Thresholds

by Kate Canterbary

  I found Shannon surrounded by empty boxes, but it was the way she was staring at the heirloom section that had me worried. "Peanut," I said with a sigh. "What the hell are you doing down here?"

  "This is a disaster," she said, gesturing to the shelves. Stretching up on her toes, she reached for a box labeled Sam. "I mean, this needs to be completely redone."

  "No," I said, taking the box from Shannon's hands. "Not today it doesn't."

  Shannon yanked at the box but I wouldn't give it up. "Would you rather I do it tomorrow, Will? Just get out of my way and let me sort these things. It's only going to take me fifteen minutes."

  "No," I repeated. "Not happening." Her phone pinged with a notification and I plucked it from her pocket. That thing had been chiming all damn day. "I'm going to hang onto this. If anyone wants to talk to you, they need to go through me."

  "Matt's buying a house," she said, waving at the phone. "I'm brokering the deal for him."

  "Right now? Today?" I yelled.

  "Yes, and is it really necessary to go full commando on me right now?" she asked, her hands on her hips.

  "Is it really necessary to spoon-feed your brothers? Is it really necessary for you to empty every closet and storage shelf in the house?" I asked. "It will be six or seven months before this baby takes issue with the organization of the basement."

  "Will, I just want this done," she said. "We're spending more time talking about it than we'll spend on doing it."

  I yanked an old steamer trunk from the corner and dragged it to the least cluttered section of the room. "It will get done. Everything will be ready. I promise you," I said, backing her toward the trunk. I rested my hands on either side of her belly when she sat. "Thank you. Now, listen to me. You've done enough today. If you want something moved in here, I'll do it. I'll take care of everything you need."

  "I don't need anything," she said, sighing.

  I expected that. Shannon didn't walk away from an objective. Whichever target she was working toward, she hit it without incident or excuse. Even when those targets were works of homegrown nonsense.

  "Sit there and tell me what to do," I said. "Pretend you're at work. Yell at me like one of your minions."

  "I don't yell at anyone," she shouted. "I speak directly, and some people mistake that for yelling."

  I laughed at that while I pushed the ornament boxes out of the way. "Of course you do, Peanut," I said. "Now, tell me what we're doing over here."

  "First, take everything off the shelves. It's all wrong," Shannon said.

  I swallowed a laugh as I reached for a box on the bottom rack. It was a good thing I loved this crazy woman.

  Chapter Nine

  Patrick

  "Remind me again why we're doing this," I said, frowning at the dishes, produce, and chopping blocks cluttering the countertop. I moved some of it out of the way to find a seat at the kitchen island, but that earned me a pointed glare from Andy.

  "I have a system here," she said, waving the spoon she was holding in the direction of the mise en place and me. This was what happened when I spent the morning at the gym with Sam. The goddamn kitchen exploded, or we were opening a small farmers' market. It was anyone's guess. "Please do not interrupt my system."

  She pivoted, spoon in hand, and dug in the refrigerator. The absolute anarchy around us no longer mattered because the only thing I could see was her ass.

  Maybe that was wrong.

  Maybe I didn't care about right or wrong.

  Andy was wearing candy cane knee socks, a loose gray tank top that managed to be far sexier than the slim-fitting ones she often wore, and a tiny scrap of black fabric that she called yoga shorts. I didn't know much about yoga but I knew these things were little more than underwear. I hated those shorts but I loved them more, and they were why I kept nudging the thermostat higher. Top it off with the long, thick mass of curls piled on her head, and I was ready to cancel our Christmas-Eve-meets-Hanukkah party this evening.

  Cancel the whole fucking thing.

  Lock the doors.

  Turn off the phones.

  Fuck any doubt of whether she was meant to be mine right out of her.

  "Make yourself useful. Go get the wine," she said, her attention tuned to the contents of the fridge.

  Look at me. See what I'm trying to tell you.

  Andy and I, we didn't talk. I mean, we talked about everything. Food, work, news. But we didn't discuss big, emotional things. We didn't need to, not when we could glance at each other and communicate without speaking a word.

  That worked for us. We didn't have to process every moment the way Sam and Tiel did, or insult each other all day the way Will and Shannon did, or bicker about everything the way Matt and Lauren did. We made it through with nods and arched eyebrows and smirking smiles. That was enough.

  Except when it wasn't enough.

  We weren't making it through right now. I needed her words. There'd been a few instances when I'd needed them before. After Riley had found us seconds away from christening my desk at the office, all those years ago. When I thought it was over and I'd be forced to live out my days as a crabby curmudgeon who got drunk off the scent of lavender. When she'd been so, so sick with an aggressive case of food poisoning that morphed into a blood infection and her body started shutting down, and the possibility of losing her hung over me like a dense fog.

  And now, when it seemed we'd drifted far off course. I needed more than her murmurs and small smiles. I needed to know we were still on this journey together, and I needed to know where we were going.

  "Is there a reason you're strangling the merlot?" Andy asked. I blinked at her from across the kitchen island. "You've been staring at those bottles—and gripping them like you're trying to break them—for a few minutes."

  "No," I replied, scowling at the wine. "Just…thinking."

  "About merlot?"

  "About you," I said honestly.

  Her eyes widened and the mixing spoon in her hand stilled. "Care to elaborate?"

  I stared at Andy for a moment, then the bottles, and then back at her. That hair. That fucking hair did it to me every time. Those curls made my fingers itch. I wanted to tug it all loose and dig my fingers through those strands.

  I wanted that to be enough. I wanted to tell her everything with that one move, and all the moves that would follow. I wanted her to read my mind now, like she always did, and know exactly what I required from her.

  Maybe that would work. My hands in her hair, her body beneath mine, no conversation required. That would work. I could drag her into the bedroom and solve this—no. No. That didn't solve my problems yesterday. Not my biggest problems, of course.

  "Perhaps you could finish unpacking the wine while you glare at me," Andy said. "Or do you need to devote all of your energy to the glaring?"

  I set the bottles down and freed two more from the box. "Satisfied?" I plunked another two on the counter.

  "Hm," she murmured, turning away from the island.

  "Why are we doing this?" I repeated, grabbing an avocado from the countertop and scowling at it.

  "Because I like having people over," she said. She had that one eyebrow, the one that always gave me the business, arched all the way up. "I like having dinner parties, and having holiday traditions. I like cooking for everyone, but you already know that."

  Somewhere along the way, my quiet girl with her "hm" and bent eyebrow and private smiles turned into the Hostess with the Most-ess. And she did, she enjoyed this. It was fascinating and delicious, and occasionally exhausting. But now, before everyone invaded our home, I was past the point of exhausted. More than that, I was past the point of needing uninterrupted time with her.

  I didn't want to spend the night surrounded by people who were not my fiancée. Or wearing pants. I'd had enough with pants for this year.

  I set the avocado down with more force than the fruit deserved. "I don't like having people over."

  "You always say that," Andy said. "But then
you enjoy it, and you say we should do it more often."

  She pointed the spoon at me. "It's also Christmas Eve and the last night of Hanukkah. You can deal for this short time, Patrick."

  I could. I could even enjoy it. It had all the makings of an incredible night. Shannon and Will were going out for—presumably—the last time before the baby arrived. Erin was home for the holidays. Riley was testing out some new cocktails on us. Ellie was staying at the firehouse with baby Dave to give his parents the night off. These were all good things, and I could absolutely deal with one night of friends and family.

  But I didn't want to deal.

  I pointed at the stovetop. "What's the story there? Are you watching the pot, or will it stay for a bit?"

  "Don't start," she said, circling the spoon in my direction. "I have a system. I have a timeline. I love you, but don't start right now."

  "You have plenty of time to finish whatever the fuck you're doing with all this food—"

  "The menu," Andy interrupted, her tone as frosty as the winter wind in Boston, "is on the refrigerator. You may recall that I discussed it with you last night, too."

  I stared at the strong line of her back and the way she appeared to set six different things in motion at once. Chopping cucumbers, rinsing lettuce, pulling olives from the refrigerator, assembling an artful cheese board. I was about to start smashing these bottles. Just throwing them down and watching them shatter as they hit the hardwood floor, the dark red liquid rushing out like blood from a wound. Anything to get her attention back.

  But then she popped a bit of crumbly cheese into her mouth and I had a hundred tiny heart attacks. "Where is that from?" I asked, rounding the island. I yanked her wrist away from the tray and licked the remnants from her fingertips.

  "The cheese place Shannon likes. The one in Chestnut Hill," Andy replied. "I went there after the lingerie shop."

  She shot me a sharp smile, the kind that said Remember when you did filthy things to me in a dressing room? When you almost fucked me through the wall?

  "Don't try to distract me," I growled, my brows knitting together.

  She dropped her free hand to my chest and rubbed, as if she could loosen the tension I was carrying with her touch. And she could. "It's simple old goat cheese. Nice and pasteurized. No scary bacteria to be found, and it's been more than a year and a half since my run-in with the overly funky cheese," she said lightly. "I'm okay. Raw fish, runny eggs, soft cheese, they're all fine. I'm fine."

  She was fine, and I knew that, but it was times like these when I felt her slipping away from me that turned up all my irrational desires to keep her close, keep her safe. It didn't matter that my opponents were questionably aged dairy products and middle-aged women rebelling against the patriarchy. It was how I felt, and as Lauren liked to say, everyone was allowed to feel their feelings.

  "I know," I said, tugging her against me. "But I worry. I'm going to do it, and you're going to deal with it."

  "I accept that," she said. "But I also want you to believe I'm not going anywhere."

  We weren't talking about cheese anymore. We couldn't be. "Are you sure about that?"

  "Certain," she replied with a laugh. Maybe we were talking about cheese. I didn't fucking know. I didn't know anything. "How I can leave when you're so busy glaring at me?"

  I ran my hand down her spine and pressed her hips closer, until she was flat against me. "You enjoy my glaring."

  "So much," she replied. "Are you going to tell me what you were thinking about? Or is that another one of your mysteries?"

  "Where is your ring?" I asked, running the pad of my thumb over the empty spot on her finger.

  She tipped her chin toward the open shelves on the other side of the kitchen. "In the jar right up there," she said. "I took it off before I tossed the vegetables in marinade."

  "Is that the only reason?"

  Her forehead crinkled and her eyes narrowed as she studied me. "What are you asking me?"

  I was ready. I had it teed up and I was going to lay it all out for her now. It didn't matter that we were expecting a horde of guests in half an hour. This was the right moment. Now. This was it. I was going for it. "I think we need to talk about—"

  The door banged open and Riley's voice rang out. "I've finally figured it out," he called.

  "Why does this always happen?" Andy whispered, her shoulders rocking with laughter.

  "Don't you want to know?" he asked. "Don't give me that face, Optimus."

  "Know what?" I roared. "How the fuck you got in? Because I'm really fucking curious about that right now."

  Riley rolled his eyes. "You gave me a key three years ago. When you guys went to Scotland."

  "And somehow you decided this was the right moment to use it," Andy murmured, her head still tucked under my chin. I brought my hand to the back of her neck, my fingers sliding into her hair.

  "I thought you'd want to hear about the holiday cocktails I created for your shindig." He moved a case of liquor to the countertop, beside the wine. "But—apparently—that's not one of your priorities."

  "It really isn't," I said.

  At the same time, Andy asked, "What's the drink?"

  "The first one I'm calling the Honeybee. It's angostura bitters for heat, honey syrup for sweet, lemon juice for tart, and a mezcal rinse for smoke. And tequila. Lots of tequila." He shrugged. "It's mostly tequila."

  "People are going to be having sex in our house, aren't they?" Andy asked under her breath.

  "No," I replied, shaking my head. "We'll kick them out before it gets to that point. They'll have sex in the hallway."

  "That's only slightly better than a dressing room," she said, a laughing ringing in her words.

  I slipped my hand down the back of her shorts and squeezed her ass. "I didn't hear you complaining yesterday."

  "I doubt you heard anything over all those growls of yours," she said, sliding her hand under my shirt and up my back.

  "The second one," Riley started, his voice booming as he talked over us, "I'm calling the Frisky Whiskey. It's blood orange juice, lemon juice, agave, orange bitters, and Amaro. It's a bittersweet Italian digestif."

  "Any whiskey?" Andy asked. "Since it's part of the name."

  "Oh, right," he replied. "Yeah, a ton of whiskey. Like, ninety percent whiskey, ten percent everything else. I would classify both of these drinks as Grade A Panty Droppers."

  "You know how some people tell stories about being housebound during snowstorms and hurricanes, and how there's a baby boom nine months later?" I asked. Andy murmured in agreement. "We're going to be blaming Riley's signature drinks for the next baby boom."

  Andy shifted in my arms and grinned at Riley. "I hope you know what you're doing."

  "Of course I do," he replied, pulling fruit and bottles from his box. "Where do you want me to set up?"

  "How about you go for a walk around the block and come back in half an hour?" I asked. "Think up another drink."

  "Something with vodka and cherries. Something strong enough to make me giggle," she suggested.

  "I'm defenseless when you're giggly," I said, squeezing her backside with each word. "I fuckin' love it."

  "I know," she replied, her eyes bright and her smile wide.

  "Goddamn it, you two." Riley set a bag of lemons down and shook his head at us. "This is unacceptable. You need to manage your time better," he said. "If you want to get freaky, you don't wait until a few minutes before your party."

  "Thank you for that pearl of wisdom, RISD," Andy said.

  "You're very welcome." He reached for a dish of olives and helped himself to a handful. One of them slipped out of his grip and rolled across the kitchen floor. He didn't notice. "Besides, Alex is in surgery for another hour or two so you're stuck with me. I'm going to hang out here and squeeze some citrus. If you're lucky, I'll mix up a Nip Slip just for you, Andy."

  "It's probably unwise to ask this," I started, "but what is in a Nip Slip?"

  "Vodka, grenadine,
vodka, orange curaçao, vodka," he replied, rambling off the ingredients as he organized his items. "And two cherries."

  "That will do just fine," Andy said. "Will you make me a Bloody Mary tomorrow morning, too?"

  "Sure," he replied easily. "Just as long as you don't mind coming to Alex's apartment for it, or me mixing drinks in my nakeds."

  "We'll skip the nakeds," I said. "Thanks."

  "I noticed that the other apartment on this floor is for sale," Riley said. "Wouldn't it be cool if Alex and I moved in there? We could be neighbors and you could come over for Bloody Marys all the time."

  "That's not going to happen," I snapped.

  "It could," Riley argued.

  "No." It wasn't happening because I bought that apartment yesterday. "It's under contract."

  "That was fast," Andy said.

  This didn't deter Riley. I wasn't certain anything deterred my youngest brother. "I'll have to watch the units downstairs, then."

  "Or you could live somewhere else," I suggested. "Anywhere else, actually."

  Andy turned back to face me, locking her arms around my waist in the process. "Wasn't there something you wanted to talk about?" she asked, tipping her head toward Riley. "What were you saying? Before the interruption?"

  I gazed down at her, taking in her dark eyes, full lips, flawless skin. "Nothing that can't wait until later."

  Chapter Ten

  Stremmel

  I'd been trying to weasel out of this event all day but between Hartshorn and Emmerling, I had no hope. They had me cornered, and they weren't letting me off easy. I tried picking up a hot appendix, but Hartshorn handed the case off to a resident and ordered me to change out of my scrubs.

  Fuck my life.

  I didn't know anyone at this party aside from the GI hottie, who I adored primarily because she was unavailable and that was my kryptonite. Also, on my second day at the hospital, she told me where to get a life-altering gyro and she wasn't wrong. It did change my life.