Let It Breathe (5 page)

“Something like that.”

Clay wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he took another bite of cookie and chewed hard. It wasn’t the first time someone from his past showed skepticism about his sobriety, but this time stung a little more for some reason. He sipped his water—recently topped off by Sheila—and ignored the frosty microbrew in the glass beside his friend’s plate.

“So things went okay at the vineyard today?” Eric asked.

“Not bad,” Clay said, picking at the corner of his cookie. “Reese was pretty upset about some changes in the material costs, but hopefully we’ll get it ironed out.”

“She seem worried about you being out there with your history and everything?”

“A little,” Clay admitted.

“She’ll get over it.”

“Hope so. We’ll be spending a lot of time together.”

“Yeah?”

Clay shrugged. “This LEED-certified building process is pretty intense. I’ll practically be living out there for some phases of construction. And since Reese
does
live there, I imagine we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

“So you’ve swapped out alcoholism for workaholism now?”

“Is that even a word?”

“Sure it is,” Eric said. “So is douche bag, which is what I’m going to call you if you eat that last cookie.”

Clay broke the cookie in two and handed half to Eric. When they were both munching in silence, Clay spoke again. “So is she seeing anyone?”

Eric’s eyes narrowed a little. “Reese?”

“Yeah,” Clay said, picking at his cookie and trying to look nonchalant.

“Not really. Sheila and I have been trying to get her to date again. Sheila wants to set her up with this guy she knows from work, but Reese keeps canceling.”

Clay broke off a piece of cookie, not sure why he couldn’t just drop the issue and talk about the Trail Blazers or
Breaking Bad
reruns or something. “I’m surprised she never remarried like you did. Her parents have always been so crazy about each other. Seems like with that sort of example—”

“With that sort of example, Reese is a fucking basket case about marriage,” Eric said. “Her parents made it look too easy. Sorta like growing up with a dad who’s a tennis pro or a mom who’s a supermodel. All you can do is notice how far you fall short.”

Clay raised an eyebrow. “Does the doctorate in psychology just come with the enology degree, or did you pay extra for that?”

Eric gave him a look like he was an exceptionally dense child. “Jed and June have the world’s most perfect marriage. There’s no way Reese can match it, so she doesn’t bother trying.”

Clay nodded, not sure he followed the logic, but pretty sure Eric knew Reese better than he did. They both picked at the last of the cookie crumbs in silence.

“Why are you asking about Reese?” Eric said at last.

“No reason,” Clay said, determined to keep his tone light. “Just curious.”

“Because if you’re thinking of asking her out—”

“Dude,” Clay said, looking up with an expression he hoped conveyed the right amount of horror. “Your ex-wife? Isn’t that like the number one rule in the guy code of ethics?”

Eric grinned. “It’s the one between not talking at the urinal and never sharing an umbrella with another guy.”

“No, I think it’s the one just before never watching men’s gymnastics on TV.”

“After the requirement that you be able to quote at least three lines from
Rocky
, though, right?”

“Yeah, but I think it’s before the one about making sure every guy hug is preceded by a bro handshake.”

“And never using the term YOLO.”

“Or setting your Facebook profile photo to a picture of your pets or kids.”

“And never making eye contact while eating a banana.”

“Exactly,” Clay said, relieved the familiar pattern of their banter had defused the awkwardness of the conversation.

But Eric wasn’t ready to drop it just yet. “It would be weird. You and Reese, I mean. It’s not just the man code. We’re friends. All three of us. You don’t shit where you eat, you know what I’m saying?”

“Your wife ever tell you you’ve got a real romantic way with words?”

“No.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

Eric fell silent a moment. He cleared his throat. “You’re not still sore about college, are you?”

Clay looked up. “What do you mean?”

“I know you kind of had the hots for Reese first, but then she and I got together and then—”

“No,” Clay said, shaking his head for emphasis. “No.”

“Because I don’t want things to be weird.”

“Don’t be an idiot. We never even dated.”

Clay felt his gut twist on that comment, but he forced himself to hold Eric’s gaze, not to look away or even blink.

Eric was studying him with an interest that made Clay uncomfortable. “Still—”

“Dude, it was a long time ago,” Clay said, brushing cookie crumbs off the front of his shirt. “Vodka under the bridge and all that.”

Eric nodded. “Whatever you say.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Reese drained her wineglass and took aim at the TV with the remote. “Well, that was a stupid choice.”

Sheila laughed as she stood up and reached for Reese’s empty glass. “Since when do women on reality TV dating shows make smart decisions about men?”

Larissa handed her glass over with a snort. “Since when do
any
of us make smart decisions about men?”

“Speak for yourself,” Sheila called as she set the stemware on Reese’s counter before trooping back to the sofa. “I happen to think I picked a pretty good guy, myself.”

“I’d raise a toast to that if you hadn’t just taken my glass,” Reese agreed.

“You want it back?” Sheila asked. “The glass, not the man. I’m keeping him.”

Larissa rolled her eyes. “Okay, can I just say you two are my weirdest friends? In what world can two women be BFFs after tying the knot with the same guy?”

“Reality TV,” Sheila said, beaming. “Is
Sister Wives
still on the air?”

Reese shrugged. “No idea. But I like our arrangement better anyway. She has the guy, I have my sanity. It’s a win-win for everyone.”

“Amen,” Sheila said. “Not everyone finds their soul mate on the first try. There’s no shame in a starter marriage.”

Reese nodded, though she felt a dark wave roll through her. She didn’t think it was shame, exactly, but something made her want to change the subject in a hurry. “What’s Eric up to tonight?”

“Hanging out with Clay at the house.”

The dark wave was replaced by a swirly little flip in Reese’s gut at the mention of Clay’s name, but she kept her expression neutral. “Drinking beer and farting like old times?”

“Not that I could tell,” Sheila said as she plunked back down on the sofa beside Reese. “Well, not Clay anyway. Eric’s probably doing both, but Clay’s too busy trying to be a model citizen.”

There was a sharp note in Sheila’s voice that made Reese look up. “Not a Clay fan?”

Sheila shrugged. “Clay’s fine. I’m glad he got sober and all. I just don’t know that Eric needs that energy in his life right now.”

“Energy.”
Larissa laughed. “Is that another way of saying women throw their panties at Clay and you’d rather not have Eric catching a pair?”

Sheila was spared having to answer as the doorbell chimed. Reese glanced at her watch, annoyed at whoever felt the need to drop by at nine p.m. on a weeknight.

She flung open the door. “Dick,” she said.

“Yes!” Larissa called from the couch. “I’ve been wishing there was a delivery service for dick.”

Reese ignored her and raised an eyebrow at her disgruntled-looking neighbor standing on the front porch. “Can I help you?”

“That animal is a menace!”

Reese resisted the urge to smile as Dick cupped a protective hand over his groin. Beside the house, Leon the alpaca gave a proud chortle and twitched the ear with the heart-shaped splotch. “Was he on your property?”

Dick glowered at her. “That doesn’t matter. I needed to come over to discuss official business, and that
thing
—”

“Why are you here, Dick?”

“Well, for starters, would you mind informing me just where you plan to put all the cars that will be coming out for your little Memorial Day weekend event? If you think they’re going to be parking on my property—”

“We’ve hired a horse-drawn carriage service,” Reese interrupted. “Guests will be able to park in the lower acreage, and we’ll bring them up in groups in the carriage.”

“I included that in the press release,” Larissa said, leaping off the couch and moving to the doorway so she stood shoulder to shoulder with Reese. “I sent a copy to all the other wineries we’re on friendly terms with. Oh, wait—that wouldn’t be you, would it?”

“Dick, go home,” Reese said. “We’ve got everything under control here.”

“Oh, really?”

“Really. I know you’re still pissed about my grandpa not selling you the east acreage and the fact that we won those three medals, and—”

“And the fact that your wife ran off with your hottie winemaker,” Larissa added cheerfully. “Sorry about that.”

Dick flushed crimson, and for a moment Reese worried he might take a swing at Larissa. Instead, he tried another tack.

“You’d better make sure you have those event permits in order,” he snapped. “I have a friend who works for the county. I’m having lunch with him tomorrow, and it would be a shame if you held an event out here without having the proper permits.”

“Goodnight, Dick,” Reese said, and shut the door in his face. She turned to Larissa. “You did get the permits, right?”

Larissa rolled her eyes. “Of course. He’s just being a—well, I was going to say
dick
, but that’s an insult to penises everywhere. Hey, speaking of penises—”

“We were not speaking of penises,” Reese said.

“We could start,” Sheila called from the sofa.

Reese’s cell phone rang, and for the second time in five minutes, she was grateful that the sound of ringing had saved her from an awkward conversation. She snatched the phone off the end table as Sheila and Larissa got down to the business of discussing genitals.

“Hello?” she said as she stepped into the hallway.

“Hi, Reese.”

The voice made her throat clench. Not an unpleasant sensation, and not unfamiliar, either. She hadn’t realized she’d stopped breathing until she felt herself grow dizzy.

“Clay. Um, hello. Hi. Good evening.”

“Just wanted to make sure Sheila’s okay to drive,” he said. “I’m heading past there on my way back to the hotel. Eric said you guys were drinking wine, and if she’s had too much, I’m happy to pick her up.”

“Oh,” Reese said, gathering her bearings. “I’m pretty sure she’s fine. One bottle split three ways over the course of two hours—” She held the phone away from her ear. “Sheila, you okay to drive?”

“Is that my dashing and considerate husband? He’s
so
getting lucky tonight.”

“Um, no. No, it’s Clay.”

Sheila looked up from her station on the sofa. “Clay?”

“Offering a ride.”

Larissa grinned. “I can think of a lot of women who’d take him up on that.”

Reese rolled her eyes and put the phone back to her ear. “We’re all fine, but thanks for the offer.” She hesitated, not ready to end the call, though she wasn’t sure why. “Everything okay there?”

Clay cleared his throat. “Yeah, sure. Just catching up on old times—college, girls, jail terms, stuff like that.”

Reese turned her back to the sofa so her cousin and friend wouldn’t see her face. “Good. That’s good. Reconnecting with old friends is always, um—”

“Reese?”

“Yes?”

There was a long pause, and Reese pictured him running his fingers through his hair, his frown making little creases between his eyebrows. She waited, wondering why the hell her heart felt like someone was cinching a piece of twine around it.

“It was good to see you again today.”

“Right,” she said. “Good to see you, too.”

There was a long pause, and Reese could hear Clay’s breathing, low and shallow and almost warm in her ear.

“I missed you,” he said.

Reese bit her lip, not sure what to say to that. There were a lot of things she’d missed about him—the easy conversation, the wicked sense of humor, the smile that made her stomach flutter no matter how hard she tried to pretend it didn’t.

There were a lot of things she
hadn’t
missed—the constant worry, the calls from jail, the promises that this time,
this time
, he’d stay sober.

But had she missed
him
?

She took a breath, started to speak, then stopped. On the other end of the line, Clay cleared his throat.

“Look, about that night at Finnigan’s five years ago—”

“You’ve already apologized, Clay.”

“I know. I know I apologized that you got hurt, but—”

“You weren’t the one who threw the punch.”

“No, but if you hadn’t been trying to pull me out of a bar fight, you wouldn’t have gotten hit at all. Look, I just wanted to say I’m sorry I didn’t come see you in the hospital.”

Reese bit her lip. “You were in jail. And I was only there a few hours. It was just a broken nose.” She hesitated, wondering why he’d brought it up at all. “You kinda disappeared after that. Just left without telling any of us where you were going.”

“I know. I’m sorry about that, too. And I’m sorry you guys couldn’t visit. I had to get my life together, and I needed to distance myself to do that.”

“I understand. I appreciated the call from rehab so at least I didn’t worry.”

“Step nine,” he said softly. “That’s the one about making amends. I owed you a lot more of those than I could fit into one phone call.”

Reese nodded, remembering the call. Remembering the stupid, traitorous way her heart had leapt into her throat, fluttering like a drunken butterfly. She and Eric had been divorced for a few years by then, but they’d still been best friends. She’d never asked him if he heard from Clay, too. If he got the same sort of phone call late on a winter evening with Clay’s voice echoing down the line like it came from another planet. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to know. Maybe she’d wanted to believe the call was something special, something only she and Clay shared.

Reese bit her lip. “You never told me what the fight at Finnigan’s was about.”

It wasn’t exactly a question, but she held her breath anyway as she waited for a response. On the other end of the line, Clay was quiet. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded a few octaves lower.

“Just another drunken bar fight. You know how it was. How
I
was.”

“That one seemed different.”

“It’s what finally landed me in rehab, if that’s what you meant.”

That wasn’t what she’d meant, but she wasn’t sure what she
did
mean. All she knew was that the night at Finnigan’s had been the final straw. The only time she hadn’t tried to bail him out of jail. The moment she’d really, truly given up on him.

She cleared her throat. “It’s okay, Clay. My nose healed up just fine. It’s not even crooked.”

“I noticed,” he said. “You’re still beautiful. Maybe more now than you were then.”

Reese felt tears sting the back of her eyes, and she balled her hand into a fist, willing herself not to cry. “Thank you,” she whispered. Her voice came out so quiet she wasn’t sure he heard her.

On the other end of the line, she could hear his breath in her ear, the scrape of his chin against the phone’s receiver. At last, he sighed.

“Goodnight, Reese.”

“Goodnight, Clay,” she repeated, and closed her eyes as fifteen years’ worth of stupid longing came surging back.

A few hours later, Clay stared at the glowing green numbers on the hotel clock radio and wondered how hard he’d have to squint to rearrange them in an order that would let him get more than a few hours of sleep.

Midnight.

Back in his drinking days, the party would just be getting started, even if there was no party. Even if it was just him sitting alone in his kitchen with a half rack of beer vanishing before it had a chance to grow warm and bitter on the table.

Not that he was bitter now. About anything. He’d made bad choices, and he was making better ones now.

If only you’d done that fifteen years ago, Reese might not have married Eric, and you might have—

“No.”

He startled himself by saying the word aloud, but it felt right, so he said it again. “No!”

He didn’t turn to drinking because he lost out on the girl of his dreams, though maybe he lost out on the girl of his dreams because of the drinking. He’d been aimed down that path long before college. Long before Reese came into his life.

Once upon a time, he might have had a shot at her. Back when he was young and hopeful and just a guy who liked to knock back a few beers after class. There was that tiny window of time when he’d first met her, a fleeting instant of new friendship and blossoming attraction. A week or two?

He hadn’t done anything to win her over. He didn’t blame Eric for making a move.

He blamed himself for not making one.

He rolled over again and closed his eyes, willing himself to go to sleep.