The Best Friend Bargain (Kisses in the Sand)

by Robin Bielman

  “Then I don’t understand why Danny hasn’t told his parents. Imagine how embarrassed I was when I brought it up.”

  Embarrassed. Liv embarrassed her mother. Always had. Always would. She couldn’t wipe the tears away fast enough now.

  Danny chose that moment to walk into the room. When he saw her face, he rushed to the couch, but she didn’t want his comfort, not right now. She stood, waving him away, and hurried down the hallway to end the conversation and gather her emotions privately.

  “I don’t know why.”

  “Are you sure the baby is his?”

  Shame punched Liv in the chest. Her lie, while wrong, took on a much more painful edge. That her mother would even think to ask that… Tell her the truth. Give her the reason she’s been waiting for to end all ties with her misguided daughter.

  Liv locked herself in the guest bathroom, slumped against the door. She couldn’t get the words out.

  “Mom, I have to go. Can we talk later?”

  “Of course. I just thought you should know about Mary and Russ.”

  “Thanks.” Liv ended the call. She flipped on the light to find some tissue and, after drying her face, stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her mom had always cut her down, but she’d never once deserved it. Did she today? She was doing what she thought she had to in order to maintain what little relationship they had left.

  A knock sounded on the bathroom door. “Liv?” Danny said. “You okay?”

  Not really, but she gathered what little strength she had left. She opened the door and strode passed him. “Sorry.”

  He didn’t say anything—which she really appreciated—and followed her to the living room. When she gave no indication of explaining, Danny put his hands on her shoulders, turned her around, and said, “What’s up?”

  “The sky.”

  His brows wrinkled and his lips pursed together. Cut the crap, they announced.

  She looked at the hardwood floor. “You haven’t said anything to your parents.”

  “About us?”

  “Yes.”

  His hands fell away. “Because I wanted to tell them in person, and I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to make the drive to visit.”

  Again, he had the perfect answer.

  “And because I know it’s going to mean more to them than it should.”

  Not the answer she wanted to hear. He took her hand and sat them both down on the couch. “How did you find out?”

  “My mom ran into your mom.” Liv scooted back into the couch cushions. “The dirty secret’s out.”

  Danny let out a disheartened breath. “It’s not like that and you know it. The thing is, I’m going to tell them the truth. And still my mom will think this is the best news ever despite our circumstances because she loves you, and she’ll try to convince me that this is our destiny or something because you know how she believes in all that metaphysical stuff.

  “My mom will be heartbroken if things don’t last forever, Liv, so I’ve got to put this to her the best way I know how, and I haven’t figured out what that is yet. And since my sister and her husband have made it abundantly clear they aren’t having children, my mom will latch onto this one and never let go.”

  That sounded kind of nice to Liv. Mary Ellis had always treated her better than her own mother had. Her down-to-earth flower child nature had soothed Liv’s hurts more often than she could count. She’d make a wonderful grandmother.

  Somewhere deep in Liv’s subconscious, had she wished for this? A family to love her and her baby unconditionally—a family with the last name Ellis. Since Danny had decided against marriage and kids, had she chosen to offer it to Mary, a woman Liv loved, admired, and felt indebted to?

  If that were true, could Liv trust these new feelings for Danny? “And that bothers you because the baby isn’t yours,” she said.

  “It bothers me because I never planned for this.”

  “It’s not like it’s a bad thing.” She wrapped her hand around the edge of the seat cushion.

  Danny ran his fingers through his hair. “But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to accept a future different than the one I imagined. Different than I might be comfortable with one day. I’m not just committing to you, Liv, but a child, and I don’t take that responsibility lightly.”

  “I’ve forced the two things you don’t want on you.”

  “Forced is a pretty strong word. You didn’t take my choice away.”

  Olivia leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and covered her face with her hands. “Didn’t I, though?”

  “Hey.” He gently took her wrist.

  She jumped to her feet. “I’ve made a mess of things and put expectations on you I shouldn’t have. I will totally understand if you want to back out. I’m over feeling like I can’t handle this. I’ll be fine on my own.”

  He stood and reached out for her, but she stepped away. “Liv—”

  “I get it.” She put up her hand to stop any further advancement from him. “Our arrangement is good for now but one day when your disease takes over, you’re not sure you’ll be able to stick around. The thing is, that’s when you’ll need me. And the thought of not being there is torture, so maybe we step away now, before we invest even more into each other.”

  Before Danny could say anything, she bolted for the stairs and took them two at a time, pulling herself up with a firm grip on the railing. When she got to her room she collapsed onto the bed, buried her face in a pillow, and hoped tomorrow didn’t hurt so much.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I can’t get your rack to cooperate.”

  Danny blinked and tore his eyes away from his favorite rack—Olivia’s—to find out what rack Honor’s younger brother, Cooper, was talking about.

  “I think the turkey is too heavy,” Cooper added, his head down, the oven door open, potholders in his hands.

  Danny took one more peek at Olivia. He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her all day. She seemed to have the same problem where he was concerned, his observations rarely going unnoticed. Over the past couple of weeks, they’d talked openly and honestly with one another, leading to arguments and then hot as hell make-up sex. Every minute in opposition was worth it. While not always easy, they understood each other better afterward and were in such great sync as a result that they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

  Off the charts only hinted at how good the sex was, and heat climbed up the back of his neck thinking about it. He rubbed his nape. It had taken Liv—his best friend—to blow his mind in bed.

  “Dude, a little help?” Cooper prompted. “The rack is not sliding out.”

  “Let me grab an oven mitt.” Danny covered his hand and stood on the other side of the oven. “Ready on three. One…two…three.”

  They pulled on the rack. Hard. A little too hard. The thirty-five pound turkey flew out of the oven. It hit the side of the kitchen island, launched off it like an Olympic toboggan, and skidded across the floor until it came to a stop in the middle of the room where the huge bird flipped out of the pan.

  Danny looked at Cooper, who looked at him with terror on his twenty-year-old face, and for a few seconds the kitchen fell completely silent. Danny turned to Liv and Honor sitting at the breakfast bar. Both their jaws hung open.

  “Why is the turkey on the floor?” Bryce asked as he came into the room, a perplexed look on his face.

  Everyone cracked up. Bryce crossed his arms over his chest. Someone hurry up and tell me what’s going on, the gesture said. But no one could stop laughing.

  Cooper got control of himself first. “Danny and I pulled a little too hard on the oven rack.” He walked over to the escapee, lifted it, checked for damage, and put it back in the pan.

  “It’s a good thing Mr. Clean mopped the floor this morning,” Liv said good-naturedly, her lips tipping up in that cute, sexy way of hers.

  Danny pocketed her grin. Lately, he’d been pocketing a lot of them so when he needed a little Liv pick-me-up while
working he had one.

  “Something that weighs this much comes with a thirty-second rule.” Cooper placed the pan back on the rack and reached for the thermometer. The kid liked to cook when he wasn’t competing as one of the top professional skateboarders in the country. To his credit, the bird smelled damn good.

  “Mom and dad are so hearing about this when they get back this weekend,” Honor teased.

  “Whatever.” Cooper waved his sister off. “It doesn’t matter because this is going to be the best turkey anyone’s ever eaten.” He wrestled with the rack for a few seconds before Danny helped push it back inside the oven.

  “It’s a good thing you haven’t gotten that dog you’ve talked about,” Bryce said, wrapping his arms around Honor’s shoulders and kissing the back of her neck. “He’d have been all over that faster than you could blink.”

  Danny tossed the oven mitt onto the counter. “No doubt.” His gaze snagged on Olivia’s surprised expression.

  Before Liv walked through his door, he’d thought a dog might fill the unnamed void bothering him. A Lab or golden retriever, like the dogs he’d grown up with. Kool-Aid had been the best at chasing down a Frisbee or lending an excuse when a girl couldn’t take the hint he wasn’t interested. I need to walk my dog. Sorry. And since he knew that one day a dog would be his only companion, he wanted one that wasn’t required or needed, but around for the fun of it.

  A dog won’t be your only companion now.

  Liv opened her mouth to say something just as a warm “hello” rang out from the vicinity of the front door. Olivia snapped her jaw shut, got to her feet, and ran her hands down her pretty mustard-colored knit dress before resting her palm on her growing belly. Goddamn, she looked beautiful.

  “Don’t be nervous,” he whispered, coming to stand beside her.

  “Do I look okay?”

  “You look gorgeous.”

  She smiled up at him. “I kind of want to kiss you right now.”

  “Go for it.”

  “Not in front of your parents,” she chastised in a way that told him she’d be a total pushover as a mom. She turned her head away. “Hi, Russ! Hi Mary!”

  Danny’s mom took one look at Liv and, as he’d expected, she burst into happy tears. “Olivia, look at you!” She put the covered dish in her hands on the counter and wrapped Liv in a hug. “I’m so happy to see you. And my soon-to-be grandbaby. May I?” She hovered her hand over Liv’s stomach.

  “Of course,” Liv answered, casting a quick, sideways glance at him.

  Danny clenched his jaw. This was worse than he’d thought. Two seconds in and his mom was already calling the baby hers. And he hadn’t factored in the existing love and affection between Liv and his mom. This strengthened their bond, not his and his mom’s. He watched with mixed emotions as the two most important women in his life shared something deeply personal and meaningful, his mom’s hand on Liv’s growing belly more than just a picture of approval and admiration.

  “Hi, Danny,” his mom said, putting her arms around him.

  He hugged her back, happy to see her, but plagued with uncertainty at the change in dynamics between his mom and his best friend. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Olivia,” his dad said, pulling Liv in tight and kissing the top of her head.

  His mom let him go and moved to Bryce next. He and his dad did the one arm hug thing. Honor and Cooper were introduced next and immediately treated like family, too.

  “Shut the front door!”

  Danny turned his head to find his sister standing in the kitchen entryway, a covered pot in her hands, her husband right behind her, and her eyes wide as an owl’s on Liv.

  “You have blond hair,” Kelsey said to her. “I love it!”

  Danny wanted to kiss his sister for picking Liv’s hair color to comment on. He didn’t know how much his mom had told her, but she’d always had this weird sense of knowing when his nerves needed to be settled.

  “Olivia hasn’t always had blond hair?”

  Danny did a one–eighty to find Mrs. L. and Tuck striding in through the sliding glass door, pies in their hands. Party central had taken lift off. “It’s so natural looking,” Mrs. L. added.

  Further introductions followed, voices grew louder, wine filled glasses. The temperature in the room jumped about a thousand degrees. More than once, Danny put a couple of fingers under his collar. Coop pulled the turkey out of the oven to “rest.” Danny’s mom put her Brussels sprouts with pecans into the oven to heat up while Kelsey stirred her mashed potatoes on the stove. Danny took a step back from all the activity to connect with Liv, but she’d left the kitchen.

  He found her right where he knew he would. Lately, she’d made a habit of spending time sitting on the small concrete bench underneath the willow tree in the backyard.

  The fading light cast her in magnificent shadow and, for a few moments, he kept still and stared. She’d pulled her hair up in a loose twist that framed her heart-shaped face and exposed the smooth column of her neck. Solitude surrounded her, but it didn’t reek of loneliness or melancholy. It smacked of peace and humility, exposing still deeper layers to the woman he’d thought he knew inside and out.

  Her notice got him moving. In quiet moments like this, with just the two of them, nothing felt more right. And more and more, the rightness of their situation plagued him. Was it fair of him to want all the parts of her when he couldn’t offer the same in return? He knew Liv. Knew that she’d taken their relationship to a new and rare level, and he kept taking because he didn’t want to give up the way she made him feel. Not when he could see the unrestrained affection in her eyes.

  Which made him selfish in a way he hadn’t known he could be.

  Liv smiled up at him and patted the spot beside her. “Hey.”

  “No fair you leaving me alone in there,” he teased, sitting and bumping his knee to hers.

  “It was that or risk throwing up on my boots, and I really like these boots.”

  Alarm swept through him. “You’re not feeling well?”

  “I think it was just all the different smells…the noise…and the temperature in the kitchen. I’m feeling much better now that I’ve gotten some fresh air.”

  Air ripe with rain on the way. Danny glanced up at the darkening sky. He couldn’t make out much, but the clouds had yet to hide all the stars.

  “Do you miss your parents?” he risked asking. They’d avoided the topic since Liv had told him Joy and Jim were going back east to spend the holiday with her stepfather’s family.

  “Yes and no, which makes me feel awful. Everything is always so easy with your family and I’m happy that I don’t have to worry about what my mother is thinking. But she is my mom and this is traditionally a day of family. Honor’s mom has texted her at least five times with pictures of their new great niece or some little thing to let her know she’s being thought of.”

  “Your mom’s thinking of you, Liv. More than you know.” He took her hand in his, rubbed his thumb over her knuckles.

  “Maybe.”

  “What sound does a turkey’s phone make?”

  Liv laid her head on his shoulder. He couldn’t see her smile, but he felt it. Closing his eyes, he was conscious of everything about her, from her softness to her floral scent, to the tension leaving her body. “I don’t know. Tell me, what sound does a turkey’s phone make?”

  “Wing, wing.”

  There weren’t many sounds that beat the resonance of Liv’s laughter and he smiled, glad to have lightened the mood.

  “Okay you two lovebirds.” Danny opened his eyes to find Mrs. L., hands on her hips, looking at them like she’d caught a couple of escaped convicts. “The food is ready to be served so get your bottoms back in here.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Danny said. He helped Liv to her feet and they headed to dinner. She’d set the dining room table pretty spectacularly and once food filled the center, Danny couldn’t remember a more festive or delicious looking Thanksgiving meal.

  Conversa
tion never lagged, even as everyone stuffed their faces.

  Before they moved to dessert, Danny’s mom stood and tapped the side of her glass with a fork. “We have a Thanksgiving tradition in the Ellis household of sharing one thing we’re most thankful for over the past year and I’d like to keep that tradition going, if that’s okay?” She looked at Danny. He nodded. “Okay, I’ll start and we’ll go clockwise around the table.”

  That meant Liv would go before him. She’d had some major setbacks this past year, what with losing her job and the breakup with Will. But the one incredible gift growing inside her trumped any hardship and had to be the best thing to happen to her. For that, Danny was most grateful.

  He took a stealthy look at her. Did she still think about Will? It rankled to think she might, another selfish feeling on his part. The guy was the father of her baby, of course she thought about him. Had every right to.

  “You’ve got a little honey,” he whispered near her ear. She turned, so he touched the corner of his mouth with his finger. Her tongue darted out to lick it away. Lucky honey.

  “Thanks,” she whispered back.

  “This past year I’m most thankful for,” Bryce started to say and Danny realized he’d paid zero attention to both his mom and Honor’s thanks. “The love of my life realizing that I’m the love of hers.”

  “When’s the wedding?” Mrs. L. called out.

  “He has to pop the question first,” Honor said easily.

  Shock flashed across Bryce’s face. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  It was no secret that Honor had some issues with commitment, and that Bryce planned to wait as long as it took for her to be ready for marriage.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” Honor answered sweetly before leaning over to say something for Bryce’s ears only.

  Liv cleared her throat. Danny’s muscles tensed. Why were his muscles flexing? Because her answer mattered to him more than anyone else’s.

  “Danny,” she said simply.

  One word. His name.

  “I’m most thankful for Danny.”

  His.

  Name.

  Mrs. L. elbowed Tuck in a see-I-told-you-so gesture. Danny’s mom swiped at the corner of her eye. His sister’s grin stretched wide enough to reach her ears.