Chapter 14

"T his is swill. Pig swill." Brenna took another a sip of champagne and spewed it back out. The liquid landed on the floor and it almost hit the last pair of fancy shoes that I owned, ones which I planned to wear for the rest of my life. I didn't need any of her spit on them.

"Stop that," I told her sharply. "I'm sure champagne costs a lot in this place." I knew, in fact, exactly how much it cost because I'd been to this club before, but I hadn't been paying for the bottles back then. We were here tonight for Addie, although this place wasn't really her scene. We'd spent the day at a cat shelter playing with the animals and also going on garden tours, and that was very non-traditional for a bachelorette party. She'd wanted to throw in some dancing and drinking to round out the experience, and at the moment, she and Sophie were boogying and laughing their heads off. For that reason, I was glad that we'd come.

Except…I was keeping my eyes open. This was the first time I'd gone out since what had happened to Gigi. There was still no news about that, not even from her mother anymore (she was all about her boyfriend, their beer, and her breasts). I was still wary, especially in this club because yes, I had been here before. It was one of the places that my former roommates, Leni and Elissa, had regularly taken their "boyfriends" and sometimes their boss had come, too. I'd tagged along to get paid, as part of the party package.

The champagne tonight wasn't purchased by a "date," it was Addie's treat and it was expensive, so I told my younger sister to drink it or shut up. I also mentioned that if she had any thoughts about hitting me again, I would take her down. I'd been boxing at the gym with Beckett and I had no qualms about trying out some of those punches.

She looked at me for a moment, weighing her options, and then wised up and went to dance. That left me alone at our table, because Nicola and her baby had gone home after one of the garden tours and Grace was…it was hard to keep track of where Grace was. I watched my sisters going wild and smiled, but I didn't feel like joining them. I felt more like curling up on this bench seat and, despite the noise and my concern about the other patrons, going to sleep.

Lately, things had been hard. Beckett had hired another attorney but it took a while to bring the new person up to speed and for everyone to trust her. Camille was doing even more, which explained why she hadn't been able to come out tonight. Addie had been happy to invite her (since my sister had heard about the thong-in-the-car incident, she'd been very anti-fiancé and very pro-breakup), but Camille had too much to do.

"I'm pretty sick of going out, too," she admitted. "I may not ever want to do it again."

I also looked around this room for her fiancé and I was glad not to see him here, which had been a possibility due to his club promoter job. The two of them had been fighting constantly and I was pretty sure a breakup was in their future; slowly and cautiously, I'd been sharing my negative opinions about him and about their relationship. It was probably hard to hear, but more and more, she was agreeing with me that he was basically crud.

My thoughts wandered back to Beckett and to some new recipes I wanted to try, because I was making all kinds of whole-grain, plant-based protein stuff now. You never knew what would help someone to—

Sugar. I saw a flash of glittering turquoise near the bar, and I recognized that dress. It was one of Leni's favorites and it did look great on her. I stood up to check and yes, there she was with a guy and with Elissa right behind, accompanied by a man of her own. They saw me too, and waved happily. They moved through the crowd, followed by their "dates" and entourages until they were close enough to touch.

Then we did touch because they hugged me, squealing and laughing with happiness, which was certainly a surprise since we hadn't spoken in a long time. They'd left the apartment without a word and I hadn't heard from them since. But now they acted like they were overjoyed to see me…no, they were just overjoyed in general. Both of them were hopping around, smiling, and, yeah, now they were hugging me again.

"Wow," I said, separating myself. "What's going on?"

"Here," Elissa told me, and opened the tiny purse she carried. "Check it out." She handed me a hot pink card with gold writing all over it. "They were so expensive to print but it was totally worth it, right? Aren't they cute?"

I was trying to read all the information on the little piece of paper but it was hard with the lack of lighting in the room and the very, very tiny font size they'd chosen. "What does this say?" I asked, giving up.

"We started our own business," Leni told me. "We're not working for Ruslan anymore. Fuck him!"

"What?" I stared at her and then I immediately looked around. Ruslan was both their pimp and my former money lender. He wasn't a person who would have taken kindly to insults. I also knew that they couldn't have just quit, not like you could leave a normal job. Not like all the people from the Whitaker Enterprises legal department who had packed up their cardboard boxes and walked away without having to worry that their former boss would slap them.

"He's in jail for double murder, the mother fucker!" Leni sang out, and then grabbed her surprised "date" and kissed him to soothe him down. He probably hadn't expected a discussion of homicide as part of the "boyfriend experience."

"Ruslan got arrested last month, no bail," she told me more quietly, when she'd removed her tongue from her guy's mouth. "You know, you screw around long enough and it could come back to bite you."

My thoughts went, again, to Gigi…

"The cops weren't interested in his side business," she continued. She swept her palms down her short dress to explain what that side business was: her body. "Elissa and I started our own thing and now we're in charge."

"That's good for you guys," I said. He'd treated them badly and taken their money, so it was great that they were out from under his thumb, but I felt a little short of breath. I'd had no idea that Ruslan was capable of murder and if I had, I probably would have swum across the river to Canada months ago.

Leni was beaming back at me as she nodded. "Ruslan was worthless and we're better off without him," she said. "If you're interested in joining us…"

"Sorry, but no," I told her.

"I figured I owed you the chance. You were a good roommate and I always felt bad about getting you into that poker game. I never saw anyone so green before!" she told me, and laughed. I didn't think it would ever be funny to me personally, but she was right that I'd been green. Green and absolutely stupid.

"Ruslan had seen you that night and he wanted you to be one of his girls," she went on, and I thought I must have misunderstood.

"Are you saying that you had me come play poker with you on purpose? I lost that money because he wanted me to owe the house so I would have to work for him?" I asked.

"You lost all by yourself," she answered. "You play cards for shit, but we all knew that you weren't going to be able to pay it off at the end of the night and he was looking forward to it. But then when you wanted to give him money instead of going on dates?" Her eyes widened and she shook her head. "He was not happy, not at all. I got him to leave you alone."

"You did?" I asked, and now she nodded.

"It wasn't easy," she told me. "But I felt sorry about getting you into it in the first place." She hugged me and I stood stiffly, but I let her. "Anyway, that's all over because he's locked up. No bail! See you around, Juliet!" She, Elissa, their guys, and the pretty girls who were paid to be their friends strolled off toward the dance floor. I watched Addie and Brenna having fun and my former roommates dancing next to them and I shuddered. What if my family heard what I'd done, how I'd been in debt to a pimp and barely escaped working for him myself?

A hand clamped on my shoulder. "Who were those women?"

"Sugar, Sophie!" I yanked myself free of her grip. "Those were my old roommates."

She squinted toward them as the lights strobed. "They seem to have a cortège."

"They're popular," I agreed. "Can I help you with something?" If I sounded snippy, well, I was. All this togetherness and bonding hadn't made me forget that she'd been the one to lead the charge to keep me away from Nicola and her baby. She'd been the one to hit my twin, too, which had led to a black eye for me that had been very hard to explain away to the people at work.

"Do you think Addie is having fun?"

"It looks like it," I said as I got a glimpse of my sister dabbing. "She needs to update her moves a little."

"Patrick was always a better dancer, but it never stopped us."

"Sophie, this isn't a great place to talk. Do you need something?" I said loudly. It really was hard to hear, and I wasn't very much in the mood. Mostly, I wanted to go home—well, to Grosse Pointe. I had the gate code now, and my own key to the front door. I wasn't exactly living there, but the downstairs guest bedroom did have a lot of my stuff neatly stowed in the huge closet where I'd once found a blanket.

"I want you to get over being angry," she told me. "Stop it."

I stared at her. "I am over it," I announced. "I apologized, remember? You graciously forgave me for telling Mom a bunch of stuff that I should have kept to myself. Sorry, again. Ok? We're done." I started to walk away but my sister grabbed my arm, and great. Were we going to get into another brawl right here? It turned out that Beckett had done some sparring while he was in college and I recalled his instructions: protect your chin, that was one. I raised my left fist and got ready.

"I was doing what I thought was best for Nicola," she called out to me above the thumping base. "I was only thinking about her on the day she gave birth."

"Good for you." I yanked my arm out of her grip, because guess what? She did all that yoga with Mom now, but I was still stronger. Beckett and I had been going to the gym almost every day because I had more time since I'd quit my waitress job. I needed to be there for dinner with him, to make sure he was eating enough.

"When she was in the hospital, I wasn't thinking about you," she clarified, "not at all."

"Got it. You don't care about me."

"JuJu!" She grabbed at me again as I started to leave, but I pushed away her hand. "I'm saying that I'm sorry, too. Ok? I'm sorry," she repeated, her voice clear even with all the noise. "I've been thinking a lot about how bad it made you feel. Do you remember your tenth birthday?"

Why in the heck would she have brought that up? "Not at all!" I yelled, but she looked very sympathetic as a green laser flashed across her face and I got a clear view of her expression.

"Remember how Mom got Patrick a crown, and there was a banner with his name? Brenna wrote yours under it, as fancy as she could make it. But it sucked so much, and that was the same…JuJu!" she called.

Who cared about that? I was on my way to the dance floor where Grace had also magically reappeared, and I didn't think at all about my tenth birthday because that was so long ago—sixteen years! My twenty-sixth birthday was the one that had just passed and who cared about that, either? Who cared that I was so old but was not Camille with all the accomplishments and totally deserving of respect from her peers? Leni waved at me and I waved back, and I tried not to shudder. Who cared that the guy I'd owed money to was now in jail for murder? Addie put her arms around us and we all hugged, because she was so happy. Who cared that she was starting out on a future with the guy she loved, but the guy I loved—

I didn't actually, but I certainly cared about him a lot, and now I wanted to see him. I turned slightly so I could check my phone without my sisters' notice, but there was nothing new, nothing saying that he was sick or that he needed me. He would never say either one of those things, even if they were true. It was probably all the dancing but I felt pressure in my chest, like it was hard to breathe, and I wanted to leave. Now.

Luckly, after the big day of cat visiting and staring at plants, we didn't stay too much longer at the club. We had a protracted goodbye, with Addie crying and saying we were the best sisters ever, and then we split up. I tried to drive carefully but I found that I was really upset. How had I mixed myself up with someone like Ruslan, the pimp in jail for murder? That was one of my issues. The other was, hopefully, asleep and feeling fine in the big house that was my destination tonight, although I'd told him that I was probably going to sleep at my own apartment. I'd thought I would be back late and I hadn't wanted to disturb him, but now? Now I had to check on him in person.

The lights were on at the front of the house, but when I quietly let myself in, I saw that they were on inside, too. "Beckett?" I called quietly, and I heard him answer that he was in the study.

"Are you seriously working right now?" I asked as I stormed through the door, but he was lying on the couch with the nice blanket over himself, as if he might have been asleep. He was definitely awake now that I'd come in hot.

"I was relaxing," he said, and I looked at the time on my phone.

"Why aren't you relaxing in bed?" I sat next to him, close enough that he had to move over on the cushion. It would have been ok with me if we'd touched, but it wasn't ok for him and that was fine, absolutely fine.

"I could have relaxed there instead," he acknowledged.

"Were you waiting up for me? Or was it because you were sick—"

"Juliet," he said, and I stopped. We'd been having a few disagreements about my level of concern: he felt it was too high, and I was ready to lay it on even more. We compromised by arguing about it. "I'm feeling fine," he stated.

"That's because you've been getting more sleep. Which you need," I explained. "We all do for good health."

He shook his head, but he smiled. "You're the woman who ate stale chips for lunch every day until I appeared on the scene."

That reminded me. "Did you have dinner?" I asked, going back into concerned mode.

"Tell me about your day instead. I'm sure it's more interesting than the balanced and nutritious meal I consumed with a large glass of water."

I nodded, satisfied with his answer, and told him about the cats and the plants. "Then we all changed at Nicola's house so she could see our outfits before we went out again," I concluded.

"How was that?"

I misunderstood on purpose, so I didn't have to talk about what had happened at the club. "Nicola and Jude are drawing up plans to redo the whole place, the kitchen and the bathrooms and everything else, and then they're going to add another story on top. But for right now, they're just focusing on the baby. She's so cute and it's so nice that Esme will have a little cousin right around her age."

"You liked having sisters around your age," he noted, and I nodded. I thought of how Sophie had apologized, and how I really was going to try to let that stuff go. It would feel better if we were getting along again for real and not just on the surface. Then I recalled my conversation with Leni and I got worried again. Ruslan was locked up because that was what happened to criminals, she'd said. They got theirs in the end. Did it mean that I was heading for jail, too? Or something worse—like Gigi?

Beckett was still on the topic of my sisters. Sophie and Addie were starting a garden design business and he wanted to know if we'd discussed it. We had, extensively, until Brenna had threatened to leave if anyone said another word about a darn plant or a financial plan. She didn't care if it was Addie's party because it was just too boring to deal with. But it wasn't boring for him; Beckett also had a lot of questions, most of which I knew the answers to because I'd been paying attention today (unlike Grace, whom we'd lost for about an hour and had finally discovered as she'd put a handful of berries into her mouth, berries that we didn't recognize so that no one knew whether or not they were poisonous).

"You could do something like that."

My mind was still on the berries, which had stained my sister's lips to a lovely color that would have been nice in a gloss, rather than from an unknown juice. "What?" I asked, puzzled. He would never, ever recommend that I eat—

"You could start a business. Is there anything that interests you in the way that your sister seems to be so enamored by plants?"

No, no one was as crazy as Addie, and anyway? With my history, there would be no chance of getting a loan to start something like that. Who would ever trust me? I sure didn't, so I only shook my head.

"If not a business, what about law…" he started to say, but I was shaking my head again, and he stopped before he suggested that I go back to school.

"No, I'm sorry, but I don't want to be a lawyer," I confirmed.

"Not everyone does." He didn't seem offended, but I watched him stifle a yawn. It was late, and what did this matter?

"We can talk about it tomorrow," I suggested, or we could not talk about it at all. Worrying about the future seemed pointless (and overwhelming) when there was so much to worry about in the present.

"Tomorrow, you'll tell me that you can't discuss it because you have too much to do right at the moment."

"Tomorrow is Sunday, so I won't say that. I'll say, ‘Put on your suit, pack the fruit, and fill your bottle with spring water, because we're going out on the boat.'"

"It's not going to be very warm tomorrow. Summer is over," he told me, and I shivered a little. I wasn't cold, but those words…

"Here," he said, and shared the blanket, wrapping it around my shoulders so that we were both cozier. "You're not wearing very much."

"I'm dressed for clubbing," I reminded him. "Being naked-ish is supposed to encourage fun, but it was actually pretty boring. I probably should have stayed in."

"And missed your sisters?"

But I'd missed him, I wanted to say. I shrugged and told him that I'd been glad to see them, even Sophie, but that now I wanted to sleep. It inspired him to get up, too, and he walked me to my room.

"I'll turn up the heat," he said when we stopped at the doorway, and he smoothed the blanket over my shoulders as he spoke. "I need to upgrade that system. I didn't notice it when I came home last winter, but as a child, I was always cold here at night."

"I'm ok," I assured him.

"You never seem to feel the chill of the water. You could swim for hours."

"And I did," I said. "Every day, for years."

He adjusted the blanket again, pulling it closer around me and then holding it like that. "It's your natural habitat."

"I guess so," I said, smiling, and he smiled back. "Did you stay up tonight because you were waiting to hear from me?"

"I did," he answered, and then added, "I'm glad you came over."

We looked at each other, and Beckett let go of the blanket. "Good night," I called as he went to his own room upstairs. It was probably miles away in walking distance, but it still felt much better to be here in this house with him.

It wasn't enough to keep my nightmares at bay, though. I woke up early and took a shower to try to wash away the memories of them. I'd been back in that club and Gigi had been there, too, in a lace bra and with beautiful nails which I saw because her hands were bigger, somehow. Her boyfriend Val was there as well, and then we were suddenly in the office. Beckett was at his desk and Val was going to kill him because of me, and I was screaming, except I'd also been late for a race. The scene had switched to me on a block, waiting for the starter, and I'd seen a body in the pool.

The shower didn't wash that away. I went to the kitchen, hoping that coffee might work instead, and Beckett was already there. "Good morning," he told me, and I nodded and tried to appear chipper and ready for the day.

That failed. "What's wrong?" he asked me.

I was trying to make his coffee machine work. "I didn't sleep well," I said. "I had weird dreams."

He came over to help. "About what?"

Last night they'd focused on Gigi, but more and more frequently, they were about him. I was trying to find him, I was trying to help him, I was trying to save him. "I don't remember," I said, and since I was a poor liar, I didn't meet his eyes.

"For years, I had terrible dreams about my mother and brother, as if I saw their accident happening but couldn't stop it," he mentioned, his voice so calm although those words had been so terrible. "I did again after you and I went out in the boat for the first time."

"Are you worried like that every time we're on the water?" I asked him, pretty horrified. "Do you think we're going to drown? Does it make you have more nightmares?"

"No, not anymore, and you enjoy it so much," he answered, but that only made me more upset.

"Just because—no, you should sell that boat and we'll move away from any water. To Arizona," I said, because it was the driest place that came to my mind.

"Will we?" He shook his head and handed me a cup of coffee. "No, we're fine here. It's easier for me every day." He returned to the table where his dumb laptop was already open. I had planned to keep him away from work, but my plan had also included a lot of water activities and now, those were out. But Beckett had ideas, too, and his main one seemed to be continuing the conversation from last night about my future. It had always been a concern for him, for some reason, but he'd turned up the volume as of late.

"I created a spreadsheet of career possibilities, along with steps you would need to take to achieve them," he said.

"Holy Mary," I sighed, and joined him at the table. "Ok, give it to me."

He had a lot of ideas, and some weren't really that bad. I was direct and able to deal well with people and while I could be sympathetic, he thought I would also remain firm when necessary. He suggested human resources might be a good place for me. He also believed that I would also be good at sales, because I was persuasive and personable. "You're intelligent, organized, and self-directed. You shouldn't have a problem with any job," he said.

"Really?"

"Well, I do think that my specific suggestions are better-tailored to your skill set—"

"I mean, do you really think those things about me? That I'm intelligent and everything?"

"You're a wonderful employee," he said. "I would be pleased to recommend you for any position. You're certainly an asset to Whitaker Enterprises, and I only started suggesting a new career when I became aware of your distaste for the job." He nodded as he looked across at me, and then he frowned. "Juliet, are you…you're not crying, are you?"

"No," I said quickly. "I'm just surprised. I mean, I've always been the athletic one, the redhead, or the tallest girl. I've never thought of myself in the way you just described me."

"The tallest?" Beckett echoed. "You're not that tall."

"Not compared to you. Next to Camille, I'm like an elephant, except less graceful."

He seemed shocked. "I would never have thought that."

"Well, don't start now, just because I said it," I warned him.

"I won't. I think you're…" But he stopped and didn't share those thoughts. "You have poor opinions of yourself due to your former swim coach," he stated instead.

"What?" I had to refocus. "You mean my coach when I was in middle school? That mean, old guy?"

"Yes," he answered. "I reminded you of him."

"You don't anymore," I told him. "You're very, very different."

"I would hope that we're different." He looked slightly disgusted. "It was difficult to believe that his job was to instruct children, but fortunately, he no longer coaches."

"Wow. Wow," I repeated, "I'm very surprised. I thought the only way they'd get rid of him would be if he keeled over on the pool deck and died wearing his whistle and his rubber slip-ons."

"He was fired," Beckett told me. "It was recent, so you might not have heard."

"I don't keep up with the team much…he was fired? Now I'm not only surprised, I'm shocked."

He closed his laptop. "We can go over this later. Let's take out the boat." He walked out of the kitchen before I could ask anything else, but I had more questions when he joined me on the patio. "Here," he told me first, and put a jacket around me. He had never said anything about how I hadn't yet returned his shirt, but since then, I'd seen the size of his closet. I didn't think he would have missed it. "You're actually quite small," he said, looking at me critically. "This hangs on you. I should get a blanket as well."

"No, it's not cold at all and I'm fine. Stop right there and tell me how you knew that my former coach got fired. Because of your cousin, the girl who was a swimmer?"

"Who?" He stared at me.

"You said that you had a cousin who was a swimmer on a team called the Eels," I reminded him.

"Oh, yes. I said that so that you would continue talking about your terrible experience. I wanted to ascertain the name of the team you swam on because I was interested in who might employ a coach like the one you described."

"So you do lie," I said.

He shrugged. "I stretched the truth to obtain pertinent information. I'm going to get a blan—"

"Were you telling the truth when you said all the nice things about me?" I asked.

"Those are your characteristics, not ‘nice things.' I evaluated your strengths and weaknesses in order to assess the best career path for you. I honestly believe that you're…you're amazing."

"What?"

"Your former coach belittled you because he's an asshole," Beckett continued, "and I wanted to fucking kill him when you told me the things he used to say."

I stared. "You wanted to kill him? Wait a minute, did you get him fired?"

"No, the parent board of the team fired him." He started to walk toward the dock, but I grabbed his arm as I caught up.

"Did you have something to do with the parent board firing him?" I demanded.

"The president of the board also serves on the advancement committee for my former high school. The fundraising committee," he explained, which was good because I had no idea what "advancement" was in that context. "Scott and I spoke at length and came to an agreement."

"Did you agree to give your old school a pile of money if the swim team fired the coach?"

"I already donate a substantial amount. This year, there will be more," he confirmed. "Also, Whitaker Enterprises is now a corporate sponsor of the Detroit Morays Swim Team."

"You didn't have to do that for me," I said.

"Well, I thought it made more sense than going to one of the practices and screaming at an old man and then hitting him in the mouth." He looked thoughtful. "I've never wanted to strike another human as much as when you were telling me that he called you stupid and fat. You thought that I was like him, too."

"I really don't think so now. I can't believe you did that for me."

"Weren't you the woman who wanted to attend all my doctor appointments?"

"Yes, but you haven't let me." I'd only gone to one, and I'd been waiting in the lobby.

"Are you also the person who made chicken soup and put a cold washcloth on my forehead? The one who stamped her foot in my office and told me to get home or you were going to frog-march me there yourself?"

"Yes. I wouldn't have done it in front of your employees, though."

"I probably wouldn't have hit that coach, either, but I thought it was better not to give myself the opportunity."

"Why?" I asked him. I understood perfectly well why I was doing things like handling raw chicken and making soup that I hoped was edible. I knew why I had recently subscribed to various medical journals so I could read about current cancer treatments. I would have done anything for him. "Why?" I repeated. "Why did you do that?"

Beckett stopped walking. "It's the same reason that I don't think that we can work together anymore."

"We can't?"

"It's in the employee handbook. I reread it a few weeks ago," he explained. "There's a lengthy section about romantic relationships with fellow employees, especially where an imbalance of power exists."

"If you say the word ‘superior' right now—"

He didn't. He kissed me instead. He leaned down and put his mouth to mine, and he wrapped his arms around me and drew me close against his chest. His lips were gentle and he stoked my cheek with his fingertips.

When we broke apart, we were both smiling. Then he kissed me again.