The sip of wine Liv had taken burned her stomach. She’d meant to tell Keri what was going on. She’d picked up the phone to do it dozens of times in the past six days. But, every time, she’d gotten an inspiration for a new dress she needed to sketch or a craving for a pastrami sandwich she needed to eat or an email she desperately needed to respond to. “It’s not what you think.”
“So you’re not finally screwing the guy you’ve wanted since high school?”
“I haven’t wanted him since high school!” No, that wasn’t right. “I mean, I never wanted him. Not even in high school.”
“That’s not what you said at my birthday party. Remember? After Caleb lost that bet with Rafe and had to take off his shirt and do fifty pushups?”
“I was drunk. That doesn’t count.” Liv drained half her glass of wine. “Anyway, this has nothing to do with that stupid high school crush—which I’m totally over. This is a business arrangement.”
Keri settled back in her chair. “Do tell.”
“Okay.” Liv glanced around the small space, making sure there were no Voretti spies sipping Chianti and plotting to take her down. “But you have to swear not to say a word to anyone. Well, maybe Sean, but only if he promises not to gossip to Ty.”
“I promise,” Keri said, looking almost mollified.
“You know the tattoo?”
“The one I’m not allowed to talk about because if your parents find out they’re going to disown you?”
“Exactly. Well, at the party you ditched, Bridezilla commanded me to be one of her bridesmaids. Who are all going to be wearing strapless dresses.”
“Oh,” Keri said. Then, “Oh.”
“Yeah. She ripped off my shirt, trying to force me to try one of those monstrosities on. You should have seen it—lace and ruffles and frills in completely random places. It was like they blindfolded the designer and had her throw them on. There was no balance.”
“Seriously? You’re talking to me about design principles right now?”
Liv got back to the point before Keri decided to shake it out of her. “Anyway, Caleb rescued me before Ella saw the tattoo, and I convinced him to be my boyfriend for the wedding. That way, when my parents see the tattoo, they’ll think it’s Caleb’s name instead of CJ’s and they won’t freak out and pull my loan.”
Keri set her wine glass down and concentrated the full power of her are-you-kidding-me eyebrow raise on Liv. “That’s never going to work.”
“Why not? The whole family already thinks Caleb and I are hooking up.”
“No. They’re all talking about the bedroom incident, but the jury is still out on what it means. Rafe thinks you were playing some kind of game, trying to compromise Caleb’s virtue.”
Liv sighed. “Of course he does.”
“So this is only about your loan?”
“Exactly.”
“And not at all about you wanting to hook up with Captain Hottie?”
“Of course not.”
Keri’s lips curved into a smug smile. “Then why are you on your third glass of wine?”
Liv froze, which only emphasized the fact that she was in the middle of pouring her third glass. “Because I’m thirsty.” She finished as quickly as she could and set the bottle down.
“Oh my God.” Keri leaned across the small table, scrutinizing Liv like Liv was a patient on her exam table. “You like him.”
“No I don’t.” Liv crossed her arms over her chest, feeling strangely exposed even though the halter dress she was wearing was one of her more modest designs. “I mean, he’s a good guy, but he’s not my type. At all.”
“I never thought I’d see the day when you’d be too afraid to go for a guy you were into. You propositioned my fiancé before you even knew his name!”
“For the fifty-seventh time, I didn’t know he was yours!”
“You know,” Keri got a calculating look on her face, “I could be convinced to forget all about that little incident if you would put on your big-girl panties, fight the fear, and go for Caleb.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“You’re terrified. Because Caleb isn’t one of your disposable boyfriends like CJ, who you can relax and have fun with because you know it’s not going to last. He’s someone you could actually make a life with. But that means you’ll actually have to make a commitment.”
Liv gulped some wine, but it didn’t help. There wasn’t enough wine left in the bottle for this conversation. “I’m starting a business. That’s a commitment.”
“I know, hon. That’s my point. You’re finally ready for this. And you deserve a guy like Caleb. Someone who will treat you right and be there when you need him.”
Liv shook off the image that was forming in her head—the one where she and Caleb were sitting down to dinner at an intimate table for two. “I don’t have time for a relationship. Not with everything I have to do to get Designs by Olivia off the ground.”
“At least admit that you could see yourself with a guy like Caleb under different circumstances.”
Liv narrowed her eyes at Keri, trying to figure out where her friend was going with this, but it was hard to see much given the dim lighting. “I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to date a guy who’s punctual,” she allowed. “And who would pick up the check some of the time. And who knows how to listen when other people are talking.”
“You see? That wasn’t so hard.”
“I meant what I said before. I’m not looking for a boyfriend.”
“Of course you aren’t,” Keri said, like she didn’t believe it for a second.
“You know, this friendship thing was a lot easier when I was giving you advice about how to give a blow job.”
Keri grinned. “Maybe next time I can give you some tips. I’ve gotten a lot of experience in the past four months.”
“Oh yeah?” Finally, a conversational topic that didn’t make Liv want to hurl. “I want details.”
“Liv!”
“What? Were you expecting that to be too much information for me? You know me better than that.”
Now it was Keri’s turn to suck down some wine. “Okay. You called my bluff. You’re the number one authority on blow jobs.”
“You’re damn right I am.”
The couple at the next table looked over, wide-eyed. Keri and Liv burst into giggles.
Their audience’s astonishment changed to disapproval, but Liv didn’t care. She had her best friend, a glass of wine, and a solid plan for the future. Life was good.
*
In the following days, Liv kept her head down. She worked on her collection, which was finally coming together, and put in her hours at Hannigan’s. She was usually so preoccupied with colors and trims and hemlines that it was all she could do to remember what kind of beer her customers had ordered, but the week before the stag and doe weekend, as she was cleaning a dirty table, she heard Caleb’s name.
She moved closer, on the pretext of wiping down the bar, and found Matt and Alex at the far end. She’d been so deep in her own world that she hadn’t noticed her brothers come in. But now, all she could hear was their conversation. Something about a barbecue Caleb was having tomorrow.
No. That didn’t make sense. If Caleb was having a barbecue, he would’ve mentioned it to her.
Alex took a tiny sip of his beer and made a face, because he didn’t like anything but single-malt scotch. “Don’t be late this time.”
“I told you,” Matt grumbled. “I had a flat tire.”
“Well this time your truck better be in working order. Two PM. Caleb’s place. Don’t make me come after you.”
Matt took a long draught of his IPA. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Liv scrubbed the spotless surface of the bar like it was harboring the deadly strain of drug-resistant bacteria Keri had been going on about. Why hadn’t Caleb mentioned the barbecue to her? How were her brothers supposed to believe they were having a relationship when Caleb didn’t even bother invitin
g her to his parties?
One of the bartenders dropped a glass. It hit the floor, cutting off the first part of Alex’s sentence. “…Caleb finally asked her out.”
What? If Caleb had already told her family about their “relationship,” then she definitely needed to make an appearance at the barbecue. She moved closer. She’d say hello, then throw out a smooth line about seeing them tomorrow. They’d never know that Caleb had forgotten to invite his own girlfriend to the party.
“Caleb and Joslyn?” Matt snorted. “No way is that gonna work out.”
Liv froze, squeezing the rag in her hand.
“Just because you can’t handle a relationship that lasts longer than a night doesn’t mean everyone is a commitment-phobe,” Alex said.
Caleb had asked Joslyn out? No way. He’d made a commitment to Liv. Well, a pretend commitment. But still.
“Livvy?” Matt’s voice jarred her out of her daze. “What are you doing?”
“Cleaning.” She resumed scrubbing the nonexistent mess.
He grinned. “If you want the dirt on Caleb’s new fuck buddy, all you have to do is say so.”
She slammed her rag onto the bar. Unbelievable. She got caught alone with Caleb, half dressed, and her family dismissed it as some kind of joke, while Joslyn was all of a sudden Caleb’s fuck buddy?
“What’d that bar ever do to you?”
“I have absolutely no interest in Caleb’s love life. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” She stomped off to take an order at the very back booth, but she couldn’t get Matt’s words out of her head. If she didn’t do some serious damage control, her family was never going to buy that she and Caleb were in a relationship.
She was going to that barbecue. Whether Caleb liked it or not.
CHAPTER 11
LIV GRABBED A six-pack of her favorite Belgian-style Tripel and drove toward Caleb’s house, repeating positive affirmations in her head. She could do this. She was a strong, capable woman, who was taking charge of her life.
All too soon, she arrived at the single-story Spanish style house Caleb had inherited when his parents passed away six years ago. She forced herself out of the car. She had to talk to Caleb. If their deal regarding the fake relationship was off, she needed to know now. And if it wasn’t, their secret relationship story would be that much stronger when her brothers remembered that she and Caleb had been hanging out.
So she was crashing a party. She’d crashed lots of parties. And she’d been to Caleb’s house dozens of times.
But as she started up the tiled walkway, which had replaced the cracked cement she remembered, she realized how long it had been. The house used to have a vaguely neglected look, like a rental where neither the landlord nor the tenant thought they should be responsible for maintenance. But this place could have been featured on the cover of one of those home and garden magazines.
Liv followed the sound of masculine laughter around the side of the house, where an open gate led into the backyard. Instead of the mess of tangled bushes and vines she expected, the ground was clear. There was a mini-orchard where the rusting carcass of a Jeep used to sit, the trees small but already bearing fruit. The once-patchy lawn looked like it belonged on a golf course. The patio off the back of the house had been resurfaced to get rid of the cracks. And, at the edge of the canyon, stakes marked the boundaries of what would soon be a fence—the last piece of the perfect yard.
She tiptoed closer, strangely reluctant to call out a greeting.
Joslyn was nowhere in evidence. That was good. Rafe held a support post steady as Matt poured concrete into the hole. Alex carried a bunch of pickets over. And Caleb, dressed only in a pair of low-slung jeans, was using some kind of special shovel to dig the hole for the next post.
He was sweaty, his hair had lost its gelled perfection several hand-swipes ago, and his biceps bulged as he drove the shovel into the dirt. She had a sudden image of him, sweat gleaming on his chest as he drove into her, and warmth pulsed low in her belly.
She must have made a noise, because all the guys turned toward her at once.
“Liv?” Caleb stared at her, eyes narrowed, like she was a hallucination he hoped would disappear soon.
“Hi.” A little detail that had escaped her notice, perhaps because she’d been distracted by shirtless Caleb, became suddenly, embarrassingly clear. It wasn’t only Joslyn who was missing. There were no women here. She’d barged in on some kind of guy’s thing.
Oh well. Nothing to do now but brazen it out.
She gave Caleb a big smile, even though she was mad at him, and held up the six-pack. “I brought beer.”
“You invited her to Fix-it Day?” Rafe asked.
“No,” Caleb said.
“I…you know. Happened to be in the area. So I thought I’d drop by.” She waved the six-pack in the air, hoping to distract her brothers. “With beer.”
But, apparently, even alcohol wasn’t enough to take away the horror of a female crashing Fix-it Day, because everyone was still staring at her.
“Shouldn’t you be working on your collection?” Caleb slid on a pair of mirrored shades.
She felt his single-minded focus, but with those sunglasses hiding his eyes, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “Actually, I’m almost done.” She tried to telegraph her we-need-to-talk message with her gaze, but Caleb turned his attention back to his shovel.
So much for telepathy. “And I have something I need to talk to you about.”
“Kinda busy right now.”
Alex’s eyes narrowed. “You know, Fix-it Day has very strict rules.”
“I know. I know. Always chug the entire beer. Peeing on the ground is okay, but only if you’re outside. And if you eat the last slice of pizza, you have to buy another whole pie.” She glanced at Caleb, but his expression hadn’t gotten any easier to read.
“You forgot the most important rule.” Caleb drove his shovel into the dirt. “There’s no hanging out. If you stay, you have to help us build the fence.”
“Fine. Bring it on.”
“This is actual manual labor,” Alex said. “Your manicure isn’t going to survive.”
She waved the hand that wasn’t holding the beer, giving him a good look at her chipped, electric blue nails. “Then it’s a good thing this is the $3-a-bottle stuff.”
Alex squinted at her nails, but he didn’t say anything.
She surveyed the rest of her audience. “Well? Any more objections?”
Silence, except for Caleb’s shovel cutting through the dirt.
She set down the beer, grabbed the nail gun Alex had used to attach the pickets to the support rail between the first two posts, and gave it a try herself.
The nail went in with a bang.
She danced backward, compensating for the recoil. “Just like hemming a cuff.” Except that the nail gun could drive a spike of metal through her hand.
“You’ve got something on your dress,” Alex said.
“Where?”
“On your, ah… Your…” He made a complicated but undecipherable motion with his hands.
“On your ass,” Matt clarified.
She craned her head as far back as it would go, and, sure enough, the white sundress printed with red poppies had a huge dirt stain across the bottom. That’s what she got for listening when her mom told her that her all-black wardrobe was depressing. “Oh well. It’s only a dress.”
Everyone was staring at her. Everyone except Caleb, who was attacking the packed-down earth with his shovel.
You can’t avoid me forever, buddy. She wrestled another picket into place, then nailed it to the rail. “Are you guys planning on doing anything? Or did you forget the sacred rules of Fix-it Day?”
Her brothers picked up their tools and got to work, but there were none of the jokes or laughter she’d heard on her way in. Caleb dug holes for the support posts and avoided looking at her. The rest of the guys kept glancing her direction, like they thought she might tackle Caleb and
have her way with him on the dirt behind the closest pomegranate tree if she wasn’t properly supervised.
It should have made her day—it would make the big revelation that much easier—but nothing about this felt easy. Not the nail gun, big and unwieldy in her arms. Not the strange silence all around. And especially not the way Caleb was so carefully not looking at her.
After two hours, she couldn’t take it anymore. She put down the nail gun and went inside to use the bathroom. She didn’t really have to go, but at least in here no one was sneaking suspicious glances at her.
She took her time washing the dirt off her hands and the sweat off her face, then dawdled toward the sliding door that led back to the yard.
Matt’s voice, leaking through the door she hadn’t closed all the way, stopped her in her tracks. “You talk to her,” he muttered. “You know I’m not good at that shit.”
“She’s not going to tell me anything,” Alex said. “As far as Liv’s concerned, I might as well be Mom or Dad.”
Liv’s heart beat its signature you’re-in-trouble rhythm, and she ducked back around the corner, out of sight. So Alex thought she needed a talking to. Big surprise. He was worse than Annabelle with the lectures.
“If the shoe fits…” Matt drawled.
“I don’t like the way she’s sniffing around Caleb,” Alex continued, in his signature morally superior tone. “I love the girl, but it would be like her to make a play for him, right when he’s finally found the right woman.”
“C’mon, man. Caleb and Joslyn barely know each other. Even if Liv is interested, it’s not like he’s engaged. As far as I’m concerned, they can do whatever they want. As long as I don’t have to hear about it.”
“They’re not engaged yet. But Caleb took Joslyn to Michael Saka for their first date. You don’t take a woman you’re not serious about to Michael Saka. And Caleb wanted to know how long Rafe and Jen dated before they got engaged.”
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