Chapter Sixteen
“H ey, Aunt Jules,” Harry greeted me as he and Hannah entered the house. “What’s the plan? Are you trying to give the guy a heart attack or a perpetual stiffy?”
“The second one,” I said.
“Well, Hannah brought outfits for both,” Harry said. “Personally, I’d go for the miniskirt with the cropped top, but she likes the minidress.”
“It’s just a bit subtler. I also like the leggings and red sweater combo—casual but hot.” Hannah had several hangers draped over her shoulder.
I was relieved that they’d both dressed for the occasion, knowing my plan to see the band and bag the guy. Harry was in jeans and a dress shirt and Hannah wore a cute pink minidress paired with cowboy boots. Adorable! I felt sort of bad using them as decoys, but then again, it was quality family time together and they were getting paid.
“This is the same guy who was staring at you at Gram’s funeral, right?” Harry asked. “The poor bastard whose heart you ripped out when you were teenagers?”
“Yes,” I said. “Thanks for the phrasing there, by the way—you make me sound like a total beyotch.”
Harry shrugged as if to say he called it like he saw it. Men!
“Well, I think trying to win back your high school sweetheart is very romantic,” Hannah gushed.
She dropped the clothes on the couch and clasped her hands in front of her in a total Disney princess pose that made me smile.
“Maybe I should just have a chat with him.” Harry cracked his knuckles ominously.
I realized my nephew was several inches taller than me and on his way to being a real live adult male. I glanced over at Hannah in her dress and saw that she was more woman than girl. When the heck had this happened?
It had been our tradition that every year they came to me for their spring vacations. We did it all: Central Park Zoo to the Empire State Building to tickets to the Late Show, but now they were like mini adults and pretty soon they would be leaving home for reals.
“You two are really growing up,” I said.
They both looked at me, and then at each other, saying together, “She sounds just like Mom.”
No wonder Sophie was struggling with her babies becoming adults and off for a summer in Switzerland, and the year after that, college. What would life be like for her and Stan with the twins gone?
“How is your mom handling your upcoming departure?” I asked.
The wore matching wary expressions.
“Tell me the truth.” I placed my hand to my heart.
“She cries a lot,” Hannah said.
“Yeah,” Harry nodded. “And staying here with you and Aunt Emily isn’t helping.”
“Because she’s missing you?” I asked.
“That and...” Harry’s voice trailed off and they exchanged another look.
“What?” I asked. They were quiet, so I pushed. “I can’t help if I don’t know.”
“She and Dad fight a lot.” Hannah said the words quickly as if speed would make it less damning.
“It’s not good, and it’s not Mom. It’s not her at all. To be frank, Dad is being a real prick,” Harry said. He donned a look of someone wiser than his years who expected better than what he was seeing in his father. In his young face, I saw the man he would become. It filled my heart because I knew he was going to be a good one.
“Tell you what,” I said. “While she’s here with me, I’ll see what I can find out and I’ll make sure she’s okay.”
“Thanks, Aunt Jules,” Hannah said.
They relaxed in relief, and I realized they’d hoped to talk to me tonight about this. It made me feel good to know that I could do this for them. Despite the miles between us, I had always adored these kids.
Harry glanced at his phone. “Okay, I have a hot date at nine, so if we’re doing this, we need to get going.”
“Nine?” I asked. “Who has a date that starts at nine?”
“Me,” Harry said. “Since that’s when she gets off of her shift at Deluca’s.”
“You’re dating a waitress at Deluca’s?” This was news. I wondered if Sophie knew.
“Hostess,” Hannah clarified.
“Still,” I said. Deluca’s had been Gulf Harbor’s family-owned Italian restaurant for generations. It was well known that they only employed family members. “She’s a Deluca? Have you met the folks yet?”
“Not yet,” Harry said.
He sounded as if he was trying to be confident but since everyone knew that if Johnny Deluca took a dislike to you, you were never setting foot in Deluca’s again. Harry was wise to be nervous; they had the best linguine and clam sauce for fifty miles. No one wanted to be banned from that.
“Just mind your manners and respect her curfew and you’ll be fine,” I said.
“No worries, I got this.” Harry winked at me and pointed at me with both index fingers.
“Yeah, that,” I said, twirling my finger at him. “Don’t do that.”
He laughed and Hannah, at the end of her patience, grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the stairs.
“Come on, let’s get you dressed. I am dying to see these boots of Aunt Emily’s. Do you think she’d let me borrow them?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m pretty sure you have to be over twenty-one.” Not even kidding.
Hannah and I rejected several outfits until we found the right combo of “knock him to his knees” and “don’t get arrested.”
When we arrived downstairs after an inordinate amount of time on make-up and hair, honestly, being a girl is a lot of work, Harry glanced up from his phone and gave us a wolf whistle.
“Wow!” he said. “Liam is definitely going to have “the second one” at the sight of you. Now I’m glad I’m going to be chaperoning this outing. I might have to throw a few punches to keep the men from getting grabby.”
“You think?” I glanced down at the thigh high boots we’d managed to pull up over a pair of black leggings paired with a red off-the-shoulder cropped sweater that hugged my curves in all the right places.
“No need, we’re not going to be there that long,” Hannah said.
“Huh?” Harry looked bewildered.
“Liam needs to see Aunt Jules,” my niece explained. “Just long enough so that she’s seared onto his brain when he goes home tonight, and then she needs to poof!”
“Poof?” Harry asked.
“Poof,” Hannah repeated.
“Do all girls work this hard to get guys?” Harry shook his head in disbelief.
“Yes,” Hannah confirmed at the same time I said, “I have no idea.”
“Trust me, bro.” Hannah spoke as if she had a direct line to the experts. “If a girl likes you, she puts in effort. If she doesn’t, well, that’s your answer and you should probably just move along—nothing to see there.”
Harry glanced between us, and I shrugged. “It’s my first run at man chasing. Frankly, it hasn’t been going well.”
He looked thoughtful and I had a feeling his hostess had better put in a token effort, or the boy would be completely flummoxed.
A friend of Em’s had picked her up earlier, so I helped myself to her keys. I was mostly confident she wouldn’t mind and led the way out the door.
“Aunt Jules, I have a question,” Harry said.
“If it’s birds and bees stuff, ask your mom,” I said.
The twins blanched. I almost laughed, knowing that Soph hadn’t been exaggerating about her sex talk PowerPoint. I unlocked the car and we all piled in, Hannah and me in front and Harry in the back.
“No,” Harry said. “This is family stuff.”
“Okay, shoot,” I said. I started the car and backed out onto the road. I saw Babs’s urn sitting on the window ledge per her request. I felt a surge of resentment that she could still manipulate all of us from behind the veil but I shook it off. I was on a mission tonight and could not afford to get distracted.
“If Gram wasn’t your mom, are we still, like, as related as we used to be?”
I flinched. I hadn’t seen that one coming. My voice when I spoke was fierce. “Yes! Of course! Your grandfather was my dad and your mom’s and Aunt Em’s, too, so yes, absolutely we’re still blood. Why do you ask?”
“Cousin Paisley came by the house,” Harry said. Hannah swiveled around from the front passenger seat to glare at him in the back, but he squared his shoulders and kept going. “She was trying to get Mom and Dad to cut you out of the will since you’ve been gone for so long and ‘cause you’re not really Gram’s daughter.”
I felt all of the blood drain out of my head into the pinched toes of my boots. My temples contracted with rage, but I took a deep breath through my nose and cleared my throat.
“What did your mom say?” I asked.
Hannah burst out laughing and said, “She told her to fuck off.”
“Hannah!” I cried.
“She did.” Harry grinned. “That’s a direct quote. It was pretty epic.”
I tucked my smile into my cheek. If Soph was here, I’d have squeezed the stuffing out of her. “Then what happened?”
“Paisley was butt hurt and stormed off,” Harry said. “And then Dad lit into Mom for her language and for not being polite to Paisley. It got rough.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Long marriages go through growing pains. It could be that’s what’s happening with your parents.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Harry sounded doubtful.
I reached back and patted his knee. “Don’t worry. Like I said, I’ll keep an eye on your mom.”
“Cool.” He nodded and his shaggy blond hair covered his face.
I couldn’t believe Soph hadn’t told me about Paisley. I supposed she figured I had enough on my plate given that I was dealing with the big reveal about my origins, but she didn’t need to protect me. Not from Paisley. If there was one good thing about this whole melodrama, it was discovering that I wasn’t blood related to that royal pain in the ass. See? There’s always a silver lining. Sometimes you just had to look for it.
We arrived at Liam’s Coffee Shop to find the band was already playing. They were a guitar-heavy jam band, and the crowd was grooving. It was standing room only so I planted myself at the back, but Hannah grabbed my arm and shook her head. She forcibly dragged me—and I do mean dragged since I was afraid to lift my feet and was doing this weird loping slide-walk so as not to trip and break my neck in these ridiculous boots—until Liam’s office door was in our line of sight. My hands started to sweat and I almost bolted. I wasn’t sure I was up for this, especially if rejection was looming.
“Hang tough, Aunt Jules,” Hannah said. “We just need to know that he’s seen you and then you’re free to run.”
“Okay,” I said. “But how will I know?”
“Oh, you’ll know,” my niece said with confidence.
Harry arrived with cappuccinos for the three of us and the two of them started to groove to the band. I did not move for fear that I would fall over. As it was, I had to mince my steps because the pencil thin stilettos were making it impossible to keep my balance. Seriously, how had Em walked in these?
The band was really good and as my balance improved, I bobbed a bit to the music. Okay, mostly I was just nodding my head, but still I was in motion. I took that as a victory.
We’d only been there a few minutes when I got the feeling someone was watching me. I turned, all aflutter, expecting to find Liam staring at me. It was not Liam, rather, but some other guy whose gaze was locked on my boots like they were the answer to his every fantasy. Ew.
This dude was short, stocky, with a sweaty upper lip, a bad comb-over, and thick fingers, one of which he used to dig wax from his ear while he stood there. He stared at my boots with an intensity that made me think he wanted to try them on. Oh, ish !
I gave him a withering look and turned away. The crowd had gotten thicker, and a few people had wedged themselves between me and the twins. I wondered if I should push my way forward, but didn’t want to risk falling on my face.
Someone approached my side and when I glanced down, I discovered short guy staring at my boots, licking his fleshy lips.
“You can’t have the boots,” I said.
“Can I just touch one?” His hazel eyes were wide and glassy. “I just want to feel how the leather hugs your calves.”
“No,” I said. “Absolutely not.”
“Just one finger,” the man said. “Aw, come on, I promise I won’t do any more than that.”
“No!” I used my cat scolding voice. It worked as well on him as it did on my cats. In other words, he ignored me.
“Please,” he whined, beginning to pant. “I’m begging you.”
No one around us was paying any attention to the shoe perv beside me. Hannah and Harry were too far away to hear my shout over the band. And the troll next to me looked so excited I just wanted him to go away. Feeling trapped, I figured if I let him touch one boot with one finger maybe he’d be satisfied and git.
“All right, fine,” I snapped. “One finger on the toe of the right boot for three seconds and that’s it.”
Excitement flared in his eyes like a banked fire getting hit with a blast of oxygen.
“My lovelies!” he cried.
The next thing I knew I had some strange guy’s head wedged between my knees as he hugged my boots with both arms. His momentum made me teeter on my already shaky pins and I flailed my arm as I tried to catch my balance and not spill my cappuccino.
“Hey! I said one finger, you little pervert,” I shouted over the din of music. “Get off me!”
The strange little man had quite the grip, however, and I couldn’t move never mind shake him loose.
Desperate for help, I glanced up and, of course, this was how Liam found me in the middle of his coffee shop with a strange man smooching the instep of my right foot.
“Argh!” I tried to jostle the stubby guy off. “Stop that! Oh, god, no tongue! That is disgusting!”
“Problem?” Liam asked as he moved through the crowd to join us.
I blew out a breath and studied the balding head between my feet. This was so not how I had expected this evening to go. Instead of Liam giving me scalding-hot looks and having the image of me burned onto his brain, yeah, no, my ex had his lips pressed together as he tried not to erupt with laughter.
“Rodney,” he said as he bent over so the guy could hear him. “We’ve talked about this behavior before. You need to rein in the shoe fetish and let go of her boots.”
“But they’re black patent leather and go to mid-thigh,” Rodney mumbled with his face pressed against the inside of my knee as he smelled the leather. “You know that’s my weakness.”
Enough was enough. I didn’t think Liam was going to be able to talk the guy off the leather, so I figured it was time to bring in some back up I’d learned during a self-defense class.
I lifted one foot, bent my knee and shouted, “Incoming!”
I clocked the short man in the temple and Rodney dropped like a stone, letting go of my boots. I took several wobbly steps away from the boot-licker and sipped my cappuccino.
“Whoa,” Liam said. “Nice move.”
“Thanks.” I shrugged.
“Rodney, you okay?” Liam reached down and slapped Rodney’s cheek with three quick pats. Rodney blinked, and Liam helped him up to his feet. “What do you say, Rodney?”
Rodney peered at me with dazed eyes. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I lied.
“I really, really love your boots.” Rodney braced like he was going to lunge again but Liam held him by the back of his shirt.
“I got that,” I said. “Go away now.”
“Rodney, you broke your promise and now you can’t come in here anymore,” Liam said as he hauled him toward the door. “Next time I see you, I’ll call the police. Got it?”
Rodney gave him a dejected nod. I watched the two of them walk away and felt decidedly grossed out. I grimaced at my boots. There was some saliva on them. Gag! Em was going to kill me.
Realizing there was absolutely no way to salvage the night, I leaned over the people in front of me to tap Hannah and Harry on the shoulders. I figured it was safe to call the time of death on this outing.
They both looked back at me, and I jerked my head in the direction of the door. Hannah’s eyes went wide while Harry looked around, wondering if he had missed something. Boy howdy, had he and I was so glad that I didn’t have to explain to his mother how her son got to see a shoe fetishist up close and personal because of me.
“So, did he see you?” Hannah asked as we reached the outskirts of the crowd.
“Oh, yeah,” I said.
“Was “the second one” involved?” Harry asked.
“In a manner of speaking.” I was pretty sure that good old Rodney had been sporting wood at the sight of my boots. Harry and Hannah gave me an identical inquisitive look and I said, “I’ll explain on the way home.”
When we reached the door of the coffee shop, I scanned outside to make sure that Rodney was gone. The coast was clear, but as I walked out, Liam walked in. We blocked each other’s paths, and I noticed he took a moment to let his gaze wander down my body from my wild curls to my toes.
“Nice boots.” Liam chuckled and walked around me into the coffee shop, leaving me feeling as sexy as Sunday dinner leftovers.
Hannah and Harry stopped behind me as I stepped into the night air and paused to draw a cleansing breath.
“Call me crazy,” Harry said. “But that doesn’t seem to have gone as planned.”
“Boots!” A high voice squeaked from my right.
“Ack!” I cried. “It’s Rodney! Run, kids, run!”
Thankfully, their survival skills kicked in and both Hannah and Harry dove for the car. I managed to shove the key into the ignition and jet out of the parking lot before Rodney could reach us. I had a feeling he would have happily jumped onto the front like a hood ornament if it meant he got one more lick of my boots. Bleck!
As we high-tailed it home, I explained to Harry and Hannah about Rodney’s infatuation with the boots. Harry laughed so hard he was sure he strained some muscles he’d been planning to use on his date. Hannah seemed a bit sick. I was with her there. There was no way I wanted to tell Em what had been done to her boots and I hoped to heck that we had some industrial leather cleaner back at the house.
“I have to declare Operation Boots on the Ground a complete bust,” Hannah said.
I parked in the driveway, and we all climbed out of the car.
“I don’t know,” Harry said. “They sure worked on Rodney.”
“I can never unsee that,” I said. “I might need therapy, or shock treatment, or something. What a waste! These bad boys sure didn’t work on Liam.”
“Maybe you just need to be straight with the guy,” Harry said. “I saw how he looked at you before. If you tell him how you feel, I bet he’s all in.”
“Or he’ll inform me that he hates me and get a restraining order,” I said.
“Then he’s a moron and you’re better off without him,” my nephew said.
I hugged Harry tight and ruffled his hair. “I love you.”
“Love you, too, Aunt Jules,” he said.
“This is just a minor setback.” Hannah hugged me too. “I’ll keep thinking. There has to be a way to crack this guy. Love you.”
“Love you, too, pumpkin,” I said.
I watched them walk to their car, feeling the slightest bit envious of their youth and optimism. At the moment, I felt neither, so I went into the house and decided to eat my feelings with a bowl of Tillamook horchata ice cream while I debated the funk I was in.
“Em?” I called my sister’s name. There was no answer. I yelled louder. “Em, I’m home and I need ice cream therapy. Join me?”
I stood listening. Nothing. Having lived alone for the past five years, I was surprised by a sudden blast of loneliness. I tried to shake it off. It wasn’t like me to feel that way; honestly, I preferred being alone most of the time and living with my sisters had been an adjustment.
Mr. Loren had been very clear that there was no wiggle room in the will and we were all reporting home every night to sleep in our own beds as dictated.
I assumed it was my spectacular defeat in the man-catching arts that had me bummed. I debated calling Soph to see what she was doing but remembered she and Stan had some event at the country club and she would be home late. My sister was probably busy charming all of the other doctors’ wives. She was brilliant at making other people feel at ease. It was like her superpower. Except when she told Paisley to fuck off. That made me cackle.
While I plowed through my bowl of ice cream over the kitchen sink, I wondered how Soph felt about the role of doctor’s wife. She had always been the creative one of the three of us and her passion had been art, painting specifically. While I’d spent my days riding the waves, Soph had painted the waves and Em had curled up with a book under a nearby tree ignoring the waves. A feeling of nostalgia hit me and I missed the peaceful simplicity of our youth even if I now knew a large portion of it had been a lie.
I thought about my birth mother, Lisa, and what my life would have been like if she hadn’t walked away. I couldn’t imagine. And wasn’t that saying something? I had no idea what it would be like to have a mother who loved me just for me. I had been sharpened on the rough stones of Babs’s disappointment and disapproval. Who would I be without it? I had no clue. I felt a snuffle shoot down my nose. I refused to give in to it. I was so very tired of crying for what could have been. I put the bowl in the sink and rinsed it out.
The house was quiet, too quiet. Where was Em? I hadn’t seen her all day and I missed her. Come to think of it, I had no idea how she was keeping busy these days during her leave of absence from work. I hoped it was fun or at the very least distracting. Em was so serious for a woman her age, I paused to glance down at her boots. Okay, she had been serious—maybe she was overdue for this rebellion.
I opened the cupboard under the kitchen sink looking for something to clean the leather with as I could not in good conscience return the boots with Rodney’s saliva on them. Ew.
I found a tub of leather furniture wipes and figured that was good enough. I used the window seat in the kitchen to prop my leg up as I ran a couple of leather wipes from the thigh all the way down to the toes and back, repeatedly. It was easier to clean them while still wearing them. Also, I dreaded taking them off because I was afraid my feet were going to spasm.
I dumped the first set of wipes and reached for more when I got that old familiar feeling of being watched. At first, I thought Rodney had tracked me down for the boots, gross , but as if my body was in tune with his, I knew immediately that it was Liam.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the light coming from the second story of his house. I didn’t look at him and instead checked the reflection of his window in the glass vase that sat on our kitchen table. It was distorted but it was easy to see that a large male was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, staring at me while I scrubbed down the boots.
Well, well, well! It seemed I was going to be putting on a show after all.