. “So an hour or so ago, while I was talking with my dad, and I was scared out of my mind by how old and fragile he looked, I found myself thinking how easy it would be to stop by the pharmacy on the way out of the hospital and have a backup prescription for stimulants refilled. So I’d have a pill, maybe two or three—no more than a half dozen or so—to get me through this. Just while I’m home. Just while I’m starting back to work.”
Selena wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. So did he. And then she did the most remarkable thing. She smiled, and she nodded, supporting him the way he’d once tried to be there for her.
He smiled back, to let her know how grateful he was. He took a deep breath, the knot lodged in the center of his chest loosening a little.
“And that’s when I knew I had to be here. Because I can’t help the people I care about if I don’t take care of my sobriety first. I’m no good to my dad or anyone if I’m high.”
Heads all over the room nodded, strangers, brothers and sisters he’d never met. And Selena, even though she still looked as if she might sprint back out to her car.
“I have things in my life that are more important,” he said directly to her, “than a few hours of escape, or convincing myself that feeling nothing is the only way for me to get through this. So I’ll stay clean today. Tonight, when my dad’s back in surgery. Tomorrow. Whatever happens, I’ll figure out where I need to be for my family and the people I care about—and I’ll make sure I’m there for them.” Remembering what his brother and sister and his rehab counselors had said, he added, “I’ll make sure I’m there for myself.”
With the audience clapping their support, he stepped away from the folding table that the meeting coordinator, a local businessman named Walter Davis, had set up with fliers and other paperwork. It also served as a makeshift lectern. He shook Walter’s hand and took a seat on the front row of olive-green plastic chairs that looked to be seventies-era castoffs. A man Walter had introduced as Law Beaumont occupied the seat beside him.
Let Me Love You Again (An Echoes of the Heart Novel Book 2) Page 14
