Chapter 6
6
6:18 p.m. Thursday, October 31
T hey entered the house through the side door into the mudroom.
Nick and Burt both sniffed the air.
“It smells like meat and cheese,” Nick noted.
“It sounds like a fight,” Riley added as they walked into a kitchen full of chaos.
“You’re late,” Mrs. Penny announced from the table, where their new roommates were crowded around a mostly empty platter of cheesesteaks. The rest of the room was in shambles. A leaning tower of dirty dishes occupied the sink while the countertops were buried under food and food-making items.
“This was supposed to be your birthday dinner, but we got hungry. You two keep such late hours, don’t you?” Lily trilled.
“It’s six o’clock. Most people aren’t even home from work yet,” Nick complained.
“The elderly consume their calories early,” Gabe explained over his foot-long cheesesteak.
“We also eat our desserts first since we don’t know how much time we have left,” Fred said, pointing to the pie plate of mostly crumbs. The man was back in his frosted-tip boy-band toupee.
“Your hair is standing up,” Nick told him.
Fred patted his head like a cat. “Had to vacuum the plaster dust out of it. I kind of like it.”
Riley turned to Nick, looking like she was on the edge of panic. “I have less than an hour to shower, tweeze, do my hair, and slap on an entire face of makeup.”
“Baby, I got this,” he assured her. “The zoo is mine.” Being a man meant he could be ready to walk out the door in under five minutes…six maybe with the fucking tie.
Relief washed over her pretty face. She grabbed him by the shirt and dragged him down for a fast, hard kiss.
“Barf! Get a room,” Mrs. Penny barked.
“Perhaps they cannot since we took so many of their rooms,” Gabe wondered.
Nick gave Riley a swat on the ass. “Go. I got this.”
She sprinted from the room, garment bag flapping behind her like a cape.
“What’ve we got here?” Nick asked, sauntering over to his old-new roommates. He picked up a fork and the pie plate. Burt was already under the table, slurping up all the fallen food like a Dyson. “You’re all on Burt poop duty tonight. Riley and I have plans,” he warned.
“He’ll be fine. A little cheesesteak, chips, French onion dip, and pie never hurt anybody,” Mrs. Penny said.
“What did the cops have to say about the house collapsing?” Nick asked.
“They said something about the roof and then something about the structure,” Lily reported as she sawed her sub in half and offered it to him.
“Very informative,” he noted and threw his half in the pie plate.
“The police said the building is not safe and that we should not enter until a structural engineer completes his investigation,” Gabe explained.
Nick dropped his fork. “How long is that gonna take?”
“The officer with the nice fanny said it could be a few weeks,” Lily filled in.
“Weeks? Weeks? ” Nick was going to have to develop a drinking problem.
“That’s just for the report. The construction will probably take a month or two,” Mrs. Penny added.
“And that’s if we can get on anyone’s calendar. Contractors are booked up, you know,” Fred said, pointing at him with a potato chip. “That’s why Willicott and I were thinking we should do it ourselves. If it goes well, we could start our own roofing company.”
Mr. Willicott needed a lift chair to go up stairs, and Fred had once managed to attach his own toupee to a sheet of plywood with a nail gun.
“Months,” Nick whispered to himself and shoved the cheesesteak into his mouth.
“Subject change!” Fred announced. “Figured out how you’re going to make up to Riley for everything?”
Nick choked. “Wha?”
Lily patted his knee. “It’s okay. You don’t have to pretend with us.”
“Pretend what?” he demanded.
“What these yahoos here are trying to say is you royally screwed the pooch these last few weeks,” Mrs. Penny said.
On cue, Burt’s massive head appeared above the table. He had a crumb mustache and part of a hoagie roll hanging out of his mouth like a cigar.
“We’re here to help you prove to Riley you’re serious about being a better man before she dumps you,” Lily explained, looking at him pityingly.
The food lodged in his throat, requiring him to steal Mrs. Penny’s water glass. He drank deeply, then choked again. “This is straight gin.”
“Gotta stay hydrated,” she said.
Nick mopped his face with a napkin. “I already said I was sorry,” he said in defense.
“And now you have to show it,” Fred said.
Nick dropped the pie plate on the table. “Seriously?”
Mr. Willicott grunted his agreement and then stole Fred’s pie.
“I am in agreement,” Gabe said. “You have made many embarrassing missteps in your brief relationship.”
“You’re still new at this whole relationship thing,” Lily said, tucking a paper towel into his shirt like a bib. “If you’re serious about Riley—which we all hope you are, because she deserves better than Griffin Buttface Gentry—you have to show her how sorry you are.”
“That dude sucks,” Fred agreed.
Mr. Willicott nodded vehemently.
“His check doesn’t suck,” Mrs. Penny reminded them. “But the rest of him does.”
“I’m better than Gentry in every single way. Riley already knows this,” Nick argued.
“I am new to relationships, but it seems to me that there is a possibility your abandonment of Riley in pursuit of your own needs triggered old wounds, reminding her that she has yet to be in a relationship where she comes first for her partner,” Gabe said, steepling his fingers in what Nick considered to be annoying superior piety.
Nick pointed a surly finger at Gabe. “I’ll have you know I make sure she comes first every time.”
“Listen to the wise, muscly hottie Gabe,” Mrs. Penny advised. “I don’t want you fucking this up and then us having to spend every other weekend with you in some filthy bachelor pad.”
“First of all, I’m not getting custody of any of you,” Nick began. But the truth behind her words had already caught up with him.
After his obsessive search for Kellen Weber’s long-missing sister the past few months, Riley had every right to give him the boot rather than graciously accepting his apology. Was it possible she was still harboring a grudge? He certainly would have.
He rubbed at the throbbing behind his temples. “So an apology isn’t enough?”
“Anybody can apologize. According to Blossom, Griffin used to apologize all the time. But he never changed,” Fred explained.
Nick was not liking this conversation. “Okay. So what the hell am I supposed to do?”
Lily shrugged.
Fred frowned.
Gabe looked at the ceiling.
Mrs. Penny burped.
Mr. Willicott raised a red Solo cup with the name Steve written on it. “Feliz Navidad.”
“Baby, we gotta go,” Nick called from where he was pacing in front of the staircase in a damn tuxedo with a damn tie that felt like it was damn near strangling him. He tugged on his collar and looked at his watch again.
He’d showered and changed in Gabe’s bathroom because Riley had barricaded herself in theirs.
“Stop tugging on your tie or Gabe will have to fix it for you again,” Lily warned him.
Nick added Learn to tie a fucking bow tie to his mental to-do list.
All the unwanted roommates besides Mr. Willicott, who was setting up his bedroom in the bar area, had set up a row of chairs on the marble in the foyer facing the staircase like spectators at a tennis match.
“I’m coming,” Riley shouted from the second floor. “Contouring takes a hell of a lot longer than those YouTubers say it does.”
She appeared at the top of the stairs, a vision in red, and Nick forgot how to breathe. His cock forgot the fact that he was almost forty years old and should be mostly in control of his baser urges.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she said as she hurried down the stairs, fastening long dangly earrings in place. She’d done something to her hair to make it curl. Her eyes were a smoky gold, lips a matte pink. And the dress. The goddamn dress.
Nick barely heard the applause from the roommates behind him.
He’d chanced this. He’d gambled with this .
Riley stopped in front of him, cheeks flushed, eyes bright. “What do you think?”
He thought he was the biggest idiot on the fucking planet.
Nick opened his mouth, but nothing coherent came out. There was a lump in his throat. A pain in his chest. He didn’t have words. And maybe that was the problem. Santiagos could hurl insults and dishes with ease. But he couldn’t just tell Riley how he felt, why he loved her, how beautiful she was, or what an unworthy asshole he was.
She did a twirl, and the fabric caught the light like a thousand tiny diamonds.
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Mrs. Penny announced. “Dibs on it for my next date.”
“You look like a romance novel cover heroine about to be ravaged,” Lily decided.
“I’d romance the heck out of you,” Fred said.
Burt plopped his ass on the floor in front of Riley and lifted a paw like a gentleman dog.
“You look like a red lacewing butterfly,” Gabe said with a reverence that snapped Nick out of his fog.
Riley grinned. “Thank you, guys.” Her eyes skimmed over Nick and his suit. “You look good. Really good.”
Everyone was waiting for him to say something. Something good.
Nick swiped a hand over his face. “You have more of that lipstick on you?” he asked finally.
Riley triumphantly held up a tiny, gold clutch. “Lipstick, breath mints, pepper spray, phone, charger, credit card, and Band-Aids.”
Nick nodded. “Good.” With that, he grabbed her, bent her backward, and kissed the ever-loving hell out of her.