Lucky Liar

by Mallory Crowe

  DJ got a large grin on his face, and he had a feeling he’d said something wrong.

  “I appreciate the compliment, but it’s really not owed to me. I worked this morning and picked up our dinner from Rosie’s diner. I hope you’re hungry, because we got a lot.”

  “Don’t give it all away,” muttered DJ. “I wanna eat it tomorrow.”

  Well, at least DJ had his priorities in order.

  “I’m sure there will still be leftovers for you,” Diane assured him. She stepped back and held out a hand. “Please come in. I’m sure it’s not what you’re used to, but we make do.”

  “Mama,” muttered Zoe.

  He could really see how this evening was torture for her, and for some reason it was starting to amuse him.

  “If you’re only around things you’re used to, life gets boring pretty fast.” He entered the living room area. He’d been in smaller places than this before, but it was definitely cramped quarters for the four of them. He was going to guess the master bedroom in his New York City apartment was well over half the size of this house. But it was very clean, and Diane had a good eye for decorating. It wasn’t filled with doilies or a bunch of kitschy fishing memorabilia, but simply a nice beige paint color on the walls with a few touches of art here and there.

  “You don’t know what I would give for a boring life sometimes,” said Diane.

  He glanced over at her and saw the challenge in her eyes. She and Zoe weren’t that different after all. If she was looking for a fight from him, he wasn’t going to give it to her. “Very true,” he said simply as he started to walk around and look at the art. One was a framed low-quality Monet print. Soft, pretty, delicate art style. Nothing like he’d have in his own apartment. Tara had done most of the decorating at his place. All of the art she’d picked was modern, with hard edges and bright colors. He wondered what styles Zoe would like better.

  When he met her in New York, wearing all that eyeliner and those combat boots, she seemed more like a hard edges girl. But in front of her mother, she was definitely more Monet. Maybe once he got her naked, he’d have a better idea of what her style truly was.

  Diane narrowed her eyes at him as though she knew exactly what he was thinking, and he tried to chase the dirty thoughts away from his mind. “So DJ, are you going to Birdsville High?”

  “I’m in ninth grade,” he said simply, not offering up any additional information. He was obviously as suspicious of him as his mother was.

  “I went to Birdsville, you know? Played on the football team junior and senior year too.”

  “I like basketball better than football,” said DJ, firmly shutting Wade down.

  Dammit, he was not going to get bested by a fourteen-year-old. “We ended up winning the championship my senior year. It wouldn’t have been all that crazy, but the year before we were one of the worst leagues in the entire district. Something about that senior year, though. We all just clicked. Came together as a team like this town had never seen and started winning game after game after game. They called us the Lucky Lions that year.”

  “Lucky Lions?” said Diane. “I wouldn’t think sports would have much to do with luck. It’s a game of endurance, and strength of will and character. Would you say you have a strong character?”

  “It was lucky that we found ourselves together that year. When you surround yourself with the right people, you’d be surprised how strong your character can become.”

  “And do you surround yourself with the right people, Wade?”

  “I have to say I’m getting better at that every day.” To push the point home, he reached out to take Zoe’s hand in his.

  “So where are these Lucky Lions now? Have you kept in touch over the years?”

  Wade tried to keep his expression steady, but he could feel a muscle in his jaw tick at the question. “Unfortunately, we haven’t all kept in touch after we graduated.”

  “A shame that you couldn’t find time in your life, especially since you were such good friends,” said Diane, the implication clear.

  “It is a shame,” he said, determined not to argue with her. Besides, he couldn’t exactly tell her all the reasons for the silence over the years. “Speaking of lucky, Zoe was filling me in on how supportive you’ve been of her over the years. She’s blessed to have you in her life.”

  For the first time, Diane’s face softened as a little smile tugged at her lips. He had a feeling it was less the flattery and more the mention of her daughter that got him inching closer to her good side.

  “And I’d say I’m blessed to have her as well,” said Diane. “I’m sure you’re all starving. DJ, get some plates down from the cupboard.”

  “Finally,” the boy muttered as he ran off to the next room.

  Wade followed the clattering dishes to see the large feast spread out on a small kitchen table. It appeared to be brisket, dinner rolls, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans. Probably not what they normally ate on a weekday.

  Zoe handed him a plate, and he served himself a generous portion of brisket and just enough green beans so he wouldn’t feel guilty loading up on the mashed potatoes. There was obviously not enough room at the table to eat, so he followed everyone out as they headed for the living room. There were no TV trays or table to sit around, and everyone seemed to balance the plate on their laps as they ate. It wasn’t what he’d call comfortable, but the first bite of food was so damn good he didn’t care anymore. “Wow. I didn’t think it was possible, but this tastes better than it smells.”

  “Rosie is a master of what she does.” Zoe took a tiny bite of potatoes before moving the food around her plate a bit.

  “So tell me more about the two of you meeting,” said Diane. “As you can imagine, this has caught us all by surprise.”

  “I told you, Mama—I waited on him and we got talking. One thing just led to another and before I knew it, I was stalking him in New York and found out he felt the same way.”

  “A true love story.” It would’ve been nice for her to fill him in on her lies before they came to dinner, but hopefully she’d told him everything he needed to know with that quick recap.

  “So you’re like… rich, right?” said DJ.

  Finally someone brought up the main topic he could brag about. “You could say I’ve done okay for myself. What qualifies someone as rich to you?” There. Now he wouldn’t technically be bragging; he’d just be responding to DJ.

  “Do… you have your own plane?”

  “That’s what I flew to get here from New York.”

  “Do… you have your own island?”

  “No, but I’ve got a few beach houses. I’d love to have you all visit sometime.”

  DJ’s eyes lit up, but Diane quickly interjected, “That won’t be necessary.”

  Zoe wasn’t kidding. Her mother really did have a martyr complex.

  “I insist.” He looked Diane directly in the eye. This was one thing he was okay with arguing about—forcing the selfless woman to take a selfish moment. “Zoe’s been telling me nothing but wonderful things about you all night. I think it’s about time you had a nice tropical vacation for yourself.”

  Diane’s fork clattered to her plate before she pushed herself up. “I think I’ve had enough for this evening. If you’ll excuse me, I’m very tired and I think I need a rest.”

  “Mama!” Zoe started to stand.

  Wade stood first and held a hand up. “Let me go talk to her.”

  Zoe gave him what could be best described as an oh no you didn’t look. “And please tell me what you’re going to say.”

  “I’ll improvise. Give me a shot.” He started to walk away before she could answer. Like he thought before, he only had one shot at a first impression. He pushed Diane a little bit too hard, and now she was retreating, leaving a little side of guilt trip in her wake. If this battle of wills was going to continue between them, he wanted to get a few things straight. He walked after Diane, not a long walk in the small house, and found her si
tting on her bed, the door to her bedroom wide open. He stopped in the hallway right at the threshold of her room, not wanting to cross the last barrier. “I’m sorry I upset you.” He knew it was a shitty apology, but it was honest.

  “Why are you here, Mr. Maxium?” she asked without looking at him.

  “I’m here because your daughter is a strongly unique woman. You should be proud of who she turned out to be.”

  “Not answering a direct question could be considered cowardly,” she pointed out.

  “I think next to someone as brave as you, anything could be construed as cowardly.”

  The corner of her mouth twisted up into a bitter smile. “You’re so good with words. I’d say it’s false flattery, but I’m sure you already know it is.”

  “I’m going to take good care of Zoe. I promise.”

  “She doesn’t need somebody to take good care of her. She can care for herself better than anybody. I fear that the one thing she needs you can’t provide.”

  “And what’s that?”

  This time, Diane looked him right in the eye. “She needs love.”

  Zoe’s anger bubbled inside her. She couldn’t believe Wade wouldn’t tell her what he and her mother talked about. They’d only known each other for half an hour. Now apparently they were close enough to keep secrets from her. “Did my mom mention Johnny?” she asked, grasping at straws.

  “Your ex-boyfriend? Why would she mention him? Is there something I should know?”

  Great. She was interrogating him, and somehow he was the only one getting answers. “There’s nothing you should know,” she lied. “There’s something I should know. I thought we were partners. I thought we wouldn’t have secrets. There’s no need to lie to somebody you’re not actually dating.”

  “There’s reason to lie to everybody. That’s the way the world works.”

  “Maybe in your jaded little world, where you had to hire somebody to actually want to marry you.” She knew the words were too harsh the second she said them, but she couldn’t exactly take them back.

  She glanced over at Wade out of the corner of her eye, expecting to see him fiercely gripping the steering wheel, but instead he let out a hearty laugh. “Wow. Little harsh there.”

  Zoe’s head fell back against the seat, and she stared off into the darkness for a moment as Wade drove them back to the house. Well, even though it had gone terribly, she supposed it had been as good as she could’ve expected. Her mom still wasn’t happy, but it hadn’t devolved into a screaming match. Wade had, for the most part, been on good behavior. Her mother would need time to believe everything was okay. She would need time to digest, but, hell, Zoe still needed time to digest what had happened. But now that the most important task of telling her family was over, she would have to move on to the more menial items on her very, very long to-do list. “Can I borrow the car once we get back?”

  “Why do you need the car? Not planning on going back to your mom’s, are you?”

  “So what if I was going back to my mom’s?”

  “Sometimes picking at a scab doesn’t make it heal faster.”

  “Save me your wisdom, oh wise one. I need the car because I want to go by work tonight to tell them I’m not coming back.”

  “Can’t you just call?”

  “Sure I could, but there’s a little thing called loyalty. You might’ve heard of it.”

  “Wow, you’re really in a shitty mood tonight, aren’t you?”

  “You married me,” she pointed out.

  “For better or worse,” he muttered. “I can drive you by your work.”

  “What? Why?”

  “What’s the problem? Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?”

  Was he kidding? What girl on earth would be embarrassed to be seen with him? Even if someone didn’t know how obscenely rich he was, he was so damn pretty that even the most frozen of ice queens would melt at his feet. “I’m not embarrassed. You’re just… a variable. It’s hard to predict how things will go when you’re around.”

  “Well, I hate to break it to you, but normally when I’m around, things go my way.”

  “You don’t have any skin in this game, so just let me go alone and do my thing and I’ll meet back up with you at the house.”

  “One, I do have skin in this game because you’re my wife and what happens to you matters to me.” She scoffed at that, but he continued. “Secondly, this is a very expensive car and you’re not insured on it.”

  “Insurance? That’s the thing that’s tripping you up the most?”

  “When you own as many expensive things as I do, insurance is a pretty big part of your life.”

  It was hardly surprising. Hell, she was kind of like an insurance policy on his marriage. He had the safety and security of knowing exactly how this marriage was going to go, without the risk of getting his heart broken. “All right. I’ve only known you for a few days, but I already know how futile fighting with you is. You can come with me, but you have to take a seat at the bar as soon as we go in and stay out of any conversations you might hear. Understand?”

  “Sit still, be pretty,” he said, throwing her words back in her face. “Got it.”

  Zoe gritted her teeth the entire drive into town. He wouldn’t make a scene. He had to be socially adept enough to not make a scene. Right?

  He pulled into the parking lot and brought the car to a stop. She remembered the first time she’d walked into this place. It had been right after she dropped out of college, and she couldn’t help but think of how overqualified she was as she first looked at the employment application. After a few years, it seemed as though she would never leave. It was an odd sort of trap. The kind that was warm, fuzzy, and comfortable. It kept you there by virtue of your own refusal to leave. And now she had to go say good-bye.

  One more thing she’d stupidly assumed would be easier than it actually was. The worst thing about this part was that she knew she’d never see most of these people again. She’d made some good friends, but not the lifelong kind. She smiled when she saw them at work and shared details of her life, but she always kept herself a little closed off. Ever since college, she’d been unable to let herself get close to anybody. It didn’t exactly take a shrink to figure out why.

  She really was the perfect girl for Wade. Not much keeping her tied to Birdsville. Not too many nosy friends trying to worm their way into the inner details of her life….

  As soon as Wade put the car in park, she stepped out. Even though she’d explicitly told him to stay out of the way, she wasn’t naïve enough to believe he would actually listen to her.

  She moved fast through the parking lot until she entered the front of the bar. The Town Pub’s owner, Jacob, had given it the folksy name when he tried to move from a dive bar image to something a bit more family friendly. It had half worked. Sure, during the afternoon and early evenings, there would be a few local town families who would come in for a burger and fries, but once the sun went down, the clientele would get rowdier and rowdier until Jacob kicked everyone out at closing time.

  For the most part, the patrons were well behaved toward her, and the more they drank, the more they tipped usually. It was a comfortable job. Nothing that would allow her to move out of her mother’s place, but ambition had left her a long time ago.

  Once she walked in, she glanced around to see the mostly familiar faces. In a small town like this, most of the customers were regulars of some sort or another. Alyssa, the waitress on duty, smiled when she walked in. “Hey!” she called as she walked across the restaurant to greet her. A sure sign it wasn’t that busy. “How was the fancy wedding?”

  She was really excited to never be asked that question again. “It was something,” she muttered. “Is Jacob around?”

  “In the back office. As always.”

  The only reason Jacob owned a place like this was because it was left to him. Being a people person wasn’t his strong suit, so he tended to spend most of the night in his office, staring a
t his computer as if he were only one angry customer away from a heart attack.

  Which would make this little conversation go so much better.

  “Are you free to cover any shifts?” asked Alyssa, pulling Zoe from her thoughts. “Shane is doing a set tonight and he didn’t bother to tell us about it until yesterday. So tonight’s going to be a total clusterfuck. Damn that boy’s lucky he’s pretty.”

  “He couldn’t have given us any more warning than a day? What the hell?”

  “I’m sure he thinks he’s doing Jacob a favor. But he doesn’t realize how much it screws us over.”

  Shane Collar was a local who made a living traveling the country and crooning Irish folk songs. He was a stud with an accent and a beautiful voice, so it was no surprise that he was so successful, but the mainly female clientele that flocked to the pub on those nights were more likely to give him the tip money normally given to the waitstaff, and the men were more likely to use that tip money buying their women drinks until they were drunk enough to settle for them instead of Shane.

  She supposed she was going to have to add that to the list of things that weren’t really her problem anymore. “I really wish I could help tonight, but I can’t make it in. Actually, I kind of have some bad news.”

  Alyssa nodded. “Son of a bitch. You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

  Zoe blinked a few times, trying to figure out what had given her away. Was she really that obvious?

  “Um, yeah. How did you know?”

  “Honey, we all knew you were never a lifer. As long as Grayson’s working at the mill, I’m going to be waitressing here. But you never had any strings tying you down. It was only a matter of time before you got over Johnny and got the hell out of here.”

  “I’m not still hung up on Johnny,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “And you shouldn’t be. That boy wouldn’t know loyalty if it bit him in the ass. I bet you he and Sheila—”

  “I have to talk to Jacob. Good luck tonight.” She hated to be so abrupt, but she knew the more she defended herself about not being hung up on Johnny, the more guilty she’d sound.