Flirting with disaster, p.27
Flirting with Disaster, page 27
I was going to be fine, I told myself. I was always fine.
“Where are they?” Carrie asked, shading her eyes against the sun, scanning the deck and the path for signs of Mom and Gran. They were religious about meeting us at the dock.
“Hopefully emptying out that front hall closet we’ve been begging them to go through.”
“We should be so lucky,” Carrie grumbled.
We walked off the ferry and down the path to the gate in front of the house. It was humid and the sunlight felt too hot on the top of my head. But everything was an irritant these days.
“Mom?” Carried yelled out.
Mom popped out of the front door, wearing one of the new outfits Carrie had bought her for the cruise. A green and white caftan that matched the visor she wore from the cruise company, and bright orange crocs. For a woman who’d resisted the idea of leaving her home, she had adapted to the new wardrobe very well.
“You look fabulous, Mom,” Carrie said.
“Thank you. Thank you. I am very fond of this one,” she said, striking a pose.
“Where’s Gran?” I asked.
“Having a minor emotional meltdown,” Mom said, her arm linked through mine.
“Why?”
“You’ll see.”
The house had been emptied of most of its furniture. The pieces Mom and Gran wanted to keep were all now stored. The rugs too had been rolled up and stored leaving the hardwood floors bare.
“It’s funny,” I said.
“What is?”
“It’s almost more grand without all the things that have been here so long.”
“I thought so too,” Mom said. “It looks like a fresh start.”
“Are you actually excited, Mom? Or are you just pretending for us?”
“Honey,” she said looking between us. “We are so excited. We can’t thank you both enough for what you’ve done. Now come along. This time I have a surprise for you.”
I heard Gran’s laughter echo in the nearly empty kitchen. I also heard a deeper rumble of a man’s voice and my stomach clenched in sudden understanding.
“What have you done?” I breathed.
“We haven’t done anything,” Mom said, with a suspicious wink at Carrie. “It was all him.”
And there he was. Just sitting at the kitchen table like he’d always been a part of this family.
Levi was here.
Sitting next to Gran. They were looking at pictures. So many pictures.
“Darling!” Gran cried, her face damp with tears and bright with a smile. “You have to see these.”
“Levi, what are you doing here?” I said, my voice shakier then I’d like. “You left for El Paso. On Monday. You took all your plants.”
Levi was still as he looked at me. He gave the impression of a man surrounded by land mines.
“Fiona took my plants while I was gone. I told you. I was always coming back. I got in last night and came out here this morning,” he said. As if it was that simple. It couldn’t be that simple.
“What’s happening here?” I asked, feeling the ground shake beneath me.
“Well, for one thing, we have a bone to pick with you,” Gran said, her eyes narrowed. “You’ve been keeping secrets from us this whole month.”
I looked at Levi, thinking about the secrets I’d kept.
“Did you tell them about the bookstore?” I asked him.
“What about the bookstore?” Carrie asked at the same time Levi shook his head.
“No, I didn’t tell them. I wouldn’t do that. Except you should tell them,” Levi said. “Because they’re your family.”
“What about the bookstore?” Carrie asked again, looking between Levi and me. “If you don’t tell me-”
“My landlord is selling the building,” I blurted.
“The bookstore?” Mom asked. I nodded. She fell back against the kitchen cabinets like she’d been shot. Good lord, this was going to send her to her bed.
“How much?” Carrie asked through her teeth.
“A little over a million dollars,” I said. “Roughly.”
Carrie blinked wide eyes at me. I didn’t know if her reaction was about how much money that was, or the fact I hadn’t told her.
“How long have you known about this?” Mom asked, her hand to her forehead like she could feel a sudden fever coming on.
“A while,” I answered vaguely. “But everything is going to be fine.”
“You never said anything?” Carrie asked.
“We’ve had other things on our plates,” I said, as if it was enough of a reason.
“We won’t go on the cruise,” Gran said, which is what I knew she would say. She looked stricken. It was the last thing I wanted. “We’ll pare down the renovations. We’ll-”
“Do nothing of the sort,” I said, and stepped forward to grab her hand. Cool and wrinkly. Covered in age spots and fake diamonds. “It’s fine. Everything is going to be fine.”
“Yes, Mal Bettencourt is going to buy the building. Annie’s not going anywhere,” Levi told the room.
I blinked at him. “How did you know that?”
They told me on Monday. Mal and Jackson were investing in the building together. They wanted to renovate the whole thing, including expanding the downstairs space to make the bookstore even bigger.
Levi winced as if he knew he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have. “Uh…I…maybe, talked to him about it.”
“About my bookstore? That was none of your business.”
“Wasn’t it?” he asked, showing a hint of his irritation with me.
“Why didn’t you just tell us?” Carrie asked, now she was agitated too. Excellent. This was going to be a fight. A fight I did everything in my power to avoid.
I glared at Levi.
Look at what you’ve done.
He shrugged as if to say, someone had to.
“Because she is used to putting herself last,” Levi said. “Because she believes her worth and value in this family is earned by always providing help and never needing it.”
Mom and Gran made awful noises of distress and pain.
“You should leave,” I said, because he was ruining everything. I didn’t want to upset anyone.
“Annie-” Gran protested.
“No. I want him to leave.” I trembled with rage, with hurt. “You don’t get to come in here and tell my family how to love me when you-” I stopped myself.
“Yes, I do get to, because I love you, too” he said, pointing at his chest. “I have loved you since I walked into your damn bookstore months ago. I don’t know why I tried to fight it so hard. But it’s real and it’s not going away. You want me to leave? I’ll go for now, but I’ll keep saying the words and I’ll keep trying to prove it. Because that is what you deserve.”
Gran sniffed and Mom touched my arm. The air in the kitchen was somehow ice cold and painfully hot at the same time. There wasn’t enough of it either.
“Say something,” Gran whispered. I opened my mouth but nothing came out. The moments ticked by and I was paralyzed.
Levi grabbed his old backpack, his camera and leaned over to kiss Gran’s cheek.
“Goodbye,” he said, and kissed Mom’s cheek, too. He looked at Carrie but she hissed at him like a furious cat. At least someone was on my side.
He walked past me and I braced myself for the scent of him. For the accidental touch of his shoulder against mine.
“Goodbye, Annie,” he breathed out.
He walked out of the kitchen and Carrie ran over to throw her arms around me. I thought to offer me comfort.
Instead she scowled at me and shook her head. “Bad Annie.”
“You’re an idiot,” Gran said.
“Yep. Such a dummy,” Mom agreed.
“Me?” I cried. “What are you all talking about?”
“He was sticking up for you,” Mom said, like I was addle-minded. “And everyone needs that once in a while, Annie. To be put first.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“You need to look at these,” Gran said, pointing to the stack of photos she’d been looking at when we first came into the kitchen. “You know what they say about pictures.”
Gran held up a picture and Mom held up another one. I took them both carefully.
The first one was Gran and me that first day Levi came out to the house. Gran with her eyes closed and her head on my shoulder. My head on top of hers. We were smiling. You could feel how much we loved each other.
The other one was a picture on the ferry, also from that first day. My wide-brimmed hat and the blue sky. I was looking away from him and there was nothing overtly sexual about the picture. Except it was sexy. Maybe because the center of the photograph was my neck, arched away from him.
Gran handed me more. Me on the ferry. There was me walking down the path towards the closed gate. My ass looked amazing.
There was Carrie and me in the bookstore. Sitting in the tea corner, our faces tipped towards each other as we talked.
There was Mom looking regal on the wrought iron chair outside. Gran looking loveable next to her. When had he taken these?
Alex at the shop, wearing his best smokey-eye.
Dylan reading at story hour.
There was me in his bed. I was laughing, holding the sheets to my chest. I looked so happy. So light.
There was him on my bed, Jane curled on his chest. His expression when he looked at me…
I gasped. Did I need proof of how he felt about me? If I did, it was all here.
These pictures. All the love in these pictures. Directed at me. Created for me. Around me. Surrounding me.
He didn’t just love me. He loved my life.
“Go,” Mom urged me.
“Go, or you’ll regret it,” Gran said. “You’ll spend your whole life wondering if things might have been different if you’d just been honest and brave.”
“But the curse…” I said, my voice trailing off.
“Screw the curse,” Gran said.
“I am so over the curse,” Carrie agreed.
“It was stupid from the beginning,” Mom said, folding her arms over her chest. “There was never any curse. Just a bunch of women making bad choices. Don’t be the next one in a long line of Piedmont women to do the same.”
They were right.
I turned and ran out of the kitchen, through the empty house and down the cobblestone path. I ran out onto the wooden pier just as the ferry boat was pulling away.
“Stop!” I shouted at Matt, who was pulling the gangway into the boat, while Carlos steered them out to sea. “Matt, stop the boat!”
“I can’t stop the boat!” he yelled back. “We’re already moving.”
“Get Levi!”
“You need me to punch him?” Matt yelled. “No problem.”
Levi must have heard his name because he pushed his way to the front of the railing. “Annie?”
The boat started to pick up speed, pulling into open waters.
“Levi!” I shouted. The boat started to turn away and he ran along the deck to the stern, keeping his eyes on me. “I love you too!”
“What?” Levi shouted back.
I don’t know what happened. What rom-com movie character overtook me. But somehow I knew this was the time for the grand gesture. I couldn’t do the cheerleading dance that Amy Schumer did in Trainwreck, but I did something equally ridiculous.
I dove into the water and started swimming toward the boat with everything I had in me. Which wasn’t easy in the overalls and the sneakers I was wearing.
There was another giant splash.
I heard the honk of the horn. One short whistle. One long.
The signal for man overboard.
I poked my head up in time to see Matt throwing a ring buoy into the water. Then he spun his finger in the air to let Carlos know to turn the ferry around. There was a crowd on the boat leaning on the railing, all looking at me like I was crazy, but I didn’t care.
But no sign of Levi.
So much for grand gestures. Now I was just soaking wet and causing trouble for Matt.
“Annie?”
“Levi?” I cried and spun around, treading water. He was swimming towards me. “You jumped in?”
“You started it!”
“I was making a grand gesture!”
He laughed, his long hair slipping out of his ponytail and down his neck. I reached forward and brushed it out of his face. His hand came around my waist and our knees bonked into each other as we were kicking to stay afloat.
“I love you,” I said. “I love you so much. I’m sorry I couldn’t say it. You deserve to be loved the way you love. Fiercely and with bravery. I’m sorry I was so scared.”
“Annie,” he said, pulling me closer. He kissed my lips, wet and salty from the ocean. My cheeks, my brow. “I’m sorry I made those stupid rules. I tried to keep myself safe but it was already too late. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I never want to let you go.”
“Yes, that,” I laughed and coughed around the water. “Let’s never let each other go. Except just for this one second so we can grab the buoy, okay?”
He laughed and together we reached for the buoy.
EPILOGUE
The Piedmont Garden Party
Annie
“Oh my god!” Carried groaned next to me as we stood at the dock the next morning and waited for the first ferry to arrive. I was texting Levi again. “He’s going to be here in like an hour.”
What could I say? I already missed him.
Antony and Birdie and Jolie were coming on the first ferry. They were bringing the food. Levi was coming later with the booze. I’d left him and Jane Pawsten asleep in my bed this morning, while Carrie and I got an early morning ride over to the island from Roy to start the preparations.
Antony came off the boat holding two giant bins of food covered with plastic bags in his arms.
“You must be kidding,” he said, looking at the wheelbarrow. “I’m not putting my crab cakes in a wheelbarrow.”
“You’re putting your bins of crab cakes in the wheelbarrow,” Birdie said, coming up beside him. “Don’t be such a food snob.”
“Don’t be such a brat,” he said back to her, and she shook her head, her long dark ponytail swishing over her pretty flowered dress.
She kissed him and said something low I couldn’t hear. Antony laughed, put the bins in the wheelbarrow and kissed her properly.
Another man came off the gangway and it took me a second to recognize him.
He was extremely handsome in khaki pants and a white shirt. There was a camera around his neck, but he had very short hair.
“Levi?” I said.
He stopped in front of me and put the case of bottles he was carrying down on the ground.
“Surprise. I took the early ferry instead,” he said. “I left Jane at home also. I told her to be good or else, and I’m pretty sure she was listening.”
Funny, how Jane’s separation anxiety got better with Levi around.
I reached up and touched the sides of his head. The longer part on top. His hair had a pretty curl to it and I already knew it was soft.
“What did you do?” I asked, in awe of this new man.
“Star did it for me this morning,” he said. “When I woke in your bed this morning, Jane curled around my ankles, all my stuff in your room, I decided I was done grieving. It was time to um…turn the page. I wanted to show you that.”
I stepped back and took him all in. Handsome. Of course. Always. Just as much a sex panther.
But he was also lighter. Brighter. A version of himself with less grief. More hope.
“It’s because you have family now,” I said, and I wanted him to believe it was true. “Me and Jane. Mom and Gran. And Carrie too.”
“Yeah. That’s what it feels like.”
“I love you,” I said. “I love you so much. The hair cut is smoking hot. You look like an Irish poet.”
His brow furrowed. “Is that good?”
“Very good,” I said. “Extremely good.” I couldn’t keep my hands off his head.
“Come on,” he finally said, kissing me quickly on the lips and picking up the case of bottles. “Let’s go find Gran and Mom.”
How quickly he’d adopted them. It made my heart swell so fast and so much that it hurt. Not the hurt I’d spent my life being afraid of. But the hurt a person spent their life longing for. A dream fulfilled. A wish granted.
Gran and Mom were already in excellent form, bossing Antony around in their kitchen. Levi and I set up the bar and helped make a punch. Then with Carrie’s help, we displayed the pictures Levi had taken of Mom and Gran and the house.
The private ones from our bedrooms, we kept for ourselves, obviously.
The second ferry brought Alex and Guillermo. Alex wore cream pants and a wide hat. Guillermo wore bright pink glasses and a smile.
“Annie, my darling. Can I just tell you how your shop changed my life?” he said graciously, his arm around Alex’s waist.
“Mine too,” Levi chimed in, putting his arm around my waist as well.
“I knew it!” Guillermo cried. “I knew it. The sparks between you two were undeniable.”
“I was just a little slow to understand,” I said, running my hand along the shorn part of Levi’s neck. Honestly, I would never get enough of this. Of touching him. Of knowing he was mine.
“Where are you off to next?” Levi asked Guillermo casually.
“Actually, my next movie is filming in northern Scotland,” Guillermo said.
“Really,” I said, with a knowing smile for Alex. “Sounds like a trip is in your future.”
“Yes, he’s going to talk to you about needing some time off,” Guillermo said proudly. “He wants to spend dedicated time working on his YA novel.”
“If you can spare me,” Alex quickly said.
“We’re going to be closing for the renovations Mal wants to do to the bookstore. So it’s perfect timing,” I said.
“It’s just that I hear Scotland is so cold.” Alex gave a little shiver.
“What’s this about a trip? To Scotland?” Madame Za asked as she stepped off the ferry behind Alex and Guillermo. Ever since Gran had called her to ask about the house, their feud had been officially over.
