Shameless (11 page)

“They have more attractive orthopedic shoes than that,” her grandmother was saying to the nurse as she was wheeled back into the room. “I’ll get you the name of a place that can take care of you. No need for a woman as attractive as you to pass up the opportunity to appeal to that young Dr. Monahan.”

The nurse laughed. “I’m married with three kids, Mrs. Ross.”

“Your point is? You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow. A woman should always leave her options open.”

The nurse laughed again and Nina got up to help transfer her grandmother back to the bed.

“Oh, for God’s sake, I can get back into bed myself,” Gladys protested. “Lord knows I’ve had enough practice.”

Nina nearly choked on her own saliva, but the nurse appeared to have missed the sexual reference. Thank God for small favors.

“Still terrorizing the staff, I see,” Nina said, sitting back down in the chair and claiming the magazine again after the nurse had left.

“It’s the only action to be found around here. Last night I tried to pick up the old guy in the room next door.”

“What happened?”

“His wife called for a nurse to wheel me out.”

Nina stared at her. “You hit on a guy in front of his wife?”

Gladys shrugged as she adjusted her blankets. “How was I supposed to know she’d just gone to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee? He never said anything. Obviously, he was leaving
his
options open.”

She winked at Nina knowingly.

Nina had spent last night at her parents’, deciding that it would be a good idea for her to get there early enough to have dinner with them considering she was accepting their hospitality.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“No, I’m alive. And so long as I’m alive, I’m going to be kicking.”

“God, sometimes you really…”

Gladys raised a brow at her.

Nina caught her lip between her teeth and bit down. She didn’t know where that opening comment had come from. While her grandmother might embarrass her on occasion, mostly she found the older woman amusing and a fresh change from her ordinary, boring life.

Perhaps it was because her life wasn’t so boring. Not anymore. And maybe it was because a part of her, just a tiny little part, blamed Gladys for putting thoughts into her head. If it weren’t for those thoughts, she might never have gone ahead with Gauge’s stupid plan. Might never have welcomed Kevin into her bed and then mistaken him for Gauge and slept with him, as well.

But that wasn’t fair, was it? She was an adult woman more than capable of making her own decisions.

And, it was baldly apparent, of making her own mistakes.

“What were you going to say, child?” Gladys asked when she didn’t continue.

Nina closed the magazine with a clap. “Can’t you take anything seriously for two seconds?” She dropped the periodical on the pile of others her grandmother hadn’t touched. “I mean, for God’s sake, you just had a heart attack. Certainly that, more than anything, should give you a little food for thought.”

“Thought about what, dear?”

Gladys reached for her makeup case on the side table and took her lipstick out, freshening up the color.

It was all Nina could do not to snatch it from her hand and toss the tube into the garbage can.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe think twice about the way you’re leading your life?”

“Like a warning bell from God to start living a less sinful life?”

Nina snapped her mouth closed, but managed to nod.

Lord, now she definitely sounded like her uptight mother.

“Yes,” her grandmother said quietly. “Actually, this experience has made me stop to take stock of my life.”

This surprised Nina.

“For about all of two seconds.”

Nina gave an eye roll that almost hurt with its intensity.

“Now, don’t you be doing that to me, missy. I’m still your grandmother, you know. And you’ll show me respect.”

“Then start acting like a grandmother.”

Nina cringed at the words. How many times growing up had she heard her mother say the same thing to Gladys? “When you start acting like a mother, I’ll start treating you like mine,” was a favorite.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, averting her gaze. “That was uncalled for.”

Gladys rearranged her blankets, trying to appear nonchalant even though Nina could see the words had bothered her. “Now I’m really curious about what happened.”

Nina met her gaze head-on.

“So are you going to tell me what’s going on? Or am I going to have to torture it out of you?”

But this time he looked up into his friend’s eyes.

Gauge shrugged and glanced at their final customer browsing through the Clive Cussler selections. “I just thought I should tell you that I’ve decided it’ll be best for everyone involved if I just packed up my things and moved on.”

Kevin had imagined a lot of things over the past few days, but this certainly hadn’t been one of them. He’d never have suspected such thoughts were going through Gauge’s mind. He’d thought he enjoyed his job and his one-third ownership of the store.

He didn’t know what to say.

A part of him was glad for Gauge’s words.

Another part wanted to tell him not to be so hasty.

Gauge ran his hand through his hair, tousling it even further. “I heard that Nina’s coming back tonight and will be in the store tomorrow. So I think now’s a good time.”

Kevin smacked the last book from a new shipment he was scanning into the system on top of the stack. “You know, you do a goddamn lot of that. Coming up with ideas and making decisions you think are best for everybody else.”

Gauge crossed his arms. “Tell me you don’t want to see me leave.”

Kevin clenched his jaw. “Right this minute? I’d like nothing better than to see your cheating ass disappear from this shop and my life.”

He caught Gauge’s cringe, but felt nothing more than satisfied at the reaction.

He moved the stack of books to the back counter where he could shelve them in the morning.

“Don’t you think you at least owe her a goodbye?” he asked in a low, steady voice.

“Who? Nina?”

Kevin’s jaw further clenched.

“No. I think she’d pretty much figured out what went down. And I’m probably the last person she wants to see.”

“There you go. Speaking for other people again.”

Kevin collapsed the shipping box and slid it under the counter before turning to face the other man.

“You know why I think you’re leaving, Gauge?”

Gauge smirked. “No, Kevin, I don’t. But I think you’re about to tell me.”

“You’re damn right I’m going to tell you. You’re leaving not out of some misplaced sense of duty, or because you’re doing what you think is right. You’re leaving because you’re a goddamn coward.”

That knocked the expression right off his face more effectively than if Kevin had hit him with his clenched fist.

“That’s right. You’re leaving because you can’t face the music that you, yourself, created. Instead, you’re running. Running away from this problem just like you’ve run away from all the other problems you’ve encountered in your life.”

Neither of them said anything for a long moment. They merely stood, staring each other down.

“Are you saying you want me to stay?”

“I’m saying that you should at least stay to see what Nina has to say about all this.”

“Have you spoken to her?”

Kevin straightened the flyers on the counter.

“Look who’s calling who a coward.”

Gauge turned to walk away. Kevin came out from behind the counter and grabbed his arm, forcing him to face him.

“Just what in the hell did you mean by that?”

“You seem to be the expert on human behavior lately, Kevin. You tell me.”

Kevin forced himself to release his friend’s arm, but it took all of his concentration not to give in to the desire to hit him again. “You know, you have a very bad habit of making assumptions.”

“Maybe,” Gauge admitted. “So tell me then why you haven’t called her.”

Kevin didn’t have an answer for that.

“I know. It’s because you think she might want me over you.”

Kevin was going to hit him.

Gauge must have seen his intention in his eyes because backed out of slugging range.

“What happened the other night was a mistake, Kevin. Pure and simple. I said something that must have made her think I was the one who had spent the night with her and she acted on it. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Kevin snorted. “You must have said something. Tell me, Gauge. Did you purposely say something that made her think that?”

“What?”

“You heard me. Did you purposely make her think that you were the one so you could have a run at that ass yourself?”

This time it looked as if Gauge might hit Kevin.

That surprised Kevin, and he took a small step back.

“You must not have a very high opinion of me.”

“This minute? No, I don’t.”

“Did you ever stop to think for a moment that she might believe you incapable of sneaking into her bedroom late at night and doing all sorts of decadent things to her, Kevin? Fine, upstanding man that you are, from a good family. A good boy to the end, did you ever once consider that she might have thought you incapable of having anonymous sex with her?”

Kevin froze.

“No. I didn’t think so.”

He turned to go again and this time Kevin let him.

Gauge stopped just this side of the stockroom door and dropped his head before shifting slightly to give Kevin a sidelong glance.

“Grow up, Kevin.”

Kevin blinked at him.

“It’s time you understood that there’s a big difference between sex and love.”

“Of course, you would be the expert on both.”

Gauge didn’t say anything for a long moment, and then he rubbed his chin. “No, I’m not. But I do think I have a hell of a lot more experience in this than you do. Including in the love department.” He looked in the other direction briefly before looking back. “What Nina and I did the other night…that was just sex.”

“And what she and I did?”

“That was the love that made her go looking for that sex.”

Kevin wasn’t sure he understood what, exactly, that meant. But he remained where he was, watching as Gauge picked up the guitar and bag he had waiting at the door and then walked through it without saying another word.

Yet she still felt outside herself.

When the winter chill began to invade the warm interior of the car, she climbed out, grabbing her bag from the back and then headed toward the outside stairs leading to her apartment. Someone had shoveled and salted the wooden slats. Likely Heidi, who she had asked to look after Ernie while she was away. She trudged up the steps much as she had every day over the past four years.

Then again, it was nothing like it, was it? Because she was no longer the same person she had been during that time. Within a week’s span, she had evolved into someone else. Exactly who that person was, she didn’t know. But she understood that she would never be that other woman again. The one who haphazardly picked her dates and stuck with them for a long period before discovering they weren’t for her.

So, in that regard, she supposed Gauge’s plan had worked.

Unfortunately, the lesson had come with a high price.

She let herself into her apartment, closing the door behind her and dropping her bag to the floor. She bent to take off her boots, a task made doubly difficult by an effusive Ernie. Nina patted him, always finding it strange that twenty pounds of cat flesh could nearly knock her over.

“Did you miss me, boy?” She finally stepped out of the boots and into her waiting fuzzy slippers and then picked the purring feline up, holding him out in front of her.

“I missed you, too, baby. I missed you, too.”

She cuddled him close to her chest and kissed the side of his neck even as she walked farther into the apartment, switching on lights as she went.

She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Perhaps that since she had changed so much internally, her external surroundings would somehow have also been altered. But, aside from the small pile of mail on the hall table, a fresh carton of milk in the refrigerator and a note from Heidi lying on top of a covered plate of pastry, nothing had changed.

She picked up the note and read aloud, “Welcome home.”

Home.

She put the note back down and then took the milk and a bowl out, giving Ernie a rare treat because too much gave him diarrhea.

Ernie leaped down from her arms, purring up a storm as he lapped both the milk and her pats up.

She wandered through the rest of the rooms, switching on the television in her bedroom while she stripped out of her clothes. Conan O’Brien was interviewing someone she didn’t recognize as she moved into the connecting bathroom and climbed into the shower. She waited until the water got to temperature and then stood under the pounding jets.

And just like that, everything she’d been able to avoid for the past few days collapsed on top of her because she was no longer able to keep it aloft.

What had she done?

Worry over her grandmother had kept her from succumbing to the sadness that pressed in on her from all sides. But now that Gladys was going home from the hospital tomorrow, and was well on the way to recovery, she no longer had that excuse to keep her from facing what had happened.

She remembered the hurt expression on Kevin’s face when he’d caught her and Gauge. But it wasn’t really Gauge, was it? Oh, physically it may have been, but she’d thought he was her mystery lover. So, with or without the blindfold, that was the man she’d been seeking out.

Only Kevin had been that man.

She knew that now. As plainly as she knew what day it was.

And she also knew that with one impulsive act, she’d ruined everything that had taken them three years to build.

The store.

Their friendship.

Her hot tears battled the shower spray as she cried.

How could she have been so stupid? How could she have missed all the signals?

Long minutes later, the hot water began to turn cold. She lethargically shut it off and then reached for a towel, Ernie giving himself a tongue bath on the mat at her feet.

She stepped over him and went straight to her bed, not even bothering with a nightgown or panties as she wrapped her hair in the towel and then climbed under the covers. The canned laughter coming from the television sounded strange to her so she shut it off and lay in the dark for long moments.

Waiting. She seemed to be waiting for something. For the emotions crowding her chest to dissipate. For someone, anyone to do something that would alleviate her own pain. Take it away. Tell her that it was okay, she’d made a mistake, and that everything would go back to being normal in the morning.

Only she knew no one could do that. Because it wouldn’t be okay. Everything had changed.

And nothing would ever be the same again.