Sweet Stuff Page 15

  Surely it was a bad sign when she could make a fantasy out of even that.

  “Riley?” Char touched her knee. “If it’s too painful—”

  “What?” Riley snapped out of her reverie. “No, that’s not it. It’s just like I said. I miss the feeling of it. Of being in love.”

  “I know.” Real sadness tinged Franco’s voice.

  Riley leaned her head on his arm. “I know you do. And it sucks to have it taken away. Ripped away, really. Especially when you don’t see it coming.”

  “Oh.” Char spoke softly. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I was, too,” Riley said, simply and honestly. She glanced at Franco, who was nodding. He might not have been involved with Brenton for a fraction of the time she’d been with Jeremy, but none of that mattered if you’d gotten to the part where you trusted the person you were in love with to take care of that special bond. To treat it with the dignity and respect it deserved, even if the bond was going to be broken. “It’s not that I couldn’t have gotten past it if we’d fallen out of love, or had problems we simply couldn’t surmount. Even if only one of us was having those issues. But when one person wants out, there are ways to end things, and ways not to.”

  “Hear, hear,” Franco said, a bit of mad edging out the sad.

  “Did you know he was—that he wanted out?” Char asked.

  “Not a single clue. I mean, in retrospect? I realize ours was not necessarily the utopian bond I’d imagined it to be. But we weren’t arguing, or having any concerns or stresses we didn’t always have. We were happy, in that settled way you are when you’ve been together a long time. None of our co-worker friends, who were with us for long hours every single day, noticed or knew anything was off. No one suspected, least of all me.”

  “When you love someone, and are loved in return, you trust each other to respect your relationship,” Franco said, mirroring her thoughts exactly. “You become the easiest one to dupe, because it would never occur to you to think otherwise.”

  “Exactly,” Riley said. “I get that I was easy to fool ... but how do you look your best friend in the eyes, and play them for that fool? Knowing you’re doing it? That I will never get.”

  “Me, either,” Char said. “I’ve never experienced that kind of betrayal, because until Carlo I never allowed myself to be vulnerable to anyone. But I’ve watched it so many times. Breaking up seems hard, not wanting the scene, the drama, but the alternative, is so ... cowardly.”

  “That’s the other thing,” Riley said. “On top of being bludgeoned with the revelation that the person you loved and thought the world of clearly didn’t hold you or your love in the same esteem, you also have to admit he’s a lying, cheating bastard. In one swoop, Jeremy destroyed every single attribute that made me fall in love with him in the first place—which made me feel even more ridiculous. On top of being sad, and horrified, and heartbroken because I chose to love a man who was capable of doing that I ended up wondering how much of an idiot am I. How did I not know he was capable of that?”

  “How do any of us know?” Charlotte said. “We’re each evolving all the time. I’m a great testament to that. I was always attracted to men who would certainly never love me back the same way. Self-inflicted relationship sabotage. But we do grow, hopefully in a positive way. I believe that I have. But sometimes it’s not positive growth. Life brings new things, new experiences, and a gradual building of events can change people from who they were before.”

  Char squeezed Riley’s arm again as she continued. “But that’s just the thing, Riley. You came through it, and you can look yourself in the mirror, and know who you really are. A woman capable of loving fully, with all her heart. Capable of giving herself completely to someone, and cherishing the sanctity of that bond. Jeremy also gets to look in the mirror and see exactly what kind of man he turned out to be.”

  “Not that he’ll ever allow himself that kind of honest assessment.”

  “You never know what lies in store for him. I’m a great believer in karma. But even if he never holds himself accountable, look at it this way, at least you’re no longer accountable for him. Or to him. You’re free of his selfish, cowardly, thoughtless acts. Free of having anything to do with his damaged self. You fell in love with something good. It’s not your fault he allowed himself to sour into something bad. No matter the dynamics, everyone can choose how to handle life’s hurdles. That’s how he chose to handle his. Better you knew before something really important happened. Like marriage. Illness. Hardship. Children. He deserved to lose you. And you deserve someone who would do anything not to.”

  “I love you,” Franco blurted out, and hugged Charlotte hard. “That was beautiful. That will stay with me forever, I think. I hope. So wise.”

  “It’s simply how I see things now. I couldn’t have said those things even two years ago—which is a testament to my growth,” she said tearfully.

  “Thank you.” Riley sniffled, not even trying to stop. “I—that helped me, too.” She laughed through the tears. “It really did.”

  “Good.” Charlotte smiled. “You know what, putting all that into words helped me, too. I know now what I want with Carlo. What the ‘small stuff,’ as you call it, is ... and what’s worth waging war for. So, thank you, too.”

  They shared smiles for another moment, then Franco pulled them both in. “Group hug.” They hugged and laughed, and there was more sniffling. Setting them back on their stools, he crossed his legs and folded his arms over his knees as he swung to face Riley. “Okay, Dr. Phil is over. Now it’s Oprah time. What did the rat bastard do? And where can we hunt his ass down?”

  Chapter 10

  Riley burst out laughing, and so did Charlotte. “Say it again,” Riley urged Franco. “You know.”

  “Bastarde! ”

  She grinned. “I know it makes me seem small, but I don’t think I will ever tire of that.”

  “I’ll have shirts made,” he said. “We’ll get Dre on board.”

  Riley’s laugh turned to a groan. “I can only imagine what she’d do with it. Goth bastarde!” Riley pumped her fist. “You know, though, that might work,” she said thoughtfully. “A few tasteful skulls, some blood ...”

  Char shuddered, but they were all laughing.

  “No more ducking,” Franco said. “You’ve come this far, just air the rest of your laundry, missy, and we’ll be all done with it.”

  “It was the sitter,” Riley said bluntly. Surprisingly, there was a twinge of sadness, more than a twinge of anger, but an even bigger one of disgust. “We were together seven years ... and he dumped me so he could boink the hot sitter.”

  “Seven years? That’s a long time, mon amie. I’m so sorry.”

  “Yep, the better part of my adult life, up to that point.”

  “We’re going to need to add a few more lines to those T-shirts,” Franco said, making Riley smile, and nudge him again.

  “You know you want to.”

  “Oh, I do. Bastarde,” he said again, in a growling, hissing kind of way.

  “Oooh, I like that one, too.”

  “Wait,” Charlotte said. “Did you say the sitter? You had—he had, children?” She looked appropriately aghast.

  “Thank God, no. I can’t imagine how awful it would have been if he’d dragged children through all of that. I was a fully grown adult and it leveled me. She was the dog sitter for Brutus.” Riley smiled. “I remember the day I got Brutus. I knew Jeremy would kill me when I brought him home from the pound. He was a bit of a neat freak. Jeremy, not Brutus.”

  “Brutus was a pound puppy?” Franco asked.

  “Is that really surprising?” Riley asked dryly.

  “Well, when you put it that way ...”

  “Some family got him as this adorable big lug of a puppy, then he grew into a mammoth lug of a dog and they couldn’t handle him, so off to the pound he went.”

  “Why were you there? Did you two want to get a dog? From what you’ve told us about your schedule when
you were a stylist—”

  “No, we’d never even so much as breathed a whisper of it. We’d talked marriage, we were engaged then—”

  “You were engaged?” Charlotte asked. “It just keeps getting worse.”

  “I know. We dated for two years, then moved in together, got engaged about eighteen months later, but never could set a date because our schedules were so crazed. But that didn’t matter to me. I’ve never been the type to dream about my Big Day.”

  “Me, either,” said Charlotte. “Probably because it was all my mother talked about. I was betrothed at birth to a boy from a very good family and my whole life was geared toward the Big Day, as you call it. I couldn’t wait to get out.”

  “I’ve always dreamed about mine.” Franco sighed wistfully. Riley and Charlotte smiled, but Charlotte took his hand and squeezed it.

  “If it helps, you’re more than welcome to plan mine. Of course, you’ll have to deal with two families hell-bent on making sure it never happens. We should just elope.” Charlotte’s eyes lit up, but it was short-lived. “His family would really never forgive me then. He has all sisters. Five of them.”

  “Yikes,” Riley said. “Well, we had no pressure either way. We had a life together. I was where I wanted to be, with the man I loved. I had no family hounding me to set a date, and his parents spent most of their time bickering despite being divorced for more than twenty years.” She shrugged. “We both knew we wanted kids, somewhere in the distant future, so I figured marriage would happen when it finally mattered. At the time, we loved our jobs, loved the lives we had, so ... children were not imminent. We were both in agreement on that. I knew he’d always had dogs growing up, and I’d always wanted one, so I guess whenever we did have that hazy future family, I always pictured a dog in it. I suppose I figured Jeremy would, too.”

  “But this wasn’t some hazy future time,” Franco said.

  “Well, yes, true. That was the day, or one of them, when the future stopped being quite so far away. I mean, it has to happen at some point, right?”

  Charlotte’s eyebrows climbed. “You just ... came home with a dog? A very large dog?”

  “No, no. I wouldn’t have done that. It was going to be a monumental change, so I talked with Jeremy first. It was rare that I asked for anything, really rare, so Jeremy had a hard time saying no to me about it. Even then, I wouldn’t have insisted if I thought he was really against it. He seemed more concerned about the logistics, though, than about having a pet, so I asked, if I could get all the care and feeding issues worked out with our schedules, would he be on board, and he agreed. In fact, once I did get it figured out, he was excited about it. I was the same kind of marshmallow with him when he really wanted something, and he had taken advantage of that fact, many times.”

  “You two were disgusting,” Charlotte said.

  “Back in the day, yes. But you’re one to talk,” Riley shot back.

  “So ... did he love Brutus on sight as you did?” Charlotte asked.

  “And you never said, but why were you at the animal shelter in the first place?” Franco put in.

  “Mrs. Stroeheimer. In 4B. Her cat was forever getting out, getting into scrapes, and usually ended up in lockup at the local shelter. They all knew him there, so they’d call her up and I’d take her down to pick him up.”

  “Why didn’t she get him fixed so he’d stop fighting and well ... catting about?” Charlotte asked.

  Franco groaned at that. “Women always want to cut off a man at the—”

  “If it kept him from catting around,” Charlotte said, looking him dead in the eyes, “then, perhaps, yes.”

  Franco considered that, then nodded. “You may have a point.”

  “Oh, Mr. Bumpers was fixed. He just liked to fight. Usually over Dumpster food. It had to be some sort of king kitty complex, because Mrs. S. fed him like royalty. He didn’t need to dive for food, much less fight over it. Anyway, whenever we went down to spring him from lockup, I usually waited in the car, but that day she was feeling a bit lightheaded, had complained of being a bit dizzy, so I helped her inside.”

  “And then, the Hallmark moment.” Franco fanned his hands out in an arc as he hummed a tune, then clasped his palms under his chin.

  “Maybe not quite like that. I knew it was a mistake to go inside the minute I stepped through the door. I can’t stand misery—I mean, who can?—but it wrenches me. I know I can’t save them all, and that there are many animals out there in that same situation. But I also knew I could reduce that number by at least one.”

  “And there was the childhood dream,” Char added.

  “Exactly.”

  “But wasn’t there some small, lap-size dog that needed rescue?” Franco asked. “You lived in an apartment in the city, right?”

  Riley nodded. “A tiny one. Yes, there were dozens of other dogs, all of them smaller than Brutus, of course.”

  “Of course,” Char and Franco said together. Neither of them was really an animal person, but they had taken to Brutus. Eventually.

  “He was lying in a run in the back, chin on his paws, not even trying to get my attention. It was as if he knew there was no point in it. The shelter was in the middle of the city. Who was going to be looking for a dog his size? He was just so ... defeated.”

  “Oh boy,” Franco sighed.

  “Exactly, right? I didn’t have any intention of adopting any of them, though I admit at that point the seed, at least, had been planted. When that hazy, future day came, I knew right then I’d adopt rather than buy. But when they brought out Mr. Bumpers, I asked about Brutus. I was worried for him. He wasn’t even trying. I had such a feeling of ... dread for him. I guess I expected something like that same attitude from the woman who worked there, but her face immediately lit up and she went on and on about what a doll he was, how charming he was, and how they all loved him to pieces and he was such a gentle giant.”

  “Sucker born every minute,” Franco said, shaking his head. “She was envisioning how much more dog food they’d have to spread around.”

  “Come on,” Riley said. “You know him. That’s exactly how he is.”

  Char and Franco shared a look, then nodded toward her. “Of course he is,” Char said, in the same tone one would use to placate the mother of an unruly child.

  Riley stared them right back down. “Then I saw the sign that said they only hold dogs for sixty days. This was not a no-kill shelter. And I noticed on the card next to Brutus’s cage how long he’d been there.” She gave them a solemn look. “Just a few days shy of two months.”

  Char’s and Franco’s expressions fell at that.

  Riley nodded. “I know. But, even then, when I left, I wasn’t planning on anything. When Jeremy got home, of course I told him all about taking Mrs. S down there, and, well ...”

  “You took Brutus home the next day.”

  “I got him a stay of execution the next day. There was a lot of advance planning required. We brought him home ten days later. We had to pass a home inspection and interview.”

  “Seriously?” Franco asked. “I’m surprised they didn’t drag him out and stuff him in your car before you could change your mind.”

  “It’s the law. Anyway, I thought for sure they’d turn us down for being apartment dwellers, but it turns out mastiffs aren’t all that athletic or physical. They don’t like to do more than take a short walk, maybe chase a ball in the park, but that’s about it. So, we were approved.”

  “Who ended up hiring the dog walker? You or him?” Char asked.

  “I did.” Riley sighed. “I know. Can you believe that? But Jeremy was too busy and he trusted my judgment.”

  “He did a hell of a lot more than that,” Franco muttered.

  “To be honest, I never thought of him in context with her. For all I knew, their paths would never cross. I was more worried that she couldn’t handle Brutus.”

  “You liked her?” Charlotte asked, her mouth all pinched up as if she’d just tasted somet
hing really, really sour.

  “Sure. If you can really like super perky, five-foot-nothing, ridiculously fit, zero-body-fat women with thick, television-commercial-worthy straight glossy hair, perfect teeth, and a Lithuanian accent I found challenging to understand. As I found out much later, Jeremy apparently found it mysterious and sexy.” Riley looked at Char. “So, tell me, how bad is my karma going to be if, even before everything happened I admit I pictured her aging like Mrs. Pachulis in 2A? I’d seen photos of Magda when she was younger and she was quite the looker. At seventy-five, not so much. She had this big, pointy mole, right here.” Riley pointed to the side of her chin. “Is it small of me to picture Camalia with a big hairy mole? At age twenty-three?”

  “Not small,” Charlotte assured Riley. “God, she’s only twenty-three?”

  “Bastarde,” Franco hissed again.

  “Now. She was only twenty-one then. Maybe that’s it,” Riley said. “I made it happen because of my less than charitable thoughts. It was karma coming to get me.”

  “You don’t honestly believe that,” Franco said.

  “No,” she admitted, “but it did cross my mind that day. It was New Year’s Eve—”

  “New Year’s Eve? Seriously?” Charlotte asked.

  “As a heart attack,” Riley responded. “Which was what I almost had. I ended up coming back early from the mani-pedi-massage Jeremy had booked for me as my Christmas present. I skipped the massage because they were running behind, and we had a huge industry shindig to attend that night, lots of power players. We were really amped for it, so the last thing I needed was to be a limp, relaxed noodle. I rebooked that part, thinking it was something to look forward to after all the holiday stuff.”

  “You’re not saying he got you a spa day, specifically for you to use on New Year’s Eve in preparation for this big party, so he could ...”