Always You: A Lilac Bay Novel (Friends with Benefits) (22 page)

“Don’t worry about it,” Rebecca said, waving her hand. She peered up at me in the darkness. “What are you going to say to him?”

I shook my head, not really surprised that she had guessed where I was heading.

“I have no idea. I just—I need to see him.” Maybe if I could see him right now, I might be able to figure it out, to understand what he had been thinking. To find out if the kiss had affected him in the same way it affected me. I still thought that my sister was crazy—there was no way Andrew felt that way about me. But I didn’t like there being anything secret between us. I didn’t like that I could look into his eyes and not know how he felt. So I needed to fix that. Now.

“Riley,” she murmured, just before I stepped off the porch. I turned back to see her watching me, a concerned look on her face. “Be nice to him, okay?”

I bristled at that. “Why wouldn’t I be nice?”

“I just mean—don’t jump right into the teasing and the jokes, okay? It’s your defense mechanism, I get that, but I don’t think this is really the time.”

“I’m not going to tease him,” I said, stung by her words. I didn’t have a defense mechanism. What total crap.

“Okay,” she said. “Just try to remember—this might be hard for him. If I’m right about what he’s feeling—” She held up her hands when I started to protest. “Just pretend I am for a second, okay? It can’t be easy for him, you know? So just keep that in mind.”

Definitely delusional
, I thought. But I didn’t tell her that.

“Fine. I’ll be on my very best behavior.” I took the stairs two at a time. “Thanks for the wine,” I called over my shoulder.

“Good luck.”

I couldn’t be sure, but I thought her voice sounded the slightest bit sad.

* * *

I
wasn’t exactly
sure where to find Andrew, but I had a pretty good guess. It was, after all, Saturday night in Lilac Bay. And since we didn’t exactly have much nightlife in this town, it was pretty safe to bet he was at Cora’s.

The place was packed, every bit as bad as the nights we would gather here to watch episodes of the show. I saw Cora hurrying past with a tray in her hand. “Oh, hey, Ri,” she said.

“What the hell is going on in here tonight?” I asked, staring around the dining room, which appeared to be standing room only at this point.

She grinned. “Tourists. I think the Heather Dale publicity bump is in full swing.”

“Wow.” I hadn’t realized so many people could even fit in here. I couldn’t wait to get the occupancy stats from the hotels on Monday morning. “You need a hand?” I asked.

“Nah, I’m fully staffed. Everyone is getting their tips tonight.” She shot me a grin. “See you around?”

“Sure. Oh, hey—have you seen Andrew?”

“In the back,” she called over her shoulder, already on her way to deliver the beers.

It took a while to make my way through the throng. Along with the influx of tourists, there were plenty of locals out tonight, celebrating the last night of the Lilac Festival. I stopped and talked to Posey, shocked to see that Paul was actually with her. According to her, Iris and David were both still sick. Thinking about them, of course, put my attention right back on the skit.

“Is Andrew around?” I asked her.

“I think I saw him with Eddie earlier.”

“Thanks, Pose.”

I turned from her table, determined to find him, to get this over with. I saw a flash of red in the crowd and headed in that direction, but it was only Eddie, bringing Zane a fresh beer. I waved, not wanting to get sidetracked again, and turned away.

There he was. Only a few tables away. I pushed through a group of men in business suits, clearly from the mainland, all of whom seemed to be pretty drunk for so early in the evening, and then, finally, I was at his table.

It was only then that I could see that he wasn’t alone. Jill was next to him, her chair pulled up close. Their heads were together, laughing about something. Her hand was on his thigh, the top three buttons of her blouse undone, and something seemed to fall in my chest.

Before I could think about what I was doing, I turned and fled, pushing my way back through the crowd. I thought I might have heard him calling my name, but it was hard to make out over the noise in the room. Or was that noise just in my ears? It sounded like rushing wind. Finally I made it to the back door and pushed out into the alley behind the bar, taking in huge gulps of fresh air.

I felt so stupid. To actually think that he had felt something in that kiss, that it might have affected him in some way. For all of my denial to Rebecca, I think I had actually started to believe her—believe that he might have feelings for me. But while I was on her porch spilling out my heart, he was here in the bar with Jill. Hours after he had kissed me.

“Riley.”

I spun to see him standing in the open doorway.

“What?” My voice was sharper than I intended, but I was having trouble controlling my breathing.

He stepped through the door, letting it close behind him, the sound of the bar fading. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” There was no way I was telling him why I had come here tonight. God, how embarrassing.

His eyes narrowed and he took another step closer. “I saw you in there. You took off. Why?”

“I was just looking for Jenny,” I lied.

“That’s not what it looked like to me. It looked like you got to my table and something upset you.”

Suddenly, I wanted to slap him. I was so damn sick and tired of him thinking that he knew everything there was to know about me.
Riley doesn’t care about dating. Riley will get her heart broken by Chase. Riley can’t handle seeing Andrew with another girl.

“You know what, Andrew?” I said, taking a backwards step to put distance between us. “Why don’t you just go back to your date.”

“Jill? She’s not my date.”

“She sure looked like a date to me. Her hand was practically on your junk.”

His eyes narrowed. “Is that why you’re upset?”

“No!” I shot back. “I don’t give a shit what you do or with who. But I think it’s pretty crappy of you to pull this huge judgment act on me with Chase when you’re the one whoring around this entire town.”

“I wasn’t judging you about Chase,” he shot back. “I just think he’s going to let you down.”

“That’s judging, Andrew! That’s you saying that you don’t trust my own decision-making! Well, in case you haven’t noticed, buddy, your decision making isn’t that hot!”

“You know what I think, Riley?” he asked, taking another step towards me. “I think you didn’t care about who I was spending my time with so long as it was women that you didn’t have to see again. So long as it was tourists and girls from the mainland, you could give a shit. But now that it’s someone that you actually know, you’re freaking out. Why do you think that is?”

“I’m not freaking out!” I yelled. “I’m just trying to go home.”

“You’re such a liar,” he spat out. “Why did you come here tonight?”

Because I’m an idiot
, I thought.
And my sister is even worse.

“You know what, Andrew, it’s none of your business.” I turned to go, desperate to get out of there, to forget about this entire night, but his words froze me in place.

“You’re such a coward, Riley.”

I spun to face him, more furious with him than I had ever been in my life.

“
I’m
a coward? Me?”

“Yeah. You. You’re pissed that you saw me with Jill and you can’t even think about why that bothers you so much.”

I took a step towards him, jabbing my finger into his chest. “And what about you, Andrew? You want to talk about being a coward?” He was breathing fast, clearly every bit as angry as I was, but I didn’t care. “Why didn’t you want me with Chase?”

“I told you—”

“Don’t give me that crap that he might hurt me. Guess what, Andrew? It’s a big bad world, and sometimes people get hurt. But that doesn’t give you the right to tell me not to date someone. So why did you care, huh?”

He just glared at me, his chest raising and falling. That look was back in his eyes, the one I had seen after we kissed. The look that I couldn’t read.

“Nothing to say? Who’s the coward now?”

He took another step towards me, close enough now to see the darker flecks in his eyes, to see how red his cheeks were with anger. Suddenly, I didn’t even know what we were fighting about anymore. But whatever it was between us, whatever this anger was that was sparking in the air between our two bodies—it scared me.

“Should we have a discussion on fear, Riley?” he snarled. “Why are you even here?”

“I told you, I was looking for Jenny.”

“Not at Cora’s,” he said impatiently. “Why are you on Lilac Bay? You gave up all of your dreams to come back here. You used your sister and your mom as an excuse so that you didn’t have to go out and try.” His lip curled in derision. “The most competitive girl on Lilac Bay. Yeah, right. More like someone so afraid to fail she won’t even try.”

“You asshole,” I breathed. I felt like someone had slapped me—my skin was literally tingling. “How
dare
you. You want to talk about someone afraid to try? You just love your job, don’t you, Andrew? You love working in the mayor’s office and playing ball once a week and fishing with your brother. The perfect life. Just so long as no one ever challenges you, right? So long as no one expects anything from you. Yeah, you’re so happy. What a fucking joke.”

“I
am
happy here, Riley. Just because it’s not the life you want—”

“Oh, don’t put this on me. Your lack of ambition has nothing to do with me.”

“My lack of ambition? I’m not the one who could have whatever the hell I wanted. That’s you.” He shook his head, somehow looking even more angry than he had before. “You could be anything. You could
do
anything. Have anything you want. So what are you doing, Riley?” He took another step towards me, the tips of his toes actually touching mine, and looked down at me, his eyes flashing, chest heaving. I wanted to back away, wanted to run. This was all too intense, whatever it was in his eyes. It was too intense and too overwhelming and I didn’t understand it.

“What about you?” I whispered, my voice strangely ragged. “You think you can’t have what you want? You think you can’t have more?”

For a second I thought he might touch me. His hands actually clenched at his side, like he was forcing them to stay still. And then he took a step back, and then another, breaking whatever spell had seemed to come over us in the last few minutes. When he spoke again, the anger in his voice was muted, replaced by something that sounded a lot like disappointment.

“The only thing I want—the only thing I’ve ever wanted— is out of my reach,” he muttered. “So don’t tell me I can have more, Riley. Because you have no idea.”

I wanted to cry in that moment, wanted to burst into tears and pull him into my arms—and I didn’t even know why. There was just something so sad about the way he was looking at me.

“Andrew,” I said, reaching out a hand to him, but he was turning away, no longer looking at me, striding back towards the back door.

“Wait!”

“Have a good night, Riley.”

And then he was gone.

F
or the first
time in my life, I didn’t eat lunch with Andrew that week. He left every day at exactly noon and didn’t return until 12:55 on the dot, exactly five minutes before his break was over. He was eating at Rose’s every day. I know because I followed him once.

I couldn’t stand whatever this was between us. I couldn’t even call it tension. Tension required some kind of interaction, some kind of emotion. This—this was just cold. Like ice had formed between my oldest friend and I, and I didn’t have any idea how to thaw it out. He didn’t ignore me—he was nowhere near that immature. He said good morning every day. Brought me requisition forms for approval. Came to my desk to clarify details on the new budget for the show. He was perfectly polite and professional.

I hated it.

I tried, a few times, to apologize. To get him to talk to me—really talk—but he shut me down every time. After work, he left immediately, never offering to walk with me, never asking me to stop at Cora’s for a drink. I stopped by there a few times, just to see if I might catch him, but he appeared to have found a new place to spend his evenings. In desperation, I even went down to the marina to check on his boat. Just as I expected, it was gone.

I was sure that things would change on Thursday night. We had a game against the hotel team and there was no way Andrew would miss that. He considered beating them as often as possible to be a sacred duty. Plus, we’d recently moved to summer hours in all the city departments and on a small island like this, that meant no work on Fridays. What better excuse for drinking at Cora’s after the game than a long weekend?

But on Thursday, just like the other days, he jumped up from his desk exactly at five. He didn’t carry a duffel bag, and my stomach sank. Without much thought, I jumped up and hurried across the office to intercept him near the door.

“Hey,” I said, noticing right away that he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “You playing tonight?”

He shook his head. “I have plans.”

“What? You never miss games. Come on, we’re playing the Big Hotel. We need your bat.”

“Sorry, I’m busy. Maybe next time.” He sidestepped me to pass out into the hallway, leaving me staring after him. Staring after him and suddenly pretty damn pissed.

Oh, hell no,
I thought, watching his retreating back. This was ridiculous. There was no way we could keep this up.

“Andrew,” I called, not caring that Millie was glaring daggers at me, and ran out into the hall to catch him. He stopped, his shoulders sagging, but he didn’t turn to me. “Andrew come on, this is stupid. We can’t keep fighting.”

“We’re not fighting,” he said. He sounded exhausted.

“We obviously are! But I don’t even know why!”

He did turn toward me then, and I immediately wished he hadn’t, wished I hadn’t followed him at all. His eyes looked hollow, like he couldn’t care less about any of this. “You know why.”

“Andrew—”

“I really have to go.”

This time I let him. I’d had a hundred fights with Andrew over the years. We fought about hockey players, we fought about the food he stole from me, we fought about how he treated my cat and what movies we liked and who had the better batting average and a million other things. But I didn’t know how to fight this Andrew. This Andrew who was so cold and uncaring towards me.

I walked back to my desk in defeat, wondering if I should skip the game too. But the prospect of going back to my apartment to sit and think about how to fix this wasn’t very appealing. At least I would get to see my nephews at the game. To say I could use a hug was an understatement. So I grabbed my duffel from under my desk and headed out.

“Riley, good,” David said when I appeared at the dugout. “I just heard Andrew isn’t coming. I was afraid we’d be short on batters.”

“Nope,” I said, trying to make my voice normal. “I’m ready to play.”

“And ready to kick a little mainlander ass, too, I hope.”

“I see you’re feeling better?”

“Yeah, that was wicked food poisoning. Iris had to feed me soup, I was so weak.”

I scanned the crowd and saw her sitting in the stands, taking to Posey. My stomach dropped. Somehow, I didn’t want to talk to either of them. Luckily, I saw Rebecca as well. Jake must have had the afternoon off, because he was sitting with her, Aiden and Jayden both hanging off his arms and laughing at the faces he was making as he tried to lift them into the air, body builder style. I caught Rebecca’s gaze and a shadow passed over her face. Apparently she could tell, even from here, that I wasn’t doing so well.

“I’ll be back,” I said to no one in particular and made my way across the dusty field to my sister.

“You look like hell,” she said. “Have you been sleeping?”

“Not really.”

“Why haven’t you returned my calls? What happened with Andrew?”

“It was awful, Beccs. We had this huge fight and now he’s acting all weird. He isn’t even here tonight,”

She frowned. “He never misses games.”

“I know. But apparently he can’t even stand to be within twenty feet of me.”

“What happened? What was the fight about? What’d he say?”

I had to look away. Somehow I knew if I made eye contact with her right now, I would burst into tears. “You were definitely wrong about that one.”

“Oh, Riley.” She sounded so sad for me, like I had missed out on something really important and I really wished I wasn’t in this field right now, surrounded by people.

Like a lifeline, my cell phone buzzed in my pocket.

“Gina,” I said, looking at the screen. I had been waiting to hear from her as we didn’t yet have any instructions for Saturday. “I should get this.”

“Sure,” Rebecca said, still sounding concerned. “We’ll talk after the game?”

I nodded before turning away, bringing the phone up to my ear.

“Hey, Gina, how’s it going?”

As soon as she opened her mouth, I knew my bad day was about to get a whole lot worse.

“It’s not going so great, Riley,” she said. “We need to talk.”

* * *

A
n hour
later I was well on my way to getting drunk, sitting alone in my apartment with Gordie curled up in my lap.

We were out.

It still didn’t feel real. Gina told me that the voting had just been counted and we were in last for the week, meaning we were done.

“I thought you didn’t find out until the show aired,” I asked stupidly. She was kind as she explained things. Apparently the producers had access to the voting during the week and had been telling the losing towns their status this entire time, unbeknownst to us. How would we know, ensconced in our happy little bubble of those still on the show? But the production company wasn’t so stupid as to tape another new episode with a team that wouldn’t be on the air. And our non-disclosure agreements ensured that our elimination would be kept a secret until the episode aired.

Details
, I thought, taking another swig of my gin and tonic. None of it really mattered. The only important thing was that we weren’t continuing. We weren’t going to win. It was all over.

I hadn’t known what to do after she ended the phone call, promising she would call to touch base in a few days. I knew I needed to tell the people in the stands, to let everyone know that we were finished. But how could I? The loss felt heavy on my shoulders. I had gotten us into this and it was my job to keep us in it. I had failed.

Thank God for Libby. She appeared at my side as soon as I put my phone away, some sixth sense tingling that something was wrong.

“We’re out,” I’d told her. “That was Gina. We got voted off.”

“Oh, Riley,” she had murmured, moving to wrap her arms around me, but I sidestepped, not at all capable of handling her sympathy and kindness. “They’re not coming to shoot on Saturday,” I said, pleased to hear that my voice was all business. “So they wanted to give us a heads up.”

“That makes sense. What can I do?”

And maybe Andrew was right about me being a coward. Because instead of facing my friends and neighbors, I turned to Libby and asked her if she would spread the word. Then I’d turned off my phone and walked straight home where I locked the door and got out the bottle of gin.

“I really screwed up, Gordie,” I told the cat. “I thought we were doing so well. Got complacent.” Clearly our voting efforts had fallen short. Why had we spent so much time on the damn Lilac Festival when we had the show to concentrate on? I thought of Cora’s bar, full to the brim, the last night of the festival, and the way she had smiled when she mentioned the tips for her waiters and immediately felt sick. This could have been so good for us.

There was a knock on the door, and Gordie immediately jumped off my lap, running into the kitchen to escape whatever danger he imagined on the other side.

“Traitor,” I muttered. I didn’t move. Whoever was out there could just go back home. I wasn’t talking to anyone. I wasn’t even going to move, at least not until I needed to make another drink, and since I still had two fingers of gin left in my glass I guess that meant I could keep comfy on the couch even if the person was knocking again.

“Riley,” a familiar male voice called through the door. “Come on, let me in.”

Andrew. Great. The absolute last person that I wanted to talk to right now.

“Riley James, you let me in or I’ll just use my key.”

Damn it. Why had I thought it was a good idea to give him a key, anyhow?

I hefted myself up from the couch and went to the door, unlocking it to find him standing there, a bottle of Jack Daniels held up over his face. “Thought you might need this,” he said, lowering the bottle so I could see his face.

I held up my glass of gin and tonic. “I’m way ahead of you.”

The cold emptiness from earlier was gone, replaced with something much worse. Pity.

“Can I come in?”

“Be my guest.” I stepped aside so he could come into the apartment. Gordie shot out into the living room the second he sensed Andrew’s presence.

“Hello, Mr. Howe,” Andrew said, picking up the cat with his free hand and heading into the kitchen. He reappeared a moment later with a second glass and the bottle of gin. “I would have thought you’d want the whiskey,” I said, but he shook his head.

“Whiskey can be our dessert.”

“So we’re going full on bender, huh?”

He shrugged. “Seems like the thing to do.”

He was acting normal, acting like nothing had ever happened, and the relief hit me like a punch to the gut. Maybe we would be okay. I sank into the couch, holding out my glass for refill, feeling slightly better than I had an hour ago.

“So,” Andrew said, looking at me over his glass. “This blows.”

I laughed. “Yeah. I think that about covers it.”

“I’m really sorry, Riley.”

“What are you sorry for? You did everything you could to keep us in this thing.” I shook my head, the tears I’d wanted to cry since our encounter in the hall burning my eyes. “You were such a huge help, Andrew. We wouldn’t have gotten half as far without you.” I shook my head, trying to keep from crying. “I’m sorry I let you down.”

“Hey.” He set his drink down on a magazine on the coffee table and faced me. “Riley, this isn’t your fault.”

“I was in charge, Andrew. It was my project. That means the responsibility lies with me.”

“You can’t control the way that people vote. You did everything you possibly could. Everyone on this island is grateful for your work.”

Okay, now I really was going to cry. A tear trickled down my face. “They shouldn’t be. I could have done better. I could have—”

“Riley, stop it.” He reached out and took my hands. “Please. You did everything right. You put on a great show. You should have no regrets.”

“My mom left.” I don’t know where the words came from but it suddenly seemed like the most important thing for him to know. “She went to my Aunt Lynn to start rehab.”

He watched me carefully. “That’s a good thing, right?”

“She didn’t even call me, Andrew. She told Rebecca, and not me. After all this time, everything I tried to do for her, moving back here, keeping an eye on things, getting her out of trouble—she still can’t stand me. She couldn’t even manage to talk to me. She hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you.”

“Well, she certainly doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“You said I couldn’t stand to fail—but Andrew, you don’t understand. I’ve been failing at everything.” I was really crying now, the tears coming too fast to try to stop. “The show. My mom. Keeping Rebecca out of Mom’s drama. You.”

“You have never failed with me, Riley. Stop talking like this, none of it is true.”

“You were so angry,” I whispered. “And you were right, I shouldn’t have been worrying about Chase. I had too much going on to be distracted by him.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said firmly. “Riley, listen to me. You didn’t do anything wrong. There’s nothing wrong with you going on a couple dates. I was an asshole about it, but that had nothing to do with you. It was my own stuff.”

I looked up at him through blurry eyes. “What stuff?”

“We don’t need to talk about that right now.”