I should have been grateful to him for providing Ella with much-needed comfort. Instead, I squelched yet another urge to punch him.
Lunching with Nathan’s family.
Where do I begin in describing the fun?
I would have felt more at home sitting onstage at a fucking Mary Kay cosmetics convention—nothing against the organization, but I was hardly their target customer or a suitable candidate for their sales force. The same applied to my qualifications for being seated at this table that had been reserved for twenty, located smack dab in the center of Sizzler Steak Buffet’s main dining room.
Sandwiched between Nathan’s pregnant sister, Paula, and her grubby toddler everyone called Turtle—I had no idea why—I couldn’t remember a recent time when I’d felt more lost in a crowd. As for past occasions when I’d been the odd man out? Oh—there had been more endless nights spent with strangers than leaves on your garden-variety oak. One of the best things about marriage would be never again having to be alone. No matter where I went, Ella would be beside me—not that she was now.
Nathan’s father crowned the table’s head. Nathan and Ella flanked him. The rest of the clan formed a procession up and down both sides. Nathan’s sisters and their husbands and kids and aunts and uncles and cousins seemed like nice enough people, but they weren’t my people. It was made clear from the start that I was an outsider. I still wasn’t certain whether Nathan had told them who I was, or if he had and they just didn’t care. Either way, for a man like me, who’d grown accustomed to being the center of attention wherever I went, to now be ignored in favor of fawning over Turtle’s apparently profound performance as a wise man in his Sunday school’s Christmas pageant served as a reminder that the only thing currently making me special was my association with Ella.
Turtle’s mom said, “I’ve gotta pee. Would you mind taking Turtle to the buffet’s dessert table? His dad’s off changing the baby and if he doesn’t get chocolate pudding in about two seconds, I’m afraid he’s going to blow.”
Not sure what blowing entailed for a two- or three-year-old, I reluctantly agreed.
I pushed back my chair, then held out my hand to the kid. “Ready?”
“I poop!”
“Okay, well, your mom said you want pudding.”
“POOP!”
I scanned my immediate area to see who else had heard the kid’s inappropriate language, wondering if he was supposed to get a timeout or something, but no one had even noticed.
“You POOP!” He cracked himself up, and grabbed his belly while laughing.
Since none of his relatives seemed too keen on teaching him restaurant manners, I knelt alongside him, placing my hand on his shoulder. “Bathroom issues are best left in the bathroom, okay?”
He took one look at me and screamed as if I were Freddy Krueger.
The aunt seated on the kid’s opposite side snatched him onto her lap, glaring at me as if I were your garden-variety child molester. “What did you say, and where were you trying to take him?”
I suppose I could have tried explaining, but I was done.
I looked to Ella, who seemed enthralled by Nathan’s dad’s rollicking tale about his bass boat being attacked by a pissed-off cottonmouth. Back in my days growing up in Mississippi, I’d seen more than enough snakes to know I had no interest in hearing about another. So where did that leave me? Did I play the asshole card by announcing to Ella—my fiancée—that we were leaving? Or did I yet again take the high road by bowing out and letting her enjoy the rest of her meal?
Considering our next good time was her dead best friend’s funeral, I forced a deep breath and trudged uphill—the direction where lately my life seemed to be eternally leading.
Turtle was still screaming when I made formal goodbyes to my end of the table.
My future wife, my love, never even noticed I’d left.
Ella
I couldn’t remember when Liam had left the table. All I knew was that when I looked to him for a reassuring smile, he was gone.
I asked Nathan’s Granny June where Liam had gone, which prompted a game of telephone that was eventually answered with a cryptic general belief that he’d gone to the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, when he still hadn’t returned, I asked Nathan to go check on him. When he came back to report Liam wasn’t there, my chest felt uncomfortably tight and the room’s air warmed as if the buffet’s steam table had gone rogue.
I neatly folded my paper napkin before placing it on the table. “I should go look for him.”
“He’s a grown man,” Nathan noted. “I’m sure he’s perfectly capable of looking after himself.”
Lips pursed, I hoped the dirty look I shot him adequately portrayed how little I appreciated his snarky comment. We’d talk later about the way he’d deliberately sat Liam on the opposite edge of the Sizzler universe from me. “I’ll be back as soon as I find him.” Nathan just shrugged before resuming his conversation with his dad.
I searched for Liam near the restrooms, and again in the lobby where the register clerk read the Rose Springs Gazette. The front page featured side-by-side photos of Willow. The first must have been taken at one of the penthouse parties. The second was her senior yearbook photo from Rose Springs High. The headline shouted in all caps: LOCAL CELEB TO BE BURIED.
Wow. In the time span of a couple of months, my old Wal-Mart snack bar buddy had rocketed to front-page news. She would have been thrilled. Too bad she wasn’t alive to read her own press.
I tracked down Liam outside.
He sat behind the wheel of the rental car with the engine humming, listening to Tool rage about all of us being “trapped in a bullshit, three-ring circus.” That fact might apply to the vast majority of the world, but I hardly felt sorry for Lord Liam, who’d yet to experience the joy of standing on his feet at a Wal-Mart snack bar counter for ten hours during the pre-Christmas rush.
I’m sure at some point in his career he’d worked hard, and I knew he still did, but there were varying degrees of work, and what he did could hardly count as real labor. He wasn’t out digging ditches or scrubbing toilets.
I jerked open the passenger door and climbed in. “What’re you doing? Nathan’s family is still eating.”
“Right.” He didn’t even look at me. “Only, since I’m not part of his family, I fail to see why my presence is required.”
“Because I want you to be there. I’m sure Nathan does, too.”
He snorted.
“Liam, what’s wrong with you? You’ve been acting weird all day. You’re not going to spaz out on me at Willow’s funeral, are you?”
“Spaz out?” He did look my way on that one. “No, that’s not in my bag of tricks.”
“You know what I mean. I need you, but you’re out here.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“The fact that you need me, yet I’ve been sitting here thinking how much I need you.”
“You have me. You’re not making sense.” With a flourish of drums angrier than the lyrics, the song ended, and Liam turned off the stereo before unplugging his phone from an auxiliary chord.
“Do I really, Ell? Have you? Because from where I was sitting way down in the cheap seats, it looked like Nathan and his dad had you. I didn’t have shit, other than some sticky little brat talking about poop.”
Wow. His hostility took my breath away. Where was this coming from?
“Sorry.” He put his hands over his face and sighed. “Remember when I told you about my mom? How she committed suicide?”
“Of course.” I slipped off my heels and leaned sideways, raising my feet onto the seat.
“What I didn’t tell you was that Owen and I grew up in a town just like this—only smaller. Everyone was constantly all up in everyone else’s business and with Mom gone, my only family was my father. That was it. So in this town where all my friends had extended families like Nathan’s, aside from a dad I hated, I had no one. Owen’s mom was always real nice.
For holidays, she’d make sure Owen dragged me along. But all of those meals culminated in me feeling just like this. I was tagged on at the end of some table as an afterthought. A fucking charity case. What don’t you understand about the fact that I don’t want to be that anymore? I can’t.”
I swallowed the knot in the back of my throat. “What don’t you understand about the fact that as long as I’m alive, you never again have to? I’m sorry I didn’t force the issue of having you seated beside me. I thought you like meeting new people.”
“Usually, I do. But this was different. I felt twelve again—like the little kid whose mom hated him so much she killed herself.”
“Liam, stop.” Inside, I ached for him. What had it cost him to make that admission? “You know that’s not true. Obviously, I didn’t know her, but even I understand she had to have done what she did because of your father—not you. I’ve been in her shoes. She had to have felt desperate—as if there truly was no other option for escape.” He didn’t look convinced.
“This is a weird day for all of us. Even Nathan seems on edge. After the funeral, I bet we’ll all feel better.”
“Right. But you’ve already said that, and I just keep feeling worse.”
At the funeral, Nathan and his family occupied an entire pew toward the back of the small stone chapel.
Liam and I sat in the third pew back from Willow.
If she hadn’t been in a casket, I would have sworn she’d just passed out at a party—only with bad makeup and supersized eighties hair. If I’d been a better friend, I would have said something, but to whom? I wasn’t even related. In the grand scope of her life, I’d known Willow about ten minutes. Yet I knew she loved a side pony and preferred red lipstick to pink. On any given Saturday night, she wouldn’t have been caught dead in a pale blue church dress with a pink lace collar. Only she was dead. Ironic, considering that when we’d first met, I’d been the one in her shoes.
The country pastor’s angry, evangelical words gave me no solace.
Willow’s father stared stoically straight on the far right of the front pew. On the far left, her mother sobbed into a wad of tissues.
I felt horrible for her. She must be drowning in the grief stemming from losing her child.
Liam had approached her before the ceremony, but she’d been in no shape to talk.
My throat tightened to the point that it was hard to swallow and my eyes stung. But what I felt was more complex than sadness. Of course, I was sorry Willow was gone, but also about the senseless nature of her passing. Had her overdose been accidental or on purpose? If she hadn’t gone to San Francisco with me, would she still be alive? If I’d stayed at Liam’s penthouse with her, would her partying never have grown so far out of control to have landed her in this position?
There were so many flowers. Roses and carnations and lilies. The sweet scent scratched my already tender throat with velvet claws.
Liam took my hand from my lap, easing his fingers between mine. He whispered, “You all right?”
Because I couldn’t speak, I nodded.
“Willomena may have shied from the Lord in recent years,” the pastor droned on, “but that doesn’t mean she isn’t already in the arms of angels. In her final moments, I choose to believe our God—our loving, forgiving God—accepted her pleas for forgiveness. Though the ravages of drugs, alcohol and fornication may have cut short her precious life on Earth, in Heaven, our merciful God will gift her with an eternity to atone for her many sins.” I leaned in to Liam. “I hate this. Willow would’ve hated this.” He gave my hand another squeeze.
Had I planned my friend’s last hours before she was planted six feet under, there would have been music—all kinds. Vintage Pearl Jam, N*E*R*D*, The Black Keys, with a grand finale of “Naked as We Came” by Iron & Wine. We would have margaritas and body shots and maybe a smidge of the fornication the pastor seemed so concerned about. The only thing Willow’s mom had gotten right was the casket. My friend would have loved the custom red Harley-Davidson model with flames. That said, it clashed with her dress and left me wondering about the contrast—almost as if the funeral had been planned by committee and Willow’s mom had conceded that lone point. Or maybe her father had insisted at least some small portion of the ceremony actually reflect his daughter’s wild side.
Willow had been a firecracker. For her to have such a dud of a funeral should be a crime. But then, what did I know? I might as well have been in my own grave—that’s how much I hadn’t lived.
Being with Liam had changed everything. He’d made colors more vibrant and my senses hyperaware. It was no doubt inappropriate of me to count my blessings at a funeral, but wouldn’t it also be wrong to be anything less than genuine? Despite losing one of my best friends, there it was—the truth of my new life. I loved. I was loved. What more could a girl want? If it weren’t for Willow’s death, everything would be perfect. The awkwardness between Liam and Nathan never would have happened, because they never would have been forced together.
“Let us bow our heads and pray, and so that Willomena’s death isn’t in vain, if you feel the Lord calling your name, urging you to repent, please come down to accept Him as your savior. We’ll wait as long as it takes . . . Come, sinners. God is the King of second chances . . .” Dramatic canned organ music swelled.
Liam said, “This isn’t my scene. Ready to go?”
“Shh,” I scolded. “We can’t leave until after the invitational. It would be rude.”
Two guys were “saved,” but what did that really mean? I recognized one as the drunk redneck who’d done body shots off Willow the night of the party we’d taken Liam to when he’d first been in Rose Springs. Was he spooked by her sudden death? Did he believe religion would save him even though it had failed Willow? Who knew? Who really knew anything other than what the next few moments held in store?
The pastor concluded the service by issuing another invitation—this time, to encourage everyone gathered to stream past Willomena to pay their final respects.
“I can’t do it,” I said to Liam.
“Sure. Let’s go.”
Still holding his hand, I rose, intent on leaving the chapel.
I didn’t notice Nathan until literally running into him.
“What’s your hurry?” he asked. “No last respects for you?”
I gripped Liam’s hand extra hard. “You know she would’ve hated this—especially that tragic dress.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Considering that as long as I’ve known you, your uniform has consisted of ratty jeans, T-shirts and Converse, I never pegged you to be a card-carrying member of the Fashion Police.”
Had we not been in a church, I would have flipped him the bird. “You know what I mean. She looks awful—not like her herself.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” He bowed his head. “Anyway, I’m riding with my dad to the graveside service. In case you get separated from the procession, you know where the cemetery is, right? On the road that leads out to the country club?”
“We’ll be there.” But I didn’t want to. Guilt licked me with a hot tongue, brewing unease in my belly. Seeing Willow on display in her casket was one thing, but watching the lid close and her being lowered into the ground was too much.
Liam asked, “Want to sit in the car?”
I nodded, curving into him when he wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
A lone photographer stood outside the church, leaning against the black wrought-iron rail framing wide stone stairs. He smiled as we passed, then raised his camera to capture his shot. “Why would he take a picture of us?” I asked out of earshot.
“Get used to it.”
In the car, Liam and I sat in silence for thirty minutes with no noise other than the engine’s hum and the tick-tick of Liam answering emails on his phone.
One of the suits gestured Liam into the cemetery parade.
He sighed before stashing his phone in a cup holder. “Couldn’t they have waited two minutes?”
&
nbsp; We wove a path across town with police waving us through red lights.
The line consisted of at least a hundred cars. How many “friends” had shown up for the funeral not to pay their respects, but to merely witness the spectacle of Willow’s death? Rose Springs wasn’t known for excitement—my old neighbor, Mrs. Lincoln, had been the first murder victim in thirty years. The fact that Willow had died under questionable circumstances while in the home of a billionaire bachelor had no doubt churned the rumor mill as if it were fueled by a jet engine.
The cemetery was old, with graves dating back earlier than the War Between the States.
We parked on the blacktop road outlining the perimeter.
I opened the door and stepped out.
“What’d you do that for?” Liam complained. He circled the car to join me.
“What do you mean?”
“You should’ve waited for me to open the door for you. See the paparazzi?” He nodded toward a single-story family mausoleum that faced the tent erected over Willow’s open grave. Five photographers with varying lens lengths aimed in our direction. “They’re waiting for one of us to fuck up.”
“At a funeral?”
“Anywhere. Welcome to my life. I’m going to step up security. Usually, I only make news when partying with Hollywood A-listers, but I guess dead chicks are even more fun.”
“Not cool.” I sidestepped him, teetering on my heels down a meandering brick path.
“You mean those guys following our every move?”
“No, you—referring to Willow as a dead chick. Could you be any more insensitive?”
“Christ . . .” He followed close behind, steadying me with his hand on the small of my back. I wished I didn’t find comfort in his smallest touch—that I could hold tight to my annoyance with his flippancy—but the truth was that now, more than ever, I needed him. As hard as the service had been, this was worse. I hated that the sun shone, warming my face and hands and the crown of my head. The heat offset the cold in my heart. The closer I stepped to the grave, the more my stomach churned.
Found (Bad Boys with Billions Book 2) Page 9