Sizzling (20 page)

* * *

LORI ARRIVED HOME shortly before five and saw a familiar car in
the driveway. She pulled into the garage, closed the door behind her
and walked into the kitchen. She could hear Madeline and her mother
laughing in the living room and her stomach clenched.
She
didn't mind that her sister invited people over— this was
Madeline's house, too— but why did it have to be their mother?
No matter how the evening went, Lori always ended up feeling like the
odd one out.
"Hi, I'm home," she called as she
walked into the kitchen and set her purse on the counter.
"We're
in the living room," Madeline called. "Come join us."
Lori
stood in the kitchen and wished for an excuse to escape to the quiet
of her room. If only Reid had wanted to seduce her tonight. But he
hadn't been around when her shift had ended and she hadn't been
comfortable calling him on his cell to find out his plans. They might
be physically involved, but she didn't know or understand the
parameters of their relationship. She had a feeling that answers were
only a conversation away. But she was afraid to ask.
Talk
about dumb, she told herself. She should be willing to ask what he
was thinking and explain her own needs and desires. She prided
herself on being a take-charge person, and she was. Everywhere but
with Reid and her mother.
Evie walked into the kitchen and
smiled at her. "Hi, Lori. Did you have a good day?"
"Yes,
thanks. Gloria is doing better and better. I'd been concerned about
how she would heal, but she's moving forward all the time. She should
be back to her regular life in a couple of months."
"That's
good."
Her mother linked arms with her and dragged her
into the living room, then forced her onto the sofa and settled next
to her.
"Your sister and I have a confession," Evie
said, then looked at Madeline and they both burst out laughing.
Lori
glanced between them, not getting the joke. "What
happened?"
Madeline waved her hand in the air. "It's
not a bad thing," she said, barely able to speak between gasps
of laughter. "Unless you're the chicken."
That set
them off again. Lori tried to be patient, even though she felt a
powerful need to scream. What was so damn funny?
"We were
supposed to have chicken for dinner," Evie said as she wiped at
her eyes. "I came over to help Madeline get things started. We
were seasoning the chicken. It was wet and slippery and it went
flying across the room."
She started to laugh again and
couldn't stop. Lori could see how an unruly chicken could be
humorous, but this was a little extreme.
"Okay," she
said slowly. "And?"
Madeline pressed a hand to her
chest. "I picked it up and when we were washing it off, it got
away from us again. That chicken was determined not to go in the
oven."
"It's true," her mother said. "We
dropped it twice more, but we finally got it seasoned and in the pan.
We put it in the oven and came in here to recover. Then about five
minutes before you got home we realized— " She erupted in
laughter.
Madeline joined in, then gasped. "We forgot to
turn on the oven."
This set them off again. Lori tried to
figure out the humor of forgetting to turn on the oven. Apparently it
was one of those moments that had to be experienced in real
time.
"The thing is," her mother told her. "You
would never have forgotten. That's what I was telling Madeline when
you came home. You were always the solid one, Lori. Not flaky like
your sister and me."
Lori held back an automatic protest
that her sister wasn't flaky.
Her mother's laughter faded.
"Oh, Lori, you were such a good little girl. I could depend on
you to take care of things. In my sober moments, I used to think that
wasn't a good thing. Not that I blamed you. You're the only reason we
all survived. But with you around, I didn't have to worry about what
was happening at home. It was all taken care of."
Lori
didn't know what to say to that. Her recollections were similar but
she'd never thought of them in the context of holding the family
together. She'd done what needed to be done because her mother was
always drunk and Madeline was busy with her life.
"I
remember Lori nagging me to eat," Madeline said. "Or at
least eat better than I was."
"She did the same with
me," Evie added. "I can see that sweet little girl,
standing in the kitchen, holding a big pot and yelling that we were
all going to sit down and eat together, even if she had to physically
make us."
Lori felt a rush of memories, most of them bad.
She pushed them away, as she always did, but her mother kept talking
about how much Lori had done.
"I would have been lost
without you," Evie said. "Have I told you that? It's
true."
Lori felt incredibly uncomfortable. She and her
mother didn't get along. Bonding wasn't allowed. "I didn't do
that much."
"Of course you did. Part of recovery is
acknowledging what the alcohol did to your family. In your case,
Lori, my drinking forced you to grow up too soon. You became the mom.
I never wanted that."
Lori squirmed in her seat. "It's
fine," she murmured, wishing they could talk about something
else. She didn't want to hear any of this.
"It's not
fine," her mother said. "I wish things had been different."
She frowned. "Where are your glasses? Did you get
contacts?"
"She had Lasik surgery," Madeline
said, sounding smug. "Isn't she beautiful?"
"She'll
never be as pretty as you," her mother said.
The comment
made Madeline grimace, but helped put Lori's world back in
perspective.
"Eye surgery?" Evie asked. "I
didn't think you'd want to do something like that."
"I
can't wear contacts," Lori said. "I tried and there's just
no way. Now I don't have to worry about glasses."
"Is
there a man?" her mother asked bluntly. "Women always do
stupid things for a man."
Lori distinctly remembered
wishing for a change in topic. Now that it was here, she was having
second thoughts.
"I didn't do it for a man," Lori
said firmly. "I like being able to see without glasses."
Her
mother looked unimpressed.
Lori hated sounding like she'd
changed herself for Reid. He'd been the catalyst but not the reason.
"Okay, fine. I am kind of seeing someone. It's nothing."
"It's
not nothing," Madeline said. "It's fabulous and so is he.
Remember Reid Buchanan? He's that hunky baseball player who blew out
his shoulder last year and had to retire."
"I don't
remember that," Evie told her. "But wasn't there a mean
article about him in the paper recently? Something about him not
being…" Her mother's voice trailed off.
Lori
didn't know what to say. This was a true definition of damned if you
do and damned if you don't. "It wasn't true," she said at
last. "Not any of it."
"I see."
Evie
and Madeline exchanged a look. Lori didn't want to know what either
of them were thinking.
"He's great," Madeline said.
"He adores Lori."
"I'm glad." Evie smiled.
"It's time you found someone."
Lori supposed life
was never all one way and neither were people. Evie was trying.
Failing, but trying.

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

LORI SCOOPED some orange chicken onto her plate. "This is
really good," she said. "Where's the takeout place?"
"A
couple of streets down. I'll show you. It doesn't look like much on
the outside, but the food is great."
She and Reid sat on
the floor, backs against the sofa in his living room in Gloria's
house. The coffee table was covered with open takeout containers.
Reid had provided dinner and a chilled bottle of Chardonnay. While
Lori was confident they would move into the bedroom later, it felt
good just to hang out. More normal, maybe.
"It was
strange last night with my mother," she said, returning to their
previous topic of conversation. "I know she's trying to reach
out and I'm beginning to believe she feels badly for what happened
all those years she was drinking. I know forgiving her is the right
thing to do."
Reid looked at her. "You will when
you're ready."
"Maybe."
Sometimes she
wanted to forgive all and get close to her mother and sometimes she
was so angry, she wanted the other woman punished forever.
She
still remembered being ten years old and breaking her mother's
favorite glass. It had been tall and slender, perfect for mixing
drinks without too much ice getting in the way of the alcohol.
Lori
had been washing the dishes and the glass had slipped, breaking into
dozens of sharp shards. Her mother had been drunk and angry. When
Lori had confessed, Evie had started screaming.
"You're
useless," she'd yelled. "I'm sorry you were born. You're
nothing but an accident. An accident I didn't want. I have one
perfect daughter— why would I want a horrible girl like
you?"
The pain still cut as easily as those pieces of the
broken glass.
"I know when Madeline's gone, she'll be the
only family I have left. That should mean something. I keep thinking
if I tried harder, I could get over everything."
"No
one is saying you have to," he told her.
"I know,
but I feel guilty for not accepting her changes and moving on. It's
weird. We were talking about the past. I realized we all remember
different situations or the same incident, but in a different way. I
guess that's about perspective. I saw what mattered to me, Madeline
saw what mattered to her."
"Maybe everyone has a
piece of the truth," he said. "You can remember the parts
you want to remember and let the rest go."
"I wish I
could."
He put down his fork. "I want to go public
with Madeline's illness. I want to get the story out there so people
think about donating. You said she was a rare blood type. I've been
doing the research and the odds of finding a donor for her aren't
great. I think we can change that."
Lori didn't
understand. "Go public as in…"
"Talk to
the press. Hold interviews. Talk about the importance of donating. Do
you know that here, in the States, you have to opt in to a donation
program. That the assumption is you're not interested in donating
unless you say otherwise. But in Europe, it's the opposite. The
assumption is people want to donate. If you aren't interested, you
have to opt out. That makes a whole lot more sense to me. I've been
talking to some donation centers. They're willing to help coordinate
the process with me. With us." He paused and glanced at her.
"Did I get too ahead of myself? Are you pissed?"
Pissed?
She leaned over and kissed him. Her eyes burned and she figured the
tears weren't all that far behind.
"You'd do that for my
sister? You did the research and now you're willing to go out there
and face the world?"
She wanted to say he couldn't. That
he would be slaughtered in the press. But Madeline's life was too
important. Still, she had to make sure he understood what he was
getting into.
"There's still that article," she
said. "You know any interviewer is going to bring it up."
Reid
shrugged. "The people who matter know the truth about
me."
"Meaning me and four hundred other women,"
she teased.
He didn't smile back. "Meaning you. I'd want
to talk to my family. This is going to mean they could be in the
spotlight, too."
He touched her face. "It's going to
be embarrassing and uncomfortable the first couple of times, but then
we'll talk about Madeline and how organ donations save lives. The
message will get out. What do I care if a few people make cracks at
my expense?"
He was making sense in the best way
possible. "I can't believe you've already done research."
"I'm
an impressive kind of guy."
"Yes, you are." She
leaned in and kissed him again. "More than impressive. You're
spectacular. If you ever need a letter of recommendation, let me
know."
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her onto
his lap. "I just might take you up on that," he said,
before he kissed her back.

* * *

REID PARKED in his usual spot, then walked in through the front
of the Downtown Sports Bar. A couple of the guys called out to him,
he heard a few cracks and kept on moving. Cal, Walker and Dani were
already there, in their usual table in the corner. He greeted
them.
"I know I'm not late," he said as he made a
fist and banged knuckles with both Cal and Walker, then hugged his
baby sister.
"We got here early so we could talk about
you," Dani said with a grin.
"Great. What did you
decide?"
"That you might just turn out okay."
She sat back down and pushed his beer toward him. "Actually, we
all beat you by about two minutes."
He tugged on a lock
of his sister's short hair. "I haven't seen you in a while.
What's going on?"
"Still working for Penny while I
look for something else. She's hoping I'll change my mind about
leaving, but I can't. I need to get going on something of my
own."
"Where have you been looking?"
"All
over the city. There are some interesting places out there."
"Like
where?" Cal asked.
"Valerie's Garden. Fabulous
restaurant, great staff, incredibly strange vegan food. Not for
me."
Reid had never much been into tofu, either.
"You
doing okay otherwise?" he asked.
She nodded. "I'm
doing fine. Moving on with my life." She touched his arm. "Don't
worry."
"We all worry," Walker said. "It's
part of the job description."
"Well, I do need help
with one thing," Dani said, looking at Reid. "I want to
find out about my father. I have nothing to go on, which means I need
to talk to Gloria. What are the odds that her transformation is
genuine and that she'll help me?"
Reid looked at Cal and
Walker. They both shrugged.
"She's changed," Reid
said. "She's trying."
"For you guys," Dani
grumbled. "You're family."
"She was great to
Penny and the baby," Cal offered. "It's not like she loved
the idea of Penny being pregnant with another guy's kid but she was
friendly. Almost charming. Honestly? It kind of freaked me
out."
"She was good to Elissa and even asked her to
bring Zoe on her next visit," Walker said.
"I'm
tempted to talk to her," Dani said. "But not quite tempted
enough."
"Want me to say something?" Reid
asked.
Dani shook her head. "No. This is my dragon. I
have to make peace with it or slay it myself. Metaphorically, of
course. I'm not advocating killing Gloria…yet."
"No
one thinks you are," Cal told her. "We're here for you. You
know that, right?"
"I do." She smiled. "So
that's me. What's up with you, Reid? You've been lying low these past
couple of months."
"With good reason. I do have a
couple of things I need to talk to you about." He glanced at
Walker. "You got my letter of resignation, right?"
Dani
glanced between the two of them, then glared at Reid. "You're
quitting your job here? Just like that? Did you know?" she asked
Cal.
Cal shifted in his seat. "He might have mentioned
it."
Dani grabbed a chip from the pile of nachos and
chomped down furiously. She swallowed. "Dammit, I'm
always
the last to know. I swear, the next time I get a great secret, I'm
not telling any of you."
"It wasn't a secret,"
Reid said. "I've been thinking about leaving for a while. I'm
not good at running this place, probably because I'm not interested.
There are some good managers here."
"I know,"
Walker said calmly. "Don't sweat it. They'll pick up the slack
until I get someone else in here." He looked at Dani. "Are
you interested?"
"In working here? No,
thanks."
"You'd be in charge. I'd like to keep it in
the family. And don't say you're not family because you are."
Dani
glanced around. "Not my thing. I want a real restaurant. Not
liquor and finger food. But I appreciate the offer."
"I'll
find somebody else, then," Walker said. "Let me know if you
change your mind."
"I will, but don't expect
anything." She turned back to Reid. "What else do you want
to spring on me?"
"I have something, but this time
no one else knows."
"Cool."
His brothers
looked at him. "What is it?" Cal asked.
"It's a
bitch not knowing everything, isn't it?" Dani asked.
Walker
glanced at Reid. "Was she always this annoying?"
"Pretty
much."
Dani bounced in her seat. "Come on. Enough
suspense. Spill."
Reid hadn't figured out exactly how to
tell them what he was going to do.
"One of Gloria's
nurses is the main reason for her change of heart," he began.
"Lori has been great with her. Patient but not a pushover. When
Gloria gets her back up, Lori won't take any crap. She's—
"
Dani punched him in the arm. "You're dating her.
Cal and Walker are nodding knowingly, which means they've probably
met her. You're dating this woman and you didn't tell me?"
"It
just happened. We're not really dating." He hesitated. "We're
involved. I like her, okay? Can I get back to the important part
now?"
"You like her?" Dani sounded surprised.
"As in 'hey, I really like this girl. Let's see where the
relationship goes'?"
"Yes. Do you have a problem
with that?"
"No." She looked at Walker and Cal.
"You guys should say something."
"You're doing
fine messing up on your own," Walker told her.
"I'm
not messing up. I'm just happy to find out Reid has a girl."
Reid
ignored that. "Her sister, Madeline, is sick. She has Hepatitis
C and needs a liver transplant. Because of her blood type, she'll be
difficult to match. I've talked to Lori and a couple of donor places.
I want to go public and talk about the need for people to donate.
That means accepting some of those interview offers I've been getting
over the past few weeks. That means having my name in the press,
which will impact the three of you. You're family and people will
talk."
"You're the one they're going to try to
annihilate," Walker said. "There won't be anything they
won't ask."
Reid thought about the article in the paper—
the one claiming he was lousy in bed. "They're going to take it
as far as the censors will let them."
"Are you
prepared for that?" Dani asked. "It will be
humiliating."
He knew that. He would probably become the
butt of a lot of late night comedy jokes.
"This isn't
about me," he said. "If something doesn't change, Madeline
will die. I don't know any other way to help."
Cal
nodded. "Then you do what you have to do. We're fine with
it."
Reid looked at each of them. "Are you
sure?"
"Of course we're sure," Dani said. "When
compared with what Lori and her sister are going through, none of the
rest of this matters. We'll be fine."
"We can handle
it," Walker said.
Reid had known they were going to say
that, but he was still gratified to hear the words. "Then I'll
e-mail you and let you know when I'm on
Access Hollywood.
"