Restored (The Walsh Series Book 5) (7 page)

She caught my eye, and the corner of her lips tipped up into a small, shy smile.

"I thought you were a kindergarten teacher," one of her cousins said. She was either Nicola or Nicolina, also known as Nicki or Nikki, and that wasn't confusing at all. She turned to Mrs. Desai. "Where did I hear that?"

Mrs. Desai pressed her palms together as she lifted her shoulders. "We never hear from you," she said to Tiel. "And you're always between jobs. How can we possibly keep up with your life?"

Vikram was seated at the far end of the table, and if he was listening to this bullshit, it didn't show. In the few hours that we'd been here, it was clear that was his standard operating procedure. He was pleased to see Tiel and showed a reasonable amount of hospitality toward me, but either didn't notice or didn't care about the quips, barbs, and thorny comments lobbed in her direction.

My patience for that shit was thinning.

I was ready to throw down for my girl, and it didn't matter to me whether it got me tossed out on my ass because I already knew this shindig wasn't ending with a group hug. Call it cynicism, call it pessimism, call it whatever the fuck you wanted. Every horseman of the dysfunctional family apocalypse was accounted for, and Tiel's mother, the queen shit-stirrer, was itching to unleash them.

"There's so much demand for Tiel's music therapy expertise that she's often pulled in many directions," I said. "She's sought-after in her field."

That explanation didn't work for Mrs. Desai. She shook her head and scowled at her plate. "Music therapy," she repeated. "Is that like physical therapy?"

"They're similar," Tiel said. She was busy chasing food around her plate, but I hadn't seen her take a bite yet. "Like physical therapy, it is often used as a complement to medical and educational interventions, although music therapy is expressive in nature and physical therapy is not. My work usually integrates the Nordoff-Robbins approach to accommodate children across all levels of functionality."

The table, including the two folding tables extending this gathering across the hall and into the living room, fell silent.

"That sounds like some new age shit," Agapi's husband, Tony, said. He was the butcher, and from my brief conversation with him, I determined that he enjoyed discussing two topics: meat and the Philadelphia Eagles. That didn't leave us with much to talk about.

"We're in my mother's house, watch your language," Agapi hissed. She turned back to Tiel. "Why would someone need music therapy? Like, what does that do? What's the point?"

"Whatever the point needs to be," Tiel said. "Some kids need to work on anxiety. Others need help learning how to stabilize their moods or increase their tolerance for frustration. Some are non-verbal and others don't speak much, and they need to develop tools for self-expression. There's no one prescription; it's whatever they need."

"I'm with Tony. That's some hippie-dippie-fruity-crunchy business," yet another cousin, Penny, said. "It's like the people who believe in crystals and chakras. If you put a rock on my body, it's not going to do anything. How could it?"

"People pay for this?" Nicolina-or-Nicola asked. "Wouldn't listening to the radio do the same thing, but free?"

"It's a little more complex than that," I said. "And Tiel's hourly rate is quite high."

"It must be nice to have that kind of cash sitting around," another cousin, Demitria, said. "My kids better not need that stuff. We've got a brand new house and a mortgage to pay. No room for singing kumbaya and beating drums, or whatever you're talking about. Kids need to toughen up. They're not all special stars."

"Plenty of kids are very special stars," Tiel said. "They just need people who can help them shine."

"Nope, kids need more discipline. I got the belt, and look at me. I turned out fine," one of the husbands—Stavros-call-me-Stav—said. I couldn't keep track of who went together.

"I think you're doing important work," one of the aunts, Daphne, said. "You just never know what will make a difference, and sometimes you have to try everything."

Another cousin—I think that one was Irene—pointed at us, wagging her fork. "What about you? You're an architect, so you're building a house, right? You know, for when you're married? You better get to work on having kids soon." She aimed her fork at Tiel. "That clock is ticking, and you're not getting any younger. My neighbor's daughter-in-law waited until she was thirty-two, and ended up spending fifty grand on fertility treatments. They didn't even have a baby; they ended up divorced."

I wanted to snatch every one of those words from the atmosphere and steal them far away from Tiel. She didn't need this woman loading her up with baby anxiety, not when I knew she was already loading it on herself.

And yes,
of course
I knew she was stressed about trying to conceive. Few were those who recognized the perfectionism in her, as they were often distracted by her rambling and rainbow-inspired attire. But I knew there was no prodigy without a thick thread of perfection. Tiel was well-acquainted with hard work, but she was also accustomed to getting good at things quickly.

We weren't getting good at getting her pregnant, not yet.

"We have a house," I barked.

"You live together
now
?" Maybe-Irene asked.

Tiel nodded, and I didn't miss her sharp intake of breath before she spoke. "Yes, we've been living together since the summer."

"Someone get the rosary beads," Agapi muttered. "My mother's about to have a conniption fit."

"Oh my saints," Mrs. Desai said. She closed her eyes and pressed a napkin to her lips. "How did this happen? Where did we go wrong with her, Vikram?"

I knew Tiel's family leaned toward highly religious, but Tiel was a thirty-year-old woman, and a really fucking independent one at that. She didn't require her parents' approval for anything. I wanted to jump in, but Tiel's mother started shouting at her father in Greek. They went back and forth, gesturing wildly and slamming hands, glasses, and utensils like they were punctuation. Everyone else stared at their plates and snuck wide-eyed sidelong glances at each other.

"Great, that's just great," Tiel said under her breath.

Mrs. Desai pointed to Agapi. "Your sister didn't live with Antonio before they were married," she said. "Now, they might have spent a little more time together than I was comfortable with, but he respected your family enough to know better. Agapi didn't let men take advantage of her like you so clearly do. Why can't you find a decent man, Tiel? Someone like Antonio?"

"
Excuse me
," I started, but Tiel was already responding.

"This has nothing to do with decency or respecting my family," Tiel said. "If that's your argument, you'll have it without me."

I glanced at Tiel, more than a little shocked by the steel in her voice. I definitely expected some of her trademark stress-babble.

"A man who
respected
your family would have asked your father's permission before" —she pointed to the hotly debated pink diamond— "before that happened. If you respected yourself, you'd want that, too."

"I'm going to stop you right there," I said.

Mrs. Desai turned an impatient eye on me. "You seem very…nice," she said. I was now certain that
nice
meant anything but that. "But we don't know the first thing about you. You're telling us our daughter is living with you but you couldn't be bothered to ask her father for her hand before proposing marriage. It's a tragedy. This all sounds like another one of Tiel's New York City plans, and you should both be ashamed—"

"I'm going to stop you again," I interrupted. "Your interpretation is wholly inaccurate."

My hand found Tiel's under the table, and I laced our fingers together.

"Are you a churchgoer, Sam? Which parish do you belong to in Boston?" she asked. "You don't
look
Greek Orthodox to me."

"My mother attended services at Mary Immaculate of Lourdes before she passed away. She preferred the Traditional Latin Mass and I've made financial contributions to ensure that mass continues," I said. "She's interred there now and I visit her grave regularly, but I'm not an active member."

Mrs. Desai sniffed. "You won't find a well-regarded priest to marry you in his church if you're not a member of the parish. And not with this living arrangement. I wouldn't want that in my church."

"It's good that we've cleared this up," Tiel started. "But we aren't planning a church wedding."

Whether this was new information to me was irrelevant; I'd marry this girl on a rollercoaster at Disney World if that was what she wanted.

"If you're not married in a church, you're not married in the eyes of God, and you're not married in
my
eyes," her mother said. "I know you like everything different and non-traditional, with your pink diamonds and piercings all over your ears and all this silly music, but I can't stand by while you have another make-believe marriage."

Mrs. Desai held up her hands and shook her head, and there was no stopping the growl in my throat.

"I can't do it," she continued. "You're inconsiderate, and you're causing your father and I tremendous pain. All we've ever done is sacrifice, and it's never good enough for you. You're giving me angina, you know. I don't know why you do this to me, Tiel. It's selfish. You have to stop thinking of yourself all the time. You're a child playing house with a man who doesn't have the decency to ask your father's blessing, and that tells me everything I need to know about the two of you."

There were babies cooing and crying, interchangeable cousins whispering, and utensils scraping against crockery, but the only sound I could hear was my pulse roaring in my ears.

I squeezed Tiel's hand before I stood, and pulled out her chair.

"Thank you for having us," I said, "but we'll be leaving now."

"I'm going to pray for you both," Mrs. Desai said. "But honestly, I don't think it's going to help. You're impossible, Tiel."

"I'm sorry you feel that way," Tiel said, looking between her parents. Her teeth sank into her lower lip, and she stared at the table for a moment before she stood. "We won't trouble you with an invitation to the wedding."

N
ovember

T
he pseudo
-global-gourmet chain restaurant near our hotel in Cherry Hill was the only place open, and that alone made it the best port in this storm. It was surprisingly busy for a holiday dedicated to home cooking, and there was something profoundly sad about the assortment of lonely people seated at the bar. Mostly men, mostly middle-aged, all focused on the banks of televisions streaming college football games. They didn't notice me and Tiel, probably because we looked as lost and empty as they did.

There was a dry martini with extra olives lined up for Tiel, and I was staring into a gin and tonic. We hadn't said much since leaving her parents' suburban home, and we hadn't stopped touching each other. In the car, my hand was anchored on her thigh, a narrow attempt at keeping her grounded in the reality of us and away from the chaos of her family. We shared a long embrace while we waited for seats at the bar. My arm was tight around her shoulders now, and I had half a mind to haul her into my lap and promise it all away.

But there was no panacea. Nothing could wipe away the foul film of a parent's loathing, no matter how much liquor you threw at it.

I'd tried and quite roundly failed many times.

"That was probably more than you bargained for," Tiel said, her eyes still trained on her glass. She dropped her head to her hands, pressing her thumbs to her temples and rubbing. "
I'm
probably more than you bargained for."

"Don't start with that, woman," I said. "If anything, we have more in common now."

I tugged her fingers away from her head and brought our hands together, aligning our coffee-stain birthmarks. Mine was a bit worse for the wear after my time in Maine, now shot through with a thin, pink scar from a slippery incident when cleaning some freshly caught fish in the rain.

Tiel's eyes slid in my direction, narrow and unconvinced as she frowned at our birthmarks.

"I told you they weren't going to appreciate the wine," she said.

"There's a difference between not appreciating the wine and your drunk cousin dumping half the bottle into a plastic cup and mixing it with pineapple juice. I felt that like a kick in the balls."

Tiel shifted to study me. "We're finding humor in this now? Really?"

"We're sure as shit not going to sit here and let any of that bring us down," I said, raising my glass and gesturing for her to follow. "To you and me, and our family, and hoping to hell that we don't fuck up our kids like our parents did us."

Our glasses clinked, we laughed, and for that moment, we smiled around the darkness of today's events.

"You pulled the dead mother card," Tiel said, peeking at me as she sipped her drink. "Didn't think I'd ever see you go there."

"The situation warranted it," I said. The server set a selection of appetizers between us. Tiel poked at the dishes, but didn't eat anything.

"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you for saying those things about me and my work. I'm not sure what I expected but…but thank you."

"Of course," I said as I moved the plates around. Samosas and flatbread for Tiel, ahi carpaccio for me. "But tell me you know that everything they said was complete horseshit. The entire thing, from the second we walked in the door, was horseshit."

"You want to talk about horseshit? I'll give you horseshit. Agapi convinced my mother she needed to go on the pill when she was fifteen because it would clear up her skin," she said. "She had sex, like,
all the time
, before she got married. With
a million
guys! And yet I'm the slutbag. I was a freaking virgin until I went to college."

"Really? Me too."

Tiel shot me a surprised glance as she nibbled a samosa. "You
are
a piece of something nice, though. That part wasn't horseshit."

"And I'm precious when I hold babies," I said.

"So precious. My ovaries are still turned up to
boom
."

I set my drink on the bar and slipped my hand under her skirt. "Can we capitalize on that?"

"Feed me cheesecake and tell me I'm pretty, and you can capitalize on anything you want," Tiel said with a watery, half-heated smile. "I hear you're indecent and disrespectful."

"That's how my fiancée likes it," I said, laughing, but the humor had left her eyes.

This time I did drag her into my lap. I held her close, my lips on her neck and my arms around her torso, and I wanted to absorb all her pain. Telling her it was horseshit and offering witty observations only went so far.

"Are you all right, Sunshine?"

Minutes passed while she was tucked into my chest, and I didn't expect a response. And I knew the answer: today didn't break her, but it left bruises. How could anyone walk away unscathed after hours of backhanded comments and an all-out shaming session? That we were here, snarking on this afternoon's shiny points, was proof of Tiel's strength. Those bruises would heal, in due time.

"We're not going there again," she finally said.

"No, we're not," I agreed.

"I don't want to be here anymore, Sam. Let's get the hell out of this town," she said. "I know, I know, it's crazy and the drive home is—"

"We'll go to Manhattan," I interrupted. "We can get there within two hours. We'll spend the rest of the weekend in the city, and I'll reach out to that celebrity chef, the one who had the big restoration project in Hyannis. He's got a new restaurant, or two."

Her eyes brightened. "Yes, and now we can go to the theatre! Some of the shows reserve a handful of tickets for day-of sales if you go to the box office, and sometimes they have really good seats. Years ago, when
Rent
was on Broadway, they did this crazy thing where they had a wooden bench all the way down front. You could wait in line each morning to buy these super cheap tickets, and I swear, they were the best seats, and my heart still melts every time I hear 'Seasons of Love.'"

"What else would make you happy?" I asked.

"Can we go to Serendipity for frozen hot chocolate?" she asked. "I've never done it because it's so touristy, but I've always wanted to."

"You're getting all the frozen hot chocolate you can eat, Sunshine," I said.

"Oh, and hotel-room sex is my
favorite
."

"Don't I know it," I said. My phone was out, and I was already searching for rooms with Central Park views. "I intend to fuck you hard enough that you'll black out and forget this entire day. The only memory you'll have is my handprint on your ass."

"You are so good to me," she said, and there was a reverence in her voice that outsized my lewd promises. She needed this from me, and she needed it tonight.

Tiel had been independent for ages—with parents like that, she'd have to be—though there was a part of her, a tiny, fragile part, that wanted to let go. But the lines were fine. Her independence was hard won, and feeling much distance from it put her in panic mode. She would rather make boggy decisions than let anyone rob her of choice.

Hence the tenure-track gig that was steadily killing her passion for music.

The one place I could call all the shots was the bedroom, and it was damn good that we were headed there. She needed to get out of her mind, and she needed to know exactly how bare and exposed she could be with me.

"I'm warning you now, sweetheart," I said, my lips ghosting over her ear. She burrowed into my chest with a sigh. "You won't be able to sit down for a week without thinking of me."

"Thank you," she said against my shirt. "I don't think I could have done all that today without you. You're a special star. The specialest."

"Only because you help me shine," I said.

"
O
kay
," I said, scowling at the traffic ahead of us. "Let's seize this opportunity to talk."

"Seems unwise," Tiel murmured.

The past two days were a blur of Broadway shows, mind-blowing sex, and late nights. Tiel got in touch with some of her New York band geek friends yesterday, and we found ourselves at a massive after-show cast party that didn't wind down until dawn. My head was still ringing from the wine and nonstop a cappella battles, and Tiel didn't look much better. But it was worth it.

"Now that we're headed home and we've gotten all these hurdles out of the way, and we know that we're going to do whatever we want, let's decide."

"Decide what?" Tiel asked, her voice hoarse. She sang the shit out of
Les Misérables
at that cast party.

She sipped her cappuccino and stared out the window, but I could tell from the way she kept her arms crossed and the tight pull of her shoulders that she was still processing the past few days. The detour to New York City helped soothe the sting, but it was a short-term remedy at best.

"Decide what we want for our wedding," I said. I wanted my tone to be easy and reassuring, but the words came out fast and eager, revealing exactly how desperately I wanted this locked down.

"How are you capable of talking about a wedding right now?" she asked, chuckling from behind her coffee. "We just spent a weekend at The Plaza, drank Greenwich Village dry, and you dropped five
thousand
dollars on
Hamilton
tickets."

"My baby wants orchestra center, my baby gets orchestra center," I said. "My baby also likes it when I fuck her against windows in fancy hotels, so my baby definitely gets that, too. And I want you to give me a single example, outside of this weekend, of the last time you've let me spoil you."

She held up her hand and wiggled her ring finger at me.

"Aside from that," I said. "Listen. I want to give you the wedding you want, and I don't care what it costs."

"Does it have to be a big deal?" she asked.

"It doesn't," I said. "It can be whatever we want. You want to fly to Vegas next weekend?"

She sucked in a breath and shook her head. "No, no, we're not eloping," she said. "I eloped once, and I don't want
this
" —she drew a circle around us as she spoke— "to have any resemblance to
that
."

I grabbed her hand to put an end to the illustrative drawings, and kissed her wrist. "I couldn't agree more," I said. "But 'not eloping' leaves the door wide-open. Do you want the ballroom at Sixty State Street? I know the GM and I'll get it for you. Or a wedding on the beach somewhere tropical? Pick the island, and I'll book the flights tonight. Or a party at one of your favorite hillbilly music shops? Say the word and I'll make it happen. Tell me what you want and—"

"That," she said, shifting in her seat to face me. "The party. I want the party. I don't want a big, serious wedding thing. I don't want aisles or roses or white cakes or invitations with check boxes for chicken or fish. I want it to be fun."

I didn't know how the universe created someone who knew my heart, soul, and abhorrence of all things typical the way Tiel did, but I appreciated the fuck out of those cosmos because this girl was going to marry me.

"Then let's have a party," I said.

She twisted her scarf around her finger for a long moment before saying, "But maybe we don't tell anyone." Before I could protest—she knew that I didn't have many requirements beyond her, but my siblings were non-negotiable—she continued. "I don't mean a secret, but maybe a surprise? Instead of all the formal weddingish stuff, we just have a party and surprise everyone by getting married."

I tapped my thumb against the steering wheel as I considered this.

"And instead of one of my so-called hillbilly music shops, we should do it at home, in the fire engine bays. Everyone would think we're having a little holiday party or something, and it would be such an insane surprise."

When she put it that way, the idea seemed perfectly weird, and I couldn't imagine our nuptials any other way.

"Holiday party?" I repeated. "You'd be good with…next month?"

She drank her cappuccino while I navigated a few miles of traffic. "How about Christmas Eve?" she said. "It's crazy, I know, but think about it—your family always has a Christmas Eve event, and most of my friends usually stay together for random holiday hijinks. I think we could pull this off on Christmas Eve. Andy might kill me for creeping on her Christmas Eve party because she's been talking about it since August, but I can handle her."

"We'd hire a caterer," I said, giving her a pointed glance so she understood it wasn't an option. Tiel could cook for the masses after growing up in a restaurant, but that wasn't how I intended for her to spend the days leading up to her wedding. "And a decorator to make the garage look better than polished concrete and bricks."

"Okay, but only if we can have little corn dogs."

"Since when are you a fan of little corn dogs?"

She held up her hands as if I was severely missing the point. "I'm not, but nothing says 'this isn't a traditional wedding' more than corn dogs. Oh, and tiny baskets of French fries."

"I can respect that argument," I said. "We'd have to tell Riley. We couldn't plan an event at the house without him noticing, and he won't tell anyone."

"And Ellie," she added. "I know the band has a few days off for the holidays, but they're still overseas. I need her here."

"Only if Ellie can join us," I said, tapping my thumb again. "And Erin, too. We should email her, though, because she doesn't like talking to people. Let's see if her showing up is even within the realm of possibility."

"Okay," Tiel sang. "But first would you tell me what actually happened with her? And Shannon? Why don't they talk? Does she live in Europe because of what happened, or does she live in Europe because that's her life? I mean, we just came from the most fucked-up family situation on the eastern seaboard, but how is it okay for your sisters to be estranged for years? And with
your
family? The people who find sport in seeing how much time they can spend together while also giving each other an epic quantity of shit. How does Patrick not turn on the growls and demand the situation be fixed?"

"I don't know all the details," I hedged, ignoring the part about Patrick solving problems through growling. Too accurate.