Big Girl Panties

by Stephanie Evanovich

  Logan was dumbfounded and took a minute to digest all he’d been given. It was becoming increasingly clear where Holly’s emotional eating was coming from. He was just about to comment on how impressed he was that she’d attended Brown when it hit him. “Wait a tick. Did you just tell me your maiden name was Busch?”

  She raised her chin a fraction higher and looked him right in the eye before nodding. “And not the rich, presidential, or Anheuser good kind of Busch, either.”

  “You spent your entire childhood with the name Holly Busch?” he said in disbelief.

  She nodded again.

  “You’re kidding me. I don’t believe you. Who does that?” he kept asking, not caring if she thought he considered her parents demented.

  “Who does it? Quirky folks with a jaded sense of humor, obviously,” she replied. “When I would complain about it to them, they used to tell me it would build character. You should meet my sister, Azalea.”

  “What the fuck?!” Logan gasped, horrified.

  “I’m teasing,” she quickly told him, startled by his immediate and adverse reaction.

  “Thank God.” He exhaled and shook his head.

  “I don’t have a sister, just an older brother, the crown prince of the Busch family. Prince Albert. And no, they never kept him in a can.”

  “Holly, please stop with the shtick. It’s too early in the morning and you’re scrambling my brain.” He was on the verge of pleading.

  “Sorry. Force of habit. I really do have a brother named Albert. He’s fifteen years older than me and just like them. I guess it could have been worse. They didn’t name me Rose.”

  “Yeah, I guess that would be worse.” Logan was flummoxed, wishing he could find the positive spin on what sounded like a completely dismal childhood. “Why did you say you weren’t sure of your family’s motives before?”

  “Because Albert is one sneaky bastard. He got married and moved away to start stockpiling shit in his own house. But he also put the idea in my parents’ heads that after college I could return to take care of them as they got older. The three of them hatched the plan like they were doing me a favor. After all, I was fat and awkward; nobody was going to want me anyway. The day they told me it was expected of me, I felt like I had just been handed a death sentence.”

  “I’m speechless,” he said, frowning.

  “It’s okay. I got the last laugh, sort of. I did manage to land a husband, but they were in no position to pay for a wedding. So we paid for it ourselves. By then they had pretty much become hermits, so they didn’t even attend. They only were willing to travel after Bruce died because Albert was with them, telling them the reward of getting me to go back there would be worth it to them. I could go on with a hundred more examples, but not only don’t I want to bore you, by the look on your face, I don’t think you can take it.”

  “I think you’re right,” he readily admitted.

  “Long story short, instead of character, what they really ended up building in me was a deep resentment that made it very easy to turn my back on them. The day I took the name Brennan was easily the happiest day of my life. I even got to keep my initials. Bonus.”

  He was almost afraid to continue inquiring. “No friends?”

  “A few. Not many from my childhood. I developed a pretty thick skin. I probably harbored a lot of jealousy. Other kids all had normal names and tidy parents and pleasant lives. There was a real sense of accomplishment when I walked away from my past.” She said, after pausing a moment and shrugging dismissively, “My best friend is still there. She’s the only person I ever told about what was going on behind closed doors at my house. I think that’s why they thought I had no friends, although it was really the shame of anyone seeing how I lived that kept me from inviting people over. Most of my friends are Canadian, people Bruce and I worked with. We e-mail. Some of them came to the funeral.”

  “But why such a huge house if there were only the two of you? This house is hardly representative of the term ‘no one.’ ” Logan looked around the living room with its twenty-foot cathedral ceiling, rich hardwood floors, and general opulence. It was clean and completely devoid of any clutter, almost like Holly was intent on going in the other direction from how she was raised.

  “Bruce bought the house out of foreclosure for maybe half its original value the day after he was diagnosed. I don’t think it hurt that the timing really cooperated. The U.S. economy was starting to tank and the Canadian dollar was getting stronger. He bought it with the intention of my being able to sell it after he was gone. You know, appreciating assets and all that other terminology. I pretty much left that stuff to him, although he did try to educate me. I told you he was an investing genius. Besides, he couldn’t stand the thought of living on top of other people. He really liked his space. You should have seen our house in Canada. You had to go a quarter mile just to get to the mailbox.”

  “This is an awful lot of house for one person,” Logan commented.

  “I know,” Holly admitted pensively. “But I’m not quite ready to let it go. Or him. I know we were only here a short time, and it sure isn’t filled with happy memories, but sometimes I can still feel him, and until that feeling is gone, I won’t leave him here alone. I was hoping that getting rid of his things might help that process along.”

  “One foot in front of the other.” He quoted one of his favorite phrases, then added, “Holly, you are amazing.”

  “Hardly.” She laughed. “From the day he died, I was a hot mess. I didn’t give a damn about anything or anyone. Getting out of bed was a chore. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on who you ask,” she said, rolling her eyes, “every takeout joint in a twenty-mile radius delivers. That day I met you? On the plane? I had just finished closing a deal on some stock options Bruce had left over, options I almost had to forfeit to the company’s new president because I waited too long. For a while there, I couldn’t even be bothered with opening the mail. But Bruce would have haunted me forever if I’d let that asshole have his stock. Bruce really didn’t like that guy.”

  Logan joined in with a laugh of his own, satisfied that he had finally uncovered some of her secrets, impressed by her ability to keep them to herself for so long. Clearly she no longer needed to, and Logan felt free to get caught up in the recovery of her seemingly ever-present sense of humor. He also had a much clearer picture of just how far back her eating disorder was rooted.

  “That’s why I think you’re amazing,” Logan said with conviction before reaching out to meaningfully pat her knee. Then he stood up and made his way to the kitchen. He couldn’t change what had happened to Holly in the past, but he could see to it that she felt his support for her future. “Now, listen here, you,” he called in to where she was sitting. “There is something we have to get settled before I leave here tonight.”

  “I guess you’re going to start charging me your going rate?” He could practically hear her smirking.

  “Not even close,” he responded from the kitchen. “But that’s not a bad idea.”

  Holly could hear him rustling about, the sound of drawers opening and closing. “I promise never to call you in the middle of the night again?” she called back to him. She was only half-teasing.

  He returned. “Oh, forget that, but thank you in advance.” He sat down with a spoon and the pint of ice cream. He took off the lid and tossed it on the coffee table in front of them before jamming the spoon in it and giving her a significant look. He held the pint of ice cream up in front of her. “This is not the enemy. There is absolutely nothing wrong with rewarding yourself with some treats now and again, in either celebration or even self-pity. What is not okay is going outside the box and looking at the treat as a failure and thereby giving yourself license to keep failing. This is not the enemy!” he repeated with mock severity. “This is ice cream. Karamel Sutra, to be exact. Sounds sexy.” He scooped a spoonful of ice cream and put it in his mouth. “What else don’t I know about you? Holy shit, this stuff really
is delicious.” He looked at the container again before taking another spoonful and holding it out to her. “Come on, tough girl, join me in this before I eat it all myself.”

  I should have told him about the Milky Way was Holly’s first thought. Logan would have really been able to put that sucker into perspective.

  He brought the spoon to her lips, and as she opened her mouth, her second thought began to emerge. She began mentally composing a letter to the chubby girl’s version of Penthouse Forum, starting with The most handsome man in the world has a penchant for feeding me ice cream … while naked. Her smile got wide. So did his. For entirely different reasons, she was sure. They ate the whole pint, giggling.

  “See?” he said, licking the spoon for the last time and dropping it back into the now-empty container. “No harm, no foul. A little ice cream never hurt anyone, except maybe the lactose intolerant. Like I told you before, it’s about coexisting. Just remember, when you eat those calories, you just have to work a little harder the next day to burn them off. I already put the rest of the food away. If you’re smart, you’ll wake up tomorrow and throw it all out. But don’t let me find out they shared a table for one again, or there’ll be hell to pay, got me?”

  She blushed, feeling naughty and contented at the same time. She gave him a stiff-armed military salute. “Understood. But what’s fair is fair. I just spilled my guts. Now, what’s your life story, or did Zeus just throw down a thunderbolt and you landed on Nordhoff Place?”

  “Well,” he said, grinning with pride, “he would have had to throw down two. Don’t forget about my location on West Thirty-fifth.” Logan kept a fully equipped facility in the city, for clients who were city dwellers. He didn’t generally make house calls, although most of his clients had their own fully equipped spaces. It was a short ride through the Lincoln Tunnel and he booked about a third of his sessions there. “I much prefer the Englewood location though. The air just seems cleaner, the vibe a little less hectic. I’m a pretty simple guy. I grew up with an insanely average life in Danbury, Connecticut. My dad’s an accountant, my mom a fourth-grade schoolteacher. I have a sister named Joanna, JoJo for short. She’s three years older and a school psychologist up near where my folks live. She’s married and has three kids of her own. I grew up loving baseball, played a lot in school, and ended up getting a scholarship to the University of California at Irvine, where I found out I liked sports physiology better. That turned out to be a good move. I realized how mediocre my baseball skills were when I became a small fish in a very big pond.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said skeptically, unwilling to believe he was second-rate at anything.

  “No. It’s true,” he confessed without malice. “It probably didn’t hurt that I was rooming with a guy who was going to become one of the greatest players in modern history.” Logan waited a moment to see if she would inquire as to whom, and when she showed no interest, he continued. “I used to help him with strains and sprains and before I knew it, I found myself fascinated with the human body on the whole. With just what it’s capable of enduring, how it operates and adapts under the stress of extreme physical outputs. With how important a part the mind really plays in all of it.” He tapped his finger on the side of his temple.

  Holly couldn’t help staring. Even in his self-indulgent years, he had turned his own personal negatives into a positive. Effortlessly. As if he just naturally fell onto the path of what was best for him. And he was fascinated with the human body, even hers. She wasn’t sure exactly how she should feel about that. After all, even the Elephant Man’s body held fascination.

  “You never wanted to become a doctor?” she asked, wanting to sound merely interested and not in awe.

  “Nah.” Logan was quick in his reply and with a grin. “All that extra schooling and having to be on call—where’s the fun in that?” He waited a minute and his grin got wider. “Although I seemed to have been on call tonight and it wasn’t so bad. At least for me it wasn’t, watching you trying to keep up about ten minutes into that run. You can’t really try those sorts of tactics on someone who needs a kidney transplant or has pneumonia.” He stopped abruptly, aware that he was venturing into sensitive subject matter. There was no doctor in the world that could save what Holly had lost. Just because he personally never knew Bruce Brennan didn’t mean he never existed. The painful proof that he did was all in the adjoining room.

  “I’m sorry, Holly,” he told her soberly. “I didn’t mean to come off like that. If my being a doctor could have saved your husband, I would have become one in a heartbeat.”

  She said nothing and instead hurriedly took the empty ice cream container and the spoon back to the kitchen, afraid that Logan would get a good look at her and be able to read her thoughts. Not only had he come at a moment’s notice, an act she never expected, but he genuinely cared.

  She had never connected Logan’s being or not being a doctor with her late husband. But he certainly did. This whole night was becoming less about Bruce and more about Logan, and it was invigorating. She wasn’t supposed to be invigorated; she was supposed to be miserable. Being miserable went hand in hand with respecting the memory of her husband, didn’t it? She was supposed to be miserable a while longer.

  Holly stalled in the kitchen a few more moments to gather her scattered thoughts back together. She had called Logan because there was no one else to turn to. He came because she had called him, depressed and desperate. He would have done it for anybody. There was nothing to read into and she didn’t want to analyze anymore. Not herself. Not how a widow should or shouldn’t act or feel. Not her human Saint Bernard sitting in the next room. She only knew one thing for certain: the last twenty-four hours had left her mentally and physically exhausted. She threw the ice cream container in the garbage and the spoon in the sink.

  “I’m proud of you, you know,” Logan told her when she returned, and patted the spot on the couch beside him, encouraging her to make contact with him. She needed human contact after all she had been through tonight. He recognized the signs that came with catharsis, and she had certainly had one. She tentatively curled up next to him, leaning her head on his shoulder, and they sat in comfortable silence for a few moments before he continued. “You work so hard. You’re willing to try anything. I’ve never once had to deal with you having a bad hair day or breaking a nail. To find out what you’ve had to endure, well, I feel like it’s an honor to call you my friend.” He began to yawn and close his eyes. She had fallen asleep minutes before.

  Chapter Seven

  Logan awoke with a start. The sun was already up. Not a good sign. He checked the time on his phone. Six forty-five. Shit. He had clients at seven. Luckily, all his appointments for the day were in Jersey. He’d have to split and head right to the gym, and might be late anyway. Holly was still on his shoulder, her breathing deep and even. He stood slowly, laying her back down on the couch. She barely stirred as he covered her with a nearby blanket. Probably her first real sleep in days, he mused, and hurried out the door, making sure it was locked behind him.

  Chase and Amanda Walker were already warming up on the treadmills when Logan got there. Chase had had his own set of keys since the day Logan opened. He and Logan had been friends since they were freshman roommates at UC Irvine. They’d been two scared kids miles away from home, feeling homesick and in over their heads but too stubborn to show it, except in small glimpses to each other.

  Even once Chase’s athletic star began to shine, their bond remained strong. They roomed together all four years, and after Logan’s interest became more about training and less about baseball, Chase began taking Logan’s advice on everything from nutrition to how to get more power out of his swing. Chase went so far as to use part of his signing bonus with the Kings to finance Logan’s master’s degree in sports physiology at William Paterson University in New Jersey. He encouraged Logan to take the plunge and start his own business, doing his part by floating him a hefty loan, becoming his first client, and spreading th
e word.

  Sticking with Chase Walker turned out to be the wildest of rides. Chase was permanently etched in the annals of baseball history as the Golden Boy, a title earned for his Midwestern, corn-fed, boyish good looks, plus his uncanny ability to smash baseballs into neighboring counties and throw them just as far. He was humble, generous personally as well as publicly, and virtuous. Those characteristics made him an endorsement seeker’s dream. Simply put, Chase Walker lived up to his name and everything he touched turned to gold.