On Deadline & Under Fire
Page 5
I should’ve been sorry, but I couldn’t exactly force myself to care enough to apologize. “You’ll live … unless the baby eats you.”
“Whatever.” Carly prodded Lexie toward the door, even though it was obvious my cousin would prefer to stay behind and watch the show. “By the way, the basement looks completely normal. I hid all your stuff in the closet off the wine room. You can thank me with a trip to the day spa in a couple of weeks.”
That sounded like absolute torture. Still, she did the work I wasn’t keen to bury myself in, so I owed her something. “Your baby probably isn’t an alien,” I amended. “It’s far more likely to be a little devil than an alien.”
Carly glared so hard I thought she was trying to spit fire from her eyes. “I really hate you sometimes.”
“Yes, well, that’s a common occurrence with me. You’ll learn to accept it.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She offered a half wave before disappearing through the front door with Lexie in tow. I waited until the door was shut to turn my full attention to Eliot.
“So, we should probably put these groceries away and then handle the pots and pans … and the glasses … and the flatware. Oh, and I got new pillows and sheets.”
Instead of immediately responding, Eliot gave me a long stare. “What did Carly mean when she said the basement looks completely normal?”
“Oh, well … .” I hadn’t gotten around to telling him about my master plan to schmooze his mother.
“Don’t bother.” Eliot stalked away from the counter and headed toward the stairs that led to the basement. “I’ll look for myself.”
I scrambled after him. “It’s not a big deal.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Hey, don’t call me a liar.” I was the only person I knew who could turn a defensive position to an offensive one without feeling an ounce of guilt. “If I say it’s not a big deal, then it’s not a big deal.”
“I still don’t believe you.” Eliot tapped the light switch the second we hit the basement, his mouth dropping open when he took in the shelves and walls. “Un-freaking-believable!”
Uh-oh. He didn’t sound happy. And here I thought he would be excited to have something clean and well-maintained to show his mother. “It’s just until your mother leaves. Then I’m putting it all back.”
“But … why?” Eliot was flustered as he moved to the nearest shelf. When he’d left for the day it was covered with Harry Potter trinkets. The Noble Collection had awesome things like Dobby bookends, replicas of the Horcrux locket and a few stuffed animals that I simply couldn’t do without. Now they were all missing, replaced with normal photo frames, boring bookends and a little bucket with dried flowers sticking out of it.
“Your mother will think I’m weird,” I explained. “My mother thinks I’m weird. I’m fine with that because it’s been my goal for a long time to see if I can get her head to spin around like that kid in The Exorcist.
“Your mother is a different story,” I continued, searching for the right words to convey my rapidly deflating argument. The more I talked, the more idiotic I sounded. Even I could hear it. “You want to impress her with your new house ... and your awesome business … and your snazzy new girlfriend. I can’t be snazzy if she’s spending all her time wondering why I haven’t been committed.”
Eliot’s eyes were full of fire rather than gratitude. “I don’t want you to be different.”
“Don’t worry.” I managed to maintain my calm, but just barely. “I’m not going to be different. Your mother is simply going to believe I’m different.”
“And you think you can pull that off?”
“I managed to graduate college by convincing my professors that I wasn’t a complete and total moron,” I offered. “I don’t think this will be that different.”
“I just cannot believe you did this.” Eliot ran his hand over his cheek as he stared at the shelf. “That bucket full of fake flowers looks ridiculous.”
“Carly assures me that’s the sort of thing mothers like.”
“How would she know?” Eliot challenged. “Last time I checked, she wasn’t even on speaking terms with her mother-in-law. It’s not as if she goes out of her way to make that woman like her.”
Huh. That hadn’t even occurred to me. “Well … .”
“No.” Eliot shook his head, firm. “I don’t like this. I’m not going to let it stand.”
“You’re not going to let what stand?”
“This! All of this!” He emphatically gestured toward the shelves. “I want all the stuff that was here earlier back. I don’t care if it takes us all night. We’re putting it back.”
I balked, and not simply because I was lazy and didn’t want to do the work. “But … your mother won’t like the other stuff.”
“You don’t know that,” Eliot shot back. “For all you know, she could be a closet Star Wars freak.”
I perked up. “Is she?”
“No. She likes things like Pride and Prejudice and only watches British television shows. She’s kind of a snob when she wants to be. But that’s not the point.”
I was officially confused. “What is the point?”
“I want you to be you,” Eliot replied without hesitation. “I want my mother to meet the real you, not some obnoxious suck-up who won’t be able to maintain a façade for more than five minutes.”
I was fairly certain that was an insult. “I’m a marvelous actress when I want to be.”
“You’re a passable actress when you want to get information from a source,” Eliot corrected. “The rest of the time you’re simply Avery. I’m fine with that. I happen to love Avery … except when she does weird crap like this.” He gritted his teeth as he circled the room. “This is not you.”
I stared at him for a long moment, my heart giving a lurch. “You really don’t care that your mother may hate me?”
“Avery, my mother and I have our own issues,” Eliot replied. “She won’t be especially happy with me because of the way I left home. She won’t have much time to care that you decorate with Star Wars collectibles when she’s busy attacking me for abandoning her.”
For the first time since the topic of his mother visiting was broached, I looked beyond myself and saw things from Eliot’s point of view. “Oh.” I let loose a shaky breath. “You’re nervous, too, aren’t you?”
Eliot bobbed his head. “My mother and I don’t have the easiest of relationships. You won’t make things better by pretending to be something you’re not.”
“Even if your mother hates me?”
“Avery, I already love you,” Eliot pointed out. “That won’t change. If my mother hates you, then we’ll get past it. We’ve handled everything else the world and your insatiable need to be right have thrown at us. I don’t know why this would be any different.”
He had a point, but still … . “I think that’s easy for you to say because my mother loves you. In fact, she’d trade me for you in a heartbeat.”
“Your mother is a loon.” Eliot leaned closer and pressed a quick kiss to the tip of my nose. “This won’t be easy. It’ll be difficult for both of us. You’ll only make things worse by trying to be someone else. I want you to be you. If she doesn’t like that … well … that’s her problem. I think you’re pretty terrific.”
I warmed inside, something going gooey. “I think you’re pretty terrific, too.”
“I know.” Eliot pulled me in for a hug before blowing out a sigh. “We have a lot of work to do. I guess I’ll handle the kitchen if you take care of things down here.”
I balked. “Why do I have to be the one to handle everything down here? It will take longer.”
“It will,” Eliot agreed. “But you whine if things aren’t exactly in the spots you want them. You’re anal retentive that way. I figure it will save us time if we split the tasks.”
“And I’m not going to be anal retentive about the kitchen,” I mused, catching on. “You’re a smart guy.”
“I try.”
Eliot rolled his eyes as he grabbed the sides of my face. “You make me so tired.”
“Hey, I saved us from an uncomfortable shopping trip. In some ways, you could say I helped.”
“Yes. That’s how I’ll try to remember this day.” He gave me a kiss and released me with a playful swat. “Now get to work. If we’re lucky, we’ll still have an hour for me to romance your socks off later tonight.”
“Now that’s something I’m looking forward to.”
“At least we’re on the same page there.”
5 Five
My first official day of vacation (the previous day didn’t count because I blew it off for work) started pretty well. I woke to find Eliot curled next to me, my head on his shoulder and his arms wrapped tight around my back.
I took a moment to study him in the morning light, enjoying the way his hair looked. Because he insisted on keeping his brown locks long, he had bedhead almost as often as I did. Of course, mine looked like a tornado had rolled through our bedroom, while his appeared to have been kissed by a light breeze, but I enjoyed the moment all the same.
“What are you staring at?” Eliot murmured, shifting without opening his eyes.
“What makes you think I’m staring?”
“I can feel your eyes on me. It’s as if you’re trying to peer into my soul.”
“Maybe I am.”
“Yeah?” Eliot finally opened his eyes and smiled. “What do you see?”
I shrugged, noncommittal. “A guy who makes me happy … at least most of the time.”
“Oh, well, that’s sweet.” Eliot’s lips curved into a flirty smile as he squeezed me tight against his chest. “Someone is feeling gooey this morning.”
“Yes, that’s me. Avery Shaw, queen of the gooey realm.”
Eliot chuckled as he ran his hands over my back, his gaze turning serious. “Are you okay with my mother coming to visit?”
“It’s a little late to be asking me that. You’re picking her up from the airport in a few hours.”
“Fair point. Still, I should’ve asked. This is our house, after all. We share it.”
“Yeah, well, if we start having to ask each other permission for relatives to visit then I’m going to be in a world of hurt.” My fingers snarled as I tried to comb through my hair. “My grandfather shows up naked in our pool when the mood strikes and you don’t complain about that.”
“I believe I’ve complained about that multiple times.”
“Yeah, but … you don’t complain to the point where you toss out an ultimatum or anything.”
“That’s mostly because I know exactly how you’d react to an ultimatum,” Eliot supplied. “You’d dig in your heels until the end of time. You wouldn’t give in unless the zombie apocalypse forced you to do it for survival, and even then you might die just so you could say you won the argument.”
He wasn’t wrong. The way he phrased it didn’t exactly paint me in the best light, though. “I might give in.”
Eliot snorted. “When have you ever given in?”
“Well … we’re together, aren’t we?”
His eyes keen, Eliot propped himself up so he could better study my face. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Just that I swore to myself the first day I met you that I would never date you.”
Eliot smirked. “You did?”
I nodded. “I took one look at you, felt my stomach flip, and then warned myself that you were a very bad idea.”
“And why is that?”
“Well, to be fair, I didn’t know much about you at the time,” I said. “All I knew is that you owned a pawnshop and found me funny. You could’ve been deranged for all I knew.”
Eliot barked out a laugh so loud it echoed throughout the room. “You are adorable. Do you know what I was thinking the day we met?”
I was looking for a gun that day, so I had a fairly good guess. “That I was hot and you wanted to see if I was intent on wearing my panties the entire evening.”
“I guess I was kind of wondering that,” Eliot conceded. “What I was thinking, though, was something vastly different. I was thinking that you were a mouthy pain in the rear and I needed to steer clear of you.”
“Why? You just said I’m adorable.”
“You are. But I saw trouble when I looked at you, and I was right.”
“How have I been trouble?” I saw the question from his point of view before he could answer. “Other than the multiple times you’ve had to race to the rescue, how have I been trouble?”
Eliot’s laugh was warm as his chest shook. “I can’t imagine why anyone would ever think you’re trouble.”
“I’m serious.”
“Fine. I can see you have your serious face on, so I will answer in a serious manner. In truth, you’re nowhere near the trouble I thought you would be. Don’t get me wrong, life with you is never boring and you’re exceedingly difficult when you decide you want something and don’t care who you trample to get it, but our life is much easier than I expected.”
“Some people would call that determined.”
“Only people who never met you or others who are gluttons for punishment,” Eliot countered. “Still, when I first met you, I pitied the person you would end up with.”
I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing at his hangdog expression.
“I guess I was feeling sorry for myself, huh?”
I nodded, happy to have this one last moment of goofy fun and quiet to enjoy before we had to face the harsh reality of the world … which was coming to knock on our door in the form of his mother.
“I was wrong, too,” I offered after a beat. “I thought you were going to be a big mistake. You turned out to be a great idea. In fact, you turned out to be the best idea ever. I happen to have a lot of great ideas, so that’s saying something.”
“Oh, you’re so freaking cute.” Eliot rolled so he was on top of me and buried his face in the hollow of my neck as he made chomping noises. “Do you want to be cute together before I have to head out?”
Now that was an offer I couldn’t say no to. “Absolutely. Then you can make me breakfast.”
“You’re on vacation,” Eliot reminded me. “I thought you would make me breakfast.”
“Do you want to use food poisoning as a way to get out of picking up your mother at the airport?”
“No.”
“Then you should probably rethink your idea to make me cook.”
“Good point.”
“OKAY, MY MOTHER’S flight doesn’t arrive until about one.” Eliot was all business as he watched me inhale my eggs and hash browns. “I have to run to the shop to go over the books and handle a few things with the schedule, but I was thinking you might want to come with me.”
I blinked several times as I swallowed my mashed potato and egg concoction. “You want me to go to the airport with you?” I asked, my stomach flipping hard enough that I worried I might not be able to finish the food I’d insisted that he cook. “I thought we agreed you were going to pick up your mother and then we were going to meet for dinner.”
“We did agree to that.” Eliot fussed with his watchband. “I thought maybe you’d changed your mind or something.”
He knew me better than that. “Or maybe you want me to go with you so your mother can pick on me during the drive back from the airport and leave you to be as kooky as you want to be.”
“Trouble, you’re kooky enough for both of us.”
“That wasn’t a denial,” I pointed out.
“No, it wasn’t,” Eliot agreed, tilting his head to the side. “I might be a little more nervous than I let on about my mother’s visit. I don’t know why, but it suddenly just hit me.”
I pressed the tip of my tongue against the back of my teeth as I debated how to respond. Finally, I said the only thing I could given t
he circumstances. He was nervous and needed me, after all. “I don’t want to go.”
Eliot stared hard. “You don’t want to go?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You know how cranky I get at the airport. I don’t think those are the best circumstances to meet your mother under.”
“I’ve never been to the airport with you before.”
“Oh, well, I guess you have that to look forward to.” I shoveled another forkful of food into my mouth to give myself time. “Besides, I think you need some alone time with your mother at the start,” I added once I’d swallowed. “She hasn’t seen you in years. Yes, I know you’ve spoken on the phone. Still, she’s your mother and deserves your full attention.”
Instead of readily agreeing, Eliot offered up a wry look. “When was the last time you gave your mother your full attention?”
“When I was sixteen and she caught me helping my grandfather burn leaves behind the restaurant. Because the police were there and threatening to take us in, it seemed she was a better option. Why do you think she’s so crazy now? Avery Shaw’s full attention is a thing to behold.”
“I love it when you talk about yourself in the third person.”
“I’ll make sure to do it more often.”
“Please don’t.” Eliot heaved out a sigh as he gave me one final, hopeful look. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
“I’m sure.” I grabbed the folded newspaper resting on the edge of the table. “I have to read the newspaper. Just because I’m on vacation, that doesn’t mean that I can shirk my reporter duties.”
“That’s exactly what being on vacation means.”
“No.” I shook my head and pointed at the front page of the paper. “If I don’t at least read about what my colleagues are up to I’ll fall behind. If I have to catch up when I return to my full-time duties I’ll be even ornerier than usual.”
“And nobody wants that.” Eliot shuffled closer and bent down to give me a kiss. “I’m sad you won’t go with me, but I understand.”
“Great.”
“It just means I will have to carve out some special time for you to spend with my mother tomorrow so she can get to know you.”