Getting by (A Knight's Tale) (5 page)

I huffed and punched him playfully in the arm. They didn’t understand. A two year relationship meant something; even a screwy one like mine. She warned not once but several times, and I disregarded the hints. ‘People and I don’t mesh, can’t handle relationships—with anyone. Don’t get close.’ I understood Gavin a little, not that Emma could be compared with Chloe—his ex—and her fucked up world. But there was pain after she dropped me like a used condom with not even a second glance toward me.

*

We arrived at the Clement’s house. A cookie cutter structure similar to the ones next to it and across the street and—what was this place? Other than colors, almost everything seemed like a movie set—fuck, Emma trained me to compare everything with movies and shows. Instead of continuing my take on the place, I hurried and caught up with Mom, who was more excited than Cade—the husband to be. Perhaps because this would be the only time she’d act as the mother of the groom. My brothers and I refused to get tangled into the world of marriage and family affairs.

Mitch elbowed me when we entered the house following Cade, who opened the door without waiting for us to ring the bell. Drinking in the sight of what appeared in front of us was worse than the antibiotic Mom used to give us when we were sick. The busy foyer, with frames of family pictures and shrieking orange walls, made my eyes hurt. As we walked inside the house, we noticed huge flat screens inside the family room, living room and dining room. Trophies—bowling, tennis, art and others adorned the end tables.

Gaby and her family were outside in the backyard. Mr. and Mrs. Clement shook hands with each of us and offered us something to drink from the cooler they had on the side of one of the chairs. Each one of us helped ourselves to a bottle of water. Thankfully, Gavin, Gaby’s brother and a friend of ours, came outside, damp hair and bare footed. “Finish getting dressed.” His mother brought everyone’s attention toward him.

He signaled for us to follow him upstairs. “You’re welcome,” he said, after we sat around his room. Gavin put on a pair of sandals and ran a hand through his hair. “If I have to listen to Mom talk about the wedding one more time, I’m going to shoot myself. Cade’s sobbing orphan story is the talk among my family. No offense, I know it’s horrible, but told a million times, it takes the edge off and becomes obsolete.”

He wasn’t an orphan. Cade’s mom, Aunt Cathleen—Mom’s only sister—died when he was sixteen. However, his dad still lived. His parents divorced when he was little, and when the lawyer contacted his father about the custody of Cade, he washed his hands of Cade, granting custody to Mom. She loved Cade like her own, and though we tried to include him as a brother, it was hard for us to see him the way Liam, Mitch and I saw each other.

We had a pretty tight bond from the beginning, making it hard to open up to him. There were too many factors included. Mitch and I shared the womb and had the twin connection. Liam, who was only two years younger than us, became the baby of the house, but tried hard to fit in with us and keep up with whatever Mitch and I were up to. And the biggest factor was Dad, who moved us around the world for his job and took the entire family with him. We became our own constant, not only brothers but best friends. By the time Cade joined our family, I was finishing college and was leaving for the Academy. We didn’t interact with him as much as I would’ve liked to.

“Boys, dinner time,” a female voice called from the main floor of the house, I assumed Mrs. Clement.

We met the rest of the family in the dining room, where twelve places were set. I counted twice to confirm we were eleven. Were we expecting someone else? No one asked, but our answer came halfway through the meal.

“Are you sure she’ll be here tomorrow, Gaby?” Mrs. Clement asked, pointing her fork to the empty space. “First she refuses to stay with us, and now declines to come to our family dinner. I’m starting to second guess your choice. She’s your oldest friend, and I love her. But I don’t think she’s filling into the maid of honor duties. Do you?”

“Nothing’s wrong with her, Mom.” Gaby continued pushing her food around. “She asked me for one day to settle, it’s the first time she’s visited Cali since she moved away. Give her a break.”

“Emma,” Mrs. Clement said, to Mom’s puzzled look. Mitch, Liam and I stared at each other, my shoulders stiffened. “Gaby and she are about the same age. They were inseparable while growing up. She used to live next door. Chloe, her sister—”

“Do we have to, Mom?” Gavin interrupted what promised to be a heartfelt story of two best friends.

Chloe, who made his life miserable for a year or two, lived next door. I didn’t have much information about their previous relationship. We met Gavin through Liam, he had worked for him while he dated Chloe. The biggest piece of information I had about Chloe was that she liked open relationships and her two only friends were alcohol and street drugs. “Both should be banished from this house. Your little best friend is insane.” Gavin stood up from the table. Anything Chloe-related didn’t sit well.

“She’s like my best friend,” Gaby whined, the word
like
didn’t sound right to me. Why would she invite her to be her main person at the altar if they weren’t as close as she was with someone else?

“You’re her only friend, Gabriela,” Gavin retorted. “God knows what stuff she’s into, just like her sister.”

“Unlike her sister Chloe, Emma’s drug of choice is work.” Gavin’s body stiffened. “Please behave when you see her tomorrow. The thing with her parents took a toll on her. Chloe did a number on her too, Gavin, not only you. Do you know Chloe didn’t give her any of the insurance money their parents left? They don’t speak to each other.”

“You two stop fighting,” John Clement interrupted. “Treat Emma with respect, Gavin. I was good friends with Nick.”

Mom redirected the conversation to friendlier subjects, including the wedding details and guests. Dad offered his help for the third time. I wanted to put my foot down and remind him that he had already paid for most of it; the food, location, dress, invitations and alcohol. For Mom’s sake I didn’t, instead I let the conversation continue until my parents were satisfied enough that we had become one happy family and left the house.

*

On the drive back to the hotel, Mom, Dad and Cade talked about what a great family those Clements were. I continued driving, tuning them out. Mitch gave me the ‘what’s going on’ look. The twin connection kicked in. He knew me too well. Gaby’s like my best friend, maid of honor and loner by choice reminded me of Emma, my Emma Anderson, whose sister was into weird stuff. Pain, and two guys…. I shook my head at the mental picture that came to my mind by fusing Chloe and her sister.

Funny I never ran a background check on my girl, nor did I check if such a sister existed or what her story was. I respected her boundaries, we did light and uncomplicated. Emma didn’t know much of my background either. She didn’t know what I truly did for a living. She used to call me a Rent a Cop. Mercenary, bounty hunter and security intelligence were more accurate. The fortune I owned wasn’t important to her, or how I made it. Grandfather left us enough money to begin a few ventures, and by the age of nineteen Mitch and I had started a few businesses. Our game was to start businesses and then sell them at a high price. While my brother tended said ventures, I went through special training and worked for a specialized agency; the easiest term to apply was spy.

I did the gig until a tender loving asshole blew a whistle and compromised my mission, killing my unit and barely missing me. The said unknown agency made me retire, and I went back into the business world while my body recuperated. The hero gig ended and my years as a civilian began, though when I recovered the itch to open my own operation and claim part of who I wanted to be pushed me to open a high security company. Liam joined our business ventures when he graduated and now we owned a sizable amount of places, including an advertising company—where my lovely Emma worked.

In a foul mood, I parked close to the emergency exit, got out of the car and headed toward the bar. Mom yelled something about breakfast behind me, but I ignored the woman. What were the odds that Emma would be Gaby’s friend? Serendipity had a fucked up sense of humor; the odds increased five percent with each step I took toward the bar of the hotel. And Chloe’s little sister, fuck, no way would I get tangled with the freak case Gavin had described for years. Hold on, yes, I was with her for more than twenty four months.

Liam sat next to me and ordered two scotches. “Emma’s on vacation,” he said. Was this a conversation about Gaby’s friend? Because I had come to the bar to numb myself, not rehash my screwed up life.

“So?” I shrugged, gulped my shot and ordered another one.

He shook his head and continued talking. “I sent a general email to the creative department to see who’ll pick up your project.” I gave him a glare. “She’s out.”

“Emma is never on vacation. She might still answer,” I responded. Emma didn’t respect her free time. She craved work, needed it, her drug of choice, like Gaby said. I told him to give it to whoever he thought directly, not… fuck. I worried, because why was she on holiday? The wedding? “Why is she off, is her grandfather sick, again?”

“I don’t know,” Liam answered, and Mitch arrived from wherever he had been and sat on my other side. Why were they flanking me? I didn’t need babysitting. “Though, I heard she moved them from their house to an assisted living community. Again, not much information, you know she keeps to herself. But you’re over her, right?” Liam, who adored Emma for her amazing talent, kept my relationship and her job separate. “I think she’s Gaby’s little friend, Jay. We saw her. Here, today.” The words were said with enough pause so they would sink in.

I gulped two more shots ignoring the conclusion Liam gave me. Clearly I was going to run into her, wedding or not. The question was what the fuck was I going to do when I saw her?

“One week of unadulterated awkwardness,” Mitch finally spoke. I wanted to punch the smirk off his face. “So, you getting drunk again?”

Chapter 6

Emma

NIGHTS MEANT SLEEP and dreams—my archenemies. The Crowley to my Dean Winchester, the Green Goblin to my Spider-man, the list of superheroes and their opposites was long, and so became the analogies I used on a daily basis. My lack of sleep began with Dad and his conditions for me to continue my art. Then came my parents’ deaths. Those took a toll on me because I mixed dreams with realities and hopes. Not once did I have a nightmare, all of them were sweet and real. Seeing Mom and Dad on those nights filled my gut with nails, and my head pounded with the reminder that they were gone the next morning. Those had been merely fantasies that would never become a reality.

For the past three months I had been evading sleep and working overtime, over the overtime. The dreams of elevators, trips to sophisticated-secluded spots after a week of work and delicious nights with a man who I was required to forget in order to move on, came daily—nightly. They not only hit me with vengeance, but they came tangled with what humans liked to call hope. The urge to crawl inside myself to avoid the need of his touch, kisses and whatever it was that we had not long ago, consumed me. If I had the powers to morph into an animal, it’d be a sea turtle and I’d stay inside my shell for the next hundred years. Past the stage of melancholy and into the real world, I pushed my body outside of the bed and into the shower, where I got ready to face the Clements and the house next door.

Once I finished bathing, dressing with a pair of skinny jeans and a flouncy blouse, I blow dried my hair making it straight, flat and perfect for the barbeque party. Next, I prepared myself a cup of coffee from the old coffee maker they had in the room and grabbed a granola bar from my luggage—instant breakfast. I checked the time, still plenty to make a couple of calls before Gaby picked me up.

“Grandma Lily,”
long live voicemails,
it took away the awkwardness of family meetings, “I’m in town, well Menlo Park, one town close to San Francisco. Of course you know that, I’m babbling, aren’t I. Sorry. Call me back, if you have some time this week to get together? By the way, this is Emma, your youngest granddaughter.”

Up until I was nine, Grandma and I were close. We looked so much alike. Chloe inherited Mom’s golden hair and sapphire blue eyes, her curvy figure and petite height. Grandma Lily adored me for being more Anderson and less Lynden. Then she discovered my carefree personality or as she said, my mischievous ways. She disowned me. “She has a great imagination,” Mom defended me. “And mostly, Emma is a little girl.”

I touched the end call button and dialed the next number. “Hi handsome,” Grampy-Lynden answered the phone. “How’s the hip?”

“Is this my baby girl?” he asked, enthusiastic. This was a good sign, after the latest health scare. “All is well. Soon I’ll be able to dance again, sweetie. And before you ask, yes, they gave me antibiotics for the pneumonia. Now, stop worrying about me.”

The eighty year old man believed he never aged. The old house in Connecticut needed a coat of paint, and instead of calling a professional, he did it himself.

To save money.

“Emmy, Joe is in the hospital.” Grandma Lynden’s—or as we called her, Nana—frantic voice came from the other side of the phone. “Dear, he broke his hip and they’ll be performing surgery. Can you come, sweetie?”

Going was not a question. I made a few calls to cover my bases at work, gathered my mobile office—laptop, scanner and gadgets—and headed toward the rental car office. Within an hour I reached the city border, twenty minutes later I parked the rental car in front of the hospital where the valet parking guy handed me a ticket and helped me grab my tote and laptop bags. As I walked inside the hospital, I spotted a nurse who gave me precise instructions on where to find Nana. It seemed she left a note describing me and telling them where I could find her.

Two hallways to my right, three floors upstairs, another hallway and I found the tiny lady covered with an old raggedy sweater; knitting while she waited for news. I hugged her tightly and the tension I held in my shoulders since her phone call diminished. My breathing, I noticed, was back to normal and everything seemed bearable. Was I made out of stone? From the time she called, until I got a hold of her, there wasn’t one emotional reaction toward the accident or health of Grampy. I had to remain strong for Nana, squeezing her hand and explaining to her that everything would be alright.