ThisTimeNextDoor (28 page)

“Who says we got you presents?” Liam asked.

“What he wants can’t be wrapped,” Trixie said.

Mark abruptly stood up. “I’ll get the lighter fluid,” he said. “At the store.”

“Oh, what do you know,” Trixie said, pulling a reusable shopping bag out from under the table. “Here it is.”

Mark grabbed it. “I’ll get to work.”

“It’s your birthday,” Trixie said. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I’d rather keep busy.” Charcoal on his hip, he strode over to the barbecue.

He never looked at Rose, not once.

Chapter 20

“ROSE! WAIT UP!” MARK HURRIED down the path to the parking lot, pulling the family’s wheeled cooler behind him. Rose was disappearing up the path, much more sober than he was. She was hardly weaving at all, whereas he found the gentle undulation of the dirt trail underfoot to take enormous concentration.

Not even sparing a glance over her shoulder, Rose walked faster.

All right, it didn’t take a high emotional IQ to see she was upset.

“Rose, please.” He picked up his pace, ignored the way the cooler wobbled sideways off its wheels and dragged on the ground. “Rose!”

She did stop then, but didn’t turn. Her shoulders were rigid, her hands balled into fists.

Taken aback, he stopped several feet away, let the handle to the cooler slip out of his fingers.

Had Liam said something to her? He’d agonized during the picnic about taking her aside to warn her about his overprotective brother, but figured her cheerful ignorance was a better smokescreen. He’d been relieved when she seemed to take his cue and not act overtly familiar with him in front of his family.

“Rose,” he said, catching his breath. “I need to talk to you.”

She spun around, eyes flashing like blue LEDs. “
Now
you want to talk.”

“Yeah, I need to explain…”

Her hands went to her hips. Her lips pressed together.

He ran his hand through is hair. “Why I was ignoring you,” he finished. The picnic was breaking up; others were certain to come down the path any minute. But she looked too angry to wait.

“Oh?” she said.

“Yes.”

“You can explain?”

“Yes,” he said.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she gave him a look that said,
I doubt that very much, you ugly loser
.

He glanced over his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here so we can talk privately.”

She shook her head and marched away. This time he didn’t catch her until she was almost at her car—the car he hadn’t recognized in the parking lot earlier when he’d arrived because it was so similar to half the other sedans on the road.

She slammed herself inside and started the engine.

Cursing himself for that last and second-to-last beer, Mark ran over and put his hand on the hood of her car. She wouldn’t actually run over him, right? “You’re overreacting!”

The look she gave him through the windshield actually hurt. He felt an urge to throw up his arms to ward off the hostile rays. “I take it back,” he said hastily. “You’re not overreacting. I’m an idiot. Please listen to me.”

She wasn’t listening. When the car started to back up, he scrambled around the hood and jerked the passenger door open, thanking his luck her car was too cheap to have auto door locks as he threw himself inside.

She pushed his knee. “Hey!”

“It’s just like our first date.” He jerked the door shut and reached for the seat belt, breathing heavily.

Rose shoved him harder. “I don’t care if it’s your birthday,” she said between her teeth. “Get out.”

“I need a ride.”

“Your mommy can drive you.”

“Are you upset about the picnic?” He snapped the belt into the buckle. “Or because of what happened at the office?”

Her mouth fell open. “What happened at the office?”

He was wrong, very wrong, but not sure how to get it right again. “So,” he ventured, “it’s because I was kind of aloof today?”

The dam broke. “You didn’t even talk to me! You were too busy having a carb binge.”

“That is it.” He let out a long breath. “I can explain.”

“Sure you can, buddy.” She laughed mirthlessly. “You lost me at
no hello
, you understand? You could’ve made small talk, smiled, anything—” She shook her head, stared straight ahead, scowling.

He put a hand on her leg, her face. “Rose, I’m so sorry. I should’ve called you earlier this week but I wanted to see you in person— ”

“Alone?” Her voice was low.

“Yes. Definitely.”

“God forbid there be people around.”

“In this case, yes,” he said.

She pushed his hand off her leg. “You left the cooler on the path.”

“My mom will see it.”

“Go ahead and get it.” She shifted the car into reverse. “You can put it in my trunk.”

He wiggled his ass into the seat. “I’m not going anywhere, are you kidding? You’ll drive away.”

“I promise to wait for you.”

He snorted. “You’d be lying.”

After a moment, the corner of her mouth twitched. “Yeah, I would be.” She slapped the wheel with her palms. “Fine. I’ll drive you home. But only because it’s your birthday and God forbid I
embarrass
you.” And then she backed up and the Toyota was rattling over the broken concrete to the road ahead.

He rubbed his eyes, more relieved than he’d ever been in his life.

Oh, God. He had to tell her about Sylly. What he’d seen, what he’d threatened.

He took a deep breath, rubbed his damp palms over his thighs. “Thank you.”

She braked for a speed bump. He watched her lovely profile, cheeks brightly flushed, chin up, and took the plunge.

“I was trying to protect you,” he said. “My brother saw you and assumed—well, it wasn’t any of his business. He jumped to all kinds of wrong conclusions, assuming he knows what’s best for me. He still thinks I’m twelve years old.”

“Then maybe you should stop acting like it.”

He swallowed. She didn’t understand. It was more than Mark, it was his mother, the people at work, all that attention when he didn’t even know what she wanted from him, where they were going. “I didn’t want to make a big deal about us—”

“Big deal? You didn’t even thank me for my birthday present.”

A case of duct tape. In assorted colors and prints, including pink zebra stripe. “Thank you. It was really nice.”

“That’s why you thanked me on behalf of your
mother
? As though it had been a gift for
her
?”

Flinching, he rubbed his hands over his thighs. “I’m so sorry. I saw the way she was looking at me and—believe me, the last thing you want is my mother gunning for you to… be with me. If Blair weren’t actually living with another man, she’d be
 
at her door every day, nagging, leaving gifts, teasing, hinting…”

“So you like the way things are, is that it?”

He looked at her. Didn’t she? “There’s more,” he said. “I didn’t know if you’d want to keep seeing me when I told you.”

A humorless laugh escaped her. “How ironic.”

“It’s Sylly. He told me if I ever touch you again”—he stopped, swallowed down the cotton in his throat—“I’m fired. And so are you.”

She braked so hard he almost hit his head on the dashboard. “What?”

The seat belt, as alarmed as he was, locked itself and sliced into his neck. He popped open the buckle to readjust it, reminding himself not to talk to her while she was driving. “At work,” he said. “At
work
.”

With a loud exhale, she drove on. They exited the park, joined the main road west. “Oh.”

He had to tell her everything. “And at his house.”

Her mouth fell open another inch. “God.”

“He’s paranoid about sexual harassment claims, doesn’t want to be connected in any way.” He hoped that would be the end of it.

She sped through the curves winding under the canopy of trees. Another minute went by. “But… how does he know… you said if you ever touched me again at work, which means he knows you did…”

Mark drummed his fingers on his thigh, said nothing.

Her face showed it was sinking in. “Does that mean… Nobody saw… He didn’t…”

“Yes, it does mean,” Mark said softly. “Somebody did.”

“Oh, oh, oh. God.” Her hands nervously patted the steering wheel. “Who?”

“Him.”

She gaped at him, then turned back to the road.

He watched her carefully, alarmed how quickly her angry flush had drained out of her face. Now she was almost as pale as her hair. “I have to pull over,” she said quietly. At the next turnout, a semicircle of gravel in the forest, she swerved to the edge, put the car in park before dropping her face into her hands.

“It’s okay,” Mark said, reaching out to lightly touch her shoulder. He should’ve waited until they go to the house, but he was afraid she’d find some way to eject him out of the car before he could explain. “I’m sure he was exaggerating. He was just upset.”

“Upset.” She brushed his hand off her shoulder.

“At least he’s got plenty of incentive to keep it to himself. Unlike an HR person or somebody.”

She closed her eyes.

“I almost didn’t tell you,” he admitted.

“You almost didn’t tell me,” she repeated.

“I can’t make any decisions for you. Or for us, whatever it is.” He looked down at his hands, back up into her face.

“So if Sylly finds out we’re—whatever it is—I’m fired.”

“Both of us,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “He’s not going to fire you. You’d have to kill puppies on YouTube before he fired you, and even then he’d suggest therapy first.”

“He’d fire me. Believe it. Nobody’s indispensable, nobody.”

“Damn,” she said, shaking her head, lost in her own thoughts. “Damn.”

“I’m sorry. I never should’ve—I’ve put you in this position.”

Finally she turned to face him. “You’re giving yourself too much credit. I didn’t do a thing to slow it down.” She shook her head slowly. “Neither time.”

He’d expected her to be upset, but not this much. “Whatever you want to do, I understand,” he said.

“You’d love it if we kept sneaking around, wouldn’t you?”

He suspected “yes” was the wrong answer to that question. “I don’t want to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“Oh, sure. Well, newsflash. I don’t sneak around with anybody.”

His stomach sank so deep it was practically touching the gravel under the car. “I can understand that,” he managed to say.

“Not at work,” she said, narrowing her eyes, “and not around your family.”

For a moment he drifted out of his body and looked down at himself—helpless, fumbling, speechless in the passenger seat, wanting to say the perfect thing that would bring the warmth back into her eyes. But all he said was, “Right.”

“You didn’t tell your family about me,” she continued, “but it had nothing to do with Sylly or work, did it? You still wouldn’t want to tell them about me.”

He closed his eyes. Shook his head.

“That’s what I thought.” Pivoting away from him, she twisted the steering wheel back towards the road, looked over her shoulder, and hit the gas, sending gravel spinning back behind them into the redwoods.

* * *

He called that night. Rose stared at his name on her screen. She let it go to voice mail, then waited for the message to show up.

“Hi,” his recorded voice said. Then a long pause. “It’s me. I was kind of hoping you would talk to me.” Another pause. “But you aren’t. Unless you’re talking to me in your mind and I just can’t hear you. God, that sounds stupid. If this were an email I’d delete that part. Actually, I’d cancel it and start over. Which is one more reason why email is a technological improvement over phone mail.” He sighed. “I’m really doomed now, aren’t I? Right. Well. Call me or answer my next call. Of course you could be in the bathroom or something and you— forget I said that. Delete delete delete. In case you don’t recognize my voice, this is John.” Then he hung up.

 
I liked this guy, dammit,
she thought, staring at the phone. She bit her lip, fought back tears. Why couldn’t he be just a little bit… more?

The house was quiet, dark, empty. She’d always dreamed about living alone. Growing up without any privacy, always living with family and classmates and friends, she’d thought it would be delicious. But now—

 
It had been two weeks since Blair lost the baby. She said she was fine, that she didn’t need Rose to keep her company anymore. But there was no harm in checking in.

Blair picked up on the second ring. “I was calling to see how you’re feeling,” Rose said.

“You’ve been listening to me for weeks. It’s your turn,” Blair replied. “How was the birthday party? I was hoping you might call tomorrow, if you know what I mean. Because you’d be too busy tonight.”

Rose swallowed, determined not to lose her grip. “It didn’t really work out.”

“Oh,” Blair said. “Look, he’s shy. You might have to make the first move.”

“That’s not it. As long as other people aren’t around, he’s all over me.”

Blair knew all about how John had treated her. “Oh,” she said again.

“Yeah. I’ve got alarm bells going off.”

“You’ve always got alarm bells going off—usually around the third date,” Blair said.

“I do not.”

Blair was quiet.

“I do not,” Rose repeated.

She still didn’t say anything.

“Fine,” Rose said. “I have high standards.”

“Unlike me?” Blair asked.

Rose went into the bathroom, looked at herself in the mirror. Pretty eyes, pretty lips, pretty hair, blah blah blah. She’d heard a lot about her pretty face growing up, not so much about the rest of her, even from men she slept with. John had been one of the few to appear satisfyingly worshipful.

Was that what she needed? Worship?

“I’ve watched my mother put herself down my whole life, settling for losers, never thinking she deserved better,” Rose said. “I refuse to make the same mistake.”

The line was silent for a moment. “I think you’re overthinking this,” Blair said. “He’s not a loser and you’re not marrying him or anything. Just give him a chance. See where it goes.”

Rose bent over the vintage pedestal sink until her forehead bumped the mirror. Her ego was still recovering from the damage John had done, and she actually liked Mark as a person a lot more than she’d liked John. Way too much. “He wants to keep everything a secret. We have to be sneaky at work—that’s another story—but in private, too. Everywhere.” She paused. “He lets his mother think he’s in love with you.”