by Kira Archer
It hadn’t been her fault his parents hadn’t gone for their idea. They wouldn’t have gone for anything he suggested, no matter what it was. He realized that now. But instead of making sure she’d known that, he’d snapped at her and stormed away.
He got up and paced near the staging area. The shame crawling through him was an unfamiliar and unwelcome sensation. And the thought that he might have hurt Lena in any way physically hurt. Like someone had his heart in a vice that they kept tightening. He wanted to make sure she was okay. Needed to make sure. It wouldn’t change anything. But still… He had to know she was okay before they said good-bye forever. How he was going to get through the next day, he had no idea.
“Elliot!”
Tyler came bursting into the courtyard, Lena on his heels. She came to an abrupt halt when she saw him standing there, but Tyler barreled toward him at full steam. Elliot scooped the boy up before Tyler knocked him over. He swung him around and then put him back down.
Tyler grabbed his hand, chattering about his ring bearer duties. He even had the pillow to practice with. They walked back to where Lena waited with the other bridesmaids. Tyler kept up a steady stream of conversation that Elliot only half listened to. Tyler kept hold of his hand. And Elliot realized that the thing he and Lena had both been trying to avoid had already happened.
Tyler was getting way too attached to him. Not only that, Elliot was getting attached to Tyler. He was going to miss the kid when he went home. Like really miss him. That wasn’t something he’d remotely expected. But…letting them go was for the best.
He came up to Lena and almost reached out for her but hesitated at the last second. The rest of the wedding party was gathered near the wedding planner, listening to directions for how the ceremony would run. He should probably pay attention to that, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Lena.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“You doing okay?”
She just stared at him, and the vice around his heart tightened another notch.
“Where’s my ring bearer?” the planner called out. She was getting everyone lined up and ready for their practice march up the aisle.
Lena patted Tyler on the head and sent him over.
“Lena?” Elliot asked softly.
She shook her head, not meeting his gaze. “I’m fine, Elliot. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because I was an ass this morning.”
Her gaze shot to his. “Not going to argue with you there.”
He offered her his arm. She hesitated a second but couldn’t really get out of taking it, since it was almost their turn to walk up the aisle.
“Look, Lena…”
“Don’t, Elliot. You don’t need to say anything. We both knew that this was just for fun. The wedding is tomorrow. The vacation is almost over. We’ll go back to our own lives, and that will be that.”
He frowned but couldn’t argue. “I still meant what I said about helping with your business.”
They started walking up the aisle, ignoring the wedding planner who was loudly counting out their steps.
Lena shook her head. “That’s not necessary.”
“Lena.”
“No,” she snapped, coming to a stop.
The couple behind them almost ran into them, and the wedding planner was waving them along.
Lena started walking again, forcing him to move with her.
“I don’t want your help, Elliot. That’s where all our problems started. The rest… That was fun,” she murmured, her eyes darting around to make sure no one else was listening. “But the business stuff… I told you I was no good at that. I didn’t want my bad luck to bleed all over you, too. I’m sorry I screwed that up for you. Let’s leave well enough alone and just go our separate ways, like we planned.”
It was almost the exact wording Elliot had thought of himself, but it hurt coming from Lena.
They reached the head of the aisle where Oz stood glowering at them. He’d obviously picked up that something was wrong. Elliot nodded at him, and Lena gave him a faint smile. He wanted to continue their conversation, but they had to split, her going to stand on the bride’s side, him the groom’s. They were far from done, though. As soon as the rehearsal was over, they were going to talk. He wasn’t going to let her throw away what little he could offer her and Tyler.
He finally cornered her after dinner when the rest of the wedding party was on the dance floor. She’d excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, and when she came out, he grabbed her hand and dragged her to a secluded corner hidden by a large potted palm.
“Elliot, what are you doing?”
“I want to know why you’re turning down my help.”
She sighed and tried to push past him, but he moved in front of her, slamming one hand against the wall to block her. She wasn’t trapped, but she’d have to shove him out of the way to get past him.
She glared at him. “I need to check on Tyler.”
Elliot shook his head. “I’m sure he’ll be fine without your constant supervision for a few minutes. We need to talk.”
Lena threw her hands up and nearly growled in frustration. “No, Elliot, he won’t be fine. He’s a child. One who is pretty good at wandering off and getting himself into trouble, if you hadn’t noticed. See, this is exactly why…”
“Exactly why, what?” he asked, his gaze burning into hers.
She sighed. “It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Yes, there is. I want to know why you won’t accept my help.”
“God, Elliot! Why do you care? What difference does it make if I take your money or not?”
“It makes a huge difference to you! You and Tyler could use that money, and you know it.”
“What is it to you? Some sort of pay off? You feel guilty for what happened between us, so you’re trying to buy me off or something?”
Anger burned through Elliot, slow and hot. “That’s a disgusting thing to accuse me of.”
She folded her arms, her eyes blazing with her own anger. “Well, I can’t figure out what else it is. Yeah, we had some amazing sex. That doesn’t mean you owe me anything. Why complicate everything?”
Elliot stared at her. She was right. Why was this so important to him?
A child’s laughter rang through the hall, and Elliot turned to see Tyler and Oz doing the chicken dance.
“I want to make sure you two are okay.”
Lena’s face softened. “We’ll be fine, Elliot. We were fine before I met you. We’ll be fine long after you’re gone. You need to…let us go.”
Elliot stared into her eyes. He wasn’t sure what he was searching for. She hadn’t said anything he hadn’t already decided himself.
“Fine.” He stepped back and nodded his head. “Fine.”
She moved away from the corner, back toward the rest of their group. She turned slightly, talking to him over her shoulder. “You’re a good man, Elliot. I don’t regret what happened between us.”
He nodded again and watched her walk away, taking with her everything that had made him truly happy.
Chapter Fifteen
Tyler slept peacefully snuggled in their bed while Lena sat on the couch in the little sitting area of their hotel room, a little wine bottle from the mini-fridge in one hand and her empty idea binder in the other. The papers filled with her ideas were spread before her on the coffee table like the world’s worst montage. Here is your crappy life, in 3-D. She’d kept every idea she’d ever had from grade school on up on those pages. Dozens upon dozens of them. Not one of them worth a damn.
“What a waste,” she murmured.
She took another sip of wine, wishing the mini-bottle was three times the size. There was probably a good two glasses worth of wine inside. Enough to take the edge off the grief and overwhelming disappointment raging through her but not nearly enough to erase the last twenty-four hours from her mind. And she really, really wanted it erased.
She had
n’t seen Elliot since their little talk at the rehearsal dinner. He’d disappeared from the festivities. Which had probably been a blessing. If she hadn’t walked away from him when she did, she would have either cried or thrown herself into his arms and begged him to stay with her. Both mortifying choices that she was happy she’d avoided.
She’d meant what she’d said. They were better off going their separate ways. She’d done enough damage to his life, and had he spent any more time in hers, she might not have been able to walk away at all. And then where would she have been? Sitting alone, nursing a broken heart.
She looked down at the wine bottle in her hand. Oh. She snorted. Well, it would have been much worse, for sure.
A quiet knock sounded at her door, and Lena’s heart pounded in her chest, hope and dread coursing through her at the slim chance that it was Elliot. She stood up, suddenly wishing she was wearing something more than her favorite oversized T-shirt. She didn’t have anything on under it, but it came down to mid-thigh, so she wouldn’t be flashing her undies. Her hair was in a messy bun on top of her head, but she could run a brush through it…
Knock, knock, knock.
“Lenny, it’s me. Open up.”
Lena’s shoulders slumped. Oz. She went to the door and opened it, no longer caring what she looked like. Her brother had seen her much worse.
She opened the door for him, then turned around and slunk back to the couch, leaving him to follow her in.
His eyebrows rose at the empty mini-wine bottle, papers strewn everywhere, and her general state of disarray.
“That bad, huh?”
She snorted, a sound that almost ended on a sob, but she sucked it back in time. Tempting though it was, she wasn’t going to sit and cry over a four-day non-relationship. She wasn’t even sure that was exactly the problem. Yes, she was upset at how things were going, or not, with Elliot. But there were other reasons things were going badly—the same damn issues that had been a problem for her since day one. Bad ideas. Bad implementation. Bad everything.
She was tired of not being able to do anything right. She couldn’t make a business successful to save her life. She couldn’t support her son on her own. Hell, she couldn’t even have a vacation fling without screwing it up and having everything get all dramatic and complicated.
“Len,” Oz said, sitting beside her on the couch. “What’s up?”
She groaned and put her head on his shoulder. “Same shit, different smell.”
He chuckled a little and pulled away from her so he could see her face. “You might have to elaborate on that a little for me.”
Lena grabbed a tissue from the side table and dabbed at the tears that were escaping, despite her best efforts.
“I’m so sick of taking one step forward just to fall ten steps back. It’s like every time I think I’ve finally found a great idea that might actually work out, some ridiculous issue comes up, and it doesn’t pan out. I’ve been trying for six years to make something out of my life. But I’m not qualified for anything. I can’t do anything. Sure, I’ve got a million ideas, but they are all crap, and even if they weren’t, I have no way of making any of them fly.
“So instead of being a good mom and providing a better life for my son, I have to mooch off you like some deadbeat. I mean, what kind of a mom am I? If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t even have a home for my son to live in. I hope you don’t take that wrong,” she hurried to add. “I’ll never be able to repay you for everything you’ve done for us or express how grateful I am that you are such an amazing brother. You’ve always taken care of us. But… I’m his mom. I should be able to take care of him. But everything I try seems to crumble around me. Nothing works out.”
Oz reached over and squeezed her shoulder and she sniffed, wiping at her nose. “I guess I’m just tired of getting so close and having nothing but a big pile of failures to show for it. You work so hard for us, and I don’t do anything to help. You shouldn’t have to shoulder it all. It should be my responsibility. So every time I might be able to help make life a little easier, and it doesn’t work out… It hurts a million times more. Especially now that you are getting married. You should be bringing Cher home to your own house. Not the house where your sister and her kid live.”
Oz wrapped his arm around her and pulled her in for a hug. She snuggled against his chest, feeling for a moment like she had when they were younger and he had comforted her after she’d gotten into trouble or been dumped by some loser. He’d always been there for her. Sure, he’d tortured her a little. What big brother didn’t? But for the most part, he’d always been there, doing whatever he could to make her life better.
“First of all,” Oz said, pulling away again, “take a look at your son over there.”
Lena sniffed again and looked at the small lump burrowed against the pillows.
“No matter what else you do in this life, you will never be a failure. You brought that amazing little boy into the world and have been the best mother any kid could ask for.”
Lena started shaking her head, but Oz put his hand on top of it to stop her.
“Yes. We agreed when he was born that you’d stay home to take care of him until he was in school fulltime. It has been a privilege to me that you’ve allowed me to help raise him. As for you guys still living with me and Cher after we’re married, it’s a non-issue. We’ve all been living together for the last year, and we are very happy to keep that arrangement. So stop worrying about that.”
“We can’t all live together forever, Oz.”
“Why not?”
Lena smiled at her brother, though she couldn’t see him well through the tears swimming in her eyes. “Someday you guys will have kids of your own.”
The joy that lit Oz’s eyes went a long way to cheering Lena. More than anyone she knew, Oz deserved to be happy. She was so glad he’d found Cher.
“When someday comes, we’ll decide what to do then. For now, everyone is happy with the way things are.”
Lena started to protest, but he ignored her, leaning over to pick through her pile of ideas.
“Oh my God, I forgot about this one,” he said, laughing. He picked up a page that had one of those knotted friendship bracelets stapled to it, his grin stretching from ear to ear. “You wrangled every kid in the neighborhood into making these for you so you could sell them to the moms.”
“Yeah. The parents weren’t real happy with me after a while.”
“Us kids were. You covered our ice cream truck treats for a month.”
Lena grinned. “That was the first one that ever made money.”
“Yeah. And you were eight. You’ve got to stop being so hard on yourself. Not every idea is going to pan out, but someday, one of these is going to take off.”
She sighed. “I wish I believed that.”
Oz held up another sheet, the one with the recipe for her lip and bug bite balms. “What about this one? This stuff is great, all of them. Cher refuses to use anything else now. Which reminds me, I was supposed to ask if you had any bite balm on you. She’s got a few on her legs, but her tin is empty.”
“In my bag,” she said, gesturing to where it sat by the end of the couch.
He dug around until he found it. “Thanks. So, why didn’t you go after that one? It’s a damn good idea.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know that I could sell enough to make a profit after buying the materials, the business license, and insurance.”
“So why don’t you do a little research and find out? Maybe all you need is a good investor. Or you could do one of those campaigns online that everyone is donating to nowadays. A lot of people get the funding they need for their start-ups that way.”
“Because I think I should stop wasting my time on ideas that will probably never pan out and get a job that will actually support my son. None of these ideas ever really work. Or haven’t you noticed?”
Oz stared at her long enough that she started squirming. “What’s going on, Len? This isn’t
only about your business ideas.”
She tried to keep any incriminating expression from showing. “Nothing is going on.”
His forehead creased while he studied her. “It has something to do with Elliot, doesn’t it?”
Startled, Lena’s gaze shot to his. “What do you mean?”
“You tell me. I know you guys have been spending a lot of time together. And I know he had a meeting with his parents this morning, and he hasn’t quite been himself since. So, what happened?”
She sighed and leaned her head back against the couch. “We’ve been working on a plan to convert their family charity into a foundation that actually does good things for people. Elliot asked me for ideas.”
“And did you have any?”
Her lips puckered up in a self-deprecating smirk. “Always. We came up with a foundation he wanted to call KidsCase.”
Oz’s eyes grew wider the more Lena told him about the foundation idea. “So, the two of you cooked this up and took it to his parents.”
“He presented it to them. They don’t seem to like me much.”
Oz snorted. “They don’t like anyone outside their own circle much. I’m assuming it didn’t go well.”
She bit her lip. “They’re happy he’s showing an interest. They just don’t want him changing things.”
Oz squinted, looking at her thoughtfully. “How much of all this was your idea?”
She shrugged again. “About half probably. But I couldn’t have done it without Elliot.” She fought to keep her voice steady, though her throat was thick with tears again. “We really were a pretty great team.”
Her brother stared at her. “You care about him, don’t you?”
Lena’s mouth dropped open, her eyes wide. It was a simple question. So why was her pulse pounding in her ears? She hadn’t even admitted to herself how much she cared about Elliot. How much she wished they could be together for real. Her few days with him had meant more to her than any other relationship she’d ever been in. And despite her misgivings over Elliot’s complete lack of parenting skills, he was good with Tyler. The parenting stuff could be learned. It was that special connection that couldn’t be forced. And Elliot had that with Tyler already. She would love to see if they could make it work between them. But that wasn’t going to happen. So she’d tried not to even think about it. Tried and failed.
