A Fine Romance

by Christi Barth

  Mira folded him into a hug. At first, he couldn’t relax enough to enjoy. But soon, her warmth spread through him, melting the anger faster than a double-boiler melted squares of baking chocolate. “You poor thing,” she murmured. “That must’ve been a huge, two-pronged shock.”

  See, Sam knew he could count on Mira to understand. To have his back. To prop him up. Having his own personal cheerleader right next door was one hell of a silver lining to the night. “I didn’t handle it very well,” he admitted, sniffing deeply the vanilla scent of her hair.

  “Not surprising,” she said dryly.

  “Mom stormed out.”

  “Not surprising,” she repeated, rubbing his back in slow, soothing circles.

  Sam jerked his head back. “What?”

  She eased her hands around to lay flat on his chest. “You’re her kid, Sam. Yes, a grown man, but still her kid. You don’t have a say in who she dates, or when. If you acted half as put out as you are now, I’m not surprised at all that your mother left. But I’m sure she’ll still move her trip.”

  As fast as Mira pissed him off about one thing, then she darted to another. He could barely keep track. “What do you mean? Why would she do that?”

  “Didn’t you ask her to? Shift the dates so that you can do the Fancy Food show?”

  Okay, he’d given her way too much credit. Clearly she didn’t understand at all. “Of course not.”

  Now Mira was the one who pulled back, all the way out of his embrace. “Did you tell her anything about wanting to exhibit at the show?”

  “No.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  Sam grabbed another beer from the six-pack he’d dumped in the sink. He’d need the hoppy buzz in his system to survive the rest of this interrogation. “I told you the first time I mentioned it that I wouldn’t upset her until it was a done deal. Until I registered. Diana not coming back made it complicated enough. But now, with Mom planning to float through the ocean, that’s it. There’s absolutely no way I can do it.”

  “Sure there is. Tell your mom about your plans. Vacations can be shifted around, even if they’ve already booked the cruise.”

  Her endless optimism on his behalf was a stark contrast to the scorched-earth mindset she had about her own problems. Weird. “No. It’s hopeless. I can’t ask her to do that.”

  “You can’t just give up, either.”

  “You don’t understand.” In a long, steady gulp, he drained half his beer.

  “Make me.”

  Sam stopped and really thought about it. Why the hell not? He’d never told anyone this story, but it was probably the only way to get her to drop the topic for good. Then they could go back to the comforting portion of the evening. The part where Mira made sympathetic noises and tried to cheer him up. Preferably in bed.

  “When Dad lay in his hospital bed, between heart attacks, he knew time was running out. So he wrote me a note. One of the nurses gave it to me when I got there, too late.” He slipped his wallet out of his pants, then pulled out a well-worn and creased piece of paper. “Read this.”

  Mira unfolded it to stare at the shaky block printing. “‘Take care of Cupcake.’” She looked up at him, quizzically. “Do you have a secret family recipe for cupcakes?”

  “No. I mean, yes, we do, as a matter of fact.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “The secret is mayonnaise. Don’t tell anyone.”

  She crinkled her nose. “Ewww. Don’t worry.”

  “Cupcake was Dad’s nickname for my mother.”

  A single tear welled at the corner of her eye. “That’s adorable. Perfect for a baker. And it’s a beautiful note. So touching that he put her first, even as he...well...” She trailed off. “Do you always keep it with you?”

  Slowly and carefully he refolded and wedged it behind his emergency twenty. “Of course. It reminds me every day of my duty.”

  After a noise suspiciously close to a snort, she crossed her arms over her chest. “What duty?”

  “Don’t you see? Dad passed his responsibility on to me. I’m wholly responsible for her now.”

  “For your mother?” Mira sounded incredulous.

  “Yes.”

  “No, you’re not. She is her own person. You can check up on her, and worry about her. You can even go the extra mile to make her happy. But unless you’re about to have her declared mentally incompetent, you aren’t responsible for her.”

  This is why he hadn’t told anyone. Until the two-ton onus of familial guilt squeezed against your heart every day, you couldn’t understand. One of those walk-a-mile-wearing-my-chocolate-covered-apron things. “I can’t ignore my father’s last, dying wish.”

  “You can’t take his place, either. And he wouldn’t want you to ignore your own life.”

  God, he loved her, but Mira Parrish’s single-minded pursuit of his happy ending was driving him to drink. Sam tossed back the rest of his beer and slammed down the bottle. “My life doesn’t matter,” he burst out. “My hopes, my dreams, it all has to take second place. My mother has to come first. The entirety of her happiness comes first. Always. I owe my dad that much.”

  Confused blue eyes squinted at him. “Why?”

  “Are you kidding?” He spun away from her, driving his fingers through his hair. “My selfishness took me to Europe. My selfishness kept me a continent away when my father needed me the most. It kept me from saying goodbye to him. If he’d asked me to build a tower to the moon out of cream puffs in that note, I would’ve done it.”

  Mira grabbed his arm. When he didn’t budge, she angled around in front of him. “Sam, are you listening to yourself? I mean, there’s selfless, and then there’s just plain stupid. You can’t subsume your life to your mother’s. Kathleen wouldn’t possibly want that for you.”

  Here’s where he drew his line in the sand. “She. Can’t. Know.”

  “Don’t yell at me. I’m not going to rat you out.”

  “Sorry.” He didn’t even realize he’d raised his voice.

  “I can’t believe I have to say something this basic, but here goes. Don’t throw away your dreams for your mother’s sake.”

  “She deserves it. Death stole her chance at sharing the easy years of retirement with my dad. And she gave up two decades of her life to raise me and Diana. The least I can do to even the score is make her life as trouble-free as possible.”

  Mira spread her arms wide at her waist. She wore the same condescending look his tenth-grade geometry teacher got whenever he asked a question more than once. “Why not let her decide?”

  “Because she’d give up everything for me. It’s why she fought with Dad for a year for my chance to go to Europe.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t want to get morbid, but this whole me second attitude is going to last how long? Until your mother dies? She seems pretty spry. She’s easily got another twenty-five years in her.” Mira blinked at him for a moment, waiting for a response. When he simply stared back, her lips thinned. Everything about her body hardened. If she’d been a hedgehog, spines would’ve popped out. “Are you going to wait that long to marry? Start a family?” Her words weren’t loud, but very deliberate. “Because you can’t have a child unless you’re willing to put it first in your life, and it sounds like that spot’s already reserved.”

  Sam hadn’t thought about it. On purpose. For the past two years, he’d only existed by maintaining a one-day-at-a-time mantra, like an addict used to get through recovery. Through days filled with worry about his mom, his sister and throwing every ounce of energy into keeping the bakery afloat, planning for the future had been a luxury he couldn’t afford. And planning for love was more Ivy’s style than his.

  Now that Mira threw it in his face, however, the truth couldn’t be avoided. No matter how much he loved her, nothing had changed. Mom still came first. Mira
appearing in his life didn’t erase his dad’s request. Wow. No wonder he didn’t risk thinking about the future. Apparently he didn’t have much of one. Sam braced his palms on the sink behind him. Suddenly he didn’t feel so hot.

  “I can’t let my father down. I have to honor his request. That’s the only answer I have to your questions.”

  “That’s a shame. But it’s your choice. It’s plain to see there’s no point fighting about it.” Mira stepped forward and rose to her tiptoes to kiss his forehead. “Goodbye, Sam.”

  One lousy fight and she wouldn’t share the sheets with him? “You’re not spending the night?”

  “No.” She squared her shoulders, backing up almost to the door. “Don’t you understand? This is the big goodbye. I’m ending this, Sam. I can’t stick around to watch you throw away your life like this. Throw away our future. Trust me, I’m not angling for a proposal. But at our age, if there isn’t the slightest chance that the road we’re exploring ends in marriage, we’re just wasting our time. I can’t believe all you’re giving up.”

  Ten minutes ago she’d practically crawled up him like ivy on a drainpipe. Just like that, they were over? This is the reward he got for sharing his big, painful secret? Panic cramped his gut faster than the night he ate an entire bowl of buffalo chicken dip. “You’re the one giving up. I didn’t ask you to break up with me.”

  “And I don’t want to.” She fisted her hand at her stomach. “Do you get that it physically hurts me? That you’re willing to give up on us to take care of a woman who, as far as I can tell, can take care of herself?”

  Un-fucking-believable. The woman he loved, who filled his life with as much sweetness as sugar and chocolate, really gave up on him over his mother issues? Why wouldn’t she take a chance on him? Try to work through things? Then it hit him. She’d never said those three little words back to him. If Mira didn’t love him, of course she didn’t want to make the effort. The pain he felt honed itself into a sharp arrow, and let fly.

  “You don’t know anything about my mother.”

  “And maybe you don’t know as much as you think you do,” she shot back. “Sure, Kathleen hit a rough patch. Did you single-handedly bring her back from the brink of a nervous breakdown? Probably. But now she’s better. Did you know that when you break a bone, it heals twice as strong? Your mother is happy, healthy and in an exciting new relationship. She’s let go of you. Why can’t you let go? Why can’t you grab my hand instead? Start our life together?”

  He wouldn’t roll over to an ultimatum. “Because—I can’t. I have to be there for her.”

  “Naturally. In general. But not every hour of every day, in every way. Let her live her own life again. Start living yours.”

  “I’m not letting Dad down. I’m sorry you think it has to be this way.”

  “I’m sorry, too. You’re such a wonderful man, Sam. I wish you could see that the choice you’re making is the only one that could let your father down.” Mira sucked in a deep breath. “I can’t put my life on hold for the next twenty years. I won’t live half a life. You’re the one who urged me to stand up to my parents and strike out on my own path. Find my own bliss. Watching you toss away your dreams is about as far from bliss as I can image.” She walked to the door then paused, hand on the knob. “Please don’t come to the opening. I don’t think I’ll be able to bear seeing you for a while.”

  How was he supposed to bear not seeing her?

  Chapter Nineteen

  The insistent blaring of his cell phone cut through Sam’s headache like a hot knife through icing. Groaning, he patted in the general area of the nightstand. He managed to knock off the radio, a book and a full glass of water before finding the phone just as it stopped ringing. Then the landline started. This time, he skipped the groaning and went straight to swearing. Rolling to the foot of the bed—and his stomach rolling in somersaults with him—Sam grabbed for his sweats, then hotfooted it to the kitchen, where he slapped the phone off the hook.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, you gotta come downstairs. Right now.” Ben sounded serious. But not dead-body serious, so Sam couldn’t think of any reason to throw on more clothes and comply.

  “Not a great time for me. Catch you later?”

  “No. Now.” His voice lowered to an urgent, near-growl. Still not dead-body serious, but a hell of a lot closer. And given Ben’s laid-back personality, very out of the ordinary.

  Sam sighed. It couldn’t be more than dawn o’clock. “Give me two minutes. I’ll meet you out back.” He hung up, threw on shoes, a shirt and dry-swallowed four aspirin. Maybe they’d kick in by the time he got some coffee brewed.

  It took all his concentration to tiptoe down the stairs so his mom wouldn’t hear him. Even though they weren’t speaking right now, if she saw his hangover pallor and bloodshot eyes, she’d read him the riot act. Better to lie low until he hit the shower and choked down some toast. The jingle of the front door bell told him the bakery already had customers. Sam crept down the hall, feeling like an idiot. A grown man shouldn’t have to sneak out of his own apartment. Why couldn’t he own his stupid hangover? Take a weird, masculine pride in it, like jock itch and ulcers.

  By the time he unlocked the back door, he’d cracked both eyes open. Not at the same time, but it felt like progress. Sam braced himself against the early morning chill as he opened the door. Then two hard blows to the chest, immediately followed by a rush of icy water, snapped his eyelids open. Shiver or shriek? Before he could decide, one more hard bump lashed right against his gonads. At least the shock of the cold water helped diminish the nut-cracking pain. Sam staggered backward, landing on his ass.

  “What the fuck is going on?” he said from between chattering teeth.

  Backlit by the pearly dawn, Ben and Gib advanced, each in sweats and hoodies. Gib had both arms crossed, but Ben hefted a bright red, tightly filled water balloon in one hand. “Give me one good reason not to use this,” he said.

  Had he lost his mind? “Give me one good reason why you would,” Sam demanded. He curled his knees up to his waist and curled onto his side. Still hard to breathe from shock and pain, but it protected him from another hit. “It’s still six months until April Fool’s Day. We stopped playing Humans vs. Zombies back in June once wedding season ramped up. What the hell did I do to deserve a sneak attack?”

  Gib kicked the door shut with his foot. “What you deserve? If we doled out what you deserve, you’d be black and blue for a week.” His crisp accent honed the knifelike anger in his voice to a lethal point.

  “Seriously, I’m clueless here. And epically hungover, so cut me some slack. The bartender over at McGee’s mixed me something just short of toxic last night.”

  “Good. If you’re already in pain, it makes our job easier.” Ben set down the water balloon and dropped into a crouch. “You’re an idiot, Lyons. A first-class, no-holds-barred idiot.”

  Gib spread his legs wide and crossed his arms. A hip-hop artist pose, the kind that popped up mid-video right before the half-dressed women swarmed him. “We warned you the consequences would be dire should you break her heart.”

  His neurons weren’t firing at full speed yet. Figuring out why they’d come at him felt like a pop quiz. “Who? Mira?”

  “You treated anyone else like shit recently?”

  “How did you—” Sam pieced together their outfits, the time of day, and figured it out. “She was supposed to go running with you this morning.”

  Gib snapped off a nod. “Yes. But after you shredded her heart into confetti, she wasn’t exactly in the mood.”

  “Why’d you mess with her?” Ben demanded.

  Sam didn’t have the energy to bluster or lie. “I love her.”

  “Right. You love her so much you broke up with her.”

  “Hey, she dumped me.” And that stung like battery acid
on a slow drip into his heart. “Take that into consideration. Maybe I’m the one who deserves some sympathy. A little hey-we’re-on-your-side attitude.”

  “We’re not choosing sides.” Gib sighed, then extended his hand to help Sam up. “That’s the problem. We know you’re both hurting.”

  “Especially since there are tiny gnomes hammering their way through my skull as we speak.”

  “We get the hint.” Gib gave him a swift once-over. “You look like shit.”

  Sam squeezed out the hem of his shirt. “You’re the ones who drenched me.”

  “I’ll go grab coffee from up front and meet you upstairs.” Ben tossed his balloon in the trash and ambled down the hall. Dripping at every step, Sam led Gib to his apartment. Once inside, he grabbed a towel and changed into another pair of sweats. “Why’d you decide to go with punishment by water balloon?” he called out from the bedroom.

  “Ben wanted to borrow a fire hose, but we figured that would probably break a couple of ribs. Then he wanted to downscale to a Super Soaker, but we were too pissed off to wait for a toy store to open. Ben used his key to Aisle Bound and grabbed some balloons out of their supply closet.”

  Sam came out and flopped full length onto the navy couch. The cushions bunched around him as tightly as a chalk outline around a murder victim. Just because they’d gotten him up didn’t mean he had to stay vertical. “I hope he left Ivy a note. You know she’ll notice they’re missing.”

  “Yes. Her attention to detail is wondrous to behold.” Gib sat in the blue plaid wing chair, legs crossed as though ready for a tea party. “Now explain yourself. Explain how, if you truly love Mira, you can treat her so shoddily.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “You’ve tried that line on us before.” The door snicked behind Ben as he handed out steaming mugs. The smell alone began to rejuvenate Sam. He inhaled deeply, savoring the spike of dark roast that woke up all of his nerves not already on alert from the water bombing. Nothing would make this morning even halfway good, but coffee made all mornings tolerable.