Fucking Samantha. If the woman was on fire, I’d make s’mores.
After so gracefully passing out on the kitchen floor, I’d woken up on a bed in the spare room this morning. Everything hurt. I’d stumbled into the kitchen in search of water and seen the latest disaster through the glass doors. My almost-mother-in-law had been busy. Real busy.
With Vaughan’s cool dude aviator sunglasses to guard against the brain-piercing morning glare, I searched the backyard for my belongings. A bra here, a pair of panties there. You never knew what you might find hidden in the long grass.
Why, it was just like a treasure hunt minus the map.
And the fun.
My green silk blouse hung high in a tree and it wasn’t alone. God knows how she’d gotten it all up there. Unleashed her flying monkeys, perhaps? Wicked witch was about right.
A box of books and another filled with personal mementos had been dumped straight over the fence as if they were garbage. I didn’t have the heart to look inside and see what was broken. Every muscle in my jaw ached. I wanted to scream and rage, to let it all out. Again. Only if I started, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop.
A pounding head and queasy stomach didn’t much help matters. I’d done a quick search of the kitchen and come up empty on the Advil front. Tequila, like Samantha, was clearly not my friend. And it had to have been her who’d chucked my stuff over the fence. Chris would have simply paid someone to deliver the lot to the front patio. Thrown cash at the problem to turn it into someone else’s. Such was his style.
No, only his mother would delight in this type of fuckery.
“Vindictive bitch,” I muttered, adding a pair of boyfriend jeans to the growing pile at my feet. Each item retrieved fueled the fury.
There’d better be a special level of hell to reward her for such spite. One without Botox, where no matter what you did, your dark hair roots showed and the only clothing option was unwashed secondhand sweats. That’d teach her.
Insert insane cackling here. Yep, I was losing it. Lucky for me, there were no witnesses to my descent into lunacy.
Oops, I spoke too soon.
I hadn’t heard her arrive, but a woman stood watching from the back deck. Her strawberry-blond hair shone in the sunlight and she was covered in tattoos. Behind her, the kitchen door was open, meaning she’d come through the house and therefore had a key. Interesting.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi. I’m Nell, Vaughan’s sister.” She made her way toward me, holding out a hand for shaking.
I shook it. “Lydia. A new friend of Vaughan’s.”
“Nice to meet you.” A sweeping glance took in my clothing and one of her eyebrows went up. Probably because none of what I wore was mine. Vaughan had left some clothes on the end of my bed, bless him. Soft gray sleeping pants rolled up at the bottom on account of being made for someone much taller and a Rolling Stones T-shirt. Loved the way the tongue and mouth slogan stretched over my assets. Such a tasteful statement. Luckily, a bra had been the first item on this morning’s treasure hunt adventure. Out-of-control breasts were not something I needed.
A hard kind of curiosity filled Nell’s eyes. “A new friend? Not that it’s any of my business…”
“Not that it’s any of your business,” I agreed, crossing my arms over my chest. “But yes. Just a new friend. I’m in between homes so he let me crash here last night. My belongings had a little accident.”
It was one way of describing it. Sort of.
“Yeah. I was going to ask about that. Normally yard sales happen out front.” With a finger, she hooked a pair of underwear from down beside her feet. Awesome. Black lace boy shorts. At least they were a nice pair. Definitely not embarrassing to have a stranger checking out my undergarment styling at all.
“Thanks.” I added them to the pile, my friendly smile frozen to my face. “Issue with the ex.”
“Men.” Her lips thinned.
“Mm.”
“Think they can get away with anything just because they have something to swing between their thighs.”
I snorted. “Pretty much.”
“Raging assholes, all of them,” she growled, cheeks pink with anger. “We’d be better off if they were just jettisoned into space en masse.”
Clearly, Nell was still stuck in the bitter stage of a relationship breakdown. I was moving on to moving on. The damage was done. Now I just wanted to get my shit together and get out of this town. Seek a life somewhere else. Pretty or not, this place hadn’t been kind to me.
“Men do suck,” I said. “But actually, this was his mother’s handiwork.”
“You’re kidding?” She wrinkled her nose, making a scattering of freckles jump and move. She seemed a bit older than me, petite where her brother was tall. Same pale blue eyes, though. She wore plain black slacks and a T-shirt with a picture of a bluebird above the words “The Dive Bar.”
“Nope,” I said. “Definitely his mother’s style of attack.”
“Shit. Come on, I’ll help you pick it all up.”
“You will?”
“Sure.” Nell’s smile now was genuine, kind.
“Thanks.” This woman’s moods were more chaotic than mine. I couldn’t keep up.
“No problem. Better than just sitting around, waiting for my idiot brother to wake up. We need something to put your stuff in. I think there’s some empty boxes in the garage.” Without another word, she strode off toward the side of the house while I watched, bemused.
People. You could never tell.
I rolled my shoulders, trying to work the kinks out of my back. If anything, my body hurt worse today than it had yesterday. Muscle strain times one thousand.
Funny, with Nell helping, the weight of my mess seemed to lighten. Maybe things weren’t so bad and the bulk of the human race weren’t against me.
Today had been my first in months without a good morning text from Chris.
I mean … of course there hadn’t been one. My cell phone was broken apart. But the lack of it had been less a mild ache and more of a good hard slap upside the back of the head. I’d gotten so used to being part of a couple. To being “we.” Time to adjust back to being alone.
Yep, I was swinging single.
Assorted bugs, bees, and butterflies flitted around, doing their thing. It was, all in all, another perfect summer’s day. In another life, Chris and I would have been en route to Hawaii for our honeymoon. Man, I’d been so excited about the trip. Sandy white beaches, fruity cocktails, and fun. Lots and lots of it. Instead, my new black tankini waved in the wind, stuck halfway up a pine tree.
You had to give it to her, Samantha had been dedicated. She must have been out here for hours last night, throwing my shit around.
Nell and I had been working maybe half an hour, picking the contents of my makeup bag and jewelry box out of a thorny bush, when Vaughan appeared. He stood on the deck, yawning; a cup of coffee filled one hand and a pastry the other. Worn jeans, no shirt, even more reddish-blond stubble.
Damn, he was hot. The kind of hot that only got better with age and experience. Not that I was even remotely interested in getting involved with him beyond the new-friends-having-sex thing. Neither of us intended to stay in town and I had only just gotten out of a ruin of a relationship. But good lord, such a northern Idaho sex god.
Primitive man might have worshipped the sun, but I’m pretty sure the sun worshipped Vaughan. The way it bathed him in a golden glow, showcasing his ink. Tattoos had never even interested me before. A stable job and a fixed residence? Yes. This whole “reckless bad boy living the rock-and-roll lifestyle” vibe Vaughan had going? No. Absolutely not. It went against everything my parents had taught me to value, due to them providing a lack of said things during my childhood.
All the things I probably needed to start questioning, given my recent bad choices. Though, I don’t know. What was wrong with wanting a home and a little stability? Yes, I’d rushed into it, a big mistake on my part. Next time I’d take it slow, really get to know the person and make sure we were right for each other. Lesson learned.
At any rate, I ignored the stirrings of lust from my loins, for now. Etiquette dictated that jumping a man in front of his sibling was not the right thing to do. Plus, with my hangover looming large, now did not strike me as the best time to raise the no-strings-sex topic. No, I’d keep an eye on the man, see if he gave off any of the right signals. My poor girl parts would just have to wait.
At least he couldn’t see me ogling him because of my shades. I probably had drool on my chin, though. Ever so discreetly, I gave it a rub.
“You’ve got a nerve,” said Nell, suddenly tense beside me. If spikes had suddenly appeared running down her spine I would not have been surprised. “Would it have killed you to call me, let me know you were back?”
“Hi, sis.” Another yawn from Vaughan. Then he stuffed his mouth full of pastry, talking around it. Or through it (Chris would have been appalled. Fuck you, Chris.). “Thanks for bringing over breakfast.”
“Eat with your mouth closed. God, you’re gross.” Nell crossed her arms, staring him down. “Have you even evolved since you were eight?”
“I’m taller. And I got over the whole girl-germs thing too.” He winked.
“Kind of figured that, what with the way you treated the fly on your pants like a revolving door during high school.” For the next part, Nell adopted a low manly tone, “Hey, I’m the guitarist in a band. I write songs and I care about feelings and shit. Come on, you know you want a piece of this, baby.”
I quietly sniggered (she did his voice so well).
Vaughan cracked up laughing, nearly doubling at the waist. “Not bad. But you have to offer to play them some broody-ass emo tunes out by the lake. Works every time.”
Nell flipped him the bird.
“Take it easy,” he said. “I was going to call you today. Things got busy yesterday.”
“Oh, I know. The whole town’s talking about it. It’s how I knew to bring breakfast for both of you.”
“Awesome,” I moaned. Not unexpected, but still. Two hundred–odd guests had been in the front garden, waiting for the nuptials to happen. Made for a lot of mouths to do a lot of talking.
“Sorry,” said Nell. “But your botched wedding is hot news everywhere.”
I nodded, mouth curved down in a frown.
“We need to talk,” said Nell, turning back to her brother.
“Sounds serious.”
“It is. I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for weeks.”
“Sorry.” Head hanging low, Vaughan winced. “There’s been a lot going on. I’m here now, though.”
“Which leads me to the next question. Why are you here?” She tilted her head. “You’ve avoided this place like the plague for years.”
“You just said you wanted to talk to me, now you’re giving me shit for being here?” He grabbed at the back of his neck, rubbing hard. “Like you said, it’s been a while. Maybe I just wanted to catch up with you.”
As eyebrows went, Nell’s left one was particularly vocal. The way it arced called bullshit on her brother without saying a word. “What’s going on, Vaughan? Last I heard you guys were touring with Stage Dive and everything was great.”
He gave a smile completely devoid of any joy. “So fucking great the lead vocalist went solo and our drummer joined another band.”
Nell’s jaw dropped, her face bloodless. “The band broke up?”
“Yeah.”
His sister still gaped.
“Got decided late last year. Once we finished the tour with Stage Dive we were splitting. I’ve had time to get used to it. Let it go. It’s fine.” He ignored her reaction, turning instead to me. “How are you doing, Lydia?”
“Hey. Hi. Good.”
“I take it you already met my sister. Come inside. There’s coffee for you too.”
“Okay. In a minute.” A glint of metal beneath some leaves caught my eye. Carefully, I dusted off the antique silver necklace my grandmother had given me for my twenty-first.
I hung the pendant around my neck, fingers fiddling with the clasp for a moment before it locked into place. Forget Chris and his family. I’d find my feet. They were nothing to me now, less than nothing. They were so subpar-nothing I didn’t even know how to describe just how zilch they were. Moving on.
“Babe, why’s your stuff all over the yard?” asked Vaughan.
“Pardon?” I blinked, returning to earth.
“Your stuff, it’s everywhere.” He downed the last of his coffee in one long gulp, his gaze fixed on my face.
Gah. Like he didn’t have enough to deal with without more of my drama. “Yeah, sorry,” I said. “I’ll get it cleaned up.”
“Lydia, stop,” he ordered in a stern voice. Then his gaze softened. “What happened here?”
“Samantha delivered my belongings.” I said, carefully retrieving my best black mascara from the bush of death. The thing basically consisted of a big evil ball of thorns beneath a couple of leaves. It was Satan’s shrubbery. Any more scratches from it and I’d look like I’d been in a cat fight. Close enough to the truth.
“You’re fucking kidding.” He wandered down the steps toward me.
“Wish I was.”
“Hey.” He gripped the back of my neck with his free hand, rubbing it far more softly than he’d done his own. The calluses on his fingers were rough, making for such a different sensation than Chris’s soft hands. “This petty bullshit is the worst she can do. Ignore it. You’re better than this.”
“I don’t know. Given half a chance, I’d really like to shoot her out of a cannon and forget to put up the safety net.”
“That seriously the best you could come up with?”
“No. Give me more time. It’s early.”
Sweet baby Jesus, his laugh. It was so low-down and dirty. I hadn’t even said anything worthy of such a sound. Disturbingly, I couldn’t remember what Chris’s laugh sounded like. Had I ever even heard it? No memory leaped to mind. What a sad and sorry statement about his life and the part I’d played in it. And while Chris’s problems were most definitely his own, I and mine needed a damn good looking over.
I needed change. Now.
I also needed to stop making comparisons to Chris. He was out of my life. Gone. The end.
Vaughan tipped his chin toward the house, still laughing. “Go grab your coffee and cake. Then you can tell me more revenge fantasies. I want blood and gore, Lydia. Covered in honey and eaten alive by bull ants, that sort of thing. Go wild.”
I smiled and headed for the house, my mood about ten tons lighter for having seen Vaughan’s smile.
“Not cake, palmiers,” corrected Nell.
“Whatever they are, they taste like magic,” he said.
His sister snorted.
“It is good to see you, sis.”
Sure enough, a second coffee and large brown paper bag sat on the kitchen counter. “The Bird Building” was stamped in black ink on the front. It was a place in midtown, not an area I’d had a lot to do with. In the real estate business, Ray and I had mostly focused on residential dwellings, with him covering the big-money mansions. Chris had dealt with the commercial properties.
My coffee was delicious, I didn’t bother heating it up. Years in offices had taught me to ignore temperature. The palmiers turned out to be elephant ear cookies covered in cinnamon sugar. Pastry so perfect and light it basically melted on contact with my tongue. Absolute bliss.
I took my breakfast outside and sat on the steps.
“What’d you need to talk to me about?” he asked his sister.
Nell gave me a brief glance. Awkward.
“I’ll eat inside, get out of the sun for a while,” I said around a mouthful of deliciousness, hardly spitting out any pastry flakes at all. Screw common courtesy. These palmiers were amazing.
“It’s okay. Anything you need to say to me, Lydia can hear.” He gave me a wry smile. “We’ve got no secrets, have we?”
“I guess not after yesterday, but—”
“It’s fine.” Nell brushed off her hands on the sides of her black jeans. “Really.”
I tentatively sat back down. Maybe I’d just excuse myself to go use the bathroom ASAP.
“So?” asked Vaughan. “Shoot.”
“I need you to either lend me fifty-six thousand dollars or buy Pat out for the same amount.”
Eyes wide, he huffed out a breath. “Shit. That all, huh?”
“I’m serious.”
“I get that.”
“Will you do it?” Carefully, she tucked her hair behind her ears. Her hands, however, didn’t stop there, fussing with the front of her white shirt. The woman was nervous. Terribly so. “Please, Vaughan. He wants out and I can’t have him involved anymore. The divorce goes through in a few more days and things are so damn tense I can’t stand it.”
He let his head fall back, staring up at the sky. “Nell…”
“Pat hates me. He’s completely impossible. Refuses to work in the bar anymore.”
“What the hell happened? You two have been tight since you were fourteen. You can’t even get on a little now?”
“You’ve been gone a long time,” she said, face drawn. “He’s changed, especially since we broke up. He and Eric can’t even be in the same room without fighting.”
“Shit.”
Nell wrung her hands. “Pat’s been making all sorts of threats about what he’ll do if we can’t buy his share of the business.”
“Joe can’t buy in?”
Nell shook her head. “He doesn’t have the cash. Eric’s still paying him back for bankrolling his thirty percent when we opened.”
“Christ.” He wiped a hand over his face. “This is why you shouldn’t go into business with friends or family. It just gets fucking complicated.”
“You’re right. I should have trusted total strangers with my life-long dream.”
Vaughan’s shoulders sagged. “Didn’t know things were so bad with you.”
“You were busy, touring and recording. I didn’t want to worry you. I thought I could ride it out.”
“Yeah.” A long-winded sigh. “I’m sorry, Nell. I don’t have the money. I’d do it for you in a heartbeat if I could, but I can’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m tapped out. Things … they weren’t as good as I made them out to be.” Hands on hips, he faced her. “In fact, they’re pretty much fucked. I was hoping you could buy this place off me. I’m sorry.”
Hell, poor Vaughan. If I could have been anywhere else, I’d have been there. Instead, I sat silent and still, hopefully forgotten.
“You want to sell the house? How bad is it?” she asked.
“I’ll figure something out. It’ll be okay.” He licked his lips, studying the ground.
“How bad, Vaughan?”
Slowly, he shut his eyes, letting his head fall back. It took him a long time to answer. “I had to borrow to buy you out of this place.”
Nell’s mouth fell open. “What? You told me you had it!”
“What’d you think I’d say?” Blue eyes snapped open, laser-like in their intensity. “Like you said, it was your dream, opening the bar. Just like it was mine to play music. You backed me however you could. Did you really think I wouldn’t do the same for you?”
Nell covered her face with her hands, swearing softly beneath her breath. This went on for quite some time.
“For a while, it was fine,” Vaughan continued. “We were getting gigs, being paid. Then we had a lean time and I had to take out a mortgage.”
“You mortgaged our childhood home?” Her voice rose to banshee levels. Guess it was true what they said about redheads, at least of the female variety. “Vaughan, how could you!”
“It’s almost paid off. Touring with Stage Dive got most of it sorted, but things hit the wall when the band fell apart.”
His sister just shook her head. “If Mom weren’t dead, she’d kill you.”
“I know.”
“And if Dad weren’t dead … I don’t even know what he would do. But they’d never find your body. Or what was left of it.”
Nothing from Vaughan. His fallen face said it all.
In the distance a lawn mower roared to life, doing its thing. How bizarre to think our dramas didn’t even touch upon the bulk of most people’s everyday lives. They seemed so big and all-encompassing from within. Any happiness felt fake, phony. Or worse yet, as if it were about to be stolen away. Which was ridiculous, really: Vaughan would work his way out of his money troubles and I would date again. I’d find a job I liked, or least tolerated, and he’d start another band. Life would go on.
Right now, however, it just all seemed phenomenally shit.
“Okay, here’s what we do,” said Nell, her spine snapping straight. “You come work for us at the Dive Bar.”
“But—” An imperious hand halted him.
“No, Vaughan,” she said. “You need money, we need a new bartender. Hell, we’re probably about to need more waitstaff too. One way or another, you’re covered. You can do Pat’s shifts behind the bar for now.”
“I only planned on being in town for a few days, a week at most.”
Lines appeared beside Nell’s mouth. “Fine. Whatever. Work while you’re here. You start at six. Don’t be late.”
“Okay. I won’t be late.”
“And bring Lydia with you.”
“Why?”
“I like her. She didn’t mortgage my childhood home.”
“Right.” Vaughan crossed his arms.
“Thanks for the coffee and pastry,” I said.
“No problem. See you later.”
It took a while for the man to make any move once his sister left. For a long while, he stood staring after her, lost in thought. Useless platitudes filled my head, the usual reassuring crap. For now, I let it all go unsaid. Neither of us was really interested in hearing the obvious.
This summer was genuinely proving to be a motherfucker.
Wonder what nonsense was being said about me around town. Not that it mattered. No way I’d be accompanying Vaughan tonight to find out. First, I needed to find somewhere to stay until things were settled with the Delaneys. And if I hoped to have anything to wear in the near future, finding my clothes in this jungle needed to happen faster.
I brushed off my hands, leaving the empty cup on the step to throw away later. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Liar,” I whispered.
“Am not,” he whispered back.
“Are too.”
He gave me a look most dubious.
“That was a heavy conversation. All I’m saying is, it’s okay not to be okay after it.”
He snorted, pushing his shoulders back. “You want to talk about feelings, Lydia? Is that what you want?”
“Hell no.” I laughed. “After yesterday I’m pretty much emotionally wrung out. I vote we be as shallow as humanly possible.”
“Thank god for that.” A big hand reached out and smoothed down my most likely still psycho bed hair. “You had me worried.”
“But on the off chance it’s necessary,” I said quickly, “I do want you to know I’m here for you, just like you were there for me yesterday.”
“That sounds dangerously like feelings talk.”
“Not really.”
“Yes, really.”
“Fine. Take it how you will.” I shrugged, getting back into the search and rescue of my belongings. Something glinted among the long grass. An earring. “I want to do a drive-by egging of Samantha and Ray’s place, but they’ve got this big fence and gate.”
“Could be a problem.” Beside me, Vaughan dropped to his knees, rifling among the vegetation. “How about we toilet paper their front fence?”
“That could work.”
“Knew this guy once who dumped his girl by text. They’d been going out for like four or five years. Serious stuff. She got a couple of syringes full of fish oil and injected it into his car through the gap between the doors. Just squeezed it straight past the rubber lining and into the interior.” He gazed up at me with a hint of a diabolical smile. “Dude comes back from touring for a couple of months and the inside of his GTO stinks so bad it’s not funny. You couldn’t even get near the thing, let alone drive it.”
I all but clapped my hands. “That’s genius.”
“Isn’t it.” A pair of green silk underwear hung from his finger. “These yours?”
“No. They probably belong to someone else whose belongings were dumped in your yard. But I’ll take care of them for now.”
“That makes sense.” Carefully, he inspected them. “French-cut cheekies, huh?”
“You know your lingerie.” I frowned.
“Important to appreciate the finer things in life. Especially when they’re to do with a fine woman.”
“Smooth.”
“You know, I had you figured for those boy-short things,” he said with a smile. “Happy to be wrong, though. These are hot, babe. Like seriously hot.”
“Glad you approve.”
“But if you say they’re not yours…” He started to stick them into his back pocket.
“Give them to me, please.”
“Say you’ll come to the Dive Bar with me tonight.”
“Oh, boy.” I hesitated, everything inside of me rejecting the idea. “A public place. I don’t think that’s a good idea. I think laying low is my best option right now. Find somewhere to live for the next few days then get gone, start over somewhere new.”
“You stay here with me until you’re ready to leave,” he said, like it was obvious.
“Really?”
“Sure.”
“I wouldn’t be in your way or anything?”
“No.” He passed me my underwear. “Course not.”
Quickly, I dropped them into the nearest box of stuff. Given the DEFCON 1 embarrassment levels of the past twenty-four hours, a pair of panties shouldn’t have bothered me in the slightest. Perhaps it came down to the man doing the teasing.
“I don’t know,” I said. “When you get right down to it, we barely know each other.”
“It’s only for a couple of days. A week at most, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“Are you worried about you or me in this scenario?”
“You,” I said, happy to be hiding behind the sunglasses. Those beautiful blue eyes saw too much. “You could change your mind and feel stuck with me. I don’t want to add to your problems.”
“Lydia, I don’t want to add to yours either. But I do want you here.”
“You do?” My breath didn’t mean to catch, I’m sure of it. It was just an accident. The thought of Vaughan actually liking me thrilled and terrified me in equal parts. He was so hot. And I was so me. But I could pretend to be cool for a temporary period. I could do this. “Why, if you don’t mind me asking?”
With a scowl, he stretched out in the long grass, relaxing, for all intents and purposes. “Can I trust you with something?”
“Of course.”
He licked his lips again, sighed. “Mom and Dad died when I was twenty. I’ve never been here without them. Not for more than a night or two. It just, it doesn’t feel right.”
Hell. My heart ached for him.
“Nell packed up the place, got someone to paint the inside so I wouldn’t feel weird, so it would feel like my own house, I guess. But it doesn’t.”
I sat down cross-legged in the grass in front of him. Picked the head off a dandelion and ran it back and forth across the palm of my hand. “Vaughan, it would be great if I could hang here while I get things sorted.”
“Good.” A slow smile spread across his face. “And I’d really like it if you’d come with me tonight, see Nell’s bar. She’d love to have you there, she said so.”
I scrunched up my nose.
“C’mon. You have to go out sometime.”
“Hmm, bad idea. I think I’ve already filled my quota for public humiliation this year.”
“You’ll have a good time.” He shook his head. “No way Nell’s going to let anyone hassle you in her place, babe.”
“That’s not my name.” The dandelion fell apart on a warm breeze, drifting off to who knew where.
“All right. Come tonight and I’ll never call you babe ever again.”
“Never ever again?” I sized him up over the top of my sunglasses, judging his sincerity.
“You have my word.” With deliberate slowness, he drew a cross over his heart.
The amount I owed the man was big. Huge. But then so was the thought of going out into the public arena and risking death, dismemberment, and some really nasty gossip. Bitches be everywhere. But also, he was right. I did have to go out sometime.
“Okay.” I held out my hand.
He shook it. Then kept holding on, gazing deep into my eyes.
“You’re going to have fun, Lydia.”