Riley cleared his throat of the anxiety squeezing it. “I don’t even know if she’s back here. Last I heard, she’d moved with her mom when they sold their house.”
“Yeah, I heard the same,” Seb confirmed. “You know where?”
Riley shook his head. He didn’t dare drive down Wick Avenue in case the house was still empty. That would be a goddamn travesty.
“You gonna find out?” Seb prodded.
Wasn’t that the million-dollar question? “I have no idea.”
Seeing Lexie after five years of radio silence invited all sorts of feelings that Riley tried his best to ignore, and not because he was emotionally stunted. Far from it. He just didn’t see the point of becoming wrapped up in what-could-have-beens, what-ifs, and maybes. Life had provided him and Lexie paths that led in two very different directions and, as much as it sucked, the chance of their paths ever crossing again was minimal, to say the least.
Refusing to wallow, Riley sat up at the same time his belly emitted a furious growl. “I don’t know about you,” he said as he stood, realizing he hadn’t eaten since the night before in New York, “but I need a shitload of food and coffee to strangle the fuck out of the nostalgia in this place.”
“I hear ya,” Seb mumbled, drawing a cocked eyebrow from Riley. Something in Seb’s voice told Riley he wasn’t just being agreeable. “Mom said there was food,” he continued as he stretched. “But we need to go to the store to stock up. Aunt Carol and Maggie are coming tomorrow.”
Riley smiled at the thought of seeing his favorite cousin. “Move your ass, then.” He shoved Seb, almost toppling him over the edge of the bed. “I need bacon.”
Riley cooked breakfast for himself and his brother before they took their father’s Buick Riviera to the store to pick up the essentials. And maybe a few not-so-essentials, like chocolate and ice cream—because Seb and Tate’s sweet teeth were ridiculous—and maybe a couple of bottles of alcohol, because Riley needed a buzz after the drama of the past twenty-four hours.
Tate and their mother arrived home a little before 7 p.m. looking tired and despondent, and with little news. There had been no change in their father’s condition. He was still unconscious, but his heart was beating. The doctor’s opinion was that Park Moore was a fighter, but he still had a way to go.
Guessing that neither of them would have much of an appetite, Riley forwent cooking and ordered a couple of pizzas before pouring his mom a glass of wine. He handed it to her as she curled up in the large armchair in the corner of the living room.
“I didn’t know we had wine in the house,” she uttered before taking a sip.
“You didn’t,” Riley said around the lip of his Heineken. “I figured you might need some, to take the edge off.”
“Thank you,” she said, dropping her head back against the chair. “I do.”
“When will they move dad from ICU?” Seb asked as Riley placed the pizza boxes on the coffee table.
Tate lifted the box lid of the meat pizza despite his initial remarks that he wasn’t hungry. “Until Dad’s condition improves, they’ll continue to monitor his progress carefully.” He picked up a slice and bit into it. “They’ll call if there’s any change.” Tate’s jaw halted mid-chew, as he looked Seb over as though seeing him for the first time. “Where the hell did you get that?”
Seb lifted his pizza-filled hand to display the shirt. “Awesome, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Tate agreed, all but drooling over the original Jurassic Park T-shirt Seb was wearing. Riley’s reaction had been the same. “Where from?”
Seb smirked and chewed his pizza. “I know a guy.”
“Just one?” Riley commented. “No wonder you’re antsy. By the way, is it still too soon to mention the hair?”
Tate sniggered at the same time Seb rolled his eyes and tucked a piece of his hair back. It was long enough that it sat a little below his earlobe. “Not if you want me to leave that beard alone.”
Riley laughed. “Why? My beard is only a teensy bit longer than it was last time you saw me.”
“Yeah,” Seb replied through a mouthful of pizza. “And now you look a teensy bit like you’ve stapled a hamster to your face.”
“But it’s a really awesome hamster,” Riley remarked, stroking his chin. He’d originally grown the beard in Kill, where, for obvious reasons, razors were in short supply. He liked it enough to keep it. Regardless of what Seb said, he knew it looked good.
Seb looked back at Tate, finally answering his question about the shirt. “eBay.”
“You boys and your T-shirts,” Joan commented from her seat, ignoring the insults, napkins, and colorful language flying across her living room. On her chair arm, Seb had placed a small slice of cheese pizza on a plate, which she had yet to touch. “I just don’t get it.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Riley said with a patronizing tap of his hand on hers.
She narrowed her eyes and pointed at his chest. “I hope to goodness you didn’t wear that one to the store.”
Riley’s T-shirt was one he’d picked up from a small Amish shop on a road trip he’d taken in Pennsylvania before he went to college, and was one of only four he’d left in the closet at his parents’ house. The shirt declared “I Love Intercourse” (which was a real, honest-to-God place) and, even at the age of twenty-nine, it still made him giggle like a schoolgirl. He still had a photograph of himself standing next to the Intercourse welcome sign at the side of the highway.
“Of course I wore it to the store, where tons of your friends saw me,” he answered his mother with an innocuous blink. “Why, was that bad?”
Joan laughed lightly, her face brightening for the first time since Riley and Tate had arrived.
They sat for a couple more hours, chatting and catching up, all of them trying their best to forget why they’d all been brought together so abruptly. As nice as sitting in his parents’ living room with his brothers was, it brought a sudden wave of melancholy over Riley. He absolutely needed to make more of an effort with his family.
He saw Tate at least once a month, but Seb, Dex, and his parents deserved more than his biweekly phone calls or biyearly visits. Sure, they were all busy, they all had jobs, routines, but Riley’s father being ill punched home how much his family meant to him, and how shitty he’d been at keeping in touch.
Joan managed a few bites of her pizza slice and finished half of the wine in her glass before she took herself up to bed. Riley followed quietly to make sure she was okay. “You don’t have to baby me,” she remarked fondly when she spotted him hovering at her bedroom door.
He smiled and shrugged, leaning on the doorjamb, watching her take off her earrings. “I know,” he said. She sat heavily on the edge of her bed and kicked off her shoes. “It’s been a long day, huh?”
She nodded and removed her watch, placing it on the side table. Looking around the room, Riley noticed his father’s slippers next to the wardrobe upon which Park’s collection of ties also hung. He rubbed at a slight ache in his belly and swallowed. “He’s gonna be okay, right, Ma?”
His voice trembled and made Joan’s eyes soften. She patted the bed at her side. On heavy feet, Riley approached and sat down next to her, welcoming his mother’s arm around his shoulder. “If I know your father,” she whispered close to his ear, “he’ll do everything in his power to get better so that he can finish fixing that damned roof.”
Riley huffed a laugh and nodded. Joan squeezed him tightly.
“Last time we spoke was . . .” he began, the rest of his words sticking in his throat, overwhelmed by the moment. He tried again. “I let him down. I let you all down.”
“Sweetheart,” Joan murmured. “We all make mistakes. I told you that. Your father knows that. Believe me, he’s made his own share. That man can be stubborn as all hell, but whatever’s gone before, your father loves you very much. Don’t ever doubt that, okay?”
“Okay,” he managed, as she kissed his temple the way she always had when he was little.
· · ·
Riley’s aunt Carol and his cousin Maggie arrived before lunch the next day. They wandered into the family room of the hospital where Riley and his mom had been since eight o’clock that morning. Neither Tate nor Seb had argued when Riley said he would accompany their mother.
Carol was Joan’s twin sister and Riley’s favorite aunt. She was one of those cool aunts who was always more of an older sister. Maggie was the youngest of Carol’s three children—her two brothers were in the navy, like her father—and, having grown up the only girl of their generation, could banter and wrestle with the best of them.
Not that she could wrestle much now with her six-month baby belly and her five-year-old daughter, Rosie, clinging to her leg.
Maggie grinned at Riley, her brown eyes dancing. “Hey, stranger,” she said as they hugged. “It’s been a while.”
Riley kissed her cheek. “I know. I suck.”
“Kinda like this beard,” she commented, poking his chin.
Riley shooed her hand away and laughed, reaching to hug his aunt.
“Don’t you listen,” Aunt Carol said. “It makes you look very handsome.”
“And maybe homeless,” Maggie added, cocking her head to the side considering him.
“You’re lucky you have these to hide behind,” Riley said, pointing to Rosie and then Maggie’s belly. “Or I’d have to kick your ass.”
Maggie waved him off. “Don’t delude yourself. I’d still win.”
The teasing quickly lifted the tense atmosphere that had crept into the family room as the hours ticked by with no news about Riley’s father, which was the best of a bad situation—no news was good news, after all—but he was still about ready to climb the walls. It was also a relief to fall back so easily into the usual family repartee, despite his not having seen Maggie since his father’s last heart attack. That realization brought along another truckload of guilt that Riley knew he deserved.
He looked over at Rosie as Joan lifted her onto her lap and smiled. “Hey, baby girl, you’ve grown so much since I last saw you.”
Rosie’s eyes were the same as her mother’s—as was the jet-black hair braided down her back. She hid her face in Joan’s neck, but Riley detected a smile.
“Don’t scare my kid with your beard,” Maggie mocked.
Riley barked a laugh. “It’s not that bad!” He brushed a hand over his whiskered cheek. “You’re only jealous because you have to shave yours off every morning.”
He yelped playfully when Maggie smacked his arm and again when, apparently done with being shy, Rosie smacked him, too.
They managed to entertain the little girl for an hour before she started getting restless. Not that Riley blamed her; it was boring as shit sitting around the airless family room and there was fuck-all on the wall-mounted TV.
“How about you take the girls and go get some food?” Joan suggested, glancing at Riley as Rosie whined and pushed away everything Maggie was trying to amuse her with. “Get out for a while, take her to the park.”
Riley frowned. Although the thought of leaving the godforsaken place filled him with nothing but joy, he didn’t like the idea of leaving his mom or the chance that they might hear something about his dad. “You’ll be okay?”
“Go,” Aunt Carol ordered. “I’ll stay. Get some fresh air.”
“And bring me back something sweet,” Joan added.
Cranking the AC up to blasting in her car because the air outside wasn’t so much fresh as it was hotter than Hades, Maggie drove the three of them to the nearest McDonald’s drive-thru. Riley was more than happy; fast food was his vice.
The park was a fifteen-minute drive from the hospital and, because of the weather and the fact that it was school summer vacation, it was busy. On a blanket Maggie rustled up from the trunk of the car, she and Riley sat in the sun and watched Rosie as she played in the large sandbox, throwing the stuff and building castles with two other children she’d commandeered for the project.
“So how’re you doing?” Maggie asked, slurping her chocolate milkshake.
Riley shrugged, leaning back on his hands, watching Rosie through his shades. “Doctors say Dad’s a fighter. Can’t ask for more than that.”
Maggie nodded. “Your mom looks tired.”
And it was no wonder. “She’s been at the hospital every day for at least twelve hours.”
“How long are you staying?”
“As long as she needs.”
Riley had spoken to Max that very morning, filling his friend in. Max had told him to take as long as was necessary and Riley didn’t argue. He had to be with his family. It was as simple as that.
Riley grimaced as Maggie pulled off the lid of her shake and dipped a fry into it. “These cravings are kicking my ass,” she said by way of explanation. Riley chuckled and smiled as Rosie approached, handing him a leaf and a twig she’d collected as she’d played.
“Thank you,” he said with a grin. She skipped back toward the sandbox, her pretty pink dress covered in ketchup, chicken nugget bits, juice, and sand. Her hair, which had been tied up in cute, neat pigtails, was now flying around and sticking to her face.
“There’s no point in me even trying to keep her looking respectable,” Maggie said with a resigned sigh. “She’s a hot mess.”
“Like mother, like daughter,” Riley uttered with a smirk.
Maggie adjusted herself on the blanket, leaning against Riley’s shoulder. “And I was going to say how nice it is to have you back in Michigan.”
With the blue sky above them, the relative quiet of the park, and the heat, Riley had to agree. Despite the circumstances, it was nice being home. Sure, he missed the bustle of New York, but there was always something about Traverse City that hugged a deep part of him.
“Do you ever think about moving back?” Maggie asked.
“Not really,” he answered honestly.
“Best thing I ever did.” Maggie had moved back to Michigan from Indiana just before Rosie was born, buying a house with her husband not two hours away from Riley’s mom. “I want my kids to grow up here like we did.”
It was a nice idea. Riley wasn’t sure he’d like his kids to grow up in New York, and Michigan was a nice place to do it. But then he’d have to actually have children, and that wasn’t looking all that likely given his current relationship status. Rosie threw off her sandals and began rubbing her small feet in the sand, much to the exasperation of her mother. Riley had to admit, Rosie was as cute as a button, and seeing her play without a care in the world eased the stiffness between his shoulders.
Rosie threw sand into the air, giggling as she did. Riley got to his feet and wandered over to where she was digging and creating a pile of the stuff between her legs. He crouched and started helping, ignoring Maggie’s complaints about having sand all over the damn car.
Looking back at his cousin to unleash a barrage of “chill the hell out,” Riley noticed a slim woman with light brown hair standing by the slide not fifty feet away. He pulled his shades down his nose and narrowed his eyes in an effort to see her more clearly, even though his gut knew exactly who she was. He stood slowly, wiping his sand-covered hands on the ass of his jeans, noticing the small blond-haired boy she was playing with. He couldn’t have been much older than four.
Maggie looked over her shoulder to where he was staring. “Who is that?”
“It’s Savannah,” he answered, glancing around quickly, his pulse galloping at the idea that Lexie might be somewhere close by. But he couldn’t see her. When he looked back, Savannah was staring straight at him, her blue eyes wide as though he were a ghost.
“Sav,” he managed, taking a slight step forward. He had no idea how she would react to him. She was Lexie’s sister, after all, and there was a shit-ton of water under that bridge.
Savannah didn’t reply. Instead, she muttered something to the little boy as he made to climb the steps of the slide again and clutched his hand, all but dragging him away, even though
the poor little dude complained about wanting one more go. Rather than fighting with him, she picked him up and placed him on her hip.
Riley didn’t breathe until they both disappeared in the crowds, dropping his chin to his chest. Shit. Despite the law of averages stating it was bound to happen, he’d been totally unprepared for dealing with Lexie or her family. Adrenaline coursed through him, picking up his heart and throwing it against his ribs.
“You okay?” Maggie’s voice came from his side. Riley knew Maggie didn’t know the entire story of his and Lexie’s relationship, but he would have put money on his mother having given her the highlights at some point.
He nodded, speechless, and turned back to play with Rosie, praying his burger didn’t suddenly make a reappearance in the kids’ sandbox.
5
Lexie Pierce leaned her hip against the counter, which stretched halfway across the back wall of the store, smiling at the young woman who’d been debating for the past twenty minutes about whether to buy a ring for her index finger or a bracelet to wear with her watch. For some it may have been frustrating in the extreme, seeing a person um and ah over a piece of jewelry, but for Lexie, it was the best part of her job.
“They’re both so pretty,” the woman said for the eighth time, holding the ring in one hand and the bracelet in the other, as if weighing their worth.
Lexie had to agree. They were her favorite and newest designs, and both—the ring embossed with the word laugh and the bracelet, sing—were very beautiful. The woman sighed and dropped her hands. “I can’t decide.”
Lexie chuckled and placed a hand on the woman’s forearm. It was something she tried to do with all her indecisive customers. Touching seemed to help calm them and usually aided in their making a clearer decision. “What’s your name?”
“Amanda.”
“Amanda, my name’s Lexie. Can I suggest something?”
The woman looked instantly relieved. “Yes, absolutely.”
Lexie gestured toward the far wall of the store—a wall that was originally covered entirely in mirrors but had, over the three years the store had been open, been slowly buried under hundreds of pink sticky notes. Lexie wandered toward the vast array of pink, smiling at the words written on each one.
A Measure of Love Page 5
