A Way to Get By (20 page)

EPILOGUE

EDDIE

Saturday, August 10

1985

“E
ddie… hellooo… I asked you if you wanted another drink.”

   Bren giggles as she flicks her finger at my bare leg. I grab her hand and kiss her knuckles. “Sure, babe. I’ll have another.”

   The waiter appears, so I hold up two fingers with my free hand. He gathers our empties and plods away across the white-hot sand in his white-hot suit. I feel bad for the poor bastard, having to wear a full suit in this blazing sun. Guess it goes with the territory. Hell, when I have servants of my own someday, I’m going to let them wear whatever the hell they want. Cutoff jean shorts and a concert T-shirt? Rock on, brother.

   “What are you smiling about over there?” Bren asks, reclaiming her hand to grab for the suntan oil.

   “I’m just thinking about what kind of uniforms our servants should wear.”

   “Our
servants?
” she asks incredulously, lowering a brow at me.

   That has me chuckling. “Sure. Why not think about that kind of stuff?”

   I mean, I really don’t see the harm in dreaming out loud. Considering the fact that I’m currently living out the biggest dream I ever had, lying on this perfect beach with the love of my life… Who says dreams can’t come true?

   Bren shakes her head and settles back into her chaise. “Our
servants
,” she repeats again, snickering.

   Clasping my hands behind my head, I lean back and tip my face to the sun. I get why Bren isn’t playing along. We’ve spent so much time being poor that it’s probably hard for her to imagine a life where we’re not. But hell. We’ve got some money in the bank now. Things are looking up.

   “Along with an obscenely humongous house full of servants, I’m going to buy you a new engagement ring. That one’s too damn small. It’s embarrassing.”

   Bren turns her head toward me, squinting an eye in my direction. “Babe? I
like
this ring. It’s the one you gave me when you asked me to marry you. Who cares about the size? It’s the thought behind it that I love. And you. I kind of love you, too.”

   I smile in spite of myself as she adds, “I’ll take the obscenely humongous house, though.”

   That has me sputtering out a laugh.

   We’ve been here two weeks already. It’s the place we picked to go for our honeymoon after our first marriage, so it was the obvious destination for our second. The original plan was that we’d wait a few years before getting remarried, but really, what would be the point? Once we got down here, we got so caught up in each other that we decided to start our new life as soon as possible. We were re-married on the beach last night. It was a gorgeous ceremony. Just the two of us, the way it’s always been. The way I see it, we’ve waited long enough. The past five years apart felt like a lifetime.

   This should have been our tenth anniversary. We’re still counting it as such. We decided to put the years of separation out of our minds and just celebrate the fact that regardless of our divorce and subsequent marriages to other people, we never stopped loving one another.

   We’re pretty committed to spending every minute together to make up for it. It’s not like we don’t have the time to do so; neither one of us will ever have to work again. Four-point-five million may not put us on the Forbes Richest People list, but it’s a hell of a lot of money for two people like Bren and me.

   Rather than go home so soon and open ourselves up to the endless scrutiny, we decided to spend a few months down here until we can come up with a new game plan. The most recent suggestion has been to move to New York City and open a restaurant of my own. Even though the city is only minutes away from Hackensack, it may as well be another world. We’d be far enough away to avoid running into Beau and Maxine, yet close enough to see Tony, Ginny, and the baby pretty regularly. I’m Jennifer’s Godfather after all.

   In the meantime, we’ve been scouting out properties to build a house here on the island. Maybe just for a vacation home; maybe we’ll live here full time. Who knows? It’s not like either of us has anything back in Jersey that requires our immediate attention.

   Provided the freeze-out continues anyway.

   Anthony won’t take my calls. I’ve been trying to get in touch with him since we got down here, but he won’t answer the damn phone. You believe that? The best man at my wedding—my best friend in the entire world—and I can’t even get ahold of him.

   Ginny, however, at least picks up when Bren calls. She normally keeps the conversation brief, but it’s a start.

   They can’t believe we actually went through with it. They can’t believe we’re here on this tropical island right now. But what did they expect us to do? Rot away in our slummy apartment for the rest of our lives? I would have thought our
closest friends
would have been proud of us for doing something to better our situation.

   When we told them what we’d done, Ginny didn’t know whether to laugh with relief or beat the hell out of us for our deception. Tony, on the other hand, simply left the room without a word.

   I haven’t spoken to him since.

   It hasn’t been from a lack of trying, however. As soon as we got down here, I sent him and Ginny a check
to pay off the mortgages on the house and buy the restaurant outright. I threw in some extra to cover the cost of IVF in case they had problems getting pregnant with Number Two, and then a little pocket money, just for kicks.
They haven’t cashed it yet. But I have to imagine they will eventually.

   They’re our best friends.

   They’ll come around.

   I guess they’re just having some trouble accepting our happily ever after when it came about in the most despicable way possible. But it’s not like we killed anybody. It’s not like any innocent bystanders were hurt. In fact, I like to think we got out long before we
could
hurt anyone. Maxine and I had our fun but I would have eventually made her miserable. And Beau is a spoiled, misogynistic, manipulative piece of shit. ‘Bout time he got a taste of his own medicine. He can just
buy
a new wife.

  
So yeah. Maybe I’m an asshole.

   But Jesus, can I really be blamed for the things I’ve done in the name of love? Wouldn’t any man worth his salt do the same? Because I swear to Christ, my only motivation, my only goal, my only
purpose
in this insane, screwed-up life is to make sure Brenda is happy. And I’d have done—will do—anything to make that happen.

   Fact is, we’ve never been happier than we are right now.

   “Where we doing dinner tonight?”

   Bren’s voice jogs me out of my thoughts. “I’m not sure. I heard some people at the bar last night talking about
Lo Sconosciuto
. Want to try it out?”

   “Italian place in the market?”

   “I think so.”

   She gives a shrug and says, “Yeah, sure.”

   “It’ll be nice. We’ll get a table near the street, order a bottle of red—”

   “White.”

   “Red, white, ros
é
.
Whatever you’re in the mood for, babe.”

   Without missing a beat, she slithers, “I’m in the mood for more than just a bottle of wine…”

  
“Anything you want, Bren.”

   Raising her glasses, she turns on her chaise to face me, a wicked grin spreading across her face. “Anything?”

   The sight of her pleading brown eyes makes me want to drag her back to our room right now. But instead, I match her smile and deliver my new favorite line. “Yes, baby. You want it? You got it.”

   I’m loving the fact that I can finally spoil the hell out of this woman. She deserves it for putting up with me for so long. How did I get so lucky? This woman loves me unconditionally and she trusts me implicitly. Hell, she made out twice as well as I did with her divorce settlement. If she’d planned this whole thing just for the money, she could have easily ditched my ass and taken off with her millions. But she didn’t. The whole reason she even put this scheme into motion was so that
we
could have a better life. Not just her. She wanted to do this for
us.

  
She sent me out into the wild, never once doubting that I’d come back.
That’s
how much faith she has in us. Nobody has ever believed in me the way that Brenda has. It’s taken me all this time to understand that, but now that I do, I finally feel as though I can believe in
myself
. I know there’s nothing I can’t do as long as I’ve got her by my side.

  
Brenda has always been an acquired taste. A lot of guys wouldn’t be able to handle her. But not me. I revel in everything about her. The good, the bad, and the ugly. She’s the complete package, and I wouldn’t change a single thing about her.

  
Just look at that girl. She’s incredible, inside and out. Nobody smiles like Bren. Nobody laughs harder. Nobody looks finer. Nobody fucks better. Nobody loves me like she does. If I could create the perfect woman in a lab, it would be Brenda Rinetti.

   Brenda Rinetti
Edwards
.

   My Forever Girl.

THE END

IMPORTANT NOTE TO YOU, THE READER:

If you’ve made it this far, I’d like to start by saying thank you. I am so grateful that you stuck with my story long enough to see it through to the bitter end.

I hope you were surprised!

Whether you were or not, I’m going to ask that you PLEASE DON’T GIVE ANYTHING AWAY. Even mentioning that there’s a “twist” could ruin the reading experience for others. I don’t know about you, but as soon as I hear there’s a “shocking twist” in a story, my subconscious goes into overdrive, sleuthing out what that twist could be. Nine times out of ten I figure it out, and then the story gets ruined for me forever (The Usual Suspects, anyone?).

I don’t EVER tell anyone how a book should be read or reviewed, so please excuse my audacity here. But I am asking—
begging
—for your cooperation now. I have agonized over every word in this story in order to deliver the proper shock at the reveal, and I’d be heartbroken to see all that hard work go to waste.

The point is, even if you didn’t enjoy this read, there may be others who will. And if you did enjoy it, please don’t take that “surprise” experience away from future readers. So, out of respect to your fellow booklovers, I will appreciate it if you could avoid any spoilers when you discuss it.

Thanks so much!

Xoxo

Tina

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TALK ABOUT IT. On Facebook, on Goodreads… word of mouth is
truly
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As usual, I have many people in my life to be thankful for.

I’m very lucky to have such an amazing support system. The people of my real-life inner circle are just simply the most incredible souls a girl could ever hope to know. Special thanks to Mom, Dad, and Uncle John for your sixties input! Google has nothing on you. To the rest of my family… my friends… Mike, Tanner, Mason… Thank you, as always, for your encouragement, assistance, and love.

I’m also grateful to you, the readers, for patiently waiting an entire
year
for this release! It shouldn’t take nearly that long until the next one, but it’s great to know you’ll all still be there for me if it does. Thank you.

My Beta-readers: Amy Raines Patterson, Aunt Anna, Casey Moore Smith, Chanpreet Singh, Cybill Richey, Ellen Sisk Long, Erika Gutermuth, Faith Andrews, Gitte Doherty, Heather M. Orgeron, Jennifer Pikul Gass, Jennifer Mirabelli, Jenny Aspinall, Joanne Cowan, Kari Matthes, Kristine Barakat, Linda Della Volpe, Michelle Mankin, Patty Tennyson, Roxie Madar, Stevie Kisner, Trish Mint… I get so caught up in my own stories as I’m writing them, and after reading them for the hundredth time, they cease to make sense in my brain. Thanks so much for being my extra sets of eyes on this thing to let me know when it worked (and when it didn’t)! You girls are the best and I’m lucky to know you. Xoxo

My bloggers! Have Book Will Read, Totally Booked, Kimberly Faye Reads, Real Housewives of Romance, Glass Paper Ink, Wrapped Up in Reading, Schmexy Girls, Vilma’s Book Blog, Witchy Richey’s Booktastic Reviews, Confessions of a YA and NA Book Addict… and the many, many other amazing ladies who have supported me over the years and/or read and reviewed this story… Words are not enough. Thank you so much for all you do every single day.

My author friends! I am so glad I’ve gotten to know some of my fellow writers. I don’t want to name anyone because I’m afraid I’ll forget someone, and that would just suck. You know who you are. Thank you for your encouragement and for offering a place to vent about all the Book World craziness.

Lastly, to The Couple in the Hotel Room Next to Mine While I was Away During a Writing Excursion: Thanks for having constant, loud, spanking sex at all hours of the day and night. Not only did it serve as a way to wake me out of a sound sleep so I could continue working, but it was supremely entertaining as well. The girls on my beta-reading page enjoyed my live-facebooking of your every coupling. You both skeeved me out something fierce, however. I hope you die in a zombie apocalypse.

* * *

While no extensive lines of lyrics have been excerpted, the inspiration behind this novel was Billy Joel’s entire catalog of music, specifically songs from
The Stranger
album. Because of that, the book’s release was delayed by months while attempts were made to obtain permissions from Mr. Joel’s publisher. I’d like to thank Jason Berger, Deborah Hughes, and Ed Arrow for their assistance in this matter.

But above all, I’m especially grateful to Mr. Joel for the amazing music he has given to me throughout my lifetime.

Thanks, Billy.