Accidentally in Love (15 page)

“It’s fine.” And for the first time in almost twenty years, he actually believed that. Not many people asked about his sister anymore; the only thing Kerri had ever asked was how the twin connection changed if one of them died.

He should have known right there that she wasn’t the one for him.

“The ironic thing is, I was going to go home this year, but Mom and Dad decided to take a cruise instead of sitting around. It’s the first time they’ve really been away since Rosie died, so hopefully it’ll do them both some good.”

“What about you? You don’t want to go back, maybe go to her grave or something?”

“There’s no grave.” He didn’t even need to look at her to know she was frowning at him, and she didn’t stop until he told her yet another thing about his sister no one else knew. “They keep her ashes inside one of Grandma’s casserole dishes in the china cabinet.”

It sounded crazy, he knew it did, but Ellie’s silence filled the truck for so long he was a little worried about what he’d see when he finally turned to look at her. As soon as he did, she slapped both hands over her mouth for what reason he had no idea, because tears squeezed out the corners of both her eyes and her shoulders shook so hard she could barely sit up straight.

“I’m so sorry,” she finally managed between snorts and wiping her eyes. “That’s not funny. That’s…that’s awful.”

But even he was laughing by then—not as hard as Ellie, but it
was
kind of funny.

“It’s better than it was before,” he said. “Up until about eight years ago, she was just in a Ziploc bag.”

“She was not!”

“Hand to God: Ziploc bag in the bottom of Mom’s sock drawer.”

“Why?” she choked. “Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know. They used to talk about burying the ashes, but Mom just couldn’t do it. She kept saying they needed to find the perfect urn, and they needed to find the perfect place and the perfect time.”

“So how—”

He held up his hand to hold off the question he knew was coming.

“A few years back, they had to move Grandma into one of those extended-care places, so of course there was like fifty years of crap in her house that needed to be packed up.”

“Stop it.”

Brett just nodded and kept going. “Lo and behold, Mom comes across this casserole dish she swears Grandma made herself in some fancy kiln in the middle of the Swiss Alps or something.”

“Did she?”

“What, make the dish? Not unless she worked for Royal Albert—it’s stamped right on the bottom!”

By this time Ellie was doubled over in her seat.

“So Mom brings this damn thing home and announces she’s found the perfect urn for Rosie. Only problem is, it’s Grandma’s favorite dish—who even knew that was a thing?—but every time she goes over there for dinner, she makes Mom pull it out.”

“Stop!” Ellie cried. “You’re making that up. There’s no way…”

“I’ve got a picture of it from a couple Christmases ago sitting right there in the middle of the table, full of apple pecan stuffing.”

It took her a while to get anything else out, and even when she did, it was in spurts.

“That’s just…I…I shouldn’t laugh….” Wiping her eyes, she finally managed to sit up and catch her breath just as they pulled into Nick’s driveway. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but since we’ve come this far, I have to know…what do they do with the ashes when the casserole dish is, um, being used?”

“Mom’s a planner, always thinking ahead, so she never actually took the ashes out of the Ziploc bag. She just moved the bag from her drawer to the casserole dish; that way, when Grandma comes over, they set the bag beside the silver wine goblets, serve dinner, then put everything back after.” He couldn’t believe that not only was he telling her all this, but they were both laughing about it. “Haven’t been able to eat stuffing since.”

“Okay, stop. This is awful.” Shaking her head, she wiped her eyes one more time and tried to compose herself as Brett rang the doorbell. “Do you really think they’ll bury her in it one day?”

“Hell yeah,” he said, employing the stony expression he’d come to master. “I told you, Mom’s a planner, so when Grandma dies, they’re going to tuck the dish,
Rosie and all,
inside the coffin with her. They’re still trying to decide if they’ll throw in some stuffing, but…”

When Jayne opened the door, Brett shrugged innocently as he helped Ellie, still cracking up, inside the house.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think she’s been drinking.”

A couple of times during dinner, Ellie suddenly hiccupped over a giggle and then shook her head, refusing to answer when Jayne or Nick asked what was so funny. For his part, Brett kept his poker face, but when they looked away, he’d shoot Ellie a quick wink, which only made her laugh harder.

Any other time he and Ellie had been at Nick’s, they’d both made a concerted effort to stay away from each other, to not even get into the same conversations. Tonight they sat side by side as though it was the most normal thing in the world, even though it wasn’t. Not even close.

There was no question that things between them had changed dramatically in a short amount of time, but it did make him wonder about what she’d said when she first got in the truck. What would happen when this was all over? They’d take care of Kurt—that much he was certain of—but what then? Up until a couple of weeks ago, he’d never even considered the idea that he and Ellie would ever be more than what they’d always been: two people forced together by mutual friends. But now what were they? Friends?

He’d like to think yes, except that he’d never kissed a friend like he’d kissed her, even if it was just for show.

Get a grip, dipwad.

Shit happened when you weren’t focused, and the only thing he needed to be focused on right then was helping her with Kurt, not anything that happened after that.

“Got the new pool table set up,” Nick said. “Who’s in?”

Ellie was already on her feet, heading for the games room. “What’re we playing for?”

“How ’bout we just play a friendly game?” Jayne asked. “It doesn’t always have to be about winning, does it?”

“Oooh, that’s adorable.” Ellie patted her friend on the cheek and offered her an incredibly condescending but still jocular grin. “And yes, it always has to be about winning. Play to win, go big or go home.”

Shot for shot, it was a hell of game, and much to both Ellie’s and Brett’s surprise, Jayne was no slouch. The only reason Ellie won bragging rights was because Nick missed his last shot by what couldn’t have been more than a breath. It was, however, enough, and Ellie was able to tap in their last striped.

“Sorry, babe,” Nick said, wrapping his arm around Jayne’s shoulders. “You almost had her.”

“Nah, it’s just as well. You saw what she did when Regan beat her at foosball….”

“She didn’t beat me,” Ellie cried. “She cheated.”

Jayne just laughed and rolled her eyes. “Uh-huh. Okay. Keep tellin’ yourself that.”

After putting everything back, Ellie and Brett made it all the way to the front door before Jayne couldn’t seem to contain herself a second longer.

“I still can’t totally wrap my head around this, but I’m so happy for you two.” If happiness could ooze, that’s what it was doing, right out of every one of Jayne’s pores. “Isn’t this great?”

Brett wasn’t dumb enough to think Ellie was really having that much trouble putting her jean jacket back on, so while he helped her with that, he did his best to appease Jayne.

“Yeah, we’re still trying to get used to it ourselves.”

Ellie snorted quietly as she finally pushed her arm through the sleeve. “Dinner was great, thanks!”

But Jayne wasn’t done. “Now we just need to find Maya a good guy, and everyone’ll be set.”

Brett leaned over to kiss Jayne’s cheek, but Ellie was already backing out the door.

“Yeah, sure, let’s work on that. I’ll call you tomorrow, and we can start a list.”

“Thanks, Jayne,” he said with what he hoped was a smile. “Nick.”

“Later.”

By the time he made it to the front of the truck, Ellie had already climbed in the passenger side.

“Okay,” he said as he got in behind the wheel and hoped one more wave would send Nick and Jayne back inside. No, they just kept standing there in the doorway, watching them. “I thought that went pretty well right up to the end there.”

“I’m sorry.” She said it through a smile and a wave, but the words could have almost snapped, they were so tight.

Brett waited until they’d pulled out of the driveway before reaching over and pushing her still-lifted hand down.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. It was great, wasn’t it?” She didn’t wait for him to answer; she didn’t even wait to breathe between “great”s. “I mean the dinner was great, the conversation was great, even the game of pool was great. Wasn’t it? Great, I mean?”

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Great.”

“No, it really was. And then, I don’t know, when she started going on there at the door, it was like the whole lie just came crashing back. God, I couldn’t even look at her.”

“I noticed.”

“Did she?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, probably not, because she’s so busy being happy for us! Ugh!”

Brett pulled the truck out onto the highway and headed south but not before he considered pulling over altogether. She’d gone from relaxed and laughing to uptight and yelling in a matter of seconds, and he wasn’t sure what to expect next.

“So what do you want to do?” he asked. “Call the whole thing off and put the ball back in Kurt’s court?”

“Yes! No. Oh shit, I don’t know.” Dragging her hands back through her hair, she grumbled something he couldn’t hear.

“What’s that?”

A sigh, then silence for a second. “I said that my life would be so much easier if I could just lie like everyone else does.”

“Not everyone lies, Ellie.”

“Oh, really?” she snorted. “Let’s examine that for a second, shall we? I spent three years with a guy who lied to me on a daily basis, and I had no idea. He told me he loved me, we moved in together, and from everything I knew to be true, our future was rock solid. We were going to be all that and more. Well, guess what?”

“Ell—”

“And then he lets the cops arrest me, knowing full well I had nothing to do with his little business venture. One word from him or his stupid-ass brother would have cleared my name, but did they say anything? Nope. They just let everyone think I was part of it.”

“Come on, Ell, you can’t exactly use Kurt as your bar of truth—that’s not fair to everyone else.”

“You’re absolutely right.” She nodded. “I can’t. But you’d think I’d be able to use my parents as that bar of truth, right?
Right?!
”

“Uh…” He was pretty sure he was supposed to say yes to that question, but with her eyes that wide, it could have gone either way. “You’d think.”

“Beep! Wrong answer! My parents have been pretending to be happily married for the last thirty-five years, when in reality, it turns out to be nothing more than a giant load of steaming hot crap.” She paused long enough to rub her temples and inhale slowly. “They didn’t get married because they were in love, they got married because it made good business sense—like it’s the fourteenth freakin’ century and they needed to join two realms together or something. I mean, seriously, who does that shit? Who marries a woman because he wants to look good to the partners in his firm?”

“I don’t—”

“If you repeat a lie enough times, or live it long enough, it becomes your truth, but there’s no way they were happy, least of all Mom, and she can deny that all she likes, but if she were, she sure as hell wouldn’t be living out of a suitcase right now, would she?”

Brett stopped the truck in her driveway and shut it off, but neither one of them made a move to get out.

“My whole life they drilled the importance of honesty into me. Without trust, a person doesn’t have squat in her life, so that’s what I’ve done; I’ve told the truth. Do you have any idea how hard that is? People tend to get really pissed off when you tell them the truth all the time.”

“You don’t say.”

“Okay, funny, but it’s who I am. I don’t want to be someone my friends can’t trust, and I never want to end up like my parents, building a whole life around lies.”

“Ellie.” Brett had no idea what to say after that; all he could do was watch her stare out the window.

“And now look at me,” she went on, sputtering out a choked laugh. “Up to my eyeballs in lies. I’m lying to everyone who matters to me and making them think I’m madly in love with you. And you—”

“What about me?” he asked, trying to shake off the jolt her words gave him.
Madly in love with you.
She’d said something before that, but those were the words that stuck. What the hell?

“You…you’re the only one I haven’t lied to. What’s next? When does it stop?”

“Whenever you say it stops.” Brett inhaled a long breath and shrugged. “This might be Sarge’s idea, and we might be part of it, but bottom line, it’s your life.”

Her chin dropped and her eyes closed for a long moment before she looked up at him. When she did, it wasn’t with either the anger or the frustration he expected, but with regret.

“Wow. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have thrown all that out at you.” She stopped, took a second to gather herself, then smiled. “Bet you didn’t know you’d be getting a bucketload of crazy when you signed on for this, did you?”

“Oh no.” Straight-faced, he looked right back at her and shook his head slowly. “I’ve known you were batshit crazy since the first time I met you.”

It started as a twitch against her bottom lip, then slowly curved into a smirk before she finally breathed out a tired laugh.

“You’re probably not too far off the button on that one, Ponch.” She hesitated, started to say something, then stopped, her cheeks turning a couple of shades of pink. Another breath; then she pushed her hair back and nodded. “Okay. Thanks for the rides tonight. I guess I’ll see you—”

“I need to check inside before I go.”

He expected an argument, he was prepared for it, even had reasons why he needed to make his survey, but she shocked the hell out of him by nodding.