Courtship of the Cake (24 page)

“Yeah.”

I lightly placed my palms on the thickest part of the trapezius muscle, at the top of his shoulders. Closing my eyes, I listened to his breath with my hands, lightening my contact with each inhalation, and adding pressure when he exhaled. Noticing and following natural
respiratory rhythms was a technique I'd learned in my training, said to build deep trust and empathy. A way for him to know, albeit unconsciously, that I was listening and paying close attention to him.

“There was a fire.”

I kept my own breathing full and deep, encouraging him to relax. “Was it . . . ? On the mountain that day, you—”

“It had nothing to do with me.” He shrugged my hands off and grabbed his shirt. “Whatever you do, don't ask Quinn about it. Or Bear. He won't talk about it.”

Our session was obviously over. And I was no closer to understanding what had happened.

Nash wouldn't tell me, and I couldn't ask Quinn or Bear about it.

That left a ten-year-old boy whose language I barely spoke.

And Mick.

BLACK HOLES AND REVELATIONS

“I'm in hell,” Nash said, slapping down Friday's morning newspaper. All week long, the press had been posting snippets about him “returning to his childhood home” and “reuniting with his family,” and all week long, Bear and I had taken turns stashing the papers in the recycling bin before Quinn could blow a gasket.

I caught a glance at what had made big news that day. KEY-BESTOWING CEREMONY POSTPONED AS SECOND-OLDEST RESIDENT FALLS ILL.

“Second-oldest living resident?” Dani asked. “What happened to the first?”

“Oh, she's still around.” Sindy, who had stopped by with some of Walt's famous shoofly pie that morning, waved her hand. “That old bat is too mean to die. But she got the award, oh . . . I don't know, maybe five years ago? Boys, you should go pay a visit to Mr. Woolhouse. Take him some of those flowers you've been delivering all over town, Nash.”

Nash shot Dani a look. Apparently part of his PR team's “making
the bad boy look good” to-do list consisted of him supplying the town park where the key ceremony was to take place with a new garden. And a new garden, according to Nash, had been hiring a lawn service to get the job done. What Sindy was suggesting was pretty old school: a house call.

“I think that's a great idea,” Dani said, and Nash gave a defeated sigh. It was about time he did a little more around town than put his money where his mouth, and his heart, should be.

“I've got his bakery delivery to take over there anyway.” I shrugged. “How about it, hotshot?”

Mr. Woolhouse lived in a Tudor that was built at the same time as the Half Acre, and had the same low bedrock wall placed in front to prove it. While the Half Acre sprawled, the old man's house rose up, up, up, narrow and high. As kids, we used to scale the wall on Halloween and egg old Woolhouse's house. We had him pegged as a child molester/serial killer, with bodies under the stairs and blood in the ice cube trays. No one ever seemed to visit, and no one ever came out.

It turned out he was a writer and the unofficial town historian, married to a Frenchwoman he met during his service in World War II. She'd had MS, and they had had most of their groceries delivered.

Nash knocked impatiently on the front door.

“Who's there?” a shaky voice called.

“Nash Drama.”

“Jehovahs? Not interested.”

“Drama! Nash Dra . . .” Nash rolled his eyes. “It's Stuart Nash.”

Bleary eyes peeked through the half-moon window on the door. “You and Mickey come to egg my house again, Stewie?”

“Again?” Nash mouthed in disbelief. I stifled a laugh; it had been a good twenty years since we raised an egg or any kind of hell together. I was surprised Woolhouse remembered.

“No. He brought some mums,” I called. “And I've got your meringues.”

A series of locks clicked from within, and the door creaked open. “Like munching on a cloud,” Woolhouse sighed, a gnarled hand snaking out to grab one of the cookies. While we had been egging his house all those years ago, his wife was pulling herself up from her chair to make her husband his favorite treat. After she passed last spring, I began making and bringing them to him each month. He would eat one, get teary eyed, and then he would eat another and talk about his darling wife. He would offer me a bite and I'd refuse, and then he would shake my hand and we'd repeat the process all over again the next month.

“You back in town to make an honest woman out of that Bradley girl?” He shook his cane at Nash's nether regions. “Or to make
her
a mum again?”

Nash gave him a dark look.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Woolhouse? We heard you were sick,” I said.

“Yeah, what's wrong?” Nash asked, a bit less sympathetic in tone.

“At my age, what isn't wrong with me?” He waved a hand. “Eh. It'll pass. Nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing?” Nash said. “They postponed my key ceremony tomorrow for nothing?”

“What's your hurry, boy? I've got less time than you, you know.”

“Who's to say? I could be a ticking time bomb, for all you know,” Nash argued.

The old man leaned on his cane. “Maybe you should stop rushing and smell the roses . . . and plant those mums while you're at it.”

Nash cursed under his breath and went to the shed to fetch a shovel. I hoped the key ceremony would get here soon, too . . . so I could lodge it up his ass. Or crank open his chest with it, to see if my best friend truly had no heart.

New Hope's local guitar hero toiled in the early-fall sun, coaxing holes out of the hard ground, as its second-oldest resident directed him on placement and soil irrigation.

“It's like a kiss from my dear Margaret, every time.” Woolhouse placed a wispy meringue on his tongue and let it dissolve there. There were the tears, but they didn't seem to be unhappy ones. “Thank you, Mick.”

“You're welcome,” singsonged Nash, sweating his ass off in the side yard.

“Who's the hot dish I've seen walking with your aunt in town?” Woolhouse held up a third meringue in offering, and I prepared to make my monthly refusal.

“Nash's fiancée. Danica,” I informed Woolhouse, since Nash had fallen into silent mode.

“Think she's got a friend for me?” the old man asked, making a pointed wink at me. “I sure could do with a lady on my arm for the ceremony next week.”

“Gee, wouldn't it be great if we could all have a woman who can be a lady on your arm . . . and a whore behind closed doors.” Nash hacked the soil into place around the mums with the back of the shovel. “I think every guy should have a chick like Dani.”

Whether Nash had been trying to shock the nonagenarian or whether he truly felt that way, I didn't care. Just the fact that he uttered the words with such pleasure made me want to tackle him in the dirt.

Down we went, tumbling and swearing. Nash had always been bigger than me, but I had always been faster. His large hand spanned my face, forcing my head to the earth, but I knocked him at the elbow, then flipped, gaining the advantage.

“Take it back,” I ground out.
Let her go.

“Don't you get it?” he rasped. “Don't you know me at all, Mick?” His bitter laugh blew at the dirt. “My drummer uttered that infamous gem during an interview, yet it got mistakenly credited to me. I thought if I became famous, people would stop assuming bad shit about me. But it's only made it worse.”

I let his words sink in, and let my guard down. He leveled me with
his weight, just like he used to during our fake WWE matches as kids. I knew all his moves, yet I always fell for them anyway.

“So I can't take it back,” he said quietly, nose to nose with me. “If I retracted or redacted shit I never said or did, I'd disappear entirely.”

“Don't make me get the garden hose!” Woolhouse threatened, like we were violent dogs that needed breaking up. Suddenly, I couldn't help but laugh. And once it started, it wouldn't cease, even after I started hiccupping, a tight stitch in my side. Nash had tears rolling down his dirt-streaked face, gasping and shaking with laughter.

“Crazy kids.” Woolhouse had had enough of us, apparently. He slammed the door behind him, taking his meringues with him.

Nash and I walked, stiff limbed, toward the Porsche. “You okay, man?” I asked, throwing out a dirty hand toward his shoulder. He was holding his hip, and favoring one leg.

“I'm fine,” he managed, out of breath. “For a goddamn Tin Man.”

A DATE WITH DRAMA

Standing in the foyer with Nash waiting for our dates to appear, I realized my idea was possibly the most disastrous one yet. Dani was perfection in a short, midnight blue dress, with halter-style straps that crossed in an X above her cleavage before tying in the back. It was reminiscent of the keyhole neck of the bridesmaid's dress I'd peeled off her once upon a time, no doubt to torture me with memories the entire night. Two rhinestone clips swept her unbelievable blond hair back at her temples, but the rest fell in a cascade of loose ringlets. She paused on the second-to-last step, eyes sweeping over me. In her silver heels, she met my burning gaze. “You clean up nice, Mick.”

That's right; as far as everyone else was concerned, we hadn't cleaned up—or gotten down and dirty—in each other's presence.

“Take a picture, Spencer. It lasts longer,” Nash joked, taking Dani's arm as she maneuvered the last stair in those goddess heels. He wound a finger through one of those ringlets and gave it a playful tug.

“I wish we did have a photo . . . booth,” I murmured, just to see
the blush spread across the prime real estate of Dani's face. Two could play at the torture game.

“Hey, that's my job,” we heard Quinn say. She made her way down the winding stairs, although she didn't have the usual camera strap hanging like an albatross around her neck. Instead, she wore a shimmering silver top that fell off her shoulders, and a black miniskirt that showed off her petite curves. Tasteful black boots rose to her knees, and she clutched a small sparkling purse in her hand, along with her phone. Typical Quinn, she managed to blind us with the flash as she snapped pictures of our surprised expressions.

“You're a girl,” I joked, as she linked arms with me. She had pulled her hair back and up into one of those messy buns, and I marveled at her neck. I had never noticed it before, since she was usually wound up so tight.

She smacked me with her clamshell purse, and it felt like a kettlebell to the chest.

Nash, meanwhile, had fallen very quiet in her presence. Maybe this plan of mine wasn't so bad after all. “Thank you,” I mouthed to Quinn. She gave me a puzzled look. “For agreeing to this.”

Bear and Logan came to the door to see us off.

“Don't eat a ton of junk food and stay up too late,” Quinn warned her brother.

“No chance. We are heading over to Palomar for dinner. Two-for-One Taco Night!” Bear grinned. Logan confirmed their dinner choice with a C-shaped hand turned up like a taco shell, and “filled” it using the sweeping motion of a T with his other hand.

“Angie Vega must be working,” Quinn said with a smirk. “You sure Logan won't cramp your style, Slick?”

“You kidding? The kid's a chica magnet.” He turned to Nash. “Hey, since you aren't using your Porsche tonight—?”

“Height/weight restriction.” Quinn cut him off before Nash could respond, and Bear cursed halfheartedly in defeat.

“The front seat of my luxury performance vehicle is probably safer than the backseat of that death trap he drives,” Nash said defensively.

“Fine. He can take my Volvo. We'll drive his Jeep.”

“
I'll
drive the Jeep,” I corrected. It was a step up from being chauffeured by Quinn in her mom-mobile, but not by much.

“I call shotgun!” Nash said immediately.

“What are you, twelve? Fine,” Quinn said. She gave Dani a look that could only mean,
Boys: can't live with them, can't shoot them
, and shook her head.

•   •   •

Nope, I was correct with my first assumption. The date was a fucking disaster. Nash flirted with the hostess the minute we arrived, and promptly began drinking upon being seated. In fact, he couldn't seem to look at Quinn without taking a swig of whatever overpriced straight-up liquor he had ordered. He was drunk and brooding by the time the salads were served. Dani tried to keep up the small talk, telling funny stories from the summer festival and asking Quinn questions about New Hope, photography, anything surface and safe that kept her from engaging with me.

She kept toying with the cake charm at her throat, absently playing with it. Each time her fingers lingered tantalizingly at her neck, it made me want to run my tongue under the ribbon. I could barely focus, much less concentrate on anything Quinn said to me, trying to bring me into the conversation.

The women had ordered a carafe of wine to share, but Dani had barely picked up her glass through the awkward meal. When I reached for my own drink, I realized Nash had drained mine as well as his. And he was tapping on the empty glass like he was going to propose a toast.
Oh, for fuck's sake.

“My chick looks foxy tonight, don't she?” He looked up at the waitress, as she rushed over to make sure everything was all right. We
had landed a coveted reservation at one of Philadelphia's hottest upscale eateries due to Nash's status, but I had a feeling they weren't versed in dealing with drunken rockers using their crystal like it was a dinner bell.

“Nash,” Dani hissed a warning.

“You wanna three-way?” he asked the waitress, who was at least ten years younger than us, probably paying her way through college. “You, me, and my fine-ass foxy fiancée?”

“I'll take the check,” I said to her, and she gratefully nodded and rushed off.

Nash held up his empty glass and made a hollow toast. “Mick. My best fucking friend in the world. A toast to you, man. And to our ladies.”
Okay, that wasn't so bad.
I raised my own empty glass to humor him. Quinn held up her wineglass, filled to the brim, with a smile pasted to her face, and I realized she had just about polished off the carafe herself.

Dani wasn't smiling, or toasting. She glared at Nash like she knew what was coming next.

“May they always be ladies on our arms,” he boomed, “and . . .”

So help me God, I would've decked him, if he hadn't already fallen off the fucking chair.

“Come on,” he appealed from the floor. “Can't I get some unconditional love?”

“Pull the Jeep around,” I said to Quinn, holding out the keys to her. “I'll pay the bill and let's get the fuck out of here.”

My partner in crime stared at the keys like she didn't know what to do with them.

“Give me those,” Dani snapped. She swiped Bear's keys from me. “She's in no condition to drive.”

She had the Jeep outside and running by the time I tipped and managed to get both Nash's and Quinn's drunk asses out onto the street.

“Get in,” I ordered Nash, who was making a big production of pulling out his wallet.

Dani helped buckle Quinn in, who smiled happily that someone had remembered seat belt safety. Then she handed me back my keys.

Road rage took on a whole other meaning as I drove. I was pissed at myself for dreaming up this ridiculous idea. To think that by some miracle, maybe Nash and Quinn would rekindle whatever fucking spark had clicked once between them, leaving me and Dani to . . . what? Now we were driving in silence, Dani staring out the window and me staring at the road ahead. Trying to pretend there wasn't a weepy girl and a clueless bastard in the back.

“I owe you, man,” Nash kept saying, leaning into the front seat space and polluting it with his drunk banter.

“Dinner's on me,” I said, shifting and roaring up the highway ramp.

“No, man. You earned your two-fiddy.” He tossed a hundred-dollar bill onto my lap, followed by another one, and then a Ulysses S. Grant fluttered over Dani's cleavage. “We made a bet, remember? Fair and square. Last player standing. I got engaged. You win! Everybody's happy. Everybody is. Fucking. Ecstatic.”

He dropped back into the seat next to Quinn, who had passed out.

Dani's controlled breathing told me to not dare try explaining right now.

In the back, Quinn's cell phone began to ring.

“I hope that's not Bear,” I muttered, more to myself than to anyone else. He was a capable babysitter, and a phone call might mean something was up with Logan at home.

Dani mumbled something.

I pulled my eyes off the road momentarily. “What was that?”

“I said, he's calling her,” Dani reiterated. “That's what he does. When he's had a few.”

The ringing stopped. I glanced back to catch Nash with his phone
up to his ear. Sure enough, he began to mumble what sounded like sweet nothings to someone—or onto someone's voice mail.

“Are you kidding me?” I sputtered a laugh. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Nice of you to join the party, Captain Clueless,” Dani muttered.

“He calls her . . . and you are okay with this?”

“I'm not okay with any of this, all right? Including you and your . . .” She reached between my legs and tossed the crumbled hundred-dollar bills in the air. “Your games and bets when people's fucking emotions are on the line!”

“Christ, Nash and I were teenagers when we made that bet. I hadn't even remembered it until he brought it up!”

“I'm not talking about just that!” Dani hollered back, “I'm talking about New Orleans!”