Love a Little Sideways (12 page)

“You look flushed, honey. And you’re soaked.”

“I need to borrow a wooden spoon.” There were several right there in the dish drainer, so she plucked one out.

“Since I highly doubt you’re baking anything, can I assume you’re having man troubles?”

That was an understatement. “I need to knock some sense into my brother.”

“Which brother?”

“Mitch.”

Mary opened a drawer and pulled out the wooden spoon. The big one, worn from decades of use and known to strike fear in the hearts of young Kowalskis. And not so young ones. “You’re going to need the big spoon. And good luck.”

* * *

Drew heard Mitch lagging behind him and started slowing his pace. Even with anger fueling him, his friend wasn’t much of a runner and he was breathing hard. It was why Drew had chosen the hill he had. The more he could physically exhaust Mitch, the better.

When he reached the clearing at the top of the hill, hopefully far enough away from everybody else to be out of earshot, he stopped and turned to face the music. Mitch stopped, too, glaring at him while he bent over to rest his hands on his knees and catch his breath.

Drew figured it was best to just get it out. “Liz and I were together once before. When she came home for your wedding.”

“Bullshit. She never left the lodge the whole time she was...” He stood up straight, disbelief clouding his expression. “Nobody could find her when it was time to cut the cake. You slept with my sister at my
wedding?
”

“It was a rebound thing. We were both feeling lonely and a little down and...I guess we cheered each other up temporarily.”

“That was then. What’s your lame-ass excuse for this time?”

Hell if he knew. No matter what his brain said, Drew’s body couldn’t seem to shake off its need for Liz. “I was going to talk to you when we got back to Whitford. I wanted to sit down and tell you.”

Mitch shook his head, shoving at his hair with one hand. “We laughed about it. When that picture of your car in her driveway was on Facebook. You said you’d cut off your own balls before you’d touch my sister.”

“No.
You
said that, not me. And I should have told you then, but I thought it was just a onetime thing and didn’t want to lose our friendship over it.”

“Friendship? You’re a lying sack of shit.”

Drew felt a flare of temper, but he squashed it. It was a skill he’d learned on the job, and he did his best to stay calm and use an even voice. “By omission, maybe. But it doesn’t change the fact that we’re both adults and when we get home, I’m going to take her out.”

“Like hell you are.”

Drew saw Liz coming up behind Mitch. She was winded and had what looked like a wooden spoon in her hand. He shook his head, trying to signal to her to leave them alone, but she was on a mission.

“Leave him alone, Mitch.”

Her brother turned, pointing down the hill. “You go back with the others.”

“Excuse me? You kiss my ass. How’s that?”

“This is between me and Drew.”

She folded her arms across her chest, tapping the wooden spoon against her upper arm. “No, what there is right now is something between
me
and Drew. I’m sorry you found out this way, but it’s my life.”

“You don’t understand,” Mitch began.

“If you tell me there’s a damn
code
or any bull like that, I’m going to smack you so hard with this spoon when you wake up your clothes will be out of style.”

“Liz.” Drew took a step forward, wanting to defuse the situation. Liz’s temper was as bad as her brothers’ and it wasn’t going to help. “You should go back and let us talk.”

Mitch whirled back to him. “Don’t tell her what to do.”

“It’s the same thing you just told her to do.”

“She’s my sister!”

“And her sex life is none of your business!”

It was a critical error, just when he thought he’d been doing so well keeping his emotions in check. While they were talking, he and Mitch had gotten closer than he’d realized and he didn’t have time to dodge his friend’s fist. He managed to evade the full impact, but he took a glancing blow to the jaw that hurt like hell.

He didn’t hit back. He wouldn’t, even though they’d scrapped a few times when they were kids. Maybe it was partly guilt and on some level he felt he deserved to get his ass kicked. But Mitch was also Liz’s brother and if Drew forced a situation where she might have to take sides, Drew would lose.

“Ow!” Mitch spun, rubbing the back of his head, and Drew realized she’d hit him with the spoon.

“If you hit him again, I won’t forgive you for it. I know you’re my brother and I love you, but you’re being a bullheaded idiot right now.”

“I don’t want to hear about your sex life. And my best friend.”

She held up her hands. “Swell! Then don’t. Go make s’mores or take a dip in the pool.”

Drew wanted to beat his head against the nearest tree. Mitch and Liz could bicker a long time once they got started. And he was cold, wet, half-naked and his jaw was throbbing. At least it had stopped raining at some point.

“Liz, I know he’s your brother, but you need to let us talk this out.” She actually rolled her eyes at him. “Please.”

She pointed the spoon at Mitch. “Promise me you won’t hit him again.”

Drew knew his friend well enough to see some of the initial anger-fueled fight was going out of him. That was good in a way, because he didn’t really want to get hit again, but in another way Drew was sorry to see it. Anger was a lot easier to deal with than hurt and betrayal.

“I’m not going to hit him again.”

She gave them both a hard look, then turned and walked back the way she’d come. Both men watched her leave until they were sure she wasn’t coming back.

“I’m sorry,” Drew said quietly. “Not in a million years would I have guessed that your sister and I would...end up where we are.”

“Where is that exactly? Besides making out in a bathroom, of course.”

He blew out a breath and rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know, to be honest. We’re attracted to each other. We enjoy each other’s company. But it hasn’t been an actual relationship because of you.”

“Don’t blame me when you didn’t even have the respect to let me figure out how I’d feel about it. Instead you let me walk in on... I’m not the bad guy here.”

“You’re right. It wasn’t because of you. We were afraid, or mostly I was, that you’d react badly. As long as you didn’t know about it, I didn’t have to choose between you and her.”

“Which would you choose?”

Drew hadn’t expected that and it threw him. He hesitated, trying to wrap his mind around a choice he’d avoided making at all costs. “You. We’ve been friends our whole lives.”

Mitch pointed at him. “Then you don’t deserve her.”

Ryan stepped out of the trees, catching them both off guard. The path was a shortcut to the clearing and neither had heard him coming. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Mitch gave Drew a look that was full of anger and hurt and questions, and then turned away. “I’m done here.”

Ryan followed Mitch down the hill, leaving Drew alone. He sat on a boulder, which wasn’t especially comfortable considering his lack of clothing, and gingerly touched his jaw. It wasn’t broken and, other than some bruising and throbbing, wasn’t a big deal.

His life, on the other hand? That had gone to hell in a hurry.

Chapter Twelve

Liz went back to the bathhouse, where she gathered up Drew’s clothes, and then walked to the big drink cooler they kept at Mike and Lisa’s site. She scooped some ice into a towel and almost bumped into Rose when she turned.

“What’s going on?” Rosie asked, her eyes scanning Liz’s face like an interrogator’s spotlight.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? The others thought, when they ran by, that they were horsing around, but Ryan went to see what was going on and he said punches were thrown. And you’re holding Drew’s clothes. Mitch found out, didn’t he?”

“Only one punch was thrown. And it’s nobody’s business.”

“If anybody was ever my business, it’s you kids. I told you before that you should tell him.”

She hadn’t thought that would be enough to put Rose off, but Liz really didn’t want to talk about it right now. “Mitch should learn to knock.”

She knew Rosie had more to say—probably a lot more—but Liz stepped around her and kept walking. Mitch and Ryan passed her on the way, but they didn’t say anything to her. That was fine. She had nothing to say to them, either.

Drew was sitting on a rock, holding his jaw. His eyes tracked her approach, but his expression was as hard as the boulder under his butt.

“I brought you some ice.” She held it out to him and, after a few seconds during which his pride and his pain were probably having an epic battle, he took it and held it to his jaw. “I’m sorry, Drew. I thought you locked the door.”

“I didn’t want to slow down that long,” he mumbled.

Flattering, but a serious error in judgment. “Thank you for not hitting him back.”

Even if he did feel like he deserved that punch on some level, she could see it really pricked at his pride to take it. It said a lot about his feelings for Mitch, and maybe for her, that he hadn’t even raised a hand in retaliation.

“He’ll get over it,” Drew said, and she wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or to himself. “A lot of the anger is shock. That was the absolute worst way to find out.”

“Actually, in another ninety seconds or so, it would have been way worse.” Her lame attempt at humor didn’t make him smile.

They heard the low rumble of an ATV slowly climbing the hill, so Drew stood and grabbed the clothes she’d brought him. He started with the pants, then pulled the T-shirt over his head.

Liz saw him wince when he shoved his feet in his sandals. There was a lot of gravel between the bathhouse and the top of the hill.

Their visitor turned out to be Andy and, thankfully, he was alone. “I’m too old to walk all over this campground.”

“Hey, Dad.”

“I heard there’s a problem.”

Liz watched Andy climb off the four-wheeler so he could check out his son’s jaw and, when she heard their voices in very low conversation, she figured it was her cue to leave. “I’m going to go, uh...finish my laundry.”

She took the path Ryan had used, which would save her from making what would feel like a walk of shame through the campground. It dumped her out of the woods slightly above her aunt and uncle’s camper and she could see Aunt Mary and Rose standing in front of it, having what looked like a serious conversation. No doubt about her and Drew and Mitch.

Rather than veer off and hide in her tent, she walked down to the camper. Maybe she’d score a sympathy cookie, at least.

Since the rain had stopped and the kids were running around, the two women bustled her into the camper, where the air-conditioning chilled the surface of her skin.

“I’m still pretty damp,” Liz said when Aunt Mary sat on the couch and patted the seat next to her.

“It’ll dry. Sit.”

Liz figured a lecture was coming and she debated whether or not a cookie was worth it. Two cookies, maybe. Or a brownie. “Did you make any blond brownies?”

“Talk first. You save the goodies for after the tears.”

“I’m not going to cry.” She almost never cried. It was probably a holdover from growing up with four merciless brothers.

Then Rose sat in the swivel recliner and reached across the space to touch Liz’s knee. Before long, Liz found herself curled up on the couch with her head in her aunt’s lap. Aunt Mary stroked her back and Rose held her hand while she spilled out the entire story for her aunt’s benefit. With tears.

* * *

“You can’t stay up here forever.”

Drew knew his dad was right, but it was pretty peaceful at the top of the hill now that Mitch and Liz were somewhere down at the bottom of it. “It takes about a half hour for the worst of Mitch’s temper to burn itself out. Not everything will be all better, but I don’t want to have a scene in front of the kids.”

“Says the guy who just ran through the campground in his underwear.”

Drew chuckled, but that hurt his jaw so he stopped. “I wasn’t sure how bad things would get and if Mitch and I really went at it, I didn’t want it to be in that tiny bathroom where Liz could get hurt. And once I moved, I figured I should wear him out a little before giving him the chance to swing. I was always the stronger runner.”

“So, this thing with Liz...did it just happen or is it serious? What’s going on?”

Drew told the entire story to his dad, who winced when he got to the part about sneaking away from Mitch’s reception and then again when he talked about Mitch coming to his office and laughing off the idea Drew would touch Liz while Drew kept silent.

“Ouch.” Andy shook his head. “That’s going to be a sticking point there. That’s as close to an outright lie as you can come without opening your mouth.”

“I know. And I don’t know how to make it better.”

“A lot’s going to depend on what you do next. And then the rest is just time.” Andy sighed. “I think you’ve got to give him enough space to wrap his head around it, but not enough space so it’s easier to shove you away and be done with you.”

Drew sat sideways on the seat of the ATV, wanting to get off his feet. Now that the adrenaline was waning, they were really starting to hurt. His face didn’t feel much better. He wanted, more than anything, to go check on Liz, but he wasn’t sure what the current climate was in the family circle and he didn’t think Mitch had had enough time to cool off yet.

A couple minutes later, Ryan returned, this time walking up the road. He had a couple of water bottles and he handed one to each of them. “Lauren said you need to hydrate, so here. Hydrate.”

He cracked open the top and downed half the bottle in one shot. “Tell her I said thanks. So, what’s going on down there? Where’s Liz?”

“Paige took Mitch into their camper where, hopefully, she’s listening to him rant himself out and calming him down. And Rosie and Aunt Mary have Liz. Probably stuffing her full of cookies. The others are kind of giving the kids the bum’s rush toward the pool, not that they’re complaining.”

“So the coast is clear to grab my stuff and get the hell out of here, then.”

Ryan tilted his head, giving him a scowl. “I don’t think that’s how to handle this.”

“If I leave now, you can all salvage what’s left of your vacation.”

“If you leave now, you and Mitch are estranged. Probably forever. You’ll be working, he’ll go back to traveling. You won’t call him and he won’t call you and time will pass until it’s too awkward to even say hello to each other if you pass on the street.”

“I have to agree with that, son,” his dad said.

They were right and he knew it. And he didn’t want that. “But me being here will make things harder for Liz.”

Ryan chuckled. “Don’t worry about Liz. As long as neither of you push her into a corner and try to make her choose one of you over the other, she’ll be fine. She’s a pretty tough cookie.”

Drew knew he wouldn’t do that to her, but he wasn’t sure about Mitch. “Maybe I should go talk to him.”

“Let Liz get to him first,” Ryan suggested. “He needs to be reminded our little sister is a grown woman who’s free to have sex with whoever she wants and that argument coming from you will probably get you punched in the face again. She’ll push back at him but it’ll be okay because they’re blood. You don’t have that unbreakable bond.”

“I’m not going to hide in my tent while she cleans up the mess I made.”

“Look,” Ryan said, annoyance obvious in his clipped tone. “This is why you don’t mess around with your best friend’s sister. Now you’ve got this messy triangle thing where Mitch and Liz’s relationship is not your problem and your relationship with Mitch is not Liz’s problem and Liz’s relationship with you is not Mitch’s problem, but really it’s just one huge goddamned problem because you’re all bound together.”

“If Mitch knows he and Liz are okay,” Andy added, “he’s more likely to listen and try to be okay with you.”

“So what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Sit on this rock?”

“I’d recommend running to Rosie,” Ryan said. When they both scoffed at him, he held up his hands. “What? I’m serious. Let her fuss over your face and your feet and feed you cookies. Don’t forget, she loves Mitch and Liz like her own, but you’re Andy’s son. She loves Andy. They live together so you’re like her almost stepson.”

“That’s a good plan, Drew. Ryan’s right.”

“I have a teenage almost stepson. Trust me, it’s like a crash course in navigating awkward family politics.”

Drew downed the rest of his water and screwed the cap back on the bottle. “I guess you’re right.”

As much as part of him wanted to go to Mitch and push him for the opportunity to explain and make things right, he knew the other men were right. And if ever he’d needed some fussing over from Rose, it was now. She’d known their secret all along and had still tried to throw them together, which meant she must be on his side.

He just hoped Liz didn’t eat all the treats first.

* * *

Liz sighed and shoved the last bite of her third blond brownie in her mouth. She was in dry clothes, thanks to Rose making a trip to her tent, but she still felt like a wet washcloth that had been wrung out hard.

After getting through the entire tale of woe, both women had tried to talk through it with her. Their joint advice was, of course, best summed up as Mitch would get over it and if she and Drew were meant to be, it would all work out.

Meant to be
what
, was the question.

If they were meant to be having some fun sex with no complications, that wasn’t working out too well for them. If they were meant to be more than that, well, she wasn’t sure that’s what either of them were looking for.

Rose, who’d been in and out, probably taking everybody’s emotional temperatures, entered the camper and smiled. “Most of the family has evacuated to the pool. And Paige thinks Mitch has calmed down enough to have a conversation now.”

“Good.” Liz chugged down the milk remaining in the glass Aunt Mary had poured for her and slid out of the dinette. “I’m going to go converse with him right now. Is he in his camper?”

“Yes,” Rose said. “But you need to keep that temper of yours in check or you’ll set him off again.”

“I’ll be good.”

Because most of them were down at the pool, she didn’t feel like a sideshow attraction as she made the walk to Mitch and Paige’s RV. That would no doubt come later when the family game of telephone had had time to complete the circuit.

When she tapped on the door, Paige stepped out. She was wearing a swimsuit and had a towel draped around her neck. “I’m going to join the others. Mitch is inside.”

“How is he?” Even though she was mad at him, she was trying to empathize with how it would feel for your best friend and sister to sneak around keeping secrets.

“He’s hurt. Angry. A little embarrassed by his temper. Confused, I guess.”

Liz drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I guess I’ll go in.”

Her oldest brother was sitting in the corner of the RV’s couch, leaning against the back of the dinette’s bench. She could have sat in the small swivel rocker, but she chose to sit on the other end of the couch. It wasn’t very long, so she had to nudge his legs a little to make room. She wanted the physical proximity, even if they were a mile apart emotionally at the moment.

“Drew told me yesterday after breakfast he was going to talk to you when we got back to Maine.”

“He should have told me immediately.”

Liz shook her head. “At your wedding? What, shake your hand and say, ‘Congratulations and, oh by the way, I banged your sister while they were bringing out the cake’?”

Red tinted his neck and face. “Don’t talk like that, Liz.”

“Okay. Here’s the thing. He didn’t want to lose your friendship over a nothing fling. And when I came home and that chemistry was still there, it was kind of too late for him to tell you, so he’s been trying to keep his distance from me. With varying degrees of success, of course, but some of that’s on me. And this happy family camping trip didn’t help. But he did try to walk away from me.”

“It’s weird.”

It was a funny word to use, but at least they were working their way down from bluster to real feelings. “Why?”

His scowl grew more intense with each passing second, until he shrugged. “I can’t explain it. It’s just weird.”

“If we were still teenagers and all of a sudden you had to be the third wheel to the two of us, I can see why it would be weird. But we’re not. You’re married and you own a business that keeps you busy and you’re going to be a dad. You guys aren’t running buddies anymore.”

“There’s still a code.”

She wanted to shake him until his teeth rattled. “Fine. There’s some stupid code left over from high school I’m sick of hearing about. And, yes, he broke it.”

“He disrespected you.”

“Oh, hell no. He didn’t disrespect me. He disrespected
you
and he owns that, Mitch. He knows it and, whether you believe it or not, he’s suffered for it.”

Mitch propped his elbow on the back of the dinette bench and rested his head against his hand. “You guys never messed around when we were kids?”

“No. I don’t think we even noticed each other that way. But at your wedding, at that point in our lives, it was just...it happened.”

“And what’s happening now? You guys weren’t keeping your distance from each other in the bathhouse.”