Come On Closer (17 page)

Poor Malia. Dealing with people like the Sullivans all the time would be
exhausting
.

“They can move in with me,” Larkin offered, “since I already live on the North Side.” She said it without thinking, an automatic response to all the ugliness that was being spewed. It wouldn't matter anyway. This dinner was way past salvaging. Still, she didn't expect the stricken look Shane gave her. His father, on the other hand, did exactly what she'd expected and fixed her with a look usually reserved for irritating insects or gum on the bottom of a shoe.

“Of
course
you do,” Jim said, his voice dripping with
derision. Then he turned his ire back on his son. “When are you going to quit acting like a spoiled brat and stop doing things just to upset your mother and me? You're getting a little old to rebel.”

“Who wants dessert?” Liz chirped as she reentered the room, carrying with her a beautiful chocolate torte that was probably going to go to waste. The remainders of Larkin's appetite had vanished along with any interest she might have had in staying. This house might be a lot fancier than her own, but it was cold. Even in the summer, the people who lived here would make this place feel like permanent winter. She was about done subjecting herself to it for the night.

“Actually,” Larkin said, folding her napkin and standing up, “I'm really not feeling very well. I think it would be best if I went home. Shane, do you mind?” She might be a “North Sider,” but she had more manners than anyone at this table, and she'd damn well use them no matter what these people thought of where she came from. Besides, she wasn't lying. Her stomach was in knots, her heart pounding, and she felt the stirrings of the awful, gnawing shame that she'd spent years trying to get rid of. Her head knew that she should be proud, not embarrassed, of how far she'd come on her own. But there would always be people who would judge her for the life she'd been born into, and she would always struggle not to take it to heart.

“Sure, we can go. Are you okay?” Shane stood quickly, some mixture of guilt, concern, and confusion on his face.
It isn't like he didn't warn you about tonight
, she thought. But he'd also insisted they do this, and Larkin couldn't understand why. What was the point? Making everyone miserable? If so, mission accomplished.

“I'll be all right. I just need to lie down.”

Liz looked upset at the sudden announcement. “Oh no,” she said quickly. “I hope it isn't something we've done. . . . Shane and his father do like to squabble. . . .”

“Not at all,” Larkin lied. “I get up very early for work, and I think I'm just overtired. Bakers' hours make evenings out tough sometimes.”

Jim simply looked away, drinking and brooding while his wife fussed over them. Liz offered to box up a little of the torte for her to take home, and Larkin let her. The poor woman acted like a kicked puppy, and Larkin found herself feeling more sorry for her than anything.

“Come by Petite Treats sometime,” Larkin said, forcing a calm she didn't feel. She accepted a kiss on the cheek as she and Shane got ready to leave. “I'll return the favor.”

“Oh, that would be nice,” she said, but Larkin had no idea whether she meant it. There was no animosity there, but she suspected that Liz didn't do much that wasn't preapproved by her husband. And after this, she was pretty sure she wasn't on the “approved” list.

Jim trailed them out to the foyer as they prepared to leave, but he didn't offer much apart from a perfunctory “good night” before they walked out the door. There was a look exchanged between him and his son, but she couldn't decipher it. Mutual disappointment, maybe. But the only one allowed to express it openly seemed to be Shane's father. Larkin waited until she and Shane were safely ensconced in the car and out of earshot before even trying to talk to him.

“Shane—”

“Just give me a minute. It's not you, but just . . . just give me a minute.”

The request surprised her. She'd been so sure that Shane hated silence more than anything, but she guessed that wasn't always true. His cheeks were still flushed, and his hands flexed on the wheel as he drove, a restless movement that kept her from saying anything until they were almost at her house. It was disconcerting, seeing him like this. Normally he was in control, even if he was unhappy. He treated so many things like they were jokes. But not this.

It wasn't until they turned onto Willowbend that he spoke, and then it was in a voice so soft she wouldn't have recognized it if they hadn't been alone.

“Well. That's that, then.”

She searched for something to say that would lighten him up, even a little. Maybe she could have, if she weren't still feeling shell-shocked. In a way, it was good to understand where he'd come from. The weird disconnect between what he let most people see and the way she saw him made more sense now. He'd spent most of his life trying to live up to impossible expectations set forth by people who didn't really see him. And the end result was that almost no one really saw him.

Her own problems had been different, but she'd been invisible in her own way, too. It wasn't the sort of thing she'd expected to find in common with Shane. Finding that connection, however, resonated more deeply than she could have expected. And deep inside, she felt something at once frightening and incredibly wonderful stir to life. Something new.

Oh God.

“Sorry it was such a bust,” Shane said, pulling into her driveway. “Pretty sure they won't ask again, so there's a silver lining, I guess.”

“Because I live on the North Side?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow. “You didn't want me to tell him. I could see it.”

Shane shook his head, his expression weary. “Nah. I just didn't want him to find something even more awful to say. For once, he contained himself.”

“Only because his fire was aimed elsewhere.”

He shrugged. “I'm used to it.” In that moment, he could have been ten instead of thirty, and her heart went out to him. It was the only explanation she had for what came out of her mouth next.

“My mother sold off all of my baking equipment when I was sixteen. I'd bought all of it with money I saved, but she always made it pretty clear that nothing in that house was really mine. She said it was to help pay rent, but I'm pretty sure she just hated anything that made me happy, since she never was. I ran away a couple of times, to my ex-stepdad's house, but it wasn't any better. She didn't come to my college graduation.” She paused, remembering. “Nobody did.”

He stared at her silently in the darkness of the car, eyes searching her face, and then blew out a long breath. “Wow. I guess I'm not the only one who's banged up, huh?”

Larkin shook her head. “We might be banged up, but we're survivors. Don't feel sorry for me, Shane. That's not why I told you. I just . . . I won't judge you for your parents if you don't judge me for mine, okay?”

He nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she repeated, then unbuckled her seat belt. “How about you walk me to my door and we'll call it a night?”

“Deal.”

It was strange, crunching up her front walk with him in the still winter night. What should have been perfectly routine felt anything but, as though the whole world had changed in some way she could sense but not quite grab hold of. Larkin did know one thing—her fears about Shane looking down on her, about him treating her like a project that would never be complete, had been unfounded. That was her past talking.

In fact, if she'd learned anything about Shane, it was that he was surprisingly accepting of people. Everyone, that was, except himself. That needed to change, Larkin thought, new worries blooming to replace the old ones. Because if it didn't, he was going to stay just the way he was right now, in this moment: a little lost, and a lot unhappy.

There was no future in either of those things, and the only one who could change that was Shane. But in the meantime, at least she could understand. And maybe . . .
maybe
 . . . she could help.

He turned to say good night, and Larkin had a brief and silent war with herself over inviting him in. Things had changed—her perspective, at the very least—but not enough to just fling caution to the wind and hurl herself into the abyss. Not yet.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “About tonight. It's not always that bad.” His shoulders were hunched, either against the cold or against everything that had already happened this evening.

“Don't be,” Larkin said firmly. “Not about that. You're only responsible for you. Just . . . do me a favor?”

“Hmm?” he asked.

She nearly gave him some sort of clichéd instruction, something along the lines of
don't worry, be
happy
, but immediately on the heels of the compulsion came the certain knowledge that it wouldn't make any difference. He didn't need life advice from her. Fortunately, she knew exactly what he needed.

Larkin slid her arms around Shane's waist and hugged him tight, resting her head against his shoulder. He hesitated only briefly, and then his arms came around her, just as tight, as he buried his face in her hair. Though the heat that always snapped between them was there, this time there was something more, a fragile bond that formed and then strengthened the longer they stayed in each other's arms. Larkin savored his warmth, his strength, the steady beat of his heart. Then she turned her face into his coat, the rough wool scratchy against her nose, and smiled.

Softly, she sang to him not to worry, reggae-style.

Shane's laughter was a deep rumble that started low in his chest and moved upward, until he was laughing into her hair.

“This is what it took to get a song? You're tough.”

“I prefer ‘discriminating.' I'm not dancing, though. It's icy, and I might kill us both.”

“I'll take the song. I've seen you walk.” Shane pressed a kiss against her hair, and she could feel the outline of his smile. That was a triumph, since tonight, his smile seemed like the only thing that mattered . . . and possibly the hardest thing to get.

He held her awhile longer, but eventually the chill began to creep in, and Larkin knew it was time to call it a night. She lifted her head to look at him and lightly kissed the tip of his nose. “It's about that time. I need to return to my hovel, Master Sullivan.”

“It's a nice hovel,” he said. “I guess this means I
need to go back to my drafty manor and curl up with my money.”

“You got it.”

He sighed. “Okay. I'll call you tomorrow. Sleep tight, Cupcake Queen.” He pressed a soft kiss to her lips that left her warm from head to toe and then walked away, his shoulders less hunched and the hint of a smile at the corners of his lips. Larkin watched him go, hearing him begin to hum a little Bob Marley as he reached his car.

She unlocked her door and stepped inside, then watched Shane drive away through the window, waving just in case he was watching. Then she turned, taking off her coat and shoes, waiting for the warm silence of her home to settle over her and soothe away the remaining rough edges of the night. Instead, for the first time, she felt something new along with the comfort of being in her own space—she felt Shane's absence.

For the first time, she let herself miss him.

What am I going to do with him?
she thought. Except she already knew. And in the quiet stillness before she drifted off to sleep, when she couldn't fight the truth, the answer whispered at the edge of her dreams.

I'm going to love him. I just hope I remember how. I hope it doesn't hurt. I hope he can love me back. I hope . . . I hope. . . .

And then she was gone, sinking deep into the familiar comfort of
sleep.

“I
think she's at Gina's.”

Shane heard the voice, but it didn't really register until it spoke again, louder. “Hey, you. Big guy? If you're looking for Larkin, I think she's at Gina's. Gina Valeri? I saw her walking in that direction when I left earlier, like an hour ago. She's probably still there.”

He turned to look off to his left, where a petite brunette in a coat that was nearly as big as she was gestured across the street. “Oh,” he said. “Uh . . . thanks. I guess I'll come back later.”

Dropping by without calling first had been stupid, probably. He'd never figured Larkin for being type A about her schedule, but then again, he would never have guessed she'd been a runaway with a terrible home life as a teenager, either. His impression of her as a happy-go-lucky hippie had been pretty wrong, or
at least woefully incomplete. But while her reality was more complicated, he liked it even better than the fantasy he'd been chasing before.

As long as she kept singing Bob Marley to him, he'd take her just as she was. Well, except for the not-currently-at-home part. He'd swung by Petite Treats at lunch to discover she'd left early. A couple of hours later he'd followed suit, his father's dirty looks be damned. They'd barely spoken this week, and that was fine with him. It would blow over. It always did. It wasn't like there were any other young male Sullivans to take his spot.

Until then, he'd enjoy the silence.

“Oh, they won't care if you go over. Just knock. Everybody knows everybody on this street. She's used to it.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Which house?”

The woman pointed to the house directly across from Larkin's, another small relic from the early 1950s that looked well tended, at least in the snow. With a wave, he started over, wondering if anything was wrong. It wasn't like her to bail on work early, and the single text he'd sent had gone unanswered. Rather than blow up her phone, he'd just stopped over. After all, they were a couple, right? This sort of thing was fine. Normal.

Except for the way he'd felt since Saturday night. That wasn't normal at all, and hell if he knew what to do with it. He'd inadvertently pulled back the curtain on parts of his life he didn't show anyone. And instead of running, she'd given him a hug. He'd known her for long enough that it shouldn't have come as a surprise,
but still. Random acts of hugging weren't the kind of thing that usually happened to him.

It had left him feeling kind of . . . good. Enough that he hadn't even teased to come inside, knowing that she'd just turn him down. The moment they'd shared had been enough. That was
so
not like him. Nor was the afterglow he'd been walking around with in the days since.

Don't worry 'bout a thing.
That was a pretty tall order. So was, as Larkin had suggested, making himself happy. But she almost made him think he could.

Shane rang Gina's doorbell, smiling at the small plaque that hung by the door. The Cake Lady was advertised in loopy pink lettering on a white background. There were sparkles in the paint. No wonder she and Larkin were friends.

The door opened, and a short, dark-haired woman looked him over with such shrewd precision that he almost took a step back. It had been well-known from the time he was a kid that Mrs. Valeri made awesome cakes and didn't put up with any shit. She'd been a cafeteria lady at the elementary school for a little while, and somehow, she knew everything. All a kid had to do to find that out was cross her.

She was one of the few school employees he hadn't messed with.

For a brief instant, he worried she was going to light into him for some past transgression he'd long forgotten about, but then she smiled, and it transformed her face, softened it. “Hi, Shane. Long time no see. Look at you. I guess you didn't stop by to steal an extra roll, huh?”

He blushed. Swiping extra rolls at lunch had gotten a lot harder when Mrs. Valeri was around—though he'd still managed it often enough. It had occurred to him, then and now, that she knew and had simply let him get away with it most of the time. “Uh, no.” He laughed softly and rubbed at the back of his neck, suddenly self-conscious. “I, ah, is Larkin here, Mrs. Valeri?”

“Just call me Gina; you're all grown-up now. And yes, she is, poor thing. Come on in. I'm feeding her chicken noodle soup and lecturing her about how we don't work when we're sick because nobody wants germy cupcakes.”

He followed her inside, stepping into warmth and the amazing smell of chicken soup. Her house was cozy, decorated at least ten years out-of-date and full of big squashy plaid furniture, little figurines and knickknacks, scented jar candles, and dozens of framed photographs. It was homey in a way his house hadn't been, and he had a sudden, strong memory of his grandma Sullivan's house. He hadn't thought of it in years . . . but he'd loved going when he was small. Her house had been one of cookies and kisses, a refuge that had vanished right around his tenth birthday, when she'd passed away.

The similarity, and the feeling, was bittersweet.

Shane toed off his shoes and made his way to the kitchen, which had been decorated with fat little chefs and pictures of wine and olive oil. Larkin was hunched over a steaming bowl of soup at the wooden table. She looked up when he walked in, and he stopped in his tracks. It wasn't that her hair was exploding out of a
messy bun, or that she was in an old sweatshirt and sweatpants. He'd seen her that way before. . . . Actually, it was one of his favorite ways to see her. But her nose was red and swollen, her glassy eyes had dark circles beneath them, and when she spoke, her voice had become a sad, nasal foghorn.

“Hi, Shane,” she said, then sniffed. “I'm sick.”

“I can see that.”

“It's probably the plague.” She sounded as miserable as she looked.

“Well, you don't look like you're bleeding from your face, and I don't see any boils, so . . . probably not. But you should keep a check on that.”

She looked at him balefully. “You won't think it's so funny when I infect you on purpose.”

“You want some soup, Shane? Sure you do. Sit, eat. It's what I do. I baked some bread earlier, too. Glass of wine? World War Z over there shouldn't have any, but we can.”

“You guys are mean,” Larkin groaned. “Do I look that bad? No. Don't answer that. I won't feel bad if you want to go, Shane. You don't want to get sick.”

“I never get sick,” he said, and Gina chuckled.

“Famous last words. Sit, then.”

He did, taking the chair next to Larkin. He reached out to rub her shoulder, and she leaned her cheek against his hand for a moment, a natural gesture that shouldn't have meant a thing to him. But it did. She was glad he was here, so he was glad to be here.

Funny how that worked.

“How come you're not at work?” she asked, swirling her spoon around in her bowl. Gina brought
him his own bowl, and a buttered slice of fresh bread, and a glass of red wine. He looked at all of it, slightly awed. There was no restaurant in Harvest Cove that could match this. He knew it before he tried a single bite.

“I left early,” he said as Gina settled herself on the other side of him, glass of wine in hand and her own slice of bread on a napkin.

“Aren't you going to get in trouble? Because . . . you know . . .” He could see she didn't want to bring up Saturday night, but he'd had enough nights like that to have gotten over the content of the argument. It had been nothing new.

“I'm always in trouble,” he said. “Anyway, there was nothing going on, and as my father likes to tell me, my name
is
on the sign.”

“Hmm. I never did see you as a lawyer,” Gina said. “Sounds like you don't, either.”

He shrugged, wondering if Larkin had said anything to her. He still hadn't gotten back to Ryan, and he was due for an annoyed phone call any day now. “It's a living.”

“Sure,” Gina replied with a kind smile. “So how's your family? How are your friends? I don't see Jake as much as I used to since my Mitzi died. I think about getting another dog sometimes, but then I get cold feet. They drive you nuts and then break your heart.”

“He's great. Married, which you probably know. Happy. All that good stuff. I'm going to tell him you're in the market for a dog. You'll definitely see him then; he's relentless. He's always got a line on a stray that needs a family.”

She laughed. “Oh God. Don't do that. Well, maybe
do that. I don't know. It might be nice to have the company.”

“I'm company,” Larkin said. “And I eat leftovers, too.”

“It's true,” Gina said, patting her hand. “You're not quite as fuzzy, though. And I don't think I could get a purse to carry you around in.”

“Hey, nothing is impossible,” Larkin said with a bleary smile before digging back into her soup. She seemed both smaller and younger than usual, probably just because he'd never seen her quite so vulnerable before. Larkin always seemed to have her shit together, even at her willful goofiest. Now she just looked like she needed to be taken care of. Gina seemed to be filling that role nicely, a fact that gave him a completely irrational twinge of jealousy. Nobody ever asked him to take care of them. The fact that he couldn't even properly take care of a plant was irrelevant. The fact that he'd also never
wanted
to take care of anyone was equally invalid.

He pushed aside his frustration and started to eat, which banished every unpleasant thought immediately. “This. This is the best soup ever, Mrs. Valeri.
Ever
.”

Larkin gave a rusty chuckle. “Suck-up.”

“Call me
Gina
, Shane, I mean it. You're making me feel old! And thank you. I knew Larkin wasn't feeling well last night, so it gave me an excuse to make up a batch of my famous soup this morning. I can't finish a whole pot by myself, so I wait until I know I can share it with somebody.”

“Your girlfriends would eat this in five seconds,” Larkin said. “I heard you when Andi called. She was just about begging you to bring some over.”

Gina looked amused. “Well, this pot is for you. Andi
can wait until the next time we play cards over here, and she's hosting next. She makes this artichoke dip you wouldn't believe.”

“You play cards with Andi Henry?” Shane asked. Andi was Emma and Sam's mom, and a source of irritation to his parents ever since he could remember. She lived in a beautiful old Victorian on the Crescent and loved painting the mailbox and shutters weird colors, of which the Sullivans most certainly did
not
approve. They were convinced she was growing—and probably smoking—tons of pot in her greenhouse.

As it turned out, she was just a much cooler, more interesting person than his parents. Which, granted, was not a high bar to clear.

“Sure I play cards. Me, Andi, Ginni, Clare, Joanne . . . for years now. Girls' night.”

That was a connection he didn't know about, but he supposed he hadn't really been paying attention, either. His own social life had taken up a lot of his time until recently.

“They play poker,” Larkin said. “They keep trying to get me to play, but I'm not that big a sucker. They'll clean me out.”

“We will,” Gina agreed. “But the food is great.”

Shane laughed, and they fell into comfortable conversation around the table. He felt himself unwinding after another day spent tense and unhappy. He hadn't really called it that before—“unhappy”—because he hadn't realized he was. Not really. Not until it had been pointed out to him, and not until he'd had a more appealing option dangled in front of him. Knowing the right thing might be in reach just made the wrong thing that much more miserable.

He hadn't known there could be so many right things out there. Not for him, at least. It was enough to make a guy worry that the rug was about to be pulled out from under him. But not today; not while he was in good company and eating this kick-ass soup.

When the bowls were empty, Shane cleared the table while Gina and Larkin sat, rinsing and stacking the bowls in the sink. Outside, snow had begun to fall. Normally he would have complained, but it was actually kind of nice. Or maybe that was just his mood.

“Well,” Gina said, stretching, “you need to get some rest, honey. I can see you're fading over there. You need cold medicine?”

“I can get her some,” Shane said quickly. He wanted to help with
something
, damn it. Gina looked a little amused, but didn't argue.

“I have a little,” Larkin said, and snuffled pathetically.

“I'll take care of it,” Shane said. “Come on, I'll get you tucked in.”

Gina put the remains of the soup into a couple of large disposable containers while he bundled Larkin into her coat. She let him without comment, which was a clear sign of just how lousy she felt. He opened the door with one hand, the stack of soup containers in the other, and let Larkin walk out ahead of him.

“Thanks for everything,” Shane said, and had to stop himself from calling her “Mrs. Valeri” again. She smiled.

“No thanks necessary. She's a good girl. And you turned out to be a good boy, too. I always figured you would at some point.”

He laughed, embarrassed. “I don't know about that.”

“Sure you are. You weren't a bad kid even back when you were a pain in the ass in my lunchroom. You just didn't have anybody to help you figure out a different way to be.” She gave his arm a pat. “I'm glad you turned out all right. She wouldn't like you so much otherwise. Now go find her some medicine so she can get some rest. I don't think she slept last night, from what she said.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said with a smirk.

“You're still a smartass,” she said, and closed the door, laughing.