The Trouble With Before (10 page)

“
That
Lisa.” Hillary’s body relaxes enough that I let her go.

“Can I come in?” Lisa asks quietly.

I nod, and she reluctantly makes her way across my threshold. I close the door behind her.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt anything. I just . . .” Her voice is shaky and low.

Hillary glances at me.

“You got caught in the rain?” I ask, and she nods.

“I’ll go get you a towel,” Hillary says before disappearing.

I have a thousand questions I want to ask her—what is she doing here, why does it look like she just went for a swim—but I can’t because she’s crying.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt anything . . . I just . . . I didn’t have anywhere else to go.” Her voice is trembling and weaker than I’ve ever heard it before.

Hillary comes back with a towel, a T-shirt, and pair of shorts. “You should change into this so you don’t get pneumonia,” she says, offering Lisa the clothes.

“Thank you,” Lisa replies before going off to the bathroom.

“Wow. So she’s back?” Hillary asks in a whisper.

I grip the back of my head, eyeing the doorway. “I-I guess so.”

Hillary lets out a sigh matching mine. She doesn’t know a lot about Lisa from me, but she knows more than enough from Chris and Lauren. Luckily, Hillary’s not the type to judge, and she doesn’t know that Lisa is pregnant. I haven’t told anyone that. I’ve been trying not to think about my former best friend’s screwed up life since I got back home.

The thing is, I’m not the friend you call when you want to bitch and whine about how much your life sucks and need someone to tell you everything’s going to be okay. I’m the friend you call when you want to get shit done. I’m used to fixing things—whether it’s beating someone’s ass or driving across the country, I’m down—but in Lisa’s situation, or at least the state of mind she was in the last time I talked to her, I can’t deal with her. She’s in a situation she shouldn’t even be in, and it seems like her mind is in the same selfish place it was the last time she had this problem, and that pisses the fuck out of me.

“What is she doing here? When’s the last time you talked to her?” she asks.

“Last week. I went to see her in California. I don’t know what she’s doing here though.”

“I thought you had washed your hands of all of it,” she says, shrugging. Her eyes dart between mine and her feet.

She’s usually cool with almost whatever I throw at her, and we’ve been in our share of odd situations, but I think she realizes how fragile Lisa is and how she connects to people we both love. At that moment, I feel connected to Hillary. Even if she doesn’t know all the pieces of this puzzle she knows enough to get that this situation isn’t simple and I have to tread lightly. It also makes me realize that Lauren hasn’t shared the little quest that she and Ms. Red sent me on.

“I thought I had. Still . . .” I try to think of what to say to finish my sentence.

Still what? I still am in the middle of what can be a catastrophe. Lisa is back here in Madison, and it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. As much as I condemned her for leaving everyone else knee-deep in her shit, at this moment, I realize how her leaving made things so much easier on everyone. Well, easier isn’t the word. More like less complicated. Now that she’s back, the comfort zones everyone’s crafted seem less clear.

“Everything is going to be fine.” She takes my hand and squeezes it reassuringly.

I can tell she’s trying to be the calm, thoughtful, level-headed girlfriend she thinks I need and not the fly-off-the-handle on-and-off ex that we usually are to each other.

“Is Grams not home?”

I turn around to see Lisa dressed in the clothing Hillary gave her. Her face seems a lot calmer, though I can tell her nerves are on edge from the way she keeps rubbing her thigh.

“No, she’s at her boyfriend’s.” I clear my throat in the awkward silence.

“Hi, I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Lauren’s best friend,” Hillary says, extending her hand.

Lisa takes it with a small smile. “Yeah, I remember you.”

I look between them and realize how similar they are. They’re the same height, they weigh about the same, their hair is the same length since Lisa has grown hers out, and they would even have the same hair color if Hillary didn’t have so many streaks through hers.

“I’m sorry about earlier.” Hillary laughs, and Lisa does the same.

“No worries, I didn’t mean to intrude,” Lisa says, glancing at her feet.

“No, you weren’t intruding. Actually I’m really tired and am going to head back to bed,” Hillary says, faking a stretch and yawn. “It was nice seeing you again.”

Hillary makes her exit, and I let out a deep breath and fold my arms.

“I bet you’re wondering what I’m doing here,” Lisa says quietly.

She looks at me as if she’s trying to study my face when I’m the one who needs a class on hers. Earlier I could tell she was crying, and she looked like a wet puppy. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. Now I’m just confused.

“I get it.” She nods as if she knows what I’m thinking, which is impossible because I don’t even know what I’m thinking. “I-I just . . . I know that you practically hate me and think I’m the most stupid, selfish person alive, which shows you exactly how pathetic I am since you’re still the one person I
hoped
wouldn’t slam the door in my face.” Two tears are sliding down her cheeks, and I can tell it’s taking everything in her to not let any more come out. “I am really, really screwed.”

She sits on the couch, puts her face in her hands, and quietly cries. I scratch my head. This girl sitting in front of me is so different from the girl I used to know. That girl would rather die than let you see her cry. Regardless if she was wrong or not, she would keep a poker face that could win her money in Vegas.

My thoughts immediately go to Chris. He’s the friend who’d be better at handling this. He’s the listener, the comforter. I don’t know what the hell to say to her. Her life is pretty screwed up right now. I guess the first step is admitting it, right? Or shit, is that just for alcoholics or drug addicts? I try to imagine what I’d do if I were Chris—well, before Chris hated her for sleeping with his dad. I stay quiet and sit beside her on the couch, listening to her quiet whimpers, then I pull her toward me so that she can cry on my shoulder.

“What are you doing?” she says through a laugh.

“I don’t know. I guess what people do in this type of thing?” I chuckle, and she looks up and smiles at me. It’s barely there, but it’s a smile I remember from before all of this happened.

“Thanks for making me laugh,” she says quietly.

Over the next fifteen minutes, she tells me about how she went back home and Evie welcomed her like a bill collector calling at dinner time, and that Evie had let her asshole of a husband lock her out. I clench my fist at the last part. I want to go over there and kick that stupid jerk’s ass. Who the hell does he think he is? I stand and head to the door.

Lisa jumps up and grabs my arm. “No, I didn’t tell you that for you to go to jail!”

I feel my jaw clench and let out a deep breath.

“He’s a pussy. He’d call the police if you go over there. It’s karma. I had this coming,” she says, rubbing her finger over the tattoo she got about five years ago.

On the top side of her arm is the word
fate,
and on the bottom is the word
hope
. She got it the day before I deployed and said that as long as she had those words on her, she knew I’d come back okay. It was
one
moment that was between us, not us and Chris. It was when I knew we were so much more than just friends of Chris. We were something else entirely.

“Then what do you want me to do? You can’t tell me shit like that and think I’m just going to sit here and not do anything!” I tell her.

She nods furiously. “I’m sorry! I just wanted to talk to get it out, not for you to go over there and bash his head in! I have much bigger issues at this point. I’m practically homeless.”

“You’re not homeless. You can stay here until . . . until you get on your feet,” I tell her, trying to push down the anger coursing through me.

She shakes her head. “No, I can’t stay here. I just need somewhere to crash until I can get to the bank in the morning.”

“You said you only have about three thousand in the bank. You don’t have a job, nobody is going to rent to you without one, and you’re going to blow through that if you get a hotel room before you can get some more cash.”

She’s still looking at me with stubbornness all over her face.

“And you have more important things to be banking up for right about now,” I add quietly.

She looks down, defeated. “What about . . . ?” She gestures to the part of the house where Hillary is.

There isn’t enough time in the day to describe what’s going on between Hillary and me. I don’t even know what’s going on between us. From Lisa’s POV, she probably thinks we’re living together.

“Hillary’s cool,” I lie. Hillary will probably be anything but cool with this arrangement.

She looks at me disbelievingly. “The girl who threw wine in Jenna’s face and jumped over the table to kick her ass and threatened me the moment she saw me is going to be cool with your former best friend,
the whore,
staying here?”

“You can sleep in the guest room upstairs until we get things figured out and I’ll see if Hillary has any extra clothes until we can pick up your things.”

She relents with a nod. I lead her up to the room and open the door for her, even though she’s always known where it is. When things went wrong with Evie, Lisa crashed here more than a couple of times.

“I’ll let Grams know you’re here when she gets back,” I tell her even though we both know Grams is the least of her worries. She loved Lisa and Chris.

“I really appreciate this,” she says as I turn to leave.

I give her a wink. “You owe me.” She rolls her eyes, and I laugh. Before I leave, I turn around and look at her. “And you’re not a whore.”

Lisa made a mistake, a huge one, but she’s always been picky with guys. I’d bet money she could count on one hand the number of guys she’s done. Her eyes meet mine, and she looks surprised. A small, genuine smile appears on her face.

“Thanks, Aidan,” she says before I shut the door.

“WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT
is she doing here?” Hillary says, her eyes wide. Eagerness is written all over her face, and her arms are wrapped around her knees.

“She . . . she’s in a really bad spot.” I pull off my T-shirt and toss it on the floor.

“Soo, what happened?”

I sit back on the bed, and she scoots close to me as if I’m about to reveal the secrets of the universe.

“What is she doing back here? Why’d she come to your house? Come on, tell me, tell me, tell me,” she says, whining like a six-year-old as she climbs on my lap.

“She just needs some help and I’m . . . she doesn’t really have anyone else right now,” I say, slipping my hands underneath her big T-shirt.

She immediately scrunches up her face. “Wait, I’m sorry. Were there any salacious details in the statement you just made?” She giggles.

“There really aren’t any sordid details. I just feel bad for her, and we used to be friends. I hate seeing her like this.” I try to kiss her, and she turns her head.

She clears her throat. “You want to try to help her . . . ?”

“Her mom kicked her out, okay? So she doesn’t have anywhere to go, and I’m letting her crash here until she figures things out,” I tell her impatiently as I rub her nipples.

“I mean, what is she doing back here? Didn’t she run off to California? Didn’t you tell me you wanted nothing to do with her after everything . . . happened?” She lets out a little moan. “And wait, did you say she’s staying here?” Her voice goes from low and breathy to almost a shriek, and she swats away my hands.

I reach for her again. “It’s not forever, just until she gets some money and can figure out what she’s going to do.”

“The hell she’s staying here. Have you lost your mind?”

I throw my head back in frustration. If I have to go to bed with a headache and blue balls, I’m going to punch through a wall. “What’s the problem?”

“How’d you like if I let my super-hot male best friend who screwed my best friend’s dad come and stay with me?” She’s standing with her hand on her hips and a full-on pout.

I rest my elbows back on the bed. “I wouldn’t have a problem with that at all. Dude’s obviously gay if he did your best friend’s dad.” I laugh, and she grabs a pillow and hits me with it.

“You know what I mean!”

I do know what she means, and I don’t know how I’d feel about it. Jealous possibly, but as long as I didn’t catch them in the act, I don’t know if it’d bother me that much. But either way, she’s got it all wrong.

“Me and Lisa? You’re kidding, right?” I laugh, but from the expression on her face, I can tell she doesn’t get why it’s a joke. I sigh and grab her arm, then pull her on me. “Me and Lisa would never, ever happen. She’s almost like a sister or something.”

“Almost doesn’t count,” she retorts, and I smile.

Hillary’s sexy when she’s jealous. Well, she’s sexy most of the time, and maybe it’s because I haven’t had sex in a while and she’s half naked, but I’ve never wanted her this badly.