“You think we’ll find somebody good enough to replace the Gibbs kid that moved last month?”
“Yeah. He was a great shortstop, but there are kids around here we can teach to do a good job.”
“I hated to lose him, but when his dad got that new job in Overton—”
“We’ll have to play against him. You know he’ll play in Overton,” I said.
“They have travel ball. He’ll probably do that instead of Little League.”
“That costs a fortune. Hope Dad got a good job,” I said.
“Our lineup’s looking strong though, going into the season.”
“When are you thinking to do tryouts?”
“Couple weeks maybe, depends on the weather. If it stays clear,” Brody said.
“In a few years we’ll be coaching your kid,” I said, taking a sip of coffee.
“It’s crazy,” he said, but he was smiling. “So when you gonna settle down? Give our baby some cousins?”
I shrugged, “I guess I just never found the right girl.”
“You’ve sure tried a lot of them on to see if they’re the right one,” he chuckled.
“I’m glad for you guys, really,” I said, “but it’s not for everyone.”
“You don’t want a family?”
“Sure I do. But with the right person. Not just whoever’s nearby,” I said.
Then I lost my train of thought. Trixie walked into the diner and went right to the register. Rachel waited on her, scooped a hot Danish into a paper sack and handed it to her. My mouth watered, but not from the sight of fresh pastries.
She was petite but curvy, her dark hair rippling glossy over her shoulders and halfway down her back. She and Rachel chatted. Something made her laugh, and even in the crowd, I could pick out her giggle. She had a great laugh, and I felt a rush of just wanting to be close to her. She took her coffee, her bag, and left. My eyes followed her all the way to the door. She never looked up, never waved or even saw me. Not that it mattered. We didn’t exactly travel in the same circles even though our moms were very close. I saw her a lot growing up, but years had gone by as we’d hit adulthood. Until I went in the flower shop the other day, I had only seen her in passing. Like this. I always saw her, always took notice.
Startled, I looked at Brody, who had just flung a sugar packet at me.
“What?” I said.
“You were staring. No one over the age of thirteen should be that obvious,” he laughed.
“Staring? I was watching to see if Rachel brought out the rest of the Danishes. Obviously.”
“Bullshit. You should ask her out already. You’ve only been mooning over her for years.”
“I am a firefighter. I do not moon,” I said hotly.
“You were staring at her ass like it was—”
“Shut up,” I said.
“Why don’t you ask her out? She’d say yes. You’re not the only one who stares. I’ve seen her watching you, too.”
“Bro, my mom and her mom go way back. So if I want my mom all up in my business, that’s one sure way to get her attention. If I ever considered asking Trixie out, my mom would be all over it. Trust me, it’s better left alone.”
“If you say so. But it doesn’t look like you’re leaving well enough alone. I saw where the flowers came from, the ones Laura liked so much.”
“What? Flowers come from flower shops,” I said.
“Right,” he said, but his look said ‘bullshit.’
The fact was, I liked her. I always had. I wasn’t pining away or anything, but she was beautiful and voluptuous, and I’d imagined having her in my arms more than once over the years. Still, I was reluctant to get involved with her. If we did get together, our families would expect us to have a serious relationship. Then if it didn’t work out, both families would be uncomfortable around each other. I could conceivably ruin my mom’s lifelong friendship with Trixie’s mother. They’d take sides, and it would turn out messy and unpleasant. So I could keep my recurring fantasies about Trixie to myself and avoid complications.
3
Trixie
When I unlocked the back door to the shop, dragging in early and half asleep to get a start on the arrangements for Allie Greer’s bridal shower, I heard a slosh. As I pushed the door open, water slid out onto my shoes. I flipped on the light to see my entire shop and workroom standing in three inches of water.
“Shit,” I said flatly. I felt—angry, defeated, miserable. I dialed Nicole’s number.
“Can I borrow your wet vac?”
“Sure, what for?”
“The three inches or so of water flooding my shop right now,” I said, my voice shaky.
“It’s just a small wet vac. Do we need to rent one?”
“I’ll head down to the hardware store and see what they’ve got,” I said, “Thanks.”
I waded through the mess, stopped to glare at my just-paid-off walk-in cooler that had shorted out and died as a result of the flooding, and found the water shutoff in the back. I cranked it and then leaned my forehead against the pipe. I slogged back through to the door, climbed in my car, legs and feet soaking wet, and drove to the hardware store and rented the two biggest shop vacs they had. I barely wedged them into my little car and drove back to the shop. By then Nicole and Michelle were waiting outside, both gamely carrying a bucket, towels, and Nicole’s tiny wet vac. I wrestled the two vacuums to the door and set them down. Then I threw my arms around my best friends.
“I love you guys,” I said, trying not to sniffle. “I’m sorry this is such a mess. I don’t know what—”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re lucky to have us,” Nicole said, hugging me back. “Let’s get in there and get you cleaned up.”
“Exactly,” Michelle added. “We got this. Armed with towels and a giant rental vacuum, Let’s do this.”
I managed a wavering smile because I love my friends and they were trying so hard to be funny and sweet about this mess.
We got to work, and I kept dialing Jimmy the useless bastard. His outgoing voicemail message kept announcing to me that he was out of town and would return calls beginning the twentieth—about ten days from now. While flowers were decaying to wilted slime in my destroyed cooler. I heaved the clammy wet vac to the door and dumped the reservoir full of nasty water outside. I was wet and cold and dirty and pissed.
I called another plumber. The first three, including one I used to babysit, goddammit, refused to extend thousands of dollars of credit to me for the necessary repairs. My parents didn’t have that kind of money, and I didn’t have that kind of limit on my business charge card. The urgency drained out of me as we vacuumed, emptied, mopped and cleaned for hours. There was not going to be a quick fix that got me back up and running in a few days. No one was going to help me because I couldn’t afford it. I thought bitterly that I wished one of my cousins had grown up to be a plumber. A Baptist preacher was nice to have around, but praying over the pipes wasn’t going to help much in the time frame I needed it.
Nicole and Michelle kept up a cheerful, wisecracking chatter for a while trying to keep my spirits up, but it was pretty hopeless. I sent Michelle to my house and she brought us back diet sodas and dry clothes and the last three towels I had clean. We changed and I took them for sandwiches at the deli to say thank you.
“I can’t thank you enough for what you did to help me. I know you took time off and worked hard and did more than most friends would have done. I love you and I owe you big time.”
“Don’t mention it. So, what’s the plan? Did the last Overton plumber tell you no?” Michelle asked.
“Yeah. I don’t blame him. It’s not like anybody wants to end up hung with the cost of parts and labor on a huge job when there’s not a guarantee I can pay him back quickly. The fact is, all I can think of is two options.”
“Please say winning the lottery isn’t your plan,” Nicole said.
“No,” I rolled my eyes. “I either have to try to sell my house really quickly to get ou
t from under the mortgage payment and then clear out the little storage room over the shop and live there—it has a bathroom, I think. I mean, it’s ancient and probably needs plumbing repairs too, ironically, but it’s a possibility.”
“No!” Nicole said. “You love your little house! What about a roommate?”
“It’s a one bedroom. Nobody’s going to pay to sleep on an IKEA loveseat and share my bathroom.”
“Well, okay, what about renting out the apartment over the shop?”
“It’s an idea, but I’d have to clear it out and clean it up and get the plumbing fixed, which is more money I don’t have right now. And it wouldn’t generate enough income to pay for the repairs. The only other choice is to give up the shop. Use the insurance money from the cooler—thank God I insured it—to pay the bills on materials I had ordered ahead and to pay off my lease early. Then I go get a job somewhere.”
Despair leaked out in my voice and Nicole put her arm around me.
“No. I forbid it. You love your shop and it’s your dream. You’re a wonderful floral designer and you don’t deserve to lose it all over Jimmy the Rat Bastard going on vacation to Florida at a bad time. We’ll figure this out.”
I hugged her and shook my head.
“Go take a hot shower and we’ll talk later,” Michelle said.
“What about your original plan?” Nicole asked. “You wanted to buy the building. That way you could take care of it and this kind of crap wouldn’t happen all the time. The repairs wouldn’t go undone until there’s a disaster.”
“Well, that’s the dream, Nic,” I said. “It would solve the problem of having to spend half my time begging my landlord to live up to the terms of my lease. But I can’t get a loan for the building without having the plumbing fixed. The bank won’t insure it.”
“Which idea feels right?” Michelle said.
“Well, the one where I buy the building and take control and make things happen,” I said. “But it’s a pipe dream. Oh—see what I did there? Pipe.” I dropped my head onto the table.
“Maybe it’s not,” Nicole said. “There’s got to be a way to make that work. So do what Michelle said. Go take a hot shower and we’ll talk.”
“That’s what I want to do. I’m glad you reminded me,” I said. “Maybe after a shower I’ll feel human enough to figure it out.”
“Girl, of course you will.”
“Thank you for everything.”
I hugged them and went home. I took the longest hot shower I could stand and climbed back into bed. I slept on and off, dreaming alternately of buying the building and making my business a huge success and losing it all and having to shrink wrap meat at the grocery store to pay my bills.
4
Damon
Sunday night, a couple of the guys from the station and I went out for drinks. We needed to play some darts and wind down after a busy weekend shift. There had been a gas leak out in one of the old farmhouses by the county line and a grease fire at the convenience store kitchen, both more of a mess and a headache than a danger. We walked in and felt the country music rolling over us and the noise of laughter, the smell of beer and wings. I took a deep breath, loving every minute of it.
I saw Trixie and her friends at a table up front near the bar. She looked down, and I remembered my mom had told me she had a plumbing disaster a couple days ago, some flooding or something. I would’ve thought it’d be cleaned up and fixed by now but something about the way she looked told me there was more to it. I broke off from my group and went to tell her I was sorry she had a setback. After all, our moms were close, and it was a small town. It wasn’t like gossip didn’t get around faster than head lice.
“Hey,” I said, taking the empty chair beside her. “I heard you had some trouble down at the shop. I was sorry to hear it.”
Trixie looked up at me, her face startled. Those big brown eyes so sorrowful that I had to clench my hands into fists to keep from pulling her into my arms. Baby, I’ve got you. It’s gonna be okay, is what I wanted to tell her. I wanted to kiss the top of that head, dark silky hair tucked in under my chin. Why would I think that? Why would I think about calling her baby? I shook my head at how ridiculous I was being.
“Thanks,” she said, her cheeks flushing bright pink.
“Is everything okay now?” I asked.
The two other women there, Nicole Renner, our City Planner and Michelle from the library, shook their heads emphatically. Trixie picked up her drink, which looked like a screwdriver, and took a sip. She licked her lips and shook her head as well.
“It’s complicated.”
“Tell me if I’m outta line asking, but wasn’t it just a burst pipe?”
“Yes, and I don’t care if you ask. I mean, everybody knows everybody around here. Why not spread the joy?” she said, and her voice was flat and bitter.
I waved the other guys over with the beers and they joined us at the table. Josh started talking to Michelle about the sci-fi series they were reading for book club at the library, and they teased Kurt because he didn’t read. He proudly announced he hadn’t read a book since high school, which only an idiot would say to a librarian, so we all laughed. Michelle started quizzing him about shows he liked to watch and looking like a doctor trying to solve a mysterious symptom. That man would leave with a reading list as long as his arm, I knew.
“Make him read Outlander. God, those books are amazing,” Trixie piped up.
“The show is amazing,” Nicole corrected. “Sam Heughan isn’t in the books. Although if he did the audiobooks, I’d listen the shit out of those.”
“You’d need backup batteries,” Trixie said.
“Rechargeable. It’s the wave of the future. All you need is a USB port,” Nicole said, waggling her eyebrows.
“USB port? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” I joked.
Trixie smiled at me. A real smile, and it felt like I’d been hit in the head. It was like being knocked sideways and not knowing which way is up. Dizzied by her smile, I wanted another one.
“It’s good to see you smile.”
“It feels good. I’ve had a rough couple days,” she admitted.
“Have you eaten?”
“Not yet. We may get something in a minute,” she said.
I waved a waitress over and ordered some pizzas and wings. I drank my beer and we all talked, trying to cheer her up. Trixie dove for the Hawaiian pizza when the food came, scooping two slices onto her plate, dripping with melted cheese. I watched her take a bite even though it was obviously too hot from the oven. She took a bite, fanned her mouth, eyes watering, and I passed her my beer. She took a drink and swallowed, blinking a lot.
“Needs to cool off a little?” I teased. She reached into Nicole’s water, fished out an ice cube and sucked on it. I lost my ability to tease or do anything but wish—for things I couldn’t have.
Her mom is best friends with my mom. She’s off-limits. She’s just sucking an ice cube because she burned her tongue with food, not because she wants to look like a porn reel and make me so fucking hard I can’t breathe. These pants are going to strangle me. A drop of water melted off the square ice cube and slipped down onto her lower lip and trailed onto her chin.
My hand shot out without permission from me and wiped away the drop of cold water so close to the corner of her mouth. Just that slight touch undid me. I couldn’t focus my damn eyes. I felt helpless and ablaze from that touch. I pulled my hand back as she looked at me.
“Yeah, I know, I need a bib, right?” she said, making light of it.
I wanted to make a flippant remark, be funny and casual, but I cleared my throat loudly, so loud she jumped a little. Because between the way my breath was sawing in and out from watching her with the ice cube and the fact that my dick was trying to take over the world with the worst hard-on I’d had since high school, I had just cleared my throat so hard it sounded like someone trying to shove a dinosaur bone down a garbage disposal. Josh laughed.
&
nbsp; “You should hear him snore. It’s a legend at the station.”
“Yeah,” Kurt said, “rattles the windows. You gotta make sure you sleep close to the fire alarm in case there’s an emergency because his snoring could drown out a siren.”
“Remind me never to take you with me if I’m trying to pick up a woman,” I said dryly to Kurt. “You are a shitty wingman.”
“Are you trying to pick me up?” Trixie asked.
I swear to God, she licked her bottom lip, just the tip of her tongue showing at the corner of her mouth. I wanted to capture it, to cover her mouth with mine. I’d never sat this close to her and talked since we were grown, and the chemistry was hot as hell. I could flirt with her all night. I could do a lot of things with her all night.
“If I was, Kurt would’ve ruined it by now,” I said lightly, “besides, my mom would kill me.”
“Still afraid of your mom?” Josh asked.
“Have you met my mom?” I shot back, “she’d kill me and make it look like an accident.”
“She would not,” Trixie said. “She’d make you disappear and say you ran off with some girl. Then she’d donate all your stuff to the church clothes closet for the needy. Meanwhile, your remains are neatly labeled in the basement.”
I laughed, “She does have everything really organized there. Seriously, she puts everything in those plastic containers and then makes cutesy labels with her Cricut so it’s easy to find.”
“Damon, box 1, head and torso,” Trixie said, and laughed. It was so good to hear her laugh. Even if she was, oddly enough, laughing about my hypothetical dismemberment.
“You have a dark sense of humor,” I said.
“You have no idea,” Michelle put in. “She’s hilarious, but then you wonder if maybe she’s plotting your death, too.”
“I’m not plotting your death,” Trixie said balefully. “I’m way smarter than that. I’d never make it so obvious or joke around about stuff like that. Give me a little credit. I mean, if I was a suspect, nobody would hire me to do the funeral flowers, so that’s just bad for business.”
My Fake Husband Page 2