That didn’t mean he liked wearing it.
“Can’t they just come to the bar with me while you cut off your manhood and feed it to your girlfriend?” Michael asked helplessly. In no world of his did crashing a girl’s night out seem like a good idea. He was sure Rachel was ninety-five percent flash, but that didn’t mean she’d take kindly to Peterson’s unwanted arrival.
“A tutu and your magic wand, Mikey. And no ice cream this time.”
He sighed. Unfortunately, Peterson was ninety-five percent function. If he was off to rescue his girlfriend from her sister’s evil clutches, it was Michael’s job to stay home and take care of the womenfolk. No questions allowed.
Michael looked over his friends with a sigh. They’d once been defined by their muscle, might, and pure, hot-blooded machismo. Now, Nick was groaning on the ground, Julian was checking a text from his girlfriend, and Peterson was breaking every rule in the dating playbook. Only McClellan remained, and he’d found a sudden and unyielding interest in removing a giant scab on his elbow.
What a bunch of pansies they were turning into.
Chapter Thirteen
Love the Meat
Rachel was not going to cry.
She was nowhere near tears—at least not of the sentimental kind. If anything, the moisture in her eyes had more to do with the overpowering perfume of the woman seated next to her, dressed head to toe in soft pink florals and clutching a handbag that looked an awful lot like a dead rat with a clasp.
“So romantic,” the woman cooed, leaning in closer and smiling at Rachel. The woman watched as Eric swooped Molly into his arms and headed for the exit. Five guesses what they were headed out to do. “Your sister’s a lucky woman. They just don’t make them like that anymore.”
The smile Rachel offered in return was all clenched teeth. “They sure don’t.”
If someone had been holding a gun to her head, she might have been inclined to agree with the woman. The concert was one of those old-fashioned crooner shows, where everyone sat at round tables swathed in white linen and waiters served pink cocktails between the songs. A few professional swing dancers had been hired to start out the dancing, and it wasn’t long before a few others followed suit.
It was the sort of thing Molly and Rachel used to love to do together. There were low lights, loud music, the chance to be together but not feel compelled to talk. It was perfect for avoiding Eric and all discussions related to the past, perfect for recreating a connection Rachel feared they lost long before Baby Hewitt came into the picture.
Or it should have been. The band had just been laying into a fast-paced jitterbug when he walked in, suave and debonair in a blue pinstripe suit which even Rachel had to admit he filled out very well.
Rachel clenched her jaw, trying to decide whether to sit here and enjoy what was left of the show or slink out into the night, abandoned and alone.
Did that man have no respect for anything? Molly had been excited for this, glad to spend a night away from men and all their messes. But the moment Eric reappeared on the scene, it was as though nothing existed in the world but him.
It was disgusting. A huge leap back for all womankind. Didn’t Molly realize how ridiculous she was acting?
“Is your young man here?” the woman asked, nudging her chair a little closer to Rachel’s. Great. All around her, couples were getting up, swaying to the music, swooping and swooning in time with the beat. Only she and Miss Marple over here were left, a re-enactment of every single wedding Rachel had been forced to attend for the last ten years.
“No. I don’t have a young man,” Rachel said, stiff with pride. She sat up a little. “I’m here to enjoy myself. Just me. I’m enough.”
“You mean that’s not your young man over there?” A gnarled finger laden with a turquoise ring went up and pointed across the room. There, near the entrance, which was little more than a dark curtain pulled across a doorway, stood Michael, looking not at all suave or debonair in a ratty pair of jeans and a black T-shirt with the word Tool written across the front. At least he got that part right.
“He’s not my young man.” Rachel turned her attention to the stage.
“Then why does he keep waving at you?”
Sure enough, he was motioning frantically with one arm. Too bad. She wasn’t going over there. She already had one too many crashers on this evening out with her sister. She wasn’t including another.
“He seems awfully upset, dear. Are you sure you don’t want to go help him?”
“Oh, for crying out loud.” Rachel grabbed her purse and shot back in her chair. He had to be the only man on the face of the planet who had yet to hear of this little invention called the cell phone.
“What is your problem?” she hissed, pushing him through the doorway, one hand flat on his chest. Good Lord, he was hard under there. He yielded to her hand and stepped back a few paces, past a harassed-looking usher who stood clutching a flashlight in both hands. This man certainly had a knack for scaring the crap out of low-paid entertainment-industry employees.
Two tiny faces looked up at her at the end of the hallway, one of them crinkled in absolute despair, the other nonchalantly licking at an ice-cream cone. “Oh, hello.” She stopped, feeling as stupid as her words sounded. “You belong to Eric.”
To Michael, she added, “You are some kind of moron, you know that? He’s not even here. He and Molly just left.” She turned as if to do the same.
“No, wait.” Michael’s hand shot out and gripped her by the wrist. She stared at it, the way the circle of his thumb and forefinger so easily wrapped around her entire collection of bones and muscles and skin. Especially skin, which pricked to life underneath his touch.
She yanked herself back. “What do you want?”
“I need help. Pris is having some sort of personal crisis.” The little girl in question started wailing louder.
“I can see that. What am I supposed to do about it?”
“I don’t know—that’s the problem. She won’t stop crying, and she actually made herself sick on the way over here. I tried calling Peterson, but his phone must be off.”
“Geez, Michael. Take her to the hospital or something. Maybe she ate a rock.”
The other one—the one licking at her ice-cream cone without so much as batting an eye—looked up and scoffed. “We’re not dumb. We don’t eat rocks.”
“Okay, then, small child.”
“Her name is Sammy,” Michael interjected. He sagged against the wall, looking very much like a man on the verge of collapse. It figured. Give him a mountain to move and he’d probably start at it, one stone at a time. But little girls made him look like he was going to cry. How hard could this possibly be?
“Okay, then, Sammy,” she said, emphasizing the little girl’s name. “Can you tell me what’s wrong with her?”
“Yes.”
They waited. Michael groaned and pinched his nose. But Rachel wasn’t fazed. For the first time, she was beginning to understand these creatures. It was a game. It was the “annoy the authority figure game”, and she and Molly had once been the reigning champs. They’d had to leave the small private high school their mom once placed them in because no teacher was willing to come anywhere near them—which was their own fault. If the administrators hadn’t liked the two of them performing a scene from the Vagina Monologues for the talent show, then they shouldn’t have opened the doors by asking for “creativity inspired by your parents”. A stage was a stage, and a show was a show. Even if the school had a strict no-fake-orgasms-in-public policy.
“And will you tell me what’s wrong with her?” Rachel asked, squatting so she was eye level with the ice-cream cone.
“No.”
“Is that because you want your sister to cry?”
“No.”
“Is it because it’s your fault that she’s crying?”
“Yes.” She stopped eating her ice cream and a flicker of real emotion finally crossed her little face. Rachel was startin
g to like this kid. She made sense.
“See, Michael?” Rachel shot to a standing position, triumphant. “You just have to talk to her like a human being. Why don’t you go get their dad, and I’ll see what I can work out.”
“Umm…” Michael grabbed her by the elbow this time, hoisting Pris under one arm and nudging Sammy with his knee. “It would be awesome if we could avoid getting him involved. He might be kind of mad at me right now.”
He didn’t stop prodding them like cattle until they reached the lobby. Rachel was pretty sure she’d have a bruise on her arm tomorrow.
“This is not my problem, Michael. You might be worried about what Eric feels, but I’m not. Him or his children.” As soon as Rachel heard the sharp words come out of her mouth, she regretted them. Pris, the one with the tears, started bawling louder, so much so that Sammy dropped her ice-cream cone, giving in to a set of hysterics all her own.
“Oh, geez.” She got back down to her knees. “You—the one with the sad face—Pris. Come here.”
Pris came over, shuffling her little Mary-Janed feet, snot dripping all the way to her chin. Softening her tone, Rachel asked, “Did your sister make you cry?”
“Yup.” She sniffled. It did nothing to ease the river of mucus making its way to the floor.
“Will you tell me why? I promise not to get mad at either one of you.”
Pris paused and caught her sister’s eye. As if sensing a halt to all their progress was imminent, Michael put his hands under Sammy’s armpits and hauled her away. At least the man had the ability to read some social cues.
“She…she…she,” sobbed the little girl. Rachel put an arm out to comfort her—and it worked. Perhaps this children thing wasn’t so bad, after all. “She told me Mr. Mikey is going to be our new daddy when real Daddy gets married.”
Rachel dropped her hand like the little girl was on fire. Well, like she was on fire and Rachel’s first instinct was not to save her life, which she hoped was untrue. But then that pair of big, brimming eyes looked up, and Pris clutched her hand. “It’s a lie, right? Daddy isn’t going to leave us?”
As a woman who’d seen a succession of “daddies” come and go throughout her own childhood, she could understand the poor girl’s fear. Their second stepfather had been the favorite by far. She remembered a jolly, always laughing man whose primary appeal had been his ability to cook incredible, kid-friendly meals at the drop of a hat. Teddy—they’d called him Teddy, but for some reason, she didn’t think that was his real name.
Teddy’s entrance into their little lives had been the first time they looked forward to coming home from school. They’d had snack time and story time and time spent as a family in the same room together. It had been great, even if Indira hadn’t been there. Probably because Indira hadn’t been there.
When Teddy left in a storm of accusations and insults, it was the first time Molly and Rachel realized their life was not their own, and that the adults in their life—their mother, for better or for worse—had the ability to make disastrous changes without asking them about it. It was the first time Rachel realized men left broken women behind.
“Of course he isn’t going to leave you,” Rachel murmured, drawing the girl close in a not-too-awkward one-handed hug. “Your father loves you very much, and nothing is ever going to change that, okay?”
Her words were calm and soothing, but she was far from feeling either. Marriage? They were already talking marriage?
Rachel could see what was happening here. Molly was replacing the life she’d lost with this new one, already established and ready to go. Justin, he of little intelligence and even littler self-control, had been The Love of Molly’s Life. She’d said it over the phone so many times it might as well have been scrolled in hearts all over her script covers. Sure, he hadn’t had a job in several years, and yes, maybe he drank too much, but he loved her. Lurrrved her.
After she’d gotten pregnant, the phone calls were less gushing, more emotional. The Molly she knew was being drained away and, several thousand miles to the east, there was little Rachel could do about it.
Rachel still didn’t know what argument spurred that fateful blow to her sister’s stomach, the round little belly she’d been watching grow via Facebook with equal parts joy and trepidation. But the moment it happened, the happy family picture Molly had conjured up in her head disappeared, and she’d been doing everything she could since then to recapture it. Take one part douche bag boyfriend. Add two parts little girls, already born and healthy and glowing with snot and tears.
It was the perfect instant family. Well, perfect as far as Molly’s ideas went. But her sister was still so young, still so broken from last year’s events. She’d learned nothing from her past and was moving headfirst into something that involved so much more than her and Eric. Rachel’s grip on the little girl tightened.
Michael appeared in her peripheral vision, an expectant and hopeful look on his face.
“You.”
His hands went immediately up. “I didn’t make her cry. I’m the fun one. They love me.”
“Is what she said true? About the w-e-d-d-i-n-g? Wait—are they old enough to spell? Can you spell, little girl?”
Pris shook her head, a grin now in place of the crestfallen, devastated look. Ah, to go back to the days when the firm word of one random adult made everything right with the world. “Silly. I can’t even read yet.”
Michael used the momentary distraction to back away, lifting Sammy up in front of him like a shield. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Rachel. I’m the nanny. That’s all.”
“Don’t you dare hide behind Sammy. Tell me. Are Eric and my sister”—her voice dropped, low and ominous—“engaged?”
Michael waggled Sammy a little bit. She squealed delightedly, eating it up. Of course kids loved him. It was like having a pet pony. Or an ogre. “Think of the children, Rachel.”
“Don’t even dare. I asked you a question—”
Michael scrambled to scoop up Pris, both of the girls screaming and wiggling with delight. “Won’t anyone think of the children?” he wailed.
Rachel shot to her feet and chased after them, but Michael was well on his way out the door. She stopped at the entrance, watching as he spun and twirled and headed toward the infamous family minivan.
“That’s it, you jerk? You came here to ruin my night, and now you’re going to run off?”
He loaded the kids into the car with surprising agility. “You can come with us if you want. It’s just about bedtime. I can read you a story and tuck you in for the night.” The sliding door shut behind him, and he took a suggestive step in her direction. His voice was low as he added, “Do you want me to tuck you in tonight?”
Rachel scowled. She did want that—that was the worst part. She wanted him to throw her to a bed and cover her with sheets and blankets and pillows and…him.
She shook the image out of her head. No matter how much she might wish it were true, he wasn’t actually here for her. He’d already admitted he was here to distract her, to keep her from finding out what was really going on with Eric and her sister. She would not fall prey to a hard body and smirking smile, even if it did set every nerve in her body on high tingle alert. She was better than a few snapping synapses.
“You don’t get to just swoop in and make me fix broken children and walk away,” she said feebly.
“Watch me.” He grinned. “Thanks, by the way. Who’d have thought you’d be the one with a real knack for kids? I think it’s because you don’t talk down to them like you do to adults. It’s a nice change.”
“I hate you.” It was all Rachel could think to say.
“Aw, shucks,” he said, grinning. “You know how to make a guy feel like a hundred dollars all wrapped up in a glittery thong. Will I see you at rehearsal next week?”
Her head spun. That sounded suspiciously sincere. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“Good. Because you and me, Rachel? We’re not done yet.”
She lifted her hand as they drove away, rooted to the spot and unable to do much more than watch them leave. A few weeks ago, Michael O’Leary telling her they weren’t done would have filled her with anger enough to have her stomping into the wings.
Tonight, though—just for the space of a few breaths—she let his words fill her with hope. She felt buoyant. She felt light.
Damn. She felt really good.
Rachel and Molly sat having breakfast—not together, but in the same room, their silence sullen and heavy.
Rachel didn’t like it. The last thing Molly needed right now was to be isolated from her family.
“You know, it’s not unreasonable to feel hurt because you walked out on me last night,” Rachel pointed out between spoonfuls of cereal. She kept her voice calm, the same way she might discuss the weather or whose turn it was to pick up the groceries. “Despite what you think, I’m not asking you to give him up, Molly. Just lower the intensity a little, okay? Take your time and make sure this is really what you want before you enmesh yourself in his life. That’s all.”
And give her time to find out more about him. The idea of a wedding didn’t fit in with what she expected of Eric. That he wanted someone to take care of his kids, sure. That it suited his pride to have a girlfriend considerably younger than him and hot as hell made sense. But wedding bells and church pews? After a few months? Something wasn’t right.
“I love you, Molly, no matter how mad you are at me right now.”
If nothing else, the hostile silence made it a lot easier for her to say her piece.
She nudged Molly a little. “Okay? It’s only fair. Besides, I can’t compete with your boyfriend when he puts on a suit like that.”
“He did look really good,” Molly agreed, barely moving her lips.
“You’re telling me. The old lady sitting next to me threatened to try and steal him.”
She didn’t quite get the laugh she was after, but Molly relaxed enough to smile. They had so much to strengthen them, she and Molly. Her sister needed to remember that. “I’m not happy about the way you’ve been reacting to all this Eric stuff. Just so you know.”
The World is a Stage Page 14