Flavor Of The Month (Kiss & Tell Book 2) (15 page)

“Jesus, are you okay?”

Reilly turned her head to watch Mallory sweep in through the hospital door, Layla and Jack following close on her heels.

Efi shifted in her sleep and Reilly put a finger to her mouth, indicating they should go outside.

The instant the door closed behind her, her friends bombarded her with questions.

“How did the fire start?”

“I don’t know.”

“What was Efi doing in the apartment?”

“She had a fight with her mom and fell asleep on the sofa.”

“Where were you when it happened?”

Reilly fell silent.

Four hours had passed since she’d driven home from Ben’s. And in that four hours, guilt had begun to gnaw away at her insides until she was afraid a touch would shatter her weakened exterior.

If she had been home, Efi would never have been there when the fire started. She would have talked to her niece then sent her home to her mother.

If she had been home, maybe she would have smelled the smoke and put out the fire before it had a chance to chew everything up in its destructive wake.

If she had been home, she wouldn’t have been with Ben.

“For cripe’s sake, Rei, don’t tell me you were with
him?
” Mallory said, pacing a short way away then turning to focus condemning eyes on her. “I knew nothing good could come with your relationship with him.”

Reilly’s mouth dropped open. “What are you suggesting? That my seeing Ben is to blame for the fire?”

Mallory paced back to stand directly in front of her. “If you weren’t seeing Ben, you would have been home and none of this would have happened.”

Jack’s frown seemed to burrow deep. “And Reilly might have ended up dead,” he offered.

Mallory and Layla stared at him.

“What? Venture into the murky ‘what ifs’ and ‘what could have beens’ and you get a variety of variables.”

Reilly felt a burst of gratitude toward the male member of their friendship circle. Jack might not talk much, didn’t indulge in gossip, but when he spoke, what he said made an impact.

Still, she was afraid the damage had been done. Even if Mallory was just trying to protect her, or just needed to because of her own anger at her fear over what had happened, her words had cut deep.

Life with the captain of the football team wasn’t for girls like her, as her friends kept pointing out to her. No matter how happy he made her, the end lay on the horizon somewhere.

And with her niece lying in the other room recovering from smoke inhalation, and the rest of her life lying in a shambles around her feet, maybe she was standing on the edge of that horizon right now, about to tumble over.

W
HAT SEEMED
like a month later—though Reilly was pretty sure it was only two days—she lay in the extra twin bed in Efi’s room at her sister’s house eyeing the bag of chocolate kisses on the nightstand. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, but there really was no reason to get up. Efi was at school. And even when she wasn’t she was too busy with Greek school and her new Greek boyfriend, Kostas—who had stopped by the house to see how Efi was doing after the fire—to spend any time with her spinster aunt. Debbie was down in the kitchen again banging a few pans in an attempt, Reilly suspected, to scare her out of bed.

Her shop was gone. And everyone from the arson investigators to her insurance company was giving her a hard time. Because of the large amount of propellant—gasoline—present at the scene, and her “convenient” absence that night, as one police officer had put it, they all thought she’d torched her own place. And as long as the police suspected that, the insurance company was delaying any sort of compensation until the outcome of the investigation.

To top that off, her suppliers had managed to find her and were demanding payment in full for products already delivered, leaving her with a boatload of debt and no way to generate income to cover it.

Still…all of that combined didn’t come near comparing to the empty ache in her chest that seemed to grow bigger every second she didn’t hear from Ben.

She rolled over, squeezed her eyes to shut out the bright afternoon sunlight spilling in through the pink ruffled curtains, then pulled the white eyelet comforter over her head. A second later, she snaked out a hand, blindly reaching for the bag of chocolate kisses and bringing them under the covers with her. She unwrapped one and stuck the dollop of chocolate into her mouth, allowing it to dissolve slowly.

She knew that Ben was aware of what had happened. Tina had told her she’d called and told Lance that they wouldn’t be making deliveries that day or any other day in the near future.

Why hadn’t he called?

Another banging sound from downstairs. Then the distinct smell of something burning made her wrinkle her nose. Would she ever be able to smell burning without remembering her place going up in smoke?

With a heavy sigh, she threw back the comforter, dropped the bag of chocolates, a few kisses lighter, back onto the nightstand, then slid her feet into borrowed slippers. She grabbed the ratty old nubby robe her sister had lent her and put it on over the N’Sync nightshirt she’d ferreted out of Efi’s drawer the night before. She didn’t even bother checking her appearance in the picture-covered mirror as she stomped out of the room, down the stairs, then straight into the kitchen.

She was just about to open her mouth and give Debbie what for when she realized she was on the phone.

“No, she doesn’t want to talk to you right now,” her sister was saying. “Yes, I’ll tell her.”

Reilly came up behind her to see what was burning. If her sister could find a way to screw up boiling water, she would. Actually, when they were both teens, she had screwed up even that. She’d forgotten she’d left the water on for spaghetti and left the room. When she’d come back, the water had evaporated and the pan had been scorched beyond repair.

Debbie switched off the cordless telephone receiver and put it on the counter next to the stove.

Reilly made a face, unable to recognize the food in the pan. “What are you trying to make?”

Debbie nearly hit the ceiling, she jumped so high. “Reilly! My God, let a body know you’ve come into the room, will you? With all that’s going on, the last thing we all need is for me to have a heart attack.”

“You’re as strong as an ox and your daughter has pink hair,” she said. “You can take anything.”

“She used to have pink hair. Until the fire at your shop burned it all off.”

Reilly drew in a deep breath then let it out slowly. “Singed. Her hair was singed, Debbie.” She backed up until the backs of her knees hit one of the chairs, then she plopped down into it. “And, trust me, I feel guilty enough that even that happened.”

“You should.”

“And you should have known your daughter wasn’t in bed that night,” Reilly shot back.

She closed her eyes and cringed, wondering where that had come from. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean that.”

Debbie sighed and, as expected, didn’t apologize for her own judgmental words.

Reilly reached out and fiddled with a lily on a flower arrangement in the middle of the table. “These are pretty.”

Debbie gestured with her hand. “Gus sent them to me yesterday.”

Reilly considered the size of the arrangement. “Anniversary?”

“No. He, um, just wanted to cheer me up, you know, after what happened with Efi and everything.” Debbie stood with her back to her, then she switched off the stove. “Is being a good cook something you inherit? Something genetic? Tell me, because I can’t figure out why I can’t cook to save my life.”

Reilly folded her knees to her chest and rested her feet on the edge of the chair. “Mom couldn’t cook.”

“No, but grandma could.” Debbie sighed, stared into the pan, then dumped the entire contents into the sink and turned on the water full blast.

Reilly hugged her legs then rested her cheek against her knees, the memory of Grandma Rose filling her with bittersweet memories. She recalled long Sunday afternoons spent at her grandmother’s one-bedroom house in Pomona learning how to fold meringue into cake mix to make the batter lighter. Of being taught how to melt white chocolate in a double boiler and dip tangerine pieces inside, coating the fruit and taking away its status as a health food. She’d always had such a great time at Grandma Rose’s. Always felt like she was somehow home in a way she didn’t feel when she was at home.

Of course, by the time she was ten she’d topped a hundred pounds. Fifteen, a hundred and sixty. And eighteen…

She sighed heavily. At eighteen her grandmother had died, leaving her a tidy amount of money. She’d dropped the weight, gone to college, then eventually decided to open Sugar ’n’ Spice. She smiled absently, wondering what Gran would have thought of the shop while it was a success.

And pondering what she would have said now that it was gone.

“Who was on the phone?” Reilly absently asked her sister as she moved around the kitchen. Apparently the woman was intent on ruining another perfectly good pan.

“Huh?” Debbie’s eyes looked a little too big. “Oh. Nobody.”

Reilly frowned. “Sounded like an awfully specific conversation for it to have been nobody.”

Debbie shrugged. “It was just one of those nasty insurance investigators. Again.”

“Huh.” Reilly eyed the newspaper on the kitchen table, then idly pulled it toward her. It seemed strange, somehow, that the world had kept turning. News kept being made. And insurance investigators kept calling. “What did they want?”

“To talk to you.”

Reilly pulled out the entertainment section. “That’s obvious. Did they want anything specific?”

Debbie turned to stare at her. “I’m not your friggin’ answering service, Reilly.”

Reilly raised her brows.

Debbie made a face. “Sorry. I just thought I’d make some of that tapioca pudding that Efi likes so much and…”

“It wasn’t the insurance company, was it?” Reilly whispered.

Ben.

It suddenly dawned on her that the reason she hadn’t heard from Ben wasn’t that he hadn’t called. Rather, her family just hadn’t let him through to her.

Her gaze flew to the table and the flower arrangement there.

“Reilly?” Debbie said, obviously sensing something was up.

Reilly pushed from the table and reached for the cordless receiver at the same time her sister grabbed it.

“Give me that,” Reilly whispered, completely prepared for an out-and-out physical tussle if the situation called for it.

Debbie grunted and handed it to her. “Fine, have it your way. Just remember, we all only want what’s best for you.”

How many damn times had she heard that over the past couple weeks? She swore, she was going to bean the next person who said it with the closest available object. It was all she could not to whack her sister with the phone.

Instead, she pushed the caller ID button, her heart skipping a beat when she recognized the number to the restaurant in the window. She accidentally hit it again and the number popped up again. And again.

Ben had called at least five times in the past three hours.

She felt confused…relieved…torn.

And wanted to hear his voice more than she wanted anything else in the world.

“How many times has he tried to get through since the fire?” she demanded from Debbie.

Her sister didn’t answer.

“How many?”

“All right, all right! So many times that he’s driving me insane.”

The receiver slipped from Reilly’s damp palm and landed on top of the paper. She picked it back up, revealing what it had covered. Namely a picture of her. When she’d weighed over two hundred pounds.

Reilly couldn’t breathe. With shaking hands, she picked up the paper and unfolded it. The headline read, “Owner of Destroyed Sugar ’n’ Spice Known to Friends as Chubby Chuddy.”

Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.

All at once Reilly was mentally transported to grade school when the other kids used to taunt and tease her, chanting the two words she’d grown to despise.

Chubby Chuddy, Chubby Chuddy, Chubby Chuddy.

She opened the front page to read the rest of the story. Nowhere was it mentioned that she’d dropped the weight when she was eighteen. Nowhere was there another, more flattering picture. While the photo showed her months before her grandmother died—Grandma Rose had made her wear an old dress of hers and pose in front of her prized rosebushes—the story focused on the fire and the implication that she’d started the blaze.

She opened and closed the paper several times, trying to find another piece, something, anything that erased that image of her on the front one. There was nothing.

The paper rustled as she held it up to shake at her sister. “Did you give them this?”

Debbie blinked at her. “Give who, what?”

Debbie leaned forward to stare at the paper, her skin paling as she recognized the photo. She ought to, there was a copy of it hanging on her stairwell wall.

“Jesus.” She met Reilly’s gaze. “God, no, Rei. Why would I do something like that?”

Reilly smacked the paper back down on the table. “Oh, I don’t know. For my own good, maybe?”

She pushed from the chair and stalked from the room, an image of Ben seeing the piece wiping everything else out of her mind. She stopped in the hall and collapsed against the wall, her eyes burning against her closed eyelids. She’d worked so hard to get where she had gotten. And in one fell swoop all of it was gone. Erased. Nowhere to be seen.

She was once again Chubby Chuddy, the fat girl sitting at the back of the class watching life but not really participating in it. Mooning over the captain of the football team. Or rather, mooning over the back of his head, because that’s essentially all she ever saw. Getting little better than average grades because she spent so much of her time trying to disappear. To be quiet. To pretend she didn’t weigh almost twice as much as the other girls in class. Biding her time until the bell rang, scribbling in her notebook when she should have been doing her homework.

All the time looking forward to Sunday when she could go see Grandma Rose, who never told her she was fat. Never asked if she was sure she should have that second helping like her mother asked her at home. Never made her feel anything but loved.

All at once she was once again that outsider who didn’t fit in the world everyone else lived in.

All at once she realized her sister and her friends were right. She and Ben didn’t belong together. Namely because she didn’t belong with anyone.

“Reilly?” Debbie asked from the kitchen doorway.

Reilly opened her eyes, her vision filled with the copy of the photo that hung in her sister’s stairwell. She crossed to pull it from the wall, then smashed it against the plank wood floor. She glared at her sister. “I hate you.”

And in that one moment, she did.

The only problem was the words only made her hate herself more.

“N
O, SHE’S NOT
in at the moment, but I’ll let her know that you called.”

“Thank you,” Ben said between clenched teeth.

“You’re welcome. Have a happy Thanksgiving.”

As soon as he heard the dial tone, Ben slammed the telephone receiver down several times, hoping to derive some satisfaction from the move but instead feeling even more frustrated. Reilly’s sister Debbie, and her niece Tina, were killing him with niceness. They never told him to get lost. Never said an unkind word. But they wouldn’t let him talk to Reilly and that was worse than their using every word in the obscenity book to cut him down to size.

Five days had passed since he’d gone to the shop and stared at the smoldering rubble, unable to believe that just a short time ago it had been Sugar ’n’ Spice.

Five days had passed since he last saw Reilly, kissed her delicious mouth and held her soft body close to his.

And he was an inch away from making somebody pay for that.

“Boss?” Lance said, opening the office door.

The evening crowd was already in full swung, the smell of various dishes cooking filling the room. The fact that Thanksgiving was tomorrow seemed to affect his business not at all. If anything, the place seemed more crowded. The interest was likely generated by all the negative press he’d gotten lately. And by the recent article that had connected him to Reilly.

“What?” he barked at Lance, turning over the newspaper copy that sported another extra curvy picture of Reilly.

Lance held up his hands. “Hey, don’t bite my head off. I didn’t do anything.”

Ben took a deep breath and rubbed his hands over his face to shake off his anger. Only it didn’t seem to do any good. “Sorry,” he said, though even he had to admit that it didn’t much sound like he was. “What is it?”