Best Served Cold (4 page)

“You won’t have to. Remember, challenge. Keeping you just out of Liam’s grasp is the point.”

“She’s not wrong.” Giff stood in the doorway, snowflakes on the shoulder of his navy blue pea coat and red plaid scarf. His blond hair was damp, but his smile never dimmed.

“Giff!” I jumped to my feet and hugged him. “It’s so good to see you.”

“I’ve missed you.” He squeezed me briefly, and I breathed in his expensive cologne. Walking through a department store cosmetics department always made me think of Gifford. He smelled pricey.

Ava took his coat and hung it from a hook in our bathroom, so it could drip into the shower rather than on the tile in our bedroom.

“What have we got here?” He pulled off his boots and dropped to the floor, surveying the reminder of our picnic. “Have you broken out the good stuff yet?”

“How about some wine?” Ava dug out another plastic cup. “There’s a bottle of sauvignon chilled in the fridge and some shiraz here.” She lifted the bottle. “Or if you’re feeling a little sassy, we have rummy gummy bears, too.”

Giff laughed. “I should be all sophisticated and adult and choose wine, but the bears intrigue me. Bring ‘em on.”

Ava took out the glass bowl that contained our colorful treat—gummy bears swimming in rum--and spooned a generous portion in the plastic cup. Giff eyed them with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism.

He finally snagged one between his thumb and forefinger, examined it and popped it into his mouth.

Chewing with his eyes closed, he nodded.

“I get it. Okay, I am now all about the bears in rum.” He tossed a few more back and then licked his fingers. “Sticky little buggers, though.”

Ava handed him a napkin, and Giff smiled at me as he wiped his hands. “What Ava said when I so rudely interrupted is exactly on target. Stay away from Liam. Don’t try to see him.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m not.” I slid a glance at my roommate. “That kind of pain I don’t need.”

“Good girl. If Liam gets even a hint that you’re still hung up on him, he’ll run in the other direction. Screwed up, I know, but that’s our boy.”

I bit my tongue. I wasn’t still hung up on Liam, but if this was what Giff needed to believe so he would help us, I was willing to go along with it. Behind his back, Ava raised her eyebrows at me. I lifted my shoulder in the slightest of shrugs.

“Giff, it’s really nice that you want to help, but are you sure? I mean, Liam’s your best friend. You don’t feel like you’re...I don’t know, betraying him a little?”

He craned his head back to knock the last few bears out of the cup. “Jules, sometimes people don’t know what’s good for them. You were good for Liam. He was the happiest I’ve ever seen him. I don’t know what spooked him. He didn’t tell me. After the party, he wouldn’t talk about the whole situation. Just said he was ready to be free again.”

I sighed and stretched out on the floor along the edge of the tablecloth. “I think I know what it was. I didn’t at first, but then the more I thought about it--”

Ava faked a look of surprise. “You thought about this, Jules? Really? I never would have known.”

“Shut up.” I kicked at her foot. “So I spent a little time wondering what caused my boyfriend of nearly a year to suddenly break up with me. Sue me.” I turned back to Giff. “About two weeks before the birthday party, the Senator and Mrs. Bailey came down to take us to dinner. You remember that? You went out with us, too.”

“Sure.” Giff rolled his eyes back, thinking about it. “We went to the fancy-ass Italian restaurant, and Liam’s mom didn’t like her meal.”

“Right. So the Senator made a big deal that night about some event this spring. He’s getting an award—the Senator, I mean—and Liam is supposed to be a presenter or whatever. And his dad talked to me about it, told me it was really important and he hoped I’d be there with Liam.”

Giff frowned. “Okay?”

I hugged my knees to my chest as I swung up to lean against the bed again. “Don’t you see? His father assumed I’d still be with Liam at that point. I saw a look on Liam’s face—he was not happy.”

Ava nodded. “The thrill of the chase was officially long over. Once his parents were thinking of you as a long-term girlfriend, he was scared shitless.”

“I don’t know about scared, but definitely freaked.”

“Yeah, that would be classic Liam.” Giff sighed.

I rolled my eyes. “Maybe, but it’s also the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Seriously? So you’re a guy, you have a girl who’s hooking up with you on a regular basis, someone who as far as I can tell, you don’t hate, and just because your parents approve, suddenly you turn asshole? And not only that, you feel the pressing need not only to break up with said girl, but do it in the most hurtful, dick way possible?” I shook my head. “I call bullshit.”

“You’re not wrong. But trust me, sweetheart, it’s the truth.” Giff lay down and reached an arm to the fridge, snagged the bottle of white and sat up again. He unscrewed the top and poured a healthy slug into the cup that had held the rummy bears.

“I’ve known Liam since the first day of high school. I was cocky, with a huge chip on my shoulder about being the scholarship kid at the prep school. And believe it or not, he was geeky and quiet. He was all about the running. We were lab partners in chem, and somehow, we hit it off. I’ve seen him change, saw what the whole ‘I’m the Senator’s son, chicks dig me’ deal did to him.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it was a horrible thing to go through, all that privilege and girls throwing themselves at him. However did he rise above it?” Ava didn’t use sarcasm often, but money and position were sensitive subjects for her.

Giff cocked an eyebrow. “Hey, we all have crap to go through. I’m just saying that a lot of what you see with Liam came from all of the insecurity. Don’t you ever wonder why he still lives in that tiny little dorm with me instead of getting an apartment? Believe me, Mom and Dad would foot the bill.”

“He always said it was for you.” I smiled and patted his hand, and he grinned.

“Well, my charm is definitely a big factor, no doubt. But if you think about it, our boy doesn’t have friends, outside me. He didn’t want to room with anyone else, didn’t want the competition, maybe? You, Jules, were the most real connection I’ve seen him make. That’s why I was so pissed when he screwed it up. On purpose.”

“And it’s why he’s going to help get you two wacky kids back together again.” Ava’s eyes flashed bright over Giff’s head.

“You know it.” He chucked me under the chin, and his cheeks dimpled. “Trust me, kid. We’re gonna work it all out.”

I didn’t sleep well that night. I was uneasy about Giff’s determination to get Liam and me back together, and more than a little guilty about my own plans to throw all that work away in the name of revenge. Liam’s feelings didn’t worry me; the sting of his very public rejection was still fresh enough that I wouldn’t mind tossing some hurt his way. But the idea of deceiving Giff made my stomach turn just a little.

I’d met Giff as soon as I started dating Liam. And looking back, I realized how often he had smoothed things over between us, or taken heat for Liam, deflected blame so that I couldn’t be mad. If not for Gifford, Liam and I might not have dated as long as we did. Was that good or bad? I wasn’t certain.

“Guess what?” I couldn’t contain my excitement, even over the phone, as I dodged other students on the sidewalk.

“Julia, I’m really busy. This project is due tomorrow, and the whole group is dumping the work on me, as usual. Can this wait?”

“No, it can’t.” I switched ears. “Remember that article I wrote on how the Civil Rights movement affected Birch? The Inquirer just called Dr. Rawlings. They’re picking it up, they’re going to publish it next week.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? Liam, are you kidding me? This is huge. We’re all going out to Roddy’s in town to celebrate, the staff and Ava, too. Bring Giff. We’ll meet you there.”

“Julia, are you listening to me? I can’t. I need to get back to work.”

Tears of hurt clustered in the back of my throat, and I couldn’t say another word. I clicked off the phone and stuffed it deep into my bag, so that I wouldn’t be able to hear it if he called back. I shouldn’t have bothered; he didn’t.

Late the next afternoon, I answered a knock at my dorm room door. Liam stood there with a huge bouquet of flowers.

“So are you still pissed?”

I didn’t answer. I leaned against the door jam and raised one eyebrow.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Here.” He shoved the flowers toward me, so I had no choice but to take them. “I’m sorry you’re mad, Julia. I really didn’t have a choice.”

“That’s bullshit, Liam. Everyone has a choice. I get you were swamped, and I would have understood that you couldn’t come out. But you couldn’t be the least little bit supportive? Just a little excited for me?”

He rolled his eyes, and I wanted to hit him. Hard.

“Okay, I get it. I’m a lousy boyfriend. A terrible person. What else do you want me to say?”

I shook my head. If he didn’t understand, there wasn’t any way for me to explain.

“Come on.” He put one hand on my shoulder. “I made reservations for us at Suzanne’s. Get changed, and we’ll go celebrate.”

I turned and let him follow me into the room, and we went to dinner. And that night I let him make it up to me, as he put it, in bed.

The next day, I ran into Giff coming out of the library as I was going in.

“So did you like the flowers?” He grinned at me. “I know you love orchids. I thought they were perfect.”

I closed my eyes. “Did you get the flowers, Giff?”

His mouth drew down, and he blinked. “I—Liam asked me to pick them up, I was going out anyway—it was totally his idea.”

“Giff.” I patted his arm. “You don’t have to cover for him. Liam is...” I looked away, over his shoulder. “Liam is who he is.”

I sleep-walked through the first day of classes Monday morning as the professors droned on about syllabi and expectations and class schedules. I liked all of my teachers now; as a junior journalism student, I’d finished all the core requirements and could focus on my major. No more science for liberal arts (which translated to ‘science-we’re-making-you-take-so-we-look-good-but-you-will-never-use-it’) or math classes, and I wasn’t going to miss them.

I trudged through the snow to the car Ava and I shared. Thanks to her shopping trip on Saturday, our trusty Corolla was cleared off and ready to go. I shivered until the heat kicked in and made my way off campus, careful to stick to the slower-than-snail speed limit.

The off-campus roads were snow-free and moving fast. Old Camptown Pike curved over gentle hills and through vast farmland, now showing brown patches where the snow had blown away. The trees were bare skeletons against the bright blue sky.

It was a beautiful day, in spite of the cold, and just being out, driving on country roads with the music blaring, made me feel a little better. I turned off the Pike onto a long driveway that led to a gray stone farmhouse.

I parked the car a little to the side of the garage and made my way across the snow to the side door. I heard voices within as I knocked on the glass.

“Doolia!” A small body slammed into me when the door flew open. “You’re back!”

I dropped to my knees, grinning. “Desmond, my favorite boyfriend! I think you grew over Christmas!” His little arms clung tight to my neck, and I buried my nose in his brown curls.

“Des, let Julia come in out of the cold.” Sarah’s heels clicked into the room. She smiled down at me. “I think he missed you.”

“I sure missed him.” I rose, still holding his warm three-year old body. “Is it just me, or did he shoot up again?”

She nodded. “I think so. All his pants are short again.”

I nuzzled his neck. “You’re getting way too big!”

Sarah patted his back. “Which reminds me. Would you be up for a little mall trip?” She dug into the huge red leather purse on the table and pulled out an envelope. “Here’s some cash. See if you can find him some jeans, maybe some khakis, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure, no problem.” I hitched Des around to my hip and ruffled his hair. “What else can we do if we go to the mall? Hmm, let me think.” I tapped my lip, pretending to be deep in thought.

“Train!” Des wriggled down and ran to his mother. “Mama, Doolia and me gonna go on the train!”

Three-year old boys were so simple and easy. Desmond had two great loves: trains and kittens. The mall gave us a chance to indulge both of those, since we could stop in at the pet store and ride the tot-sized locomotive that snaked around the stores.

Sarah leaned down to kiss his cheek. “Have fun, you two. I’m off. Julia, I’ll be home about five or so. Not sure if Danny will make it before me or after, but there’s a lasagna in the freezer-if you could stick that in the oven at three seventy-five, I’d appreciate it.”

I pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down, pulling Des onto my lap. “Got it. We’ll get the shopping out of the way first, yes?” I winked at Sarah over her son’s head. “Not that anyone we know would need one, but maybe someone might nap on the way home.”