“I know your mom thinks ice cream is the cure, but it’s really whiskey. I have plenty stashed in the garage. When you are ready, you let me know.” He hugged me again and winked as he walked into the living room.
I had to be the luckiest man alive to have parents like John and Alicia. They loved us unconditionally and nothing or no one would ever get in the way of them and their kids. I appreciated their love with every ounce of my being.
After Trish went to college, my parents had the house remodeled with the intention of turning it into a bed and breakfast. They’d put jacuzzi tubs in all four bedrooms. Tonight, I had every intention of using that to work out some of the taut nerves. I wished I’d talked Dad into letting me have a bottle of the whisky he’d told me about, but there was no use getting drunk tonight. Facing Janice was going to be a beast tomorrow. She was the only one here who’d met Elian, and I knew she liked him.
I also knew she’d always be my most fierce defender but that didn’t mean she would put up with my bullshit either, and I was beginning to wonder if maybe I’d gone too far telling Elian I never wanted to see him again. Maybe, it should’ve been a little less dramatic. Shit, no use second-guessing myself now, I thought. What was done was done. There was no way in fucking hell Elian’s family would ever tolerate an outsider who’d written the kind of review against one of their own the way I had. No, even if I’d overreacted with Elian, I’d done right by ending it. That much I was sure of.
The jacuzzi was just what the doctor ordered. After my bath, I crawled into bed and fell into a better sleep than I’d anticipated. I woke more refreshed than I should have been the next morning and was up and ready to meet Janice.
When she arrived, she looked a great deal worse than I did. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked.
Before I knew it, she was bawling her eyes out. “Oh my god, Martin, I fell in love, and I’ve fucked it up. I’m going to be alone forever.”
Well, I thought to myself, this is certainly the shoe on the other foot.
“Honey, it’s probably not that bad. Tell me what happened,” I said.
We sat down at my parent’s kitchen table, and she told me about an guy she’d met. “We were being flirty and taking it easy until I went into a bar with one of my girlfriends and found the son of a bitch with another woman.
“I went off the rocker. I know we didn’t have an exclusive relationship, but all I could see was red. So, I went up to him and punched him in the arm really hard. In fact, so hard I think I dislocated my finger.”
She glanced down at her hand, which was a little swollen.
“So, what did he say?” I asked.
“He was livid. He asked what the hell I did that for, and then I pointed at the gorgeous blond and said, ‘Because of her!’ Then, I turned around in my most practiced diva twirl and proceeded to walk off. Unfortunately, I didn’t even get two steps before he grabbed me by the arm and flipped me around.”
At this point, Janice had begun to cry again. “When I was facing him, the bastard pointed to the gorgeous blond and said, ‘Janice, meet my sister Beth.’” I was so angry I couldn’t just let it go, and I yelled, ‘Yeah, right, you fucking two-timer,’ and tried to leave again. But he embraced me again and pointed at the woman and told her to show me her hand, which she did, and there was a wedding ring on it. I should have quit yelling and smiled or done something proper, like a real southern woman would know how to do, but instead, I accused him of dating a married woman. When I did that, his face turned bright red, and he literally screamed at me, ‘She is fucking pregnant!’
“When I looked closer that time, I could see he was right. Then, I noticed they both had the same smile, Martin. The same fucking smile!” She burst into tears again and shook her head. “I just ran after that. I’m so embarrassed.”
“Is he the one who kept dinging you last night?” I asked.
She sighed, then said, “Yes, this all happened before I met your parents to pick you up. I was having drinks with my girlfriend from work when I saw them. He’s been texting since I ran off.”
“You haven’t texted him back?” I asked, a bit shocked.
“Have you texted the Cuban back?” she asked with attitude.
“He hasn’t texted me,” I sighed.
“Oh, honey,” Janice said and jumped up to put her arms around me.
“We are a couple of fucking ninnies,” she said. “Let’s go drown our sorrows in a huge southern breakfast with mimosas.”
“God, that sounds perfect,” I replied, and we headed downtown toward our favorite little breakfast place.
We commiserated about our recent bad man experiences, and I showed the video to Janice, which I could tell she was having to work overtime not to laugh about.
“He really hit that ass right in the face, didn’t he?” she asked.
“Do not take his side, Janice. That ass is his cousin, and you and I both know how things end up when I get in the middle of family issues.”
“Shit, you are right,” she said. “No matter how hot that was, it was still not cool.”
“You’ve had too many mimosas,” I chided.
“No, I have not,” she proclaimed a little too loudly, then sunk into her seat. “OK, time to switch to coffee.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” I said with a laugh.
We were both enjoying the morning, laughing about all the crap going on and were about to leave when a hunky, tall, redheaded man came over to where we sat.
“Janice,” he said in what sounded to me like a bit of an Irish drawl. She turned to look at the person who called her name, and when she saw him, all the blood drained from her face.
I was mesmerized. In all the time I’d known this woman, I’d never known her to be so affected by a guy. The man reached around her, grabbed my hand, and shook it.
“Hi, I’m Kevin,” he said. “I’m Janice’s boyfriend.” Then, he gave me a cold hard look that said he could snap me in two.
“I’m Martin, and I’m Janice’s best friend from high school, college, and when she screws up with her boyfriend.”
Janice kicked me hard under the table. “Ouch,” I said. “Damn, Janice, I still have to use that leg, you know!”
“Fuck you, Martin,” she replied, then turned her anger on Kevin. “Why are you here?” she asked.
“Because you won’t answer my calls or my texts, and I know this is where you go on Saturday mornings. So, I decided to come here and see you whether you wanted to see me or not.”
He seemed to run out of breath, trying to get everything he could say in one sentence, assuming Janice wouldn’t give him a chance to speak again.
“I don’t want to see you, Kevin,” she said.
“Why, because I was having lunch with my sister?”
“No,” she said, “because I’m a fucking idiot. Martin, can we go?”
Before I could get up, Kevin had lifted Janice to her feet and planted a huge kiss on her. Several people in seats next to us applauded while the rest watched with ever-increasing curiosity.
When Janice resurfaced from the kiss, her face was flushed, and her lips had formed a smile. “I don’t care if you’re embarrassed,” Kevin told her. “I loved that you were jealous and were willing to fight for me. You also impressed my sister, who said I would be an idiot to let a fire sprite like you get away.” Janice’s face turned another shade of crimson at the mention of his sister. “My family is demanding that I bring you to lunch tomorrow so they can get to know you.“
Janice shook her head. “I couldn’t possibly do that. They will all hate me.”
Kevin shook his head, “They adore you and totally think it’s a good omen that you put a bruise on my arm because you thought I was flirting with another woman.”
He lifted his sleeve and showed me a very impressive bruise that seemed to match the level of a punch that would cause Janice’s finger to swell as it had. “You couldn’t have impressed my sister more if you’d have shown up with a Lepr
echaun on your shoulder.”
Janice smiled then turned to me. I was doing everything in my power to resist laughing at the situation. Luckily, she burst into laughter for me.
“I’m an idiot, Kevin, but if you’ll still have me, I’d love to go meet your family” she said, and then blushed again.
I shook my head. Janice had to be all in with this one. Not only had this man disarmed her and caused her to lose her cool, calculated head, but he also caused her to blush repeatedly. The thing that shocked me to no end was this guy had convinced her to meet his parents after an embarrassing event. None of that sounded like my cool, collected, and often harsh girlfriend, Janice. Good for her, I thought. Even better for Kevin. I grinned as the two kissed again.
I stood to go to the restroom, allowing Kevin to take my seat. I already knew my morning with Janice was over, so on my way to the restroom, I ordered a cab. When I came out, the two were moonie-eyed over each other and had all but forgotten I existed.
I went up and told them I’d ordered a cab and would see Janice later. She grabbed my hand before I could go. “Kevin has to go to a gala at this firm tomorrow night and asked me to be his date, which I agreed to before… yesterday.” She put her hand over her mouth as she said the word. “I want to spend time with you, but I promised Kevin….”
She waved at him as she spoke. “He will have to pop around and be social, and I don’t want to sit by myself. Please come,” she begged. “We can sit and make fun of everyone’s clothing options and the bad catering.”
“Hey,” Kevin said. “I oversaw the catering.”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” she said. “We’ll only make fun of it when you aren’t around then.” Kevin rolled his eyes as Janice leaned over and kissed him.
“I’ll check with Mom and Dad, and see what plans they have for tomorrow night. Then I’ll text you,” I said.
Janice stood up, hugged me, and whispered, “Thanks for letting me play hooky from our play date. I think I need to have makeup sex with this handsome man before he decides to dump me after all.”
I glanced over at Kevin and smiled. “That sounds like a great idea.” Then, I winked at the unsuspecting man.
As I walked out, Kevin continued to watch me with a perplexed expression. I could tell he was concerned about what Janice and I had plotted, but I was almost totally sure he wouldn’t mind the outcome she had planned.
When the cab dropped me off at my parents, I walked in to find them sitting in the living room, both snoring while the TV had some old western playing in the background.
I chuckled at them, climbed the stairs to my old room, and pulled my laptop out, sitting back on the bed. I watched the stupid video again and poured through the comments, trying to figure out how much damage to my reputation and to the paper this little episode would have.
There are always trolls, but there were fewer than I thought there’d be. Most of the comments were positive, and even most of the usual trolls were impressed by how valiant Elian had been. In fact, most of the comments were about him, and I’d been more of a backdrop in the discussion. That was good at least. If the story centered more on me and less on Elian, it would have been a bigger firestorm for the paper, whether I was cast in a good or bad light.
Then, I switched over to the newspaper blog, and things had improved dramatically there. Almost every comment was positive and encouraging. Thousands of comments had come through the blog, most of them thanking the paper for bringing out the nasty conditions the restaurant had exposed them to. I was surprised there was no mention of the video, but I guessed the video crowd was unlikely to be folks that followed the paper’s blog.
I shut my computer and grabbed my phone to text Kristine.
There was a text from Elian, and it simply read, “I’m so sorry, Martin. I miss you so much.” That was all.
As tears came to my eyes, I decided to delete the text instead of leaving it on my phone afraid it’d entice me to answer.
Before I was done, I’d deleted Elian’s number altogether. Of course, I just laughed at myself because Elian’s was one of the few numbers I had memorized. However, the act of deleting it confirmed for me how important it was for me not to let my feelings cloud my judgment.
I closed my eyes and saw Peter’s mother with her lips pressed into a frown, the way she got every time she finished calling me names. I wasn’t going to let that be a repeated event. No, it is better to let this end here before things got uglier, I thought.
I texted Kristine, “I just went through the blog and the website, and it appears like the paper and I are going to get off easy.”
She responded back, “Yep, sales this week have risen over fiver percent. Congrats, you will be the poster boy here when you get back.”
“Seriously doubt that will keep the board from discussing cutting my position again by this time next week, though.”
She texted back after a few minutes, “Probably, but if you were off the cutting block for a week, you accomplished something!”
“Truth,” I texted back.
A few minutes later, Kristine texted again, “You doing OK, sweetie?”
“No, not really, but I’m surviving. I really needed family; you were right on the money with that suggestion!”
“I know, honey. We miss you, though,” she said.
“I miss you, too,” I replied and put my phone down. I was going to lie down when I heard a knock on the door.
“Martin, it’s Mom. Can I come in?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure,” I said.
My mom walked in, smiling. “You slipped out early this morning. We felt bad that we didn’t see you before you left.
I glanced over at her and asked, “Yeah, what’s up with that? You used to be up with the birds.”
“Oh,” she chuckled with embarrassment, “we love being retired. We stay up late playing cards or watching TV or whatever.” Then, there was a blush on her face. “We aren’t used to getting up until after ten or eleven these days.”
“That’s good, I guess.” I smiled, trying not to think of the whatever. “Janice needed to talk, so we slipped out early.”
“Where is Janice?” Mom asked. “I assumed she’d be around all day.”
“Oh, well, some hunky Irishman came and took her away from me.”
“Really?” Mom lit up with the juicy prospects of a story.
“He came in and swept her off her feet, glared at me like he could rip me in half. Then, he convinced her to go visit his parents tomorrow,” I concluded with a smile.
“Well, we’ll have to invite that man and Janice over this week, so I can get a good look at him.”
“I’ll ask them,” I said. “Speaking of that, they asked me to go with them tomorrow night to one of his firm’s gala events. Do y’all have plans for us that night?”
“No, honey, we didn’t even expect you until Monday. We will be home that night being our boring selves. Go on out and have fun.”
I smiled. “I hope to have a lot of boring nights with you two.” Then, I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks for rescuing me again, Mom. I really didn’t intend to need it again.”
“Oh, sweetheart, love is a chess match. You play your best until some old queen boots you off the board.”
I turned to my mother in surprise. “You’ve been saving that, haven’t you?”
“I have,” she said with pride. “It seemed perfect right then.”
“You are the perfect mom,” I said as I hugged her.
“Aaah,” she said and hugged me back. “Come down in a bit. I think your dad wants to get you drunk in the garage before he takes you for a ride over the hill country.”
“You know about his stash?” I asked.
“Son, you know I know everything that happens in this house, but don’t you let your dad know that. As long as he thinks he has that hidden in the hole below the floor, he will be able to hold onto that rebellious streak I love so much about him.” Then, she giggled and
closed the door behind her.
I wondered why I couldn’t find a love affair like my parents, not that they didn’t fight. I’d heard them have some major blowouts over the years, but I never saw them go to bed angry, and they always worked through their anger, no matter what the issue was. What was always present in my parent’s relationship was love, respect, and compassion. What impressed me the most—and the thing I wanted for myself—was they were the other persons one. When push came to shove, they stood like a pillar of strength for each other. That is what has been missing in all my relationships. No one seemed to see me as their one, as the person they put above all other people.
I knew unless I had that, I’d never be content with anyone—and that was probably fantasy, so I sighed. I was probably doomed to be alone for the rest of my life.
__________
I was ready to go before Janice and Kevin came to pick me up. I wore an older suit that belonged to me in high school that, luckily, I could still fit. In fact, I was pleased to see I’d filled out the ass a lot better than when I’d worn it in high school.
I was feeling confident about the outfit when I walked downstairs, and both my parents whistled. “OK, you are embarrassing me,” I said, fussing at them.
“You are looking good, son,” Dad said.
“Thanks, Pop. Who knows? I might meet the man of my dreams tonight, and when we are old and gray, I can tell the story of how I netted him with my high school suit I wore to my formal dance.”
“That’ll be quite a story, honey,” my mother chuckled.
When Janice and Kevin finally showed up, they quickly bustled me into the car. Kevin was afraid he was going to be late and—like he already told us—he was in charge of catering. If anything was coming apart, he needed to be there to help manage it.
The gala was being held at the iconic Long Center for the Performing Arts. As we entered the building, I thought this was the perfect place for an architectural firm to hold a gala. Kevin took Janice around to introduce her to the firm’s leadership, then he came back over to me where he left her to go check on the catering.
Love By Chance (Chance Series Book 1) Page 14