Chapter 2 #2
Above the studio, his father and Ned had helped him to install four bedrooms as well as a kitchen, bathroom and living room to accommodate visiting musicians.
He’d offered Josh a free place to live in exchange for taking a chance on his upstart studio, and Evan was praying he’d take the bait.
Without a decent sound engineer, his studio would be sunk before it ever even opened.
After a long winter of hard work and planning, everything was coming together, and Evan was itching to get to work.
A knock on the door interrupted the flow of the song, which aggravated him.
His family and friends knew to leave him alone during the day when he was often writing and composing.
Without bothering to put on a shirt, he pulled open the door, prepared to chew out whichever one of his brothers had once again forgotten his rules about daytime visits.
The zinger he had ready died on his lips when he recognized Grace’s parents from a photo of her family she kept in the loft.
They were both pear-shaped with dark hair and eyes.
Right away, Evan could see that Grace looked like her mother, who was staring at him suspiciously.
“We were told downstairs that we’d find Grace here,” Mrs. Ryan said.
“She’s not at the pharmacy?” Evan asked.
“They said she left a while ago.”
He remembered her saying something about seeing his cousin Laura at the Sand & Surf Hotel after work. “She should be home soon if you want to come in and wait for her.”
“Who’re you?” Mr. Ryan asked, his eyes scanning Evan’s bare chest and feet.
“I’m Evan.”
They exchanged perplexed glances.
“Her boyfriend?”
“She doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Mrs. Ryan said.
“Ah, I’m quite certain she does,” Evan said, flabbergasted to realize that Grace had never told them about him. He stepped aside to admit them to the loft. “For about eight months now, in fact.”
Mrs. Ryan stopped short at the sight of the rumpled bed, the surfboard propped against the wall, the guitars leaning against the sofa and his size-twelve sneakers under the coffee table.
She spun around to face him. “You’re living here?”
Evan had no idea what to say to that, so he went with the truth. “Have been. For a long time.”
“Well, isn’t this enlightening, Bill?”
“Yes,” Mr. Ryan said, continuing to eye Evan as if he was Jack the Ripper or someone equally unsavory. “Very enlightening.”
Evan supposed that finding out your daughter had been sleeping with a guy for close to a year and hadn’t bothered to mention it to you might be a little shocking. Hell, it was a little shocking to him that she hadn’t told her parents about them—and a little painful, too.
“No wonder why she never has time to come home.”
“She’s been home,” Evan said in Grace’s defense.
“Three times in eight months,” Mrs. Ryan said, taking a close look at every corner of the loft.
Evan felt slightly violated by her scrutiny and wondered if Grace would be annoyed with him for letting them in. If she was, they’d be even, because he was kind of annoyed with her at the moment.
“And what do you do, young man?” Mr. Ryan asked.
“I’m a musician,” he said, gesturing to the guitars. “And a songwriter.”
“You make any money doing that?”
“Enough.”
“Do you pay rent to live here?” Mrs. Ryan asked.
“I’d say that’s between Grace and me.”
“Which means you don’t,” she said, giving him a knowing look.
“It doesn’t mean that at all. It means it’s none of your business.” The instant the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. These were Grace’s parents, he told himself. Tread lightly. “Let me see where she is.”
As he picked up his phone from the coffee table, the screen door burst open, and Grace came in, carrying grocery bags.
Her cheeks were flushed from the heat, and her silky dark hair curled at the ends, thanks to the humidity.
“Hey, babe. I’m home. Sorry I’m late, but Laura wanted to show me the new guest rooms at the hotel—” When she saw her parents standing in the kitchen, the grocery bags slipped from her hands and crashed to the floor.
The distinctive sound of glass breaking had Evan rushing over to her. He took her hand and guided her around the mess on the floor. “I’ll clean it up.”
She glanced at his bare chest and then at her parents and then back at him. “Did you, have you… You met Evan?”
“Indeed, we did,” her mother said. “And now we know why we’ve seen so little of you since you moved out here.”
“She’s been working really hard at the pharmacy,” Evan said, as he scooped up glass, spaghetti sauce and torn brown bags. A dozen eggs had also been lost in the crash. “She’s the only pharmacist on the island, so she works almost every day.”
She sent him a grateful smile, but he could see the concern in her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” she asked her parents.
“We wanted to surprise you,” her mother said. Glancing at Evan, she added, “But the surprise was on us.”
“I was going to tell you…”
“When?” her mother and Evan said at the same time.
When Grace winced, he wished he hadn’t piled on. They’d have time later, when they were alone, to discuss why she hadn’t bothered to mention him to her parents.
“I’d invite you to stay for dinner,” Grace said, glancing at the mess on the floor, “but…”
“We’ll go out,” Evan said, sweeping the broken glass into a dustpan. “My treat.” This was said with a meaningful glance at Mr. Ryan.
“You don’t have to do that,” Grace said.
“I insist. I’ll make reservations. The Lobster House at eight?”
She nodded and added a smile for him, because he’d chosen their favorite restaurant, the place where they’d had their first official date. To her parents, she said, “Where’re you staying?”
“At the McCarthy place,” her father said with an air of distaste. “No air-conditioning or television! Can you believe it?”
Grace bit her lip as Evan choked back a laugh. His mother was damned proud that her hotel was a throwback to simpler times.
“We’d never stay there again,” her mother added. “We tried to move somewhere else, but none of the hotels have TVs or AC. What’re we supposed to do when we’re in the room?”
Evan raised an eyebrow and made the mistake of glancing at Grace, whose face had turned red from the effort not to laugh. He knew exactly what she was thinking—they’d have no need of a TV or any other form of entertainment in a hotel room. As long as they had each other, they were all set.
“You could try talking to each other,” Grace said.
Her parents looked at each other and then at her, as if she’d said something in a foreign language.
“Come on, Bill. I’d like to get changed, and it’s a long walk back to the hotel.”
“You walked here?” Grace asked, seeming surprised.
“We’re exercising every day,” her mother said in a snippy tone on her way out the door. “There’re other ways to lose weight besides going under the knife, you know.”
Evan bit back the comment that was burning to get out about how courageous Grace had been to have the lap band surgery that enabled her to lose more than a hundred pounds.
But he held his tongue until after her parents had departed.
Squirting cleaning solution on the floor, he wiped up the last of the mess and stood to find Grace watching him.
“I know what you’re going to say,” she said.
He tossed the paper towels in the trash and turned to her, trying to decide whether or not he should make her suffer a bit for keeping him a secret from her parents. “What’s that?”
“You don’t understand why I didn’t tell them about you. And I’m so sorry, Evan. It had nothing to do with you.”
As tears filled her eyes, he discovered he loved her too damned much to make her suffer. He went to her and rested his hands on her hips, drawing her in close to him.
She looped her arms around his neck. “I’m so sorry. I could tell you were mad the minute I walked in.”
“I’m not going to deny I was a little hurt to realize you hadn’t told them about me, but after half an hour in their presence, I get it, baby.”
“I wanted to tell them about you. So many times. But I’ve been so happy, and I didn’t want them to ruin it the way they ruin everything for me.”
He drew her into a tight hug that she returned in equal measure. “Do you think I’d let anyone ruin what we have?”
“They’re so negative and defeatist. So many times I started to tell them about you, but I always stopped myself, knowing they wouldn’t approve of us living together. I’m almost thirty! I don’t need their permission.”
“But you care enough to want their approval.”
“And doesn’t that make me a fool?”
“No, baby, it makes you a good daughter. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I love you, Evan. You have no idea how much.”
Smiling, he tipped his head and kissed her slowly and sweetly. She was like a drug he couldn’t get enough of. Every taste made him want another. He was equally addicted to the scent of her silky hair and the softness of her skin.
“I love you just as much,” he said as he kissed her collarbone and made her shiver. Glancing at the bedside clock, he let his hands slide down to cup her bottom. “We’ve got an hour before we have to meet them.”
She smiled suggestively. “Maybe we can watch some TV or something.”
Evan laughed as he backed her up to the bed and came down on top of her. “Or something.”
Tiffany drove home in a state of shock. The possibility that absolutely no one would patronize her store hadn’t occurred to her in all the months of planning for the grand opening.
Her hands shook with nerves when she thought again about the stack of bills that needed to be paid, not to mention the cavernous house that needed furniture.
She swallowed the panic that lodged in her throat.
God, what have I done? I’ve risked my future and Ashleigh’s on this huge gamble, and now…
No.