Settling Up (10 page)

M
ack didn’t seem quite as
excited as Betsy had been when I told him about Adrian the following morning at the Blackjack table.

He pursed his lips, nodding slowly. “That’s great. I’m happy for you, Lauren.”

In his defense, though, Bets had squealed happily along with me on the phone for twenty minutes when I’d called her after giving Adrian a campus tour, and squealing wasn’t really Mack’s style. Still, there didn’t even seem to be the normal level of kindness backing his blue eyes and he definitely hadn’t smiled.

Maybe he’d had a bad night’s sleep, or maybe my constant barrage of dating stories was finally wearing him down. Or was it the fact that my other dating stories contained so much humor? There wasn’t a funny thing about this whole Adrian situation. Other than losing my cool in front of the man initially when we’d met, I’d held it together pretty well on the tour I gave him yesterday. I mean, I was witty, informed, and I think I was even able to pull off a deep, sexy voice a few times when I was explaining the different parts of campus. (Though, I think I may have him worried that I’m really attracted to the snack machine around the corner because of said voice.)

“He bought me a coffee at a kiosk when I was showing him the reading garden and the commons.” My shoulders dropped and a sigh leaked out of me, coated in the purest of happinesses.

“Well if buying you a coffee was all it would’ve taken to win you over…” Mack squinted his eyes into a smile.

There it was.

I almost swatted at him, but then I remembered the “no touching” rules in the casino. Gosh it was hard to be good friends with your dealer. Rachel and I never had these kinds of problems. I didn’t have the need to be close with her, didn’t want to touch her. But (if I was being honest with myself), Mack and I were different kinds of friends than Rachel and I had been, we were deeper.

“Kinda ironic, though. Don’t you think?” He cocked his head to the side as he dealt another card.

I looked up at him in question.

“You realize that you really don’t need a list one day only to find someone who fits it exactly the next.” His big shoulders lifted and then dropped down. “Are you sure that’s still who you want?”

“Sure. Yeah.” My words didn’t hold quite as much of the umph I wished they did as I answered his question. “I mean, the idea of throwing the list out was to open myself to new people, but it’s still who I see myself with. I threw away the list because it was seeming too good to be true. I needed to get real about my prospects.” I nodded along as I spoke. “Little did I know, there was no need.”

Mack dipped his chin, a tremor running through his clenched jaw. “Right. I suppose trying to convince you to do otherwise was, in fact, making you settle.”

We played a few more hands in silence.

“When are you off tonight?” I asked after a while, leaning my elbows on the table. “Wanna grab a drink?” Mack was being so quiet and I really wanted him to cheer up.

He shook his head. “I’ve got dinner with my sister tonight. Sorry.”

“Oh, that’s okay. Maybe another time.” I bit my lip, wanting the chatty and happy Mack back, not knowing what was going on in that head of his. “So, I’ve spent the last few weeks telling you all about my sordid dating life, but I haven’t heard any of your dating stories. I mean, just assuming that you’ve — since your wife.”

Mack’s blue eyes softened at my mention of her. He nodded. “Yes, I’ve dated since Tess passed away.” His mouth quirked up into a side smile. “I did have a woman break into my apartment once.”

I gasped. “No!”

“Yep.” He nodded. “We’d only been on one other date. And then there she was, stark naked, lying on my bed, chocolate everywhere.” He chuckled. “Had to throw out that duvet.”

I grimaced. “Ewwww. Because of what you guys did on it?”

Mack let out one loud laugh. “No no. She saw the look on my face when I walked into the room and promptly burst into tears, explaining how she thought it would be a good idea, but it had gone horribly wrong. She had gotten chocolate covered strawberries and placed them all around her, but it had been pretty hot that day and they started melting immediately. Needless to say, it didn’t turned out as sexy as it had been in her head and she said she was sorry about my comforter. She even offered to buy me a new one.”

“Oh no!” I felt sorry for the poor girl, until I remembered the breaking and entering bit.

“I let her use my shower while I cleaned up and she left a little while later, hair dripping, ego probably severely bruised.”

“Did she ever tell you how she got inside?”

He shook his head. “I ended up moving shortly after that, partly because it freaked me out, thinking that she might be back.”

We laughed for a few seconds and then settled into a few quiet hands of Blackjack. Mack paused slightly before dealing the cards in a new hand.

“Do you want to come to my sister’s tonight?”

My head shot back a little. “Your sister’s?”

Mack paused and then nodded. “Yeah. She’s been wanting to meet you. I’m sure she’d be happy to have more than just me over for company.”

I ignored the tightness in my chest and how it expanded down to my limbs, making me feel frozen. Sisters were awesome. I loved mine. I liked Mack a ton and he loved his sister. I’m sure I would, too. Plus, this seemed like what friends would do. Should I have invited him over to Betsy’s already? Oh gosh. I wished that I was better at this grown up friends thing. Realizing that I was taking probably too long to answer, I nodded my head.

“That sounds lovely.”

“Good. You’re out of class by six, right?” When I nodded again, he said, “I’ll text you her address.”

I bit my lip and kept the smile pasted on my face until the hand was over. Then I cashed out, needing to head to work.

A
drian’s door
was propped open as I walked by. I poked my head in and said, “Hey there, neighbor.” I was extremely proud of myself for leaving out the “sexy” that my brain really wanted to add in before “neighbor”.

“Hey!” His face lit up as he looked up from his organized desk. It had seriously only taken the guy a day to unpack all of those labeled and cataloged boxes. My heart fluttered at the thought of his complete-compartmentalized-competence, so happy I had finally found someone who exceeded my cleanliness standards. (Like seriously, he was neater than me, but he didn’t need to know that. I just needed to keep him away from my makeup drawer… and my purse. Right.)

“The room’s looking good.” I nodded as I looked around, motivational math-based posters littering the wall. I still preferred the punny ones that were perfectly placed on my wall.
I’m a math teacher, of course I have problems
and
The True Recipe for Pi
(the formula of the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle) being among my favorite. But his posters were good, too.

“Thanks.” His bright white smile hit me from across the room. It wasn’t like the warmth I felt when I saw Mack’s grin, but it was still a pretty good feeling, if not more disarming and intense. “Hey, what are you doing tonight?” he asked, standing and buttoning the middle button on his suit jacket as he did so.

My breath caught in my throat. A date? My heart hammered against my rib cage. This was what I had been waiting for. I flinched as I remembered Mack’s invitation.

“Oh, I have plans with a friend tonight. I’m sorry.” I squinted one eye, not actually upset, but wishing I didn’t have to turn the guy down. The truth was that I really did want to meet Mack’s sister and the thought of spending a night with him outside of his work sounded too good to pass up. Plus, if this guy liked me, he would wait.

“No worries. I know it’s last minute.” His lips pulled up, but they remained pressed together as he seemed to think. “What about Thursday night? Will you be having dinner with a friend then?”

Seeing as how I only really had the one friend, other than Betsy, the answer to that question was a resounding
no
, but Adrian wasn’t on a need-to-know basis with that little tidbit about me, just yet. “I am not. Thursday is looking very free.” My cheeks scrunched up as my face betrayed my whole-body-happiness.

“Good. It’s a date, then. Unless, you want to forget your dinner tonight and go out with me instead. That is.” He winked.

My cheeks lost a little of their plumpness, sagging with the weight of that request. I really wanted to go out with Adrian, but Mack was my friend and I had told him I would go. I hadn’t had many friends in my life and I wasn’t about to go throwing away one of the best ones I’d had in a good while for a last minute request.

Adrian must’ve caught my hesitation, though, because he held up a hand, closed his eyes for a second, and said, “No, it’s okay. I understand. Thursday will be even better.”

I gave him a wave before I headed to my office. After that, my day was busy enough that I didn’t stop to check my phone until I was on the ferry, on my way back home. Mack had sent me his sister’s address. I put it into my GPS when I got into my car, heading straight there, since we were already nearing six thirty.

As I pulled into the driveway of a medium-sized blue house with a well-cared-for lawn, I wished I had gone home to change into something a little more comfortable. I sighed, knowing there was nothing I could do about it now. But before I slammed the door of my car shut, I remembered the yoga pants, tank, and oversized college sweatshirt I kept in the back just in case I had time at work to get a quick trip in to the campus gym (to be fair, they’d remained back there, unused for quite some time).

My arm reached back and my fingers clutched at the fabric as I stuffed them into my large purse just in case. I didn’t
really
want to be the girl who showed up in sweats to someone’s house without knowing their level of dress or what kind of dinner this really was.

My black work flats slapped against the concrete walkway as I made my way up to the porch. Even before I could raise my hand to knock on the dark blue door, it swung open, revealing a rosy-cheeked Mack and two Great Danes.

“Hey!” I think Mack said. I’m not sure because at the same time that he greeted me, so did those two dogs (or should I say ponies?) Their greeting was not so much verbal and a lot more physical, consisting of leaping in the air towards me, giant legs splayed, mouths agape, and doing their best to trample me into the porch.

But before they managed to topple me completely over (which I’m now quite sure would’ve led to my untimely death), a strong arm wrapped around my waist and steadied me.

I blinked (having the propensity to snap my eyes closed during terrible situations as a way of not-having-to-deal) and found myself looking right into Mack’s steely blue eyes. They twinkled in the evening light. He smiled, but his arm didn’t leave me, instead he used it to scoop me inside and close the door behind us.

A short blond woman walked around the corner, wiping her hands off on a blue checkered dish towel. She snapped it at the dogs. “Boys, calm the crap down.” She rolled her eyes. “You’d think they never saw other humans.” Then her towel snapped out at Mack. “I blame this one for getting them all riled up, standing by the door, looking out the window every two minutes.”

Mack’s cheeks blushed pink and he stepped away from me. My body missed his closeness, though, until the blond woman stepped toward me, hand outstretched.

“Jessica,” she said. “You can call me Jess, though.” She blew a lock of hair out of her face, then pointed to the dogs that were still winding about our legs — er — midsections. “This is Hans.” She pointed to the black and white dog. “And this is Niels.” She motioned to the completely black beast.

I squinted as I thought about the interesting names.

“Hans Christian Anderson, the author, and Niels Bohr, the Nobel Peace Prize winning physicist,” Mack interjected, as if reading my thoughts, again.

I let out a single, way-too-loud laugh. “Great
Danes
. I get it.”

“Hey! Good job. People don’t usually get that. Come on in.” She motioned me to follow her with a jerk of her head.

T
he first thing
that hit me about Jessica’s house was the fact that it smelled wonderful. Like a mixture of spices and baking and clean sheets. Not to be rude, but it surprised me. I mean, she had two huge animals living with her. It had been my experience that animals invariably created smells and messes wherever they went. Which is why I didn’t own any. But even with these huge creatures romping around the place, only pleasant smells swirled around me as I walked into the kitchen and was introduced to Jessica’s husband, Ryan.

The second thing I noticed was that I was incredibly over dressed. Jess was wearing yoga pants and a t-shirt, Mack had on jeans and a faded green sweatshirt that said something about a coast somewhere. His white-socked feet made me inwardly giggle and feel like I was seeing a whole different side of him for some weird reason. Ryan and Mack looked like they were going to a party where the goal was to dress exactly the same way as the person next to you.

I frowned and looked down at my slacks and blouse, wrinkled from the day of traveling and teaching, but still way too stiff for this event, it seemed. My eyes moved to my purse, still slung over my shoulder, which held the glorious stretchy clothing.

I cleared my throat. “Um… so it looks like I’m creepily over dressed here.”

Mack raised his eyebrows and coughed, but Jess cringed, saying, “Oh, you’re absolutely fine. You look super cute. I have some stretch pants and a shirt you could borrow if you want, though.”

I blinked. I mean, sure I stole Betsy’s clothes when I was at her place and used her spare stuff as pjs on the occasional impromptu sleep over, but to have this almost stranger offer her clothes to me after about a minute after meeting me warmed my heart just about as much as seeing Mack in his stocking feet.

Jess’s face creased in worry. “Oh my gosh. I’m sorry. That was super weird. You don’t know me and probably don’t want to wear my clothes.” She shook her head and Ryan rolled his eyes at her, but returned to cutting up something green on the counter.

I put a hand up. “Oh, no! It’s not weird at all.” I bit my lip. “It’s actually really sweet. Thank you. I do actually have a change of clothes in my purse.” I pointed to the big gray thing on my shoulder. “But I wasn’t sure if they would be too casual.”

Jess shrugged and said, “Hey, as long as you’re wearing something.” She giggled to herself. “Be my guest. We’re all about comfort around here.” She eyed the pile of Great Danes in the corner of the room where two big dog beds were laid out. “Obviously.”

We laughed and Mack pointed me to the nearest bathroom. Wiggling out of my work clothes and into my cotton/spandex combination ones made me feel all giddy and so much more relaxed. I didn’t even feel the telltale anxiety when I swooped my hair up into a messy bun, swiping it this way and that to avoid the bald spots showing.

My doctor had found that my iron and a few other levels were a little low, so other than trying to de-stress, I was to up my daily supplements and was already feeling like I was seeing a difference in my hair loss. I folded my discarded clothes into my bag and then placed it all by the door before heading back into the kitchen.

Sautéing veggies sizzled on the stove top and the smells of garlic and onion enveloped me like a wonderfully pungent blanket. I asked if I could help with anything, but was told definitely no, seeing as I was the guest of honor that night. I smiled, and it only grew bigger as Mack placed a glass of chilled white wine in my hand. We stood around and chatted while Jess and Ryan finished up the meal.

“So I hear you’ve been keeping my brother busy at that tiny casino he insists isn’t a total waste of his time and money,” Jess said, eyeing me over her shoulder and then shooting a look at Mack who only scoffed in return.

I nodded. “Yeah, I’m kind of a crazy person, so I schedule myself at least two days a week to help calm me down. Either that or I would go completely wacky and carve numbers into my walls and eventually my skin.” I laugh, realizing all too late that those were pretty much all the wrong words. Holy hell. These people had seriously
just
met me and I was making psycho jokes? Gawd. I needed to get out more.

“Ha!” Jess laughed, just once, loud and forcefully. She pointed at me with her knife. “You’re funny.” Then she turned to Mack who was gathering plates from the cupboard. “You didn’t say she was so funny.”

“I definitely remember telling you she was funny,” he said, dead pan. His face was set while she looked at him, but when she went back to her cooking, he winked at me, walking past to go set the table.

“At first I didn’t think of a math professor as the type to frequent such a place, but Ryan reminded me of that movie where all of those smart math kids go count cards in Vegas and get in big trouble.” Jess diced some green onions and sprinkled them on top of the large bowl of now finished fried rice.

Ryan, washing his hands, nodded. “You do that, Lauren?” He tipped his head up and his eyebrows followed in question. He motioned his head toward the dining room where Mack was still setting up. “We won’t tell him.”

I laughed. “I guess I could. Do a little. But nothing like they were doing in that movie. Blackjack’s not really one of those games where it’ll help you much, though.”

Ryan nodded, seemingly appeased.

“But I was telling Mack that it was good. That it means you’re not cookie-cutter. We like people like that,” said Jessica.

After the carving-numbers-in-my-skin comment, my breath had mostly been hiding inside my lungs, but at that comment, it leaked out slowly. My shoulders settled.

“And what do you guys do?”

“I’m a real estate agent and Ry’s a firefighter,” Jess said. Ryan nodded as if I might not believe her and would need his confirmation. These two were funny together.

Mack walked back in from the dining room. There was a looseness to his shoulders that I hadn’t seen before. He was always pretty laid back, but this version of him seemed at peace, comfortable. I could tell this was a place he spent a lot of time, which made it all the more special that he would bring me into it.

Jess told him to help Ryan with the bowls and she motioned for me to join her in the dining room. After a frenzy of giant dogs waking up because their owners were moving to a new room, and them crashing around us until they were sure we were settled in our seats, we were all seated around a full-of-food table, drinks in hand, and smiles on our faces.

Mack lifted his beer glass. “To family and good friends.” He smiled as we clinked our glasses together over the food. The guys had recently filled their beers and the clinking sloshed the amber liquid, sprinkling it over the huge bowl of fried rice.

The hostess laughed and waved away their worried looks. “It’ll just add flavor, right?”

Jess was growing to be one of my favorite new people. I mean besides Mack of course, but she was gunning for a close second. My cheeks grew hot and probably red for a second as I remembered Adrian and how I hadn’t
remembered
him all night up until then. Telling myself it was because he was so new, I focused on the food in front of me.

“Guests go first.” Jess handed me the big serving spoon, breaking me out of my inner thoughts and worries.

I dug in. We all did. The table was silent for a moment while everyone focused on their food. It was delicious! I had gone through half my plate before I looked up. We all did at once, actually, then looked back down at our mostly demolished plates, and then back up. A laugh rolled around the table and we all sat back, going at the rest of our provisions with a little less intensity after that.

Jessica, her house, her warmth, it all reminded me so much of my sister, I almost couldn’t bear it. I felt like she and Betsy would hit it off in a split second. Mack locked eyes with me every so often throughout the meal, his whole face smiling, his cheeks rosy. He chatted with Ryan about their new trucks (both of them had gotten similar models in the last year), he talked with Jess about some of her new listings, and he told them how he and I had met and (in his words) decided to become each other’s sounding boards in this crazy thing called life.

I looked down at my empty plate at that last part, the warmth in my heart spreading to my face, but definitely not in a your-neck-rash-is-imminent way.

“Well, I don’t know how much good I do, but he’s certainly been a life-saver these past few weeks.” I looked at Jess. “He left a part out of that ‘us meeting’ story. I had found a bald spot that morning and was freaking out about the whole thing. Mack’s been helping me figure everything out since then.”

Jess wanted to hear all about this, but she said we needed more wine and a comfier place to chat, so we refilled and moved to the couch, the guys saying they’d handle the dishes. She tucked her legs under her and patted the cushion next to her. Biting my lip, I plopped next to her and told her the whole story, all of it, even the part about my list.

“Hmm… I get the idea of it, but I agree with Donald on this one. Ry and I shouldn’t work if you looked at us on paper, but for some reason, we just do.” She shrugged. When I squinted at her in question, she added, “Well, I mean, obviously love is the reason. I think it’s just something you have to feel, not some sort of prescribed thing.”

I nodded, biting my lip, thinking about Adrian with wobbly feelings of doubt for the second time that night. But then I shook my head. “Sorry, did you call Mack Donald?” As the words left my mouth, I heard the joke. Jess’s pink cheeks scrunched up and she touched her nose.

“You’re a sharp one, miss Lauren.” There wasn’t a mocking tone in her body. She was seriously giving me a compliment. “He hates McDonalds, so I give him a hard time about it. Not that I eat the stuff either, makes me blow up like a freaking hot air balloon.” She shook her head.

I smiled at the thought of them giving each other a hard time just like Betsy and I did. They reminded me a lot of us, actually. But as I was thinking to myself, a soft hand landed on mine. I looked up to see Jess, looking me square in the eyes. Not in an intimidating way, but in a much more serious way than she had been a second before.

“He mentioned that he told you about Tess.”

I gulped, nodded, and tried to will the knot in my stomach to loosen.

Jess closed her eyes slowly, but when she opened them, she locked them back with mine. “You’re the first person. Besides our family. That’s a really big deal for him.” She smiled, but there was a sadness standing right behind it, the shadow of it darkening the happy gesture.

I nodded, hoping to show her that I knew what a big deal it was, or at least, I was trying to understand. “I know I’ve only known the guy for weeks, but it seriously feels like years. He has this way of calming me down. Just one look at his face and I feel quiet, better. He’s done so much to help me try to figure out my life. I just wanted to give him back even a fraction of the friendship he’s given me already.”

Jess pressed her lips together, her eyes soft. She squeezed her hand down on mine. “I think you have already if you got him to open up about Tess. Plus, he told me you got him to start climbing again. That’s amazing. Tess never did any of the outdoor stuff with him. I wish she had. I think he wouldn’t feel so selfish or guilty if she’d been involved in any of that. Thank you.” She leaned forward and hugged me.

“We take five minutes to do the dishes and you guys are snuggled up on the couch already.” Ryan’s voice cut through the quiet of the room, and I was glad for his loudness, his redirection. “You had to know Jess would make Lauren her best friend if you brought her here, Mack. That’s on you, bud.” He smacked a hand onto Mack’s shoulder as he stepped into the room next to his brother-in-law.

I waved my hand as Jess pulled away from me. “Please. My sister is the same way. She got all of the relationship skills in the family and can make friends with just about anyone. Me, on the other hand…”

“Are wonderful and I’m not giving you back,” Jess said, finishing my sentence for me and wrapping her arm through mine. “You didn’t tell me you had a sister. What’s she like?”

I told Jess all about Bets and the girls.

“See,” Mack interrupted. “Lauren gets cute little nieces to play with. All I get are these slobbery beasts.” He flopped down next to the pile of dogs that had moved to a new (but very similar looking) set of fluffy beds in this room.

Jess rolled her eyes. “No guilt trips little brother. I’m getting there. I’m just not
there
yet.”

“I’m with you. I’m not ready yet,” I said, nodding my head. “Well, and there’s the super-small fact that I don’t have a guy in my life either.” We laughed.

“What about Mr. Perfect?” Mack asked, getting off the floor and sitting in a overstuffed chair instead.

I sighed. “Yeah. We just haven’t actually been on a date yet, so I doubt he wants to start talking about kids at the moment.”

Jess tipped her head. “A boyfriend?” Her words traveled up in pitch with each syllable.

“Yeah. That list I mentioned earlier? Well, this new guy at work, Adrian, fits all of it. And he’s asked me out.”

As much as I was looking forward to my date with Adrian, I really didn’t feel like talking about him here, with these people, which was weird. We’d talked about just about everything else. Maybe it was the slight downturn to Jessica’s smile as she listened to me mention Adrian. Or possibly it was the way that Mack’s voice had sounded taut and forced when he’d mentioned him. Whatever it was, I didn’t feel like chatting about my upcoming date or the from-my-list dream guy.

“So what’s your craziest realtor story, Jess? You’ve gotta have some doozies, I bet.” I changed the subject.

Jess laughed, got into a more comfortable position, and then said, “Well” as she regaled us with tales of dirty underwear, dogs getting out, and even a small fire during an inspection.

We chatted for a little longer until, at one point, I looked down at my watch and realized it was past eleven. Normally, unless it was my sister’s place, you couldn’t make me stay out for much more than a handful of hours. I loved my little condo overlooking the ocean, in all it’s quiet, simple glory and usually couldn’t wait to get back there. But this, Jess’s house full of Ryan and Mack and laughter and acceptance, made me lose track of all of my introversion (if only for one night).