Rusty Nailed (6 page)

Whuh?

I say again, whuh?

“I love when you drop your consonants,” he murmured, scooting closer and leaning over me.

“I said that out loud?”

“You sure did.”

“Okay. Well, then, answer my whuh.”

“No one on the planet has ever said that exact sentence before.” He chuckled, drawing a line with his fingertip down my nose and pressing it against my mouth.

“Rio? In December?” I mumbled.

“For Christmas.”

“Whuh?”

As he laughed, I scrambled up from beneath him. “Explain, please.”

“Nothing to explain. I booked a job in Brazil—I’ll be working in Rio on Christmas. I want my best girl with me.”

Christmas in Brazil. Sultry warm ocean breeze. Sipping caipirinhas under festival lanterns. Coconut oil. Bikini. Simon.

Second Christmas away from home in a row?

I flashed back to Christmases past, growing up. I had a favorite aunt and uncle— doesn’t everyone? Technically my
great
-aunt and -uncle, Liz and Lou were legends in our family. They never had kids, and whether that was by design or nature, I never knew; no one ever talked about that. But they led a life that I had always dreamed of.

They traveled every year, and I mean they
traveled
. Uncle Lou made good money, invested wisely, and when he retired at sixty-five they hit the road. They owned a home in San Diego, but they just used it as a base. They had friends all over the world and spent time in places like Madrid, Athens, Rome, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Caracas, and São Paulo.
Rio de Janeiro
. They took off whenever they wanted, and went wherever the wind told them to go. They were only occasionally around for Christmas, and I was always excited to see where my present would come from each year, what faraway place the postage would be from.

Did they love their family less because they chose to travel across the globe for Christmas? I never thought so, although some of the more traditional members of the family felt it was strange and a little selfish that they didn’t want to be singing carols at my grandmother’s and eating turkey with everyone else.

I thought it was romantic, exciting, and a little wonderful.

They passed away a few years ago, within three months of each other. After they died I was helping to go through some of their things and I came across their passports. They were battered, worn, and stamped with cities all across the globe, some of which I had never heard of.

And when I went to Salzburg last year to keep Simon company on Christmas, I didn’t feel selfish or strange. I thought it was romantic, exciting, and more than a little wonderful. Furthest thing from traditional, but maybe a Simon and Caroline tradition?

I mentally calculated whether my additional work responsibilities would allow me to take time off. The holidays were a busy period for us, but the week between Christmas and New Year’s was pretty manageable. This invite was out of the blue, but not out of the world of the possible.

I began to hum “The Girl from Ipanema,” a grin slowly spreading across my face.

“Is that a yes to Rio?” he asked.

“It’s a
hell
yes, Wallbanger—hell yes to Rio!” I squealed, wrapping my legs around his waist and seeing the look of excitement on his face before I brought him down for a big, wet kiss. Last year, I invited myself along. This year,
he
wanted me with him. Fuck, I loved this man.

We kissed for a moment, then he went back to his side of the couch and resumed my foot rub and I went back to my sketching.

A few minutes later, I got a text. I snorted, then told Simon, “Hey, this just in from Wedding Central. You need to get measured for your tux, pronto. Jillian said you and Benjamin are supposed to go together; she’s freaking out.”

“I know—best man and all; I need to look good.” He rolled his eyes.

When Benjamin asked Simon to stand up for him at the wedding, it was kind of perfect. Since I was one of Jillian’s bridesmaids.

“You’ll look good, no one is worried about that.” I laughed as he tickled the bottoms of my feet. “The one that I’m worried about is Sophia. She’s out of her funk as of this morning, and ready to buy the sexiest dress she can find for this shindig.”

“Mmm-hmm,” he replied, concentrating on my instep.

“I think she really just wants to make sure that she’ll look good if Neil comes, you know? I mean,
is
he coming? For sure?”

“Mmm-hmm,” he replied again, the tiniest of crinkles appearing on his forehead. I let him rub my feet for another minute.

“So, is he bringing anyone to the wedding?” I asked in the most nonchalant tone possible.

“Caroline,” he warned.

“What? If he’s bringing someone, that’s something that would be good to know ahead of time, don’t you think? It’s not like you’re betraying the guy code just by telling me if he’s bringing anyone, right?” I asked, poking him in the belly with my big toe, eliciting a smile.

“Yes, he’s bringing someone,” he allowed, watching my face carefully. I breathed out just as carefully.

“Okay, see, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” I asked, pushing my foot under his hand again. He resumed his kneading. I let one minute go by.

“So, is she pretty?”

“Not gonna do this,” he said, lifting my feet off his lap and standing up.

“What? I’m just asking if she’s pretty,” I insisted as he turned back toward me.

“I’ve told you, this is not something we can talk about. You get too worked up to be rational, and I—”

“I get worked
up
? Of
course
I get worked up! My best friend had her heart ripped out because your best friend was an idiot who cheated on her, and—”

“For the last time, he didn’t cheat!” he snapped.

“Kissing
is
cheating! Of course it’s cheating!” I snapped back, standing up to face him.

“He kissed an ex-girlfriend once—it happened
once
. And he told her. He didn’t have to tell her about it at all! He could’ve kept it from her, but he told her!”

“Oh, now he’s supposed to get points for that? For telling her after he cheats on her?” I cried.

When I said Simon and I didn’t fight, we really didn’t. Except for this one thing.

So here’s the full story. When Neil’s ex-girlfriend came to town and their dinner ended with the kiss, Neil told Sophia about it, and she left. And since then, she’s refused to talk to him, refused to see him, refused to have anything to do with him. Erased e-mails and deleted texts. She didn’t want him to try and explain anything, because in her mind there was nothing to explain.

The problem is that all of the guys agreed that what Neil did, wrong as it was, wasn’t enough to break up over. Of course, the girls all agreed that kissing was cheating: dicks didn’t need to be inserted for it to be cheating. Sophia had every right to end things with Neil, and as the cheater, he didn’t get much say in how it went down.

Hence the arguments.

Mimi and Ryan had fought over this as well; it was something that everyone had an opinion on. Opinions that Simon and I had agreed weren’t worth sharing, since it made us argue every time we talked about it, yet the subject kept bubbling up.

What
was
cheating? Where was that line that, if crossed, you couldn’t come back from? Was it different for every couple, or was it black and white?

“He doesn’t get points for it. That’s not what I meant, and you know that—”

“That kind of thing doesn’t just happen, Simon. He made a choice—”

“A kiss! And that had to end everything? What about Sophia? She won’t even give the guy a chance to explain, she—”

“There’s nothing to explain, don’t you get that?” I yelled, throwing my sketchbook across the room.

Quiet.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I mumbled, crossing the room to pick up my book. He caught my hand as I walked by.

“This is exactly why I didn’t want to talk about this from the beginning. There’s no right or wrong here”—he raised his fingers to my lips when I started to explain that yes, in fact there is—“or at least it’s a gray area. But no matter what it is, it’s not worth us getting in a fight over, right?”

I sighed, letting him pull me into his chest. I pressed my face into the exact center. The scent of Downy calmed me.

“Right.”

He held me tight.

“I love you,” he told the top of my head.

“Love you too.”

Being half of a “we” is sometimes hard.

chapter three

“It’s melon.”

“It’s marigold.”

“Marigold! It’s pumpkin way before it’s marigold, but that doesn’t matter—because it’s melon.”

“If you think that’s melon then you need your eyes examined, because it’s obviously—”

“Mimi, what do you think? This is totally melon, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Mimi, look at this and tell me how in the world
this
is melon.”

“Goldfish,” Mimi said.

“What?” I asked, looking at Jillian.

We were standing in the ladies’ bridal salon at Neiman Marcus. Wait, strike that.
I
was standing in the ladies’ bridal salon, in my bra and underwear, while Jillian and Mimi sat on giant tufted chairs sipping champagne.

“Goldfish. Your dress is the color of those cheddar Goldfish crackers. And it’s kind of perfect for your skin tone, actually,” Mimi said, pouring another glass and drinking it down. “Now both of you shut up. Honestly, listening to two designers argue about the color of your bridesmaid dress is boring.”

Jillian and I looked at each other in the mirror and we each raised our eyebrows.

“Okay, fine. It’s goldfish. Now can you please try it on?” she said, handing it to me. I agreed, stepping into the dress. As I twisted to zip it up, I distinctly heard her mutter “melon” under her breath.

I let it go.

I turned into the mirror and looked at my reflection, and had to admit, I looked good in goldfish.

Full skirt, scooped neck, thin straps, bare arms. With a tan, it would work just fine. Better than fine. I twirled in the mirror, then stopped midtwirl when I saw Mimi going for the champagne again.

“Jillian, stop her, she’s cut off,” I said. Mimi was barely bigger than a champagne bottle herself, and more than two glasses knocked her on her tiny ass.

“You’re no fun, Caroline,” she huffed as Jillian snagged the last glass for herself.

Jillian looked triumphant as she approached me in the mirror, standing behind me. “It looks great,” she murmured, smoothing the skirt.

“Thanks again for asking me to be a bridesmaid,” I replied, meeting her eyes.

We both smiled, and then smiled bigger when we heard Mimi making retching noises. “Ugh, you two are so sweet, I’m gonna puke.”

“Okay, moment’s over. Outta that dress and let’s go get Mimi something to eat,” Jillian said.

Mimi cheered. We finished up, headed out, and grabbed a table at a favorite bistro in North Beach.

Once we were settled and got started on some appetizers for Mimi to soak up the champagne, we talked about the honeymoon.

“Wait, wait, when did France get put on the table? I thought you were going to Italy,” I said, buttering a piece of bread.

“Well, Benjamin and I talked about it and we realized it’s been ages since we had a real vacation, not just a weekend away. So we wanted to extend the trip a bit.”

“Wow, that’s going to be some honeymoon! Italy and France—sounds amazing,” I replied.

“And Switzerland. We added Switzerland too,” Jillian added, a guilty look on her face.

Mimi sighed romantically, clutching her roll close to her chest. “That sounds heavenly—a European honeymoon! I can’t wait to start planning my honeymoon. Ryan said we can go wherever I want, provided I wear lots of string bikinis for him to enjoy. And remove.” She giggled, then hiccupped. Champagne was still lingering.

“Wait, wait, wait—you’re going to Switzerland too?” I asked incredulously. “Anywhere else you’re planning that I should know about?”

“Well, I was planning on talking about this at the office, but—”

“Whoa, what’s going on?” I asked.

“Actually, we’re taking an open-ended trip,” she said matter-of-factly. “We just want to wander freely, and this seems like a good time to do it.”

I sat back in my chair, my head spinning. “How long are you planning on being gone?”

“Long enough to know that you’re gonna need an intern.”

“Wait a minute, just wait a minute. An intern? Seriously Jillian,
how long
are you going to be gone?” I asked, thinking of all the projects that were coming up on the calendar, to say nothing of the Claremont Hotel, if I was lucky enough to land it.

“Let’s talk about it at the office, okay? The food is here,” she said, nodding at our waiter with our dinner.

As he set plates down in front of us, I met her eyes across the table. “We’ll talk about it at the office,” she said again. “It’ll be fine, I promise.”

It was a quiet dinner. Except for Mimi’s hiccupping.

•  •  •

Text from Simon to Caroline:

Hey, babe, you free for lunch today?

I wish. I’m slammed.

I can come down there; I’ll even bring my hammer.

As much as I do love your hammer, I’m literally buried under a pile of colored pencils at the moment.

Hmm, how about dinner?

Negative, Ghost Rider, I’m heading out to Sausalito tonight as soon as I leave work.

For the hotel? And did you just Top Gun me?

Yup, tonight is the first chance I’ve had to get out there to actually see the place. And yes, I totally Top Gunned you. You want to meet me out there? We could grab a quick dinner afterward.

We could grab a quick something . . .