Chapter 9
Bellini
“I don’t need your help, Logan,” I panted as I pushed myself between Lewis Standard and Parker Helcher and tried to shove them apart.
It had been a long evening at the bar, and I was ready to go home.
It was mobbed—I knew many of the people in there, so there was a lot of chatting—our wait staff was overwhelmed, and our cooks were working at a bionic level.
Now this. A bar fight. Two men hollering and taking swings at each other.
People stood around and watched, grinning and cheering, as if this whole scene was going to make their night extra special.
I heard, “Here she goes, everyone!” and “Bellini’s doing her thing!” and “Now they’ve ticked Bellini off. You know she’s got a temper!”
For heaven’s sake! I ignored it all.
Parker was upset because Lewis was an über-rich executive in Seattle and a snob to boot, and Lewis was upset because Parker beat him at pool and was bragging too much, which he had a habit of doing. “Stop it, Lewis! Parker, get control of yourself. What are you doing?”
They yelled at each other over my head as I tried to wrangle them apart, and Logan popped in beside me and shoved both of them, hard, one hand on each chest, sending them sprawling to the floor with no effort at all. Lewis did a backward somersault. It was like watching a superhero.
“You may not need my help,” Logan said to me, not even breathing hard, “but I don’t like seeing you smashed between two fighting men.”
“You think I haven’t been in this position before?” I wheeled on him, my hair falling into my face. Lewis scrambled to his feet, and I said, “Out, Lewis, now!” and Parker, slower to get up because he’s the size of a tree, swore at Lewis and called him an “entitled, wealthy, spoiled worm.”
I raised my eyebrows at Parker. “An entitled, wealthy, spoiled worm? That’s all you could come up with?”
Parker shrugged in defeat. He has an English degree. He writes poetry. “I’m on the ground, Bellini. It’s all I could think of.” He awkwardly wrangled himself up, brushed himself off, and pointed at Lewis. “Go back to your mansion.”
“Why don’t you go back to your hovel?” Lewis said. “And quit bragging about pool, you big braggart!”
Wow. A hovel? “That’s rude and unkind, Lewis,” I snapped at him. Parker does not have a hovel. It’s a home. Run-down and worn out, but it sits on twenty acres on a lake. Probably worth millions. “Take that back, right now.”
“Do not insult my home!” Parker charged at Lewis, and Logan and I caught him. To calm him down I grabbed the plastic ketchup bottle off the table and squirted him on his chest.
I heard people clap and cheer. “There she goes!” and “That’s ketchup clever!”
“Ketchup calms the crazy, cacophonic clamor!” someone hollered out, a startling alliteration. I figured it was Mrs. Elliot, a college English professor.
“Come on, Parker. This is my bar, and I’m telling you to chill out,” I told him, as he sputtered and wiped the ketchup off his chest.
Lewis kept charging, his mouth open and hurdling insults about Parker’s “dumb truck” and I squirted him in the face once Logan and I grabbed him.
What a mess! He looked like he was bleeding from the mouth.
The customers clapped and cheered again. “Peace by ketchup!” someone shouted. “Fake blood!”
“Lewis, what the hell?” Logan said, standing smack in front of me as if I needed protection, which I don’t. But my goodness. His shoulders were so wide. His back so huggable. His hips, well, solid. “Do not insult someone’s home.”
Lewis finally looked abashed. Embarrassed. He spit out ketchup.
“You owe Parker an apology. Not everyone has to live in a mansion,” I said. “Apologize right this minute and make it sincere.” I held the ketchup bottle up again to show that I meant business.
It was like looking at bloodied first graders trying to get up the gumption to apologize. They were both flushed and upset.
“Okay.” Lewis stuck out his hand and wiped his face with his arm. “I’m sorry, Parker. The comment about your home was uncalled for. You have a cool house. Great view. I love the lake.”
Parker shook his hand. “I’m sorry I called you an entitled, wealthy, spoiled worm. That wasn’t nice.”
Lewis teared up. “You know I get tired of being called stuff like that.”
Parker nodded. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“You two are half-brothers,” Logan drawled. “You’ve got to learn to get along better.”
Everyone clapped again. They loved a fight and sincere apologies, especially between brothers.
“Now apologize to Bellini,” Logan said. “Right now.”
They both apologized, sincerely, with heart.
“Thank you. But you know fighting is not allowed in here so you two can’t come back until Christmas caroling night,” I said, crossing my arms. “I cannot have fighting in this fine establishment.”
Parker was so unhappy he actually gasped. “Not until Christmas caroling?”
“No.” I opened the door, shoved Parker out with Logan’s help, and said, “You’re both out.”
“That long?” Lewis said, following his half-brother.
“That long,” Logan said. “Goodbye.”
“Shoot,” Lewis said. “Look what you did, Parker.” And they were at it again.
This time, Lewis called Parker an “odd little hermit,” and Parker called Lewis an “inveterate snob, an egotistical piece of algae scum” and accused him of “ruining my Christmas,” to which Lewis said if Parker did not come to his house for Christmas dinner, he would “never speak to him again.”
As they continued their argument down the street, I whirled on Logan, the red Western-style doors shutting behind us. The cool air and quiet felt soothing after the heat and cacophony of the bar, but I wasn’t soothed. “Honestly, I do not need rescuing or help. I can handle everything myself.”
“Yes, you can. I know. You’ve always been clear about that, Bellini.” There was an edge to his voice.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Why did you say it like that?”
The wind picked up the snow and swirled it. “It means that you’re independent. You clearly don’t need help. I get it. You run your own life, and you’re capable and competent. You don’t need a man, you don’t need me, to do any rescuing.”
I’m a feminist, but the thought of having Logan around, Logan in my life, protective and strong, someone to talk to and laugh with, someone to cry on, someone to play chess with and talk about books—oh, I wanted that.
I had to acknowledge that it was pretty romantic for him to leap right between Parker and Lewis when they were swinging at each other.
He didn’t want me to get hurt, and he shoved both men away and sent them tumbling.
He was always like that when we were together.
It started in second grade when a boy pushed me to the ground, and Logan came flying across the playground to help me.
He grabbed the frightened kid, lifted him off his feet, and told him, “If you ever push Bellini again, I will beat you up.”
It happened again in middle school when a new boy hit on me and wouldn’t let me step around him, trying to trap me against my locker.
He made rude comments and tried to press his body to mine.
When I struggled, he grabbed my hair. I remember how scared I was, but my temper leaped out like a sledgehammer.
I was getting ready to shove my books into the guy’s chest and knock him over when Logan grabbed the back of the boy’s jacket, spun him around, and sent him smashing into the lockers across the hall.
That guy didn’t bother me anymore, but he was in jail for assault by the time he was seventeen.
Logan wanted to defend and protect. It was instinctive.
I thought I might cry. I missed that about him.
“I’m sorry, Bellini. I didn’t mean to upset you…” He pushed a hand through his dark hair and suddenly looked exhausted. “Are you okay, Bellini? You didn’t get hurt, did you? Damn. I am so mad at them. You could have been hit by either one.”
“No, no. I’m not hurt.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I…I didn’t mean to get so angry at you for helping me. I’m sorry, Logan. I…”
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Wait…What is it?”
How could I tell him all that I felt? I couldn’t.
“I think…I’m a little tired.” I tried to smile, but it wobbled.
“I’ve gone from my quiet cottage in Oregon with my cats, and now I’m up here, and I’m worried about my mom, and I’m working a lot of hours, and I think…
I think…I think…” I wiped my tears with the back of my hand.
“What are you thinking?” He stepped closer.
“I think I got a little overwhelmed. But thank you. Thank you for helping me break up that fight between the entitled, spoiled worm and the odd little hermit.”
I dared to stare into those light brown eyes. I’d stared into those eyes since I was five and Logan and I decided to play with the blocks together in kindergarten. We made a super-tall tower, then we both knocked it down. It made a ton of noise, and I jumped up and down and clapped.
Today, all I saw was empathy and concern in those eyes.
And maybe something else. I felt the air crackle between us.
That line had always sounded so silly to me—what does crackling air mean?
—but it was all I could think of to describe it.
He was standing close, and that crackle, that excitement, that attraction we’d always had, well, I could feel it.
I didn’t know if he could, but I sure did.
Several people left the bar, saying goodbye to us as they left, and it gave me a second to catch my breath. Christmas music filtered out before the red doors shut again. I could hear the song “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” I would change the subject. I had learned that tactic from my mother.
“Logan.” Dang! My voice was breathless. “I have been meaning to talk to you about the Lady Whiskey’s T and A Christmas Burlesque Show.” I took a deep breath. Then another one. “How would you feel about having it on the second floor of your building in your office space? It’s huge and—”