Chapter Sixteen
Eve’s phone rang at four thirty on Sunday afternoon, and she dove across her mother’s dining room table to retrieve it from her bag.
It was a local number, and it was the fifth call today that wasn’t from Nick.
Not that she’d really expected him to call. She hadn’t been sure he was running out on her last night—she wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, and the way he’d kissed her before he’d left had her envisioning long mornings spent in bed, but—
“Are you going to get that?” Allie asked, slapping shut the flap of another fundraiser invitation.
Eve pushed the answer button. “Hello?”
“Eve? This is Margie from Sunday Night Serenity.”
“Oh, hey Margie.”
Allie gave her a questioning glance, and she shrugged. The secretary of the Al-Anon meeting they both attended didn’t call very often—she was more of a texter.
“I wonder if you could bring the cookies to tonight’s meeting. We’ve got a speaker, and Howard usually does it, but his wife’s having a colonoscopy tomorrow because her diverticulitis has been flaring, and he’s—”
“Yeah. Yes. Sure,” Eve said, anything to avoid details of Howard’s wife’s bowel dysfunctions. “How many does he usually get?”
Margie spent five minutes discussing the benefits and drawbacks of oatmeal versus peanut butter, in addition to plain sugar and chocolate chip—Julie liked oatmeal, but Katie would complain if there was no peanut butter, and she really didn’t want to upset anyone, but they always got sugar and chocolate chip—
“I’ll just pick up all four kinds,” Eve said, and tried not to laugh at her sister, who was rolling her eyes. She’d been on the receiving end of a few of Margie’s phone calls before.
“But we’d have to have a group conscience to make sure the group could pay you back for them, and it seems like we might be enabling both Katie and Julie to continue their passive aggressive power struggle,” Margie reminded her. The group conscience was the way the meeting members made decisions—a fancy twelve-step version of good old-fashioned voting. As for Katie and Julie, Eve didn’t think it was her responsibility to either point out or resolve their character defects.
“You know what? I’ll cover the extras,” she said. “I just won’t throw anything in the basket tonight.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll see you in a couple of hours. Bye!” she said, and clicked the end button before she got stuck in any more mental wanderings. “You’re coming with me,” she told Allie, who had stood and was attempting to gather her things.
“I was going to go, but I promised Justin that I’d…um—”
“I’m sure it will be fine with him. Your recovery is incredibly important to him,” Eve said.
“Yeah.” Allie slumped back down. They’d each tried to convince the other since their father died they didn’t need the program any longer, but the truth was, they both tended to get too caught up in worrying about other people’s issues, and Al-Anon helped them deal with things. Too bad their mother had never embraced the program.
“Do you have those invitations addressed, girls? They need to go in the mail first thing tomorrow.” Lorena put a sheet of stamps on the table, avoiding Eve’s eyes like she’d been doing all day.
“Mom? Is something wrong?” Allie asked.
Eve flinched; she figured Lorena had seen Nick’s truck in the drive last night and was upset about it.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” Allie asked. “Because I could swear there was steam coming out of your ears last night when we dropped you off and you saw that truck parked in the driveway.” She shrugged at Eve, who gave her a death glare. Leave it to Allie to not only open the box, but to dump the contents on the table.
Lorena didn’t respond to Allie, but pursed her lips and turned to Eve. “I’m sure if I noticed that truck there, the rest of the Blue Mountain family and staff noticed, as well.”
“At one in the morning?” Allie muttered.
“He didn’t stay long,” Eve said, hearing the defensiveness in her words, even though he’d certainly stayed long enough.
“My point, Evelyn, is that it doesn’t look good to entertain the carpenter after hours. It’s one thing to invite him to a social event, but quite another to—”
“Seriously?” Eve cut her off.
Allie, shocked at Eve’s uncharacteristic outburst, jerked back in her seat, nearly toppling over before she grabbed the edge of the table and righted herself.
“How can you say that after everything he’s done? He stepped up to do a job he’s not obligated to do, managed to take care of his dad without killing the old bastard, and he even spent our big date playing cornhole with you.” And he’d showed her all of that—all of that caring, without losing himself. He showed her a glimmer of whom she could be, but this wasn’t about her. It was about a good man who didn’t deserve to be run down by her mother. “This isn’t 1843. He’s not a servant, and I’m not a—a princess.”
“But Eve, you know he’s not to be counted on. You said yourself, he’s only a temporary employee. How do you know he won’t take advantage of you and leave you in the middle of the night?”
Well, he kind of had, actually.
Why had he? Making love with him had been good. Better than good. She knew he thought so, too. The way he’d looked into her eyes, the way he held her, told her that he had feelings that might be nearly as strong as her own. So he had retreated, because he didn’t do promises. Suddenly the feelings he’d hurt by running away flared in a blaze of pain, spelling out “Eve Loves Nick” and leaving burn marks on her heart.
“Thanks for helping with the cleanup,” Big Steve told Nick, handing him an empty garbage bag to put in the can. “For being new to the meeting, you’ve really stepped right up.”
“No problem.” His sponsor in Knoxville had impressed upon him the importance of service work, and since he was more brawn than administrative beast, he preferred emptying trash and putting away chairs to being in charge of money or keys when it came to AA.
“There’s an Al-Anon meeting after us, so we can leave the coffeepot out,” Steve said. “Have you decided if you’re going to stick around here for a while?”
Loaded question. A week ago, Nick would have said “no.” Eighteen hours ago, staring into Eve’s eyes as she’d come around him, he’d have said, “Yes, forever.” Then reality, in the form of his own fears and Eve’s mother smacking him squarely in the head, and he was back to “See ya.”
Finally, he said, “No, I’m probably going to be taking off soon. My dad’s doing a lot better.”
“Shame. You’re a welcome addition to the group any time you’re back in the area.”
“Thanks.” That was nice to hear. He’d been such a fucking mess since leaving Eve’s, it was good to have a reminder of what AA brought to him. Acceptance, and a way to live his life by putting one foot in front of the other without getting too far ahead of himself.
“Go ahead and take off,” Steve told him. “I’ll run this to the dumpster and follow you out.”
“Okay.” Nick was reluctant to leave, though. He’d managed to stay really busy all day, cleaning the house and making sure Raleigh had all of his prescriptions filled and was up to speed on the status of the tasting center, but now he had a whole evening ahead of him with nothing to do.
He pushed through the double glass door of the church, stopping and turning to hold it open for an older lady who was on her way in. One of the Al-Anon people, probably.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Hey, hold the door a second!” called a familiar voice from behind him.
What the—? There, carrying a double handful of plastic grocery bags, was Eve. Behind her, Allie pulled into a parking space. She must have dropped her at the curb with her groceries.
“Nick?” Eve froze, three feet away, staring at him with surprise. “Are you coming to Al-Anon?”
“No, I was just leaving,” he said and waited for her to put it together.
She looked toward the open doorway and realization dawned that he was here because he’d been to an AA meeting. “Oh.” Neither her expression nor her posture changed, but he felt her disappointment anyway.
“Hey…” He didn’t know what to say. He never wanted her to know this about him. Just a few hours ago, he’d been tempted to give her everything in the world, all of him. He hadn’t, because of this. Because of the dark parts, and the way she looked at him right now.
“I-I didn’t know.” The accusation in her eyes cut him deeply, far beneath the skin and muscle over his ribs, into his heart, his guts.
He shrugged. “I—” He was saved by a slap on his shoulder as Big Steve passed him on the way out.
“Have a good night,” he said. “By the way, I meant to tell you. I like what you said about how ‘One day at a time’ keeps you from making promises you won’t keep. I used to get in all kinds of trouble for that kind of thing.”
“Didn’t we all?” Nick forced a smile and nodded his good-bye to the other alcoholic.
Eve started to cross her arms over her chest but the grocery bags wouldn’t allow it. Instead, she stood stiffly, her lips parted on an impending accusation.
“Listen,” he said, “Can we talk about this later? I know you’re on your way into a meeting, and I’m not really prepared for this discussion.”
She snorted. “That’s your motto, isn’t it? Why prepare when you can probably postpone a problem?”
Her words hit him like a punch to the solar plexus. Was that what she thought about him?
Before he could respond, she shook her head and held up a hand, palm out. “I’m sorry. You’re right. We can talk about this later.” And then just to add some WTF to his confusion, she rose onto her tiptoes and kissed him before disappearing into the building.
“Was that Nick?” Allie asked, taking a package of cookies from the bag Eve still held. Eve watched from the meeting room window while he slowly opened the door to his truck and turned back to look at the door through which she’d run away. She wanted to run out there and apologize again for snapping at him. She’d thrown his “no promises” rule at him like a weapon a few minutes ago because she was hurt. Because she had fallen so hard for him that she had to strike out. She actually liked his casual attitude about life—it was such a nice foil to her own over-scheduled existence.
“I need to get these on a plate before I eat them all,” Allie said, tearing open the seal and popping open the plastic to snatch a snickerdoodle. “Wmmph he hmmwpf mghm?”
“Swallow before you talk. You’re going to choke,” Eve said automatically, like she had when Allie was six, Eve was eight, and Lorena was silently dishing lasagna to her daughters and their bleary-eyed father. “He was here for the AA meeting before this.”
“No kidding? Huh,” Allie said, thankfully surviving the inhalation of an entire cookie in three seconds. “I guess that explains why he sticks to water when he’s not guzzling iced tea.”
It did explain that, and a few other things. Like why he’d been so weird when he’d learned the job his father had left for him was at Blue Mountain.
They began to lay cookies out on the big table at the back of the room where someone was already starting the coffee for their meeting.
God, she felt like an ass. How many times had she pushed him toward alcohol? That night, early on, when she’d invited him to come to the bourbon tasting. Even last night, she’d made sure to tell Brandon and Justin to offer him a drink when he got to Lorena’s house to try to make him comfortable while he waited for her. The nightcap.
Well.
At least that wasn’t really a drink she was offering him.
“How long has he been sober?” Allie asked.
“I have no idea.” The last cookie was arranged, and she had nothing else to do with her hands; she had to look at her sister.
“You didn’t know he’s an alcoholic.” Her green eyes were understanding, but not pitying.
She shook her head. “I had no idea. Why wouldn’t he tell me? I wouldn’t have tried to talk him into the bourbon tasting. I wouldn’t have taken him to that party last night. I would have been different.” I wouldn’t have tried to bite his head off just now.
“Well, duh,” Allie said. “That’s why he didn’t want you to know.”
“Oh. But why?”
“Do you think you’d still have gotten hot and heavy with him if you’d known?” Allie’s eyebrows were raised, as though she already knew the answer.
“No! I wouldn’t think less of him. I…” Would she? She thought about the other alcoholics she knew. Her dad. She’d spent the years since his death trying to keep his memory out of the gutter, in spite of all the years their mother made herself sick over him. In spite of the fact that in the end, he died in the process of stealing from his own business and cheating on their mother with a much younger woman.
And there was Raleigh. He was so different from her father—funny and charming, even when drunk, instead of withdrawn and sullen. But still completely unreliable.
Could she put up with that uncertainty?
Nick was in recovery. That was different. But she thought about the man who’d spoken to him tonight, right before he’d run off. Don’t make promises.
He hadn’t promised her anything.
The urge to chuck everything—the cookies, the tasting center, her freaking mother—and run after him, ask him to drive until there was no more road was so strong she had to grab onto the table. But that wasn’t her. She had responsibilities that she’d taken on gladly, because that was who she was.
Mercifully, Margie interrupted her thought. “Eve, thanks for bringing the cookies. Do you think you can bring them every month? I’m afraid that we can’t count on Howard right now, with his wife’s health.” The older woman, the member of the group who had the key to the church and made sure the coffee got made every week, smiled hopefully at her.
“Sure, Margie,” Eve said, reaching into her bag. “Let me put this in my planner.”