by M. C. Cerny
“Coffee maker?” I slipped a wink under the radar.
She cleared her throat. “Yeah, now.”
“Okay, Okay.”
Taylor practically dragged me into the back room, looking over her shoulder at Carmen and Louisa.
“What the heck was that about?” I asked her.
Taylor flipped her hands up in the air as if it was totally obvious whispering. “I’m trying to set Carmen up with Louisa, but she’s being stubborn.”
“Oh.” The more I mulled it over, the more I realized it made sense why Carmen had gotten all weird the second Louisa strolled in.
“Is this your covert plan? Matchmaking now?”
“Shhh! I don’t want them to hear.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, not liking this one bit. “Because it’s not already obvious? I don’t think I want to be a part of any more happy couples. Who is going to be left for me to hang out with?”
“This is not always about you.” She said in a frustrated tone.
“Hey, I’m the only single one left; we can totally make this about me.” I argued.
Taylor let out a deep breath that made her loose blond hair float as she explained further. “Carmen got burned, she just moved here and I thought…” Her voice trailed off and I couldn’t stop my glower.
“What, that a rebound would help? That girl—” I pointed behind me in Louisa’s general direction, whispering. “—can massage your head during a shampoo with those deceptive little hands better than a dude. This one bakes cakes in shop that looks like pink threw up in it.” I pointed around the space making sure she saw every girly nuance in sight. Taylor might have made out with Carmen once or twice—because I didn’t know all the details and honestly didn’t want to know—but I wasn’t getting the girl-on-girl vibe from Carmen or the fact that these two had much in common.
“Yeah, no kidding, and since when did pink decide sexual orientation or a really good head massage?” Taylor had a point but I still wasn’t seeing it.
“Okay, I’m an idiot, but I still don’t get the feeling that they would be into each other, what do they have in common. Movies? Music?”
“I don’t think a little push could hurt.” She said crossing her arms defensively.
“No of course not. Have you been watching that Monroe Matchmakers show again?” I saw the stubborn glint in Taylor’s eyes. She was so going to match them up whether they wanted it or not.
“Carmen’s ex cheated on her, but I didn’t think she was into him that much anyway.”
“Didn’t they date for two years or something?”
“Yes, but he wasn’t good for her and I don’t think guys are really her type.” Taylor shrugged, explaining, “She just has this ultra-strict right-wing family and doesn’t fit in anywhere.”
“Ooookay.”
She nearly stomped her foot, getting my attention when she grabbed my arm, frowning. “What part of this bothers you? The matchmaking or the lesbian part?”
“Seriously, Taylor? You have to ask? Of course it’s the matchmaking part. I couldn’t care less about two chicks tying one on.” I really didn’t care. It wasn’t my business, but I still didn’t think matchmaking was a good idea. I’d watched too many reality shows where it all backfired. Besides, Taylor was an interior designer, not a lifelong matchmaker like Carla Monroe and her kids.
“Okay, good, because I asked Louisa to do our hair and Carmen is doing the cake.”
This time I flipped my hands up in the air rolling my eyes at her. “And you’re doing what? Just casually creating opportunities for them to be together? You do know that weddings make terrible reality TV episodes. Can you please stick to flipping houses?” I begged her to be reasonable.
My bestie smiled a little diabolically, holding her hands up in mock innocence. “Hey, I can’t stand in the way of love. If it’s there, it’s there.” Her shoulders rolled back and I used the moment to take a cleansing breath. She was exasperating. Now I knew Hunter had to be a saint of some kind to take her on.
“Why does this feel like I’m watching you do your love-juju?” My happily ever after was tired up in an impossible situation I didn’t see any hope for, except self-destruction. Taylor and Hunter would be married soon, and Louisa was going to work her magic on Carmen.
“I just want my friends to be happy. That means you too, Kristen.” Her hand squeezed mine and I pulled away, thinking.
“Sometimes I wonder if I really know you at all.” I cynically respond. Acid bubbled in my stomach ruining the cake thinking about Demon.
“Kristen.” She chided.
“You know, their lives are not like that movie Water for Chocolate.”
“Of course not. Carmen left Connecticut so she wouldn’t have to conform to some conservative agenda even if she thought dating men would get her parents off her back. She’s not crying in the cake batter, she’s heart-sore.”
“Then we should probably get back out there with some coffee, because we have a lot of cake to try this afternoon.” I didn’t want to talk about it further or have any part in Taylor’s arrangement. Bad enough I had to walk down the aisle with Demon, doing my best to not beat him with a bouquet of flowers. It made me wonder what other things she might be arranging behind the scenes, and I looked at her a bit more critically.
4
Damien
“Thanks for taking the drive up here with me.” Hunter kept his gaze on the road, passing a minivan that was drifting back and forth on Route 84 North slower than molasses. The sun was shining and we had finished our work estimate in Kingston pretty quickly—an office demo for a merging group of accountants. Nothing crazy, thank God, except for the permits we needed to upgrade the electrical and plumbing in the hundred-year-old building. Although I was beginning to think that arranging permits for historical buildings was Hunter’s new special superpower, since he’d flipped Taylor’s house recently.
“No problem. It was better than making you drive all the way back to drop me off at my house.” I shrugged adjusting my jeans as I sat in the truck looking out the window. I missed driving my own vehicle.
“Damien, this isn’t forever.” Hunter was referring to my sentence for the incident with Cop Fuck-face last week. In reality I got off pretty easy. I knew I had to own up to some consequences, but it still rubbed me the wrong way.
“Yeah, I know, but still. It’s going to be a real pain in the ass.” I said.
“You tell me when that group starts and I’ll take you and pick you up,” he offered. Hunter slipped into the dad role a little too well, and it was grating on my nerves that day. I sincerely hoped he wasn’t practicing on me for when he had kids of his own. Hell, that reminded me I wasn’t ready to be an uncle just yet.
Ever the perfect guy, doing the right thing all the time. I husked with frustration. “Okay, can we not discuss this with the ’rents?”
He brushed it off. “Your mom and dad already know.” Of course they did; I just didn’t need Taylor’s dad knowing. It was shitty enough.
My mom clucked at me disappointed when she heard it from Noah’s mom at the grocery store the day after. My dad called me right away to confirm and then remind me I still owed him twenty bucks from a hockey bet, because you know being responsible and taking care of debts was important as a man. I was pretty sure it was Hunter who owed him the twenty bucks and a beer, but I didn’t clarify. It seemed pointless when I could hear the censure in his voice that weighed on me the heaviest.
My defense was to bite back, but this wasn’t anyone’s fault but my own. “I meant TJ’s dad, unless it comes up.”
“Of course,” Hunter agreed, and we pulled into Hudson Glen Rehab Center just after lunch. It was a pretty swanky facility, with manicured grounds that would be a landscaper’s wet dream. I knew Hunter was paying for this out of the insurance money he had left from his parents’ accident and his own savings while he and Taylor worked on their new joint business venture. Hunter did the construction and Taylor did the de
signing, and I knew there was some television deal in the works that had my cousin itching from the viral exposure. I guess we all had our demons to deal with, but the deal would make them a pretty penny and I was already hired to be their general plumbing contractor. I’d take any bonus I could right then to pay off the driving-under-the-influence fines and court crap. As long as this didn’t turn into some housewife drama survivalist show I could deal with just about any other indignity right now.
We found Mr. Bryant in the waiting area, all packed and ready to go. He was shooing a middle-aged nurse away who had been holding a wheelchair for him.
The nurse regarded us looking red-faced and flustered, pointing to the chair. “Mr. Bryant, this is a facility policy.”
Considering Mr. Bryant was holding his own, I knew there was no way this man was going to get into that chair for the hundred-foot or so walk to the truck outside.
“Hey, Mr. B.” I gave him a handshake and was surprised when he pulled me in for a hug. I hadn’t been able to get up there since he went into rehab, but I knew the girls and Hunter made regular trips to visit.
“Long time no see, Damien. Hope you’re staying out of trouble.” If he only knew, and I sheepishly smiled, keeping my mouth shut and waiting for Hunter to get this rolling so we could get out of there.
“We got this, ma’am, promise.” Hunter put his hand over hers, flashing some deep-eyed smile that probably had her panties dropping as she tittered off, leaving us with our charge.
“I really appreciate you boys coming to pick me up.” Alan Bryant, Taylor’s dad, was a force to be reckoned with; a stroke later and a month in rehab for physical and occupational therapy, and he looked better than most men his age. He leaned on both of us instead of using the nurse-approved wheelchair or the cane they were discharging him with to ambulate down the sidewalk. We both carried a duffle bag of his belongings to the truck.
Hunter’s tension was palatable as he grumbled, “Alan, you’re checking yourself out a full two weeks early. I’m not sure if Taylor Jane is going to be pissed or happy—pardon, sir.” Hunter sucked up to his future father-in-law like a pro as he helped him get into his truck. The girls were trying out cake flavors for the wedding, but we were currently outside of Albany, picking up Mr. Bryant from a swanky rehab center that overlooked the Hudson River. Taylor would be pissed for all of two minutes until teddy bear over here gave her a disgustingly loving puppy dog look. Taylor would bring Hunter home slices of cake while I was going home alone with no cake. I defiantly got gypped on this errand.
“I’m sick and tired of being cooped up in there walking around an indoor track with nurses farther up my ass than an enema. I miss my house and everything that’s normal.”
“Can’t fault that logic,” I muttered, earning a smile from Alan and grumbles from Hunter.
“Next week I need a ride to the DMV so I can meet with the Driver Rehabilitation Specialist as per that damn doctor.” Alan was already out of breath and I looked over his head at Hunter, who shook his own, sighing. I guessed Taylor would take charge once we got back and got him settled at home.
“They make you get clearance for that?” It made sense, but if Alan was well enough to leave the center on his own accord it seemed silly to me that he had to get cleared by the DMV. I shuddered thinking about the next time I had to go over there for my group.
“Shit, son, my doctor made me cough and checked my balls when I had a damn stroke.”
Hunter chuckled and I sat in the back of the truck cab. “They want to make sure you’re okay, Alan.”
“It’s bullshit is what it is,” he husked out, getting comfortable in the seat.
“Taylor Jane would feel better knowing you did it.” Hunter looked at the man who meant everything to his fiancée, and I had to agree. If anything happened to Alan, Taylor would be crushed. I almost felt a responsibility now that I was an accomplice in busting him out early.
“Are you sure we should be doing this?” I asked, feeling more than paranoid. If Taylor was pissed, that meant Kristen would be pissed, and I usually got hell for that whether or not something was my fault.
“It’s already done, boys. I’ll just have to ask Taylor Jane for forgiveness when she comes over later.” Alan put on a pair of sunglasses and Hunter pulled the truck out onto the road to drive back.
“Yes, I’ll be busy in the forgiveness department, likely redoing a bathroom or the pantry with new trim. Thanks for that.” Hunter hit the gas and we were off while Alan chuckled and patted his shoulder in solidarity.
“Damien, are you busy next week? Maybe you take me over to the DMV?”
“Ahh…” Now it was awkward. It didn’t help that Hunter laughed from the driver’s seat. Seemed like my business hadn’t made all the gossip rounds after all.
“Yeah Damien?” Hunter eyeballed, me smiling. I was going to have to fess up.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to do that. At least not for several more weeks anyway.” The shame ate away at me. Alan wasn’t my dad, but he was like a surrogate father to all of us from the old neighborhood, and there I was letting someone else down.
“What is it, boys? You get into some trouble? I may not be rolling in the dough to bail you out, but I know a judge or two.” Alan looked over his shoulder at me and I felt embarrassment creep up. The judges he knew were the last ones I wanted hearing about this, if they hadn’t already. That courthouse was a damn sewing circle of gossip, and Judge Maddox had heard my case, delivering what he called “swift and sensible justice.” Yeah, right. I really didn’t want to admit to this man that I’d fucked up so badly that I had lost my license until I completed an Intoxicated Driver program for the next several weeks.
“Trouble is kind of my middle name, Mr. Bryant.”
“Ah,” he said, commiserating with me kindly.
“Dame here got into it with his favorite police officer.” Hunter of course took that as his moment to throw me to the wolves.
“Thanks a lot, cousin,” I grumbled from the backseat.
“The Rooney boy your girl keeps messing around with?” Why was it that parents and older folks were so damn observant? Next time I was just going to ask him what I should do, because obviously making decisions on my own was a bad idea.
“Shit.” I leaned back in the truck, wishing I could disappear under a floorboard or out the back.
“You know, Damien, you really need to work that out. You two are miserable for no good reason except your own bullheadedness.”
“Mine?”
“Hers too, but it’s not polite to tell a lady she’s being difficult,” he said, smirking and getting away with it.
“Wait.” I leaned forward in my seat to pop my head out between them in the truck. “Are we talking about the same girl here? Kristen Calloway?” When was Kristen not being difficult? When was she not trying to emasculate me?
“Relax, Damien.” Hunter used his hand to push me back so I could safely sulk with my seatbelt secured.
“You don’t know another hellion girl do you, son?” Alan asked. Nope. Kristen was the only one I considered a hellion who had jammed me up more times than I wanted to acknowledge over the years.
“Just her, sir.”
Alan laughed, getting into the conversation. “Now tell me what happened with the cop.”
They were egging me on from the front of the truck on purpose. I was too aggravated, remembering that night and the hit I had to take so the chief would drop everything else he could have charged me with. Evan pulled some low blows saying that stuff about her, and I couldn’t handle it. I was nearing my breaking point with her, and barely handling much of anything these days each time I interacted with her.
I waved them off and Hunter picked up the story. “He had a few beers beforehand at Easton’s and drove home. Evan pulled him over on the corner by the bank, leaving the pub, and he got himself a DUI and a suspension.”
“Well shit, son, girls don’t like a man who can’t drive. We need to get thi
s straightened out.” I wasn’t sure how Alan was going to help me, but I wasn’t going to turn him down.
“Well unless we can get Demon here to settle down and stop trying to beat Evan every time he opens his mouth, it might be a hopeless cause.” Hunter thumbed into the backseat, looking at me through the rearview mirror. He used the nickname Kristen dubbed me all those years ago in high school. It was a stupid, silly thing, but just like Taylor was only called by her full name by Hunter and Alan, I felt a certain proprietary hold on my nickname by Kristen.
“Don’t call me that.” I pointed at him.
Dickhead stuck his tongue out at me in the mirror.
“Seriously Hunter? That’s what we’re going with?” Alan laughed and I glared at him, willing the shaved hairs on his head to catch fire or at least singe something. None of this was fair.
“Patience gets the girl. I ever tell you boys how I met Taylor Jane’s mother?” We shake our heads and Alan drifts off for a second, recalling those happy memories.
“I’d like to hear it,” Hunter said.
“Me too,” I added. I had nothing but respect for Taylor’s dad.
“I guess that settles it then. Let’s stop for lunch and I’ll tell you all about her beautiful mother, who gave me quite a chase in those early days. Hunter, you’ll have to drive us both to the DMV next week.”
“I planned on it, sir.” Poor Hunter—he was stuck with me until I finished the Intoxicated Driver Program. These next few weeks were going to be hell with him driving me back and forth but there was no way out of it.
5
Kristen
High School
“Damien Hart is the scourge of female kind.” Stomping my foot, I stormed around the kitchen of Taylor’s house. My mom was at the office working late and my dad was coaching the boys’ football team to another season ending victory. I had left my brother at home making out with some girl I couldn’t identify by her chipped purple toenail polish as Chase had chucked a pillow at me, throwing me out of my own house.