by Lauren Dane
Ezra started talking about his goats, which shifted the conversation, and she relaxed a little but never completely moved back against him like she was before.
They stayed another hour. When his parents got up to leave, he and Natalie walked out with them. She was warm to his mother and father, but once they’d gone around the corner, he stopped her before she could go back into the house.
“What’s wrong? You’re upset about something. Is it the teasing? Vaughan didn’t mean anything by it. He’s a shit stirrer. He wouldn’t have teased you if he didn’t like you.”
“I’m really uncomfortable with you telling everyone I have a trust fund. What your brothers know of me is pretty limited to who I am now, and your parents don’t know me at all. You just told them something deeply personal that could change the way they see me.”
Oh. Well, that wasn’t what he’d expected at all.
“I wanted her to know you had no financial interest in me. Not that way. She’s very protective of us. Worried people are trying to take advantage. I figured once she knew you had plenty of money, that wouldn’t be an issue.”
“She could have figured that out on her own. After all, she knows I volunteer and have a job here in town. She figured it out with Mary, who doesn’t have a trust fund obviously.”
“Why are you ashamed of it? Who cares? They don’t. I don’t.”
She poked her chest. “I do! It’s my business, Patrick. I want to decide if and when that information gets shared. Money is tricky. People hear you have a trust fund, and they assume you’re lazy. I like for people to know me for me. Knowing my net worth complicates things. I have to work against it.”
He took a deep breath, surprised by her vehemence. “None of us cares. Don’t you see?”
“You’re the one who isn’t seeing. I need to make my own choices. I told you this before. If and when I talk about money to someone, I’ll make that decision. This isn’t about how you feel, Paddy. It’s about how I feel. It’s an intimate fact, and it’s mine.”
He chewed his bottom lip and thought for a bit. He wasn’t sure how to make it better or all right, but she’d just given him some major insight, and he needed to really hear it. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Is this a real apology or are you just saying you’re sorry to get past this argument?”
“What difference does it make? You’re unhappy. I made you that way whether I meant to or not. I’m sorry you’re unhappy.”
Her brows flew up. “I’m sorry for how you feel is not a real apology. You can’t own my feelings. If you’re sorry, be sorry for what you did, not how I feel about it.”
“You’re being impossible.”
She shook her head and sighed. “Maybe I am.” She licked her lips as she paused and then spoke again. “I have a button, I admit it. I can’t deal with fauxpologies. You know the I’m sorry you feel that way statement which isn’t I’m sorry for what I did. I just... I guess I have a lot of buttons and issues.”
After being quiet awhile, she exhaled long and slow. “I think I’m going to head home. I’m going to say my goodbyes. I know how to get back to my car.”
He took her arm. “We were just making some headway and you’re leaving? Do you always run out on fights?”
Incredulous, she blinked back at him. “Do you think fighting is normal?”
She didn’t? “Yes, I do! It’s normal and healthy. Jesus.” He let go of her and shoved both hands through his hair. “I grew up in a house where my parents argued. Not every day. But they’re both strong people and they share a life, so sometimes they’d butt heads and they’d work it through. And they made it through. That’s normal and healthy. Should we just eat how we feel? Or do you believe people in relationships never fight about anything?”
* * *
THE PROBLEM WAS that Natalie didn’t know what normal was. Discomfort weighed her down. Off-kilter. Absolutely not under her control. Yet his question was valid and asked openly. She owed him an answer.
“To be totally honest with you? I have no idea. I can’t tell you what’s normal. I don’t know what I’m doing. You pissed me off, Paddy.”
“Okay, that’s fair. We’re going to fight sometimes, Nat. I’m a pain in the ass, so yeah, I pissed you off. Everyone has hot buttons. I can’t know yours unless you tell me or until we go through something like this, and I learn that way. I don’t judge you for your trust fund. I know you work hard. I know you volunteer in your community and so does my mother. That’s what counts in my world. I’m sorry my actions made you feel bad. I didn’t intend that at all. It was meant to say to my parents that they had nothing to worry about. But it is your personal business, and I did share it without asking, and for that I am sorry.”
She sighed, chewing her bottom lip. It was a really good apology. Earnest. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be with someone.”
He laughed, stepping closer and hesitating before he closed the distance entirely, hugging her. “Me, either. The only way out is through, right? Isn’t that the saying? We’ll have to learn as we go. No way around it because we’re both total noobs in the relationship department.”
“You’re being very reasonable. You make this seem so easy. It’s really not.”
“I’m faking it. I like you. I think you’re worth the work, and I hope I am, too.” He gave her a quick grin. “You wanna tell me about the trust fund? Why you’re so uncomfortable with it? Is it from something horrible? Blood diamonds or apartheid or something?”
“The money isn’t any more horrible than other old money tends to be. My great-grandfather and his brother invented several different medical and scientific devices when they were young men. Then my grandfather invested smart when he was very young and got a huge return on it.”
He stepped back, sliding an arm around her shoulders. “Okay, then. You’re staying the night, right?”
She had a choice. To step forward and be in this relationship with him. Just dating, yes, but it was a conscious choice, and she couldn’t do it if she didn’t intend to try her best. She could walk away and say it wasn’t worth the trouble. It was trouble. Paddy Hurley had trouble written all over him. His loud, nosy family, too.
But.
She liked him. A lot. And his nosy, loud family, too.
“Yeah. I’m sorry I started to run off.”
He kissed the top of her head. “We both have learning to do. Luckily, sex helps.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“SO WHEN’S HOTTIE MCROCKSTAR showing up to shower you with attention?” Tuesday grabbed a windbreaker from the closet and tossed Natalie’s in her direction. The day was warm enough, even for the end of October, but things got cold out of the direct sun.
They hadn’t been out on a hike in a few months because of how busy they’d been, but Tuesday had used her amazing gift for guilt and ambushed Natalie that morning at breakfast with a promise of girl time and the beauty of fall in the Columbia Gorge.
Frankly, she’d have been just as happy looking at it from the car or in some pictures, but Sporty Spice wouldn’t have allowed such a thing.
“He’d love that you called him that.” Natalie tied her shoes. “Don’t say that stuff in front of him. He’s bad enough as it is. The man has no shortage of self-esteem.” He’d been...courting her she supposed, over the past months. Since their dinner on his boat, he’d just inserted himself in her life.
Which was why she and Tuesday hadn’t been able to spend as much time together. He knew her days off and often showed up to sweep her off somewhere.
“I think he’s off doing something band-related today. They’re writing material right now, so he and Ezra are hanging out. Probably punching one another in between lyrics.”
“I’m really going to have to meet this brother of his.” Tuesday snorted.
“He’s gorgeous like they all are. My God. Big and brawny. He loves animals, too. But he’s got a darkness to him. Anyway, I’m sorry
I’ve been caught up in him.”
They walked out to the car and headed out to one of Tuesday’s favorite trails to the east of town.
“You really haven’t, you know.”
“Haven’t what?”
“Been caught up in him. He wants more, and you’re pretending not to notice.”
“Am not! Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know. He’s...complicated. He’s a man, yes, but he’s also an artist, and so sometimes he’s all refreshingly honest and up front and other times he’s broody and emo, and then I get a little panicky.”
“Panicky that he’ll turn into Bob and make you clean up his messes?”
“I never claimed to be well-adjusted.”
“Who the hell is well-adjusted, Natalie? God, cut yourself a damned break sometimes. Everyone is shaped by how they grew up and who was influential during those years. What you dealt with made you into who you are today. It created your triggers and buttons. It makes you resentful over certain things and hesitant to confront others. And it’s made you strong. You are a fierce woman. Seems to me any relationship is going to be about two people, each with a bunch of shit they don’t know how to deal with appropriately but whose tolerance of that works to keep things together and on track.”
It was difficult sometimes to be known so well.
“Are you honest with him?”
They drove out of town. “I’m working on it. I mean, yes, I’m honest but it’s taking time to feel okay revealing things to him. We’re both learning, I think. He’s better at this stuff than I am most of the time, though sometimes he messes up.”
“You mean the trust-fund thing?”
“No, not really. That was three weeks ago at this point, and we’re past it. I talked a little about why I need to be the one who makes the choice to reveal that sort of thing. He’s trying. So I’m trying. He just sort of throws himself at life.”
“And that makes you nervous.”
“Yes. It makes me nervous that he’s just rushing headlong through his life and since we’re dating, I’m along for that ride sometimes. I like his brothers. They’re all funny and welcoming and stuff. But when they’re together, it’s sort of overwhelming. It’s loud and slightly out of control, and it pushes my buttons.”
“So tell him.”
“No way. They’re not doing anything wrong, Tuesday. They’re my buttons, and they’re there because I’m messed up. I can’t make him responsible for that. I just have to find a way to be used to it.”
“I think you can tell him without it making him responsible for your issues,” Tuesday, ever reasonable, suggested. “Eric and I had our share of stuff we had to get past. I had to tell him about the racist shit his brother would say when he wasn’t around. You’re the one who told me to.”
“Well, you were worried he wouldn’t believe you! Eric loved you like crazy. He knew you wouldn’t have made up something about his family like that. And he believed you and supported you.”
Tuesday nodded emphatically. “Yes. That’s my point. If you just said, hey, you know my childhood was sort of insane, and when you’re like this with your brothers, it sometimes reminds me of that. You’re not telling him not to be that with his family, you’re letting him know why you might react a certain way. He digs you. He wants to do the right thing.”
“I can’t make him responsible for my bullshit. I won’t make him responsible for it. It’s my stuff, not his. Maybe it’ll, you know, normal me up, just being around it and getting used to it.”
Tuesday heaved a put-upon sigh. “Here’s the place in our program where I underline how it’s not your fault that you were raised the way you were. The adults in your life fucked you over. It’s not your stuff, either. It’s theirs. He could help you with that.”
“Ugh. Can we talk about something else?”
“No. Come on, Natalie. You had a chaotic life, but you overcame that and made yourself into something better. Why be ashamed of that?”
“I’m not ashamed of that. I’m proud of what I’ve made out of my life. But I don’t want him to feel bad for the way he is. It’s normal to roll around and punch your brothers and all that stuff. If I told him, he’d want to stop to make me feel better. That’s not fair to him. Eventually, he’d come to resent me for it. His family would. I don’t want to get between him and his obviously healthy and close relationship with his family because of my unhealthy relationship with mine. Anyway, why are you on this topic so hard?”
Again the sigh. “Bob called this morning while you were in the shower.”
“He what?” Her stomach revolted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m telling you now.”
Bob was Robert Clayton the third. Her father.
“What did he want? Or do I really even need to ask?”
Tuesday shrugged. “The usual. He swears he’s been clean for ninety days. Wants to talk with you.”
She’d done the making-amends step with him many times now. Sometimes he was genuine. He meant to keep himself clean. Sometimes he meant it when he said he was sorry. But eventually he’d end up a mess, and she’d be sucked back into his life, cleaning up after him.
The past two times she’d refused to hear it. Building walls around herself where her father was concerned was a self-defense, and one she didn’t feel bad about anymore.
“Damn it. My grandmother must have given him the number.” Natalie had changed it because she didn’t want him having it. And she’d told her grandmother she didn’t want him to know it.
“You know how she is.”
“Yes, well, that’s why he’s the way he is.”
“You’ll call Monday and change it. I told him not to call again.”
“You shouldn’t have to deal with a changing phone number every year or so because of this.”
“Whatever. You’re not him. Thank God. If you want, we’ll change the phone number and you can decide to tell your grandmother or not. She’s going to give it to him regardless. She can’t say no. So if you give her the number again, she’ll do the same to Bob. You know how it works. I don’t care either way. I just want you to keep your guard up.”
Damn it.
* * *
PADDY WAS WAITING on her doorstep when they got back from the hike.
“I bring Fran’s Chocolates.” He thrust a box her way, and she took it with a quick kiss.
She wasn’t always super affectionate in public so when she was, it made him extra happy.
He waved at Tuesday. “How was the hike?”
“It was good. The leaves are starting to change.”
They went inside, and she popped the lid off the box and they gorged on chocolates.
He leaned back in his chair and watched Nat and Tuesday enjoy his gift. Paddy liked Tuesday a great deal. She protected Natalie fiercely but also seemed to push her when she needed pushing.
“You two want to come up and watch movies at my place? We just got a bunch of new DVDs. There’s that sci-fi one you were talking about last week.” He’d called in some favors for it, but the way her eyes lit, he was glad he had.
“Really? Awesome. Tuesday and I were going to hang out, though. We haven’t had much girl time. Maybe tomorrow?”
Tuesday scoffed. “We can have girl time watching movies in your boyfriend’s giant swanky screening room. He has a movie-popcorn-popper thingy. Way better than microwave popcorn.”
Natalie smirked in Tuesday’s direction but then let her off the hook. “Okay, then. I need a shower. I’m sweaty and gross. We’ll be up in a bit. Should we bring anything?” She tiptoed up to kiss him again.
“Bring an overnight bag. You, too, Tuesday. The guest room is ready for you. No need to bring anything else. Mary’s doing some sort of menu thing. She’s been working on her new cookbook, so this is part of it. I don’t know all the details, but I do know I’ll happily eat the results of whatever it is she’s doing.”
“Oh, good, you can finally meet.” Natalie spoke to Tuesday. “You’re going to li
ke her.”
“Cool.” Tuesday grabbed another chocolate and headed out. “Meet you down here in a few minutes.”
“You could shower at my place.” He nuzzled Natalie’s neck once Tuesday had left.
“I’d just get dirtier.” Natalie stepped back. “Go on now. I’ll see you in about half an hour.”
He kissed her again because he could and headed out.
* * *
WHEN SHE AND Tuesday arrived an hour later, Vaughan answered the door, greeting Natalie with a hug. “Hey, there. Paddy will be right back. He had to run up to my parents’ to drop something off. Ezra won’t be here tonight. He’s off in Portland for a few days. Which is good because he always hogs the big chair in the screening room.”
She introduced Tuesday to Vaughan and then to Damien, who was in the kitchen.
“We’ll be right back.”
Natalie took Tuesday upstairs and pushed open a door to the guest room where Paddy had kindly put a basket of fruit and crackers on the dresser and a pretty carafe for water on the bedside table.
“He’s got good manners.” Tuesday put her overnight bag down. “You sure you’re cool with me staying overnight? I can go back home when we’re done with movies.”
“Totally sure. I want to hang out with you and I want you to get to know his family, too. And you’ve seen his kitchen, right? He makes the best breakfasts.”
“Okay. I just didn’t want to horn in on your time with your dude.”
She dropped her things off in Paddy’s room, and Tuesday whistled. “Wow. So this is some room. It’s a wonder he can even leave the house. I wouldn’t if this was my bedroom.”
“I tease him about that all the time. His bed is the best. He doesn’t skimp on good linens, either.”
They headed down where Mary was preparing root beer floats in Paddy’s kitchen. Natalie introduced Tuesday to Mary, who held up her ice cream scoop. “I’m trying these out with this artisan root beer Damien and Ezra brought home after a fishing trip to Alaska. Also, I need your input on those tacos.”
“I knew it was a good idea to accept when Paddy invited me along tonight,” Tuesday said as she picked up one of the tacos and took a bite. “Holy cow. What is this?”