She leapt to her feet. “I’ll get the chips.”
She dashed into the kitchen, threw several controlled punches, and then took a few deep breaths, finding her calm center again, something karate had taught her. She snagged a bag of potato chips, returned to the living room and tossed them on the coffee table. She flopped back on the sofa.
“How long’s it been since you’ve seen him?” Ally asked eagerly. Her blonde hair, ending just past her jaw, bounced a little in her excitement.
Mad fidgeted on the sofa, clenching and unclenching her fists. “Two years. He’s been home a few times but we never spent much time together.” Not by her choice. It felt more like ten years since they’d really connected. Park had signed on for four more years after his first six were up. Then, once he was out, he’d taken a five-month assignment for a government contractor near the Air Force base, working on a new flight simulator. Now he was finally returning home. He was twenty-eight; she’d turned twenty-six last week. They were like two completely different people than they were back then. Maybe this was all in her head. Maybe there was nothing there anymore.
“Do you have a picture?” Hailey asked.
She pulled her cell out and scrolled through to the picture he’d sent of him in uniform at the ceremony where he was promoted to tech sergeant. She was so damn proud of him. He looked different in the formal uniform, so clean cut, serious, and proud. Not the badass edgy guy with a soft spot for her that she remembered. God, she’d worshipped him as a kid. As a teen too. The women passed around the picture.
“Total hottie,” Charlotte proclaimed. The women agreed.
The front door swung open again and her heart galloped madly. But it was just Josh, her oldest brother at thirty-three, well, second oldest technically by two minutes to his identical twin, Jake. Josh had gotten her a job as a part-time bartender at Garner’s Sports Bar & Grill, where he worked when she’d moved back home to start college two years ago. He was carrying trays of covered food, most likely from Garner’s.
“Hello, Happy Endings ladies,” he said with a charming smile that took all of them in, pointedly avoiding Hailey, before heading for the kitchen.
“Sluts!” Mad called after him.
Josh barked out a laugh, and she snickered. Hailey shot her a dark look. It was a callback to the name Mad had suggested for their book club, Super Lovers of Underrated Terrific Stories (SLUTS), just to razz Hailey. Happy Endings Book Club was suggested by another member and it stuck. Pretty tame.
“We should go,” Hailey said, standing and gesturing to the rest of them.
“You’re leaving already?” Mad croaked.
“You’re all set,” Hailey said. “Decorations, food. And you said yourself it was family only for the party.”
They couldn’t leave her yet. She needed her bitches to get through this. At least until Park arrived.
“Just hang out a bit,” Mad said.
Hailey shook her head and got her white wool coat from the front closet. She was probably eager to leave because of the feud she and Josh had going on that started with Josh as a paid escort for Hailey’s wedding planning business (a truly twisted story) and escalated to epic proportions when Josh had pulled a switcheroo, taking Hailey out to dinner, pretending to be his wealthy twin. Hailey had promised eternal vengeance once she realized she’d been played. Most recently in the feud, Hailey had whispered to some ladies flirting with Josh at Garner’s that he had an affliction that left him impotent and he’d had no luck getting a date since. The best part was, he had no idea why. But that shouldn’t mean they deserted her.
The women stood and gathered their beer bottles; most of them hadn’t even finished.
“But you have to finish your beer,” Mad said desperately.
Charlotte finished hers in one long swallow while the rest of them watched in awe. She daintily wiped her mouth with her fingertips and smiled. Charlotte was the kind of ballsy girl Mad would’ve raised hell with in high school. Except Charlotte was five years older and grew up in New Jersey. Whatever. She knew her now and respected her bold confidence and athleticism as a personal trainer.
“Impressive,” Mad told Charlotte.
Charlotte slipped on her black down jacket and pulled her long brown hair out of the collar. “Thanks.”
Hailey hugged Mad. “Good luck tonight.”
“Where are you going?” Mad asked.
Hailey turned to the group. “Happy hour at Garner’s?”
“I’ll go with you,” Mad said.
“That might actually be a good idea,” Hailey said. “That way when you return, you can make a grand entrance at the party. Maybe we can stop at my place after drinks. We can do your hair and makeup, and ooh, you can wear one of my dresses, and then it’ll be like ta-dah!”
Mad froze at the idea of all that girly fussing over her and the uncomfortable idea of wearing a dress.
“Let’s roll,” Charlotte said, heading out the door.
The women followed close behind.
“Just drinks,” Mad barked and went with them.
At the bar, Mad bought the first round and had a couple shots of tequila herself. Feeling considerably more relaxed, she allowed Charlotte, the most practical effortlessly gorgeous woman she’d ever met, to go with her to the ladies’ room and fix her face. She wouldn’t fuss too much like Hailey.
“Our coloring is different,” Charlotte said, digging through her huge faux leather purse. “But our eyes are similar.” Charlotte’s skin was a golden tan compared to Mad’s fair skin, but they both had brown eyes. “Let’s try my eyeliner. Look up.”
Mad did, flashing back to that first time she’d attempted makeup for Park and how utterly stupid it had turned out. “I don’t usually wear makeup.”
“No shit,” Charlotte said.
Mad laughed.
Charlotte pulled the liner pencil away. “Don’t move or I’ll poke your eye out.”
Mad got serious, hoping she didn’t look like an idiot when this was all done.
Charlotte finished up. “Nice.”
Mad turned to the mirror—the brown liner actually made her eyes look dark and sexy. “So you only put it underneath?”
“For your eye shape, yes.”
“Oh.” She felt stupid that she still didn’t know the first thing about makeup. She stared at herself some more, wondering if Park would even notice. If he’d still be cool and distant, still put her in the mouthy-little-twerp slot. She wasn’t the mouthy fifteen-year-old she’d been back then, now she was a mouthy twenty-six-year-old. Fuck my life.
Charlotte piped up. “You must be freaking out. You look like a deer caught in the headlights.”
“Thanks.”
Charlotte dug through her purse again. “Was he your first boyfriend? The one that got away? What was he to you?”
The fact that she wasn’t looking directly at Mad made it easier to confess. “He was everything. And then he left.”
Charlotte opened a deep red lipstick. “Yeah. They do that. Keep your lips together, relaxed.” She applied some color to Mad’s lips. “What do you think?”
Mad looked in the mirror. “Weird.”
Charlotte handed her a paper towel. “Blot it. Like this.” She demonstrated with her lips, not quite touching the towel.
Mad copied.
Charlotte tucked the lipstick away and gave Mad a quick once-over. “You look good, girl. You sure you want to go with the cargo shorts and boots?”
“I’m not wearing a dress.”
“You got skinny jeans?”
“Yeah.”
“Put them on. These shorts make you look huge and I know you’re totally fit.”
“Whatever,” Mad muttered, heading for the door.
Charlotte followed behind. “You’re welcome.”
Mad turned outside of the bathroom in the hallway. “I’m sorry. Thank you. I’m just worked up. I want to play it cool, but I’m more likely to blurt something stupid.”
“Just
be yourself.”
“Yeah, that’ll work,” Mad said under her breath. She could do hanging with the guys, she could do insults, she could do hip checks and high fives. What she couldn’t do was flirt. When she wanted a guy, she baldly stated it, usually after a game of basketball, softball, or a really good sparring match at the dojo. Parker Shaw was way beyond want. At least he had been. Hell, maybe once she managed to get close to him again, she wouldn’t even be attracted to the clean-cut straitlaced military man he’d turned into. Maybe she was freaking out for nothing.
Charlotte nudged her shoulder. “I have complete faith in you.”
Mad’s throat got tight. They returned to the bar and the women fussed over her makeup. “Shut up, bitches. I’m still the same.” Awkward, nervous, and in over her head.
“Well, you’re a very pretty bitch now,” Hailey said.
Mad’s cheeks burned and she quickly took her seat at the bar. Next thing she knew Charlotte had ordered the next round and, after her third tequila, Mad blurted, “I’m not a virgin.”
No one was surprised.
“You are twenty-six,” Hailey pointed out. The book club had treated her to dinner for her birthday last week. She still couldn’t get over how damn nice women friends were to each other. Guys never picked up the tab for dinner.
“I didn’t wait for Park and now it’s too late,” Mad confessed, getting to the heart of the matter.
“Honey, no one waits ten years,” Charlotte said in a sympathetic tone.
“Fuck it,” Mad said, pounding her fist on the bar.
By the time Hailey dropped her off back home, well into the appointed party time for a grand entrance, Mad was flying high with the women’s words of encouragement and a healthy dose of alcohol-fueled confidence. All she needed now was to change into jeans for that hot girl look Charlotte recommended.
“Look out, Park, here I come,” she muttered under her breath, making her way unsteadily to the front door for her big ta-dah entrance.
Chapter Three
Parker Shaw settled in on the comfortable old brown sofa, his former bunk, with a beer and took in his adopted family, the Campbells, gathered around him. “Damn, it’s good to be home.”
“It’s good to have you home,” Joe Campbell said, clapping a hand on Park’s shoulder. The older man was as close to a dad as Park ever had. “I’ll get the food. Josh, give me a hand.”
“We missed your ugly face,” Josh said, palming Park’s face and giving it a shove.
“Yeah, yeah,” Park said.
They headed to the kitchen. It was just him, Ty, Alex, and Alex’s toddler daughter, Vivian, who kept climbing the stairs and sliding down on her butt. She kept Alex running, making sure she didn’t take a header. She’d climbed over the baby gate so many times Alex had finally removed it for her own safety.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Ty said, smacking the side of his leg. Ty had given him a signature Ty hug earlier at the airport, which involved a lot of enthusiastic pounding on the back.
“You too.”
Bit by bit, he felt himself relax from his long day of travelling from the Air Force base in Germany to Eastman, Connecticut. As each of his family members walked in, he felt that hole in his heart fill a little more. He’d missed his family. But he’d needed to prove himself, to be the man Joe had raised him to be. Joe had taken Park in when he was ten, even offering to be his foster dad, but Park’s mom wouldn’t sign the papers. And the kicker was, Joe had already been a single dad to six kids. For that, Joe would always have the honorary title of dad.
“Where’s everyone else?” he asked Ty. But what he really wanted to know was where’s Mad? He’d seen her only a few times over the last ten years and had been careful to keep his distance. It was the only way to make the goodbye easier on her. Ty had told him Mad hadn’t handled his leaving well at all the first time, picking fights and getting in trouble at school. He didn’t want to disrupt her life; he wanted her to be happy.
“It’s too hard on her,” Ty had said on Park’s first visit home for Christmas. “She worries about you and then she gets angry and lashes out in ways that only end up hurting herself. Keep your distance and it’ll help keep her on the right track.”
Park swallowed hard. Mad had always been extra special to him. The little pip-squeak he’d missed out on in his own messed-up family. The little sister who lived.
Ty clapped him on the back. “Just until you’re home for good. It messes with her head too much otherwise.”
Park had reluctantly agreed. He protected her at all costs.
Now Ty was giving him the update on everyone. “Jake’s up in Maine with Claire. We’ll see him next weekend at the wedding.”
Park grunted. Jake was the oldest Campbell and about to marry the movie star Claire Jordan in a private Christmas Eve wedding at her log cabin in Maine. He couldn’t wait to hear that story, how Jake snagged the sexiest woman alive.
Ty went on. “Zach’s out in no-man’s land, completely out of touch, so he won’t be here or at the wedding. As usual. Ethan, Ben, Marcus, and Logan should be here any minute.” Ty thought for a moment and looked around. “Where’s Mad? She was here earlier.” He looked to the ceiling and boomed, “Mad, you up there?”
No reply.
“She did all this,” Ty said, gesturing to the streamers festively hung all over the room.
“Really?” Park asked, surprised. He couldn’t really see Mad doing decorating stuff.
“She’s got this book club of women friends now,” Ty said with a smirk. “They read smutty books. They must’ve helped her out. I don’t think she would do such a good job by herself. You know Mad.”
Park inclined his head. Yeah, he did know Mad. At least he used to. Now that he was home for good, he wanted to be part of her life again. Nerves thrummed through him. “You want to shoot some hoops?”
Ty gave him a sideways look. “It’s freezing.”
Okay, it was mid-December, but the beer wasn’t cutting it for the jumpy feeling in his stomach, the prickly feeling along his legs that made him want to run hard just to get the extra energy out.
“Ty,” Alex called, “can you watch her for a minute? I need to make a phone call.”
“I got it,” Park said, volunteering. He was used to looking out for little Mad. Oh, man, that girl had given him heart attacks on a regular basis, fooling around on the stairs, hanging over the top rail, sliding down the banister. He went to the staircase, where Vivian was making the arduous journey to the top, the stairs extra high for her little legs. He scooped her up, and she squealed in delight. She felt so light, which made him nervous, like she was fragile.
“How about an elevator ride?” he asked, putting her in the crook of his arm like she was sitting on a chair.
“Wee!” she squealed.
He made an elevator noise, walking her up the stairs.
“More!” she exclaimed when they reached the top.
He turned and did the elevator back down.
“Who’s hungry?” Josh called, setting a platter of appetizers on the coffee table.
“Me!” Vivian hollered.
He set her in front of the food. She reached out with a wide-open hand, but Josh stopped her. “What do you want?” Josh asked, squatting next to her. “Point and I’ll put it on your plate.”
Park helped himself to bruschetta, pigs in a blanket, and some bacon-wrapped scallops.
“There’s more food coming,” Josh said as he put some pigs in a blanket on a plate for Vivian. “Dad’s warming up some chicken wings, meatballs, and meatloaf. I got all your favorites.” Josh straightened and grinned at Park. “Meat.”
“Awesome.”
The front door opened and the rest of the guys came in all at once. Park set his plate down, a smile so big it nearly brought tears to his eyes at the sight of his brothers. Logan Campbell, the brother only a year older than Park, and his blood brothers, the kids like him from troubled homes that had found each other throug
h the Police Athletic League.
“Where the hell you been?” Park barked, clapping Logan on the back.
“Where the hell I’ve been?” Logan fired back. “Where you been?”
Ethan Case saluted him with a small smirk. “Serving our country. We thank you for your service.”
Park socked Ethan in the stomach and met hard muscle. “Damn, you been working out.”
“Comes with the territory,” Ethan said. He was a cop like Joe, who’d taken them all under his wing.
He greeted Ben and Marcus with similar hug handshakes, his eyes tearing up. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed everyone.
They all stood there just staring at each other for a minute. The faces so familiar and yet different. Even in just the two years since he’d last seen them, they’d changed. Their faces showed the years of hard experience, yet there was some bone-deep part of him that knew them all the way through like only lifelong friends could.
He stepped out of their way. “Come in, there’s lots to eat.”
“Damn, they went all out for you,” Ethan said, taking in the decorations and the spread on the table.
His dad came in. “Hey, guys, come back to the kitchen. There’s way too much food for the coffee table.”
They gathered in there, where Alex already sat with Vivian. The little girl was in a high chair for her meal, half of which she tossed on the floor when her daddy wasn’t looking. A dog would really clean up around here. He joined in the shared stories, the teasing and joking, but some part of him kept listening for the front door. Where was Mad? What was taking her so long? Was she okay?
An hour later, they moved out of the kitchen, spilling into the living room, beers in hand. Someone turned on the TV to some off-season sports talk. His mind was stuck on Mad. How could she miss his homecoming party? Did it mean nothing that he was home for good? He kept careening from anger that she hadn’t bothered to show to primal heart-wrenching fear that something had kept her away. That she was hurt or dead. Like his baby sister. Dead and gone and not a damn thing he could do about it.
Inviting Trouble (Happy Endings Book Club, Book 2) Page 3