As Bad As Can Be (15 page)

A
COOL BREEZE WHISKED PAST
them as they walked down the cobblestone street. Becka shivered. “I don't remember it being this cold when I was running.”

Mallory threw her a sidelong look. “That's because you were in that disturbed jock frame of mind where you ignored it.”

“Who, me?” Becka grinned. “So what's going on?”

“Work, mostly. Getting the business off the ground has been keeping me busy.”

“It's succeeding, though? You're getting enough people through the door?”

“Are you kidding? We've been packed,” Mallory said in satisfaction. “Ever since we started the bartenders dancing, we've had great numbers.”

“Bartenders dancing? Those wouldn't be female bartenders, by any chance, would they?”

“With their clothes on,” Mallory told her.

“Ah. Are you a big fan of
Coyote Ugly
?” Becka gave her an amused look.

Mallory shook her head. “It sort of happened by accident,” she said lightly.

“How are your neighbors taking it?” Becka asked with interest.

Mallory shrugged. “I'm not violating any laws, so who cares? It's not the neighbors I'm worried about.”

“What are you worried about?”

“Me? Nothing,” she said, but a second too late. “Everything's fine and dandy.”

Becka studied her. “Oh, you look just dandy. So bright and shiny you look like a candied apple.”

“Like a candied apple?”

“Yeah, like you'd crack if I tapped you wrong.”

Mallory's smile slipped. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“You tell me. Something's going on with you.”

“Things are fine,” Mallory said shortly.

Becka's eyes narrowed. “I'm sure,” she said, sounding completely unconvinced. They walked a few steps farther and then she stopped short. “You know, the whole time we were friends in Lowell, you kept asking me about what was going on with Mace and I'd tell you, and it helped.” Becka continued, “It didn't feel like prying. It's what friends do, but it goes both ways.”

“I talked to you,” Mallory protested.

“Oh sure, about work, opening the bar, that kind of thing.” Becka waved it off. “You never talked about you, though. You never dated, you never said anything about how you felt about anything. And it looks like you still won't,” she said, frustration shading her voice. “Something's obviously bothering you but all you can say is everything's fine.” She fixed an uncompromising gaze on Mallory. “You don't get a prize for toughing it out alone. What you get is unhappy.”

“What, are you people in some kind of club?” Mallory burst out. “You, Dev, Shay, all anyone can do is talk about me opening up. ‘Tell us how you feel,' ‘Let me in,' ‘Open up, you'll feel better.' What a crock.
You spill your guts, you don't feel better. I'll tell you how you feel, you feel embarrassed and naked and really, really sorry you ever did it.” She began walking again.

“Maybe.” Becka looked up at the gulls circling over the harbor. “So who's Shay?”

 

“L
ET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT
,” Becka said as they sat in a booth at the Red Parrot. “Your brother comes in as your silent partner, then he gets a friend who lives here to check out your bar on the quiet and report back, and then he sics the friend on you as his watchdog?”

Mallory blinked. “That's pretty much it.” She hadn't ever really had a girlfriend before. It surprised her how good it felt having someone take up her side and offer unquestioning support.

Becka scowled. “That is beyond out of line. I'd be pitching a royal fit.”

“I suppose from Dev's point of view it's reasonable,” Mallory reflected, taking a drink of her iced tea. “I mean, he's sunk a chunk of change into the bar and now he gets word that I'm doing something risky.”

“Isn't he supposed to trust you?” Becka demanded.

Mallory traced patterns on the varnished wood of the tabletop. “It's complicated. I owe Dev so much. He's always been there for me. I couldn't have opened the bar without his backing, and he had every reason not to invest—he's got a business of his own.”

“But he did,” Becka pointed out. “He made a deal with you.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, “he did.”

“So?”

“So sometimes I play things a little loose.”

“If he didn't trust you, he shouldn't have gone into business with you,” Becka countered.

A corner of Mallory's mouth tugged up. “You only have sisters, right?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Trust me, it's different. Dev's my big brother and he's always going to be looking out for me, and meddling a little, because that's what big brothers do.”

“Then you're okay with this?”

“Resigned is more like it. I don't think he means any harm.”

Becka digested that for a moment. “As long as you're okay with it,” she said finally. “And your bartenders are dancing you into the black.”

“That's one way of putting it.”

“You know, I'd give my right arm to see you up there playing go-go girl,” Becka said meditatively.

Mallory couldn't repress a smile. “I don't do it very often.”

“Oh, yeah, but I bet when you do, you have 'em eating out of your hand.”

The memory of dancing for Shay blinded Mallory for an instant. It flooded through her, the feel of moving for his pleasure, watching his eyes darken, watching his arousal build.

“Hello,” Becka waved a hand in front of her. “Anybody in there?”

Just then, the waitress stopped at their table and Mallory breathed a silent thanks. “Let's see, I think I've got some lunch, here.” With swift efficiency, she set their plates down, checked on additional requests, and left.

Becka spread a napkin in her lap and watched Mal
lory tuck into a plate of loaded potato skins. She shook her head. “Your veins must be filled with cholesterol soup.”

“And you're going to have bean sprouts growing out your ears if you don't watch out,” Mallory countered, dipping a bacon and cheese laden skin into sour cream before sinking her teeth into it with a sigh of pure bliss.

“Okay, so you're not ticked off at Dev and you're not stressing over the business,” Becka said, forking up a bite of her veggie stir-fry. “But something's still bugging you.”

Mallory glowered at her. “You're going to give me heartburn if you don't stop.”

“Don't mind me, eat up.” Becka waved at her genially. “I'm just thinking out loud here. If you're upset and it's not Dev or the business, then it has to be this Shay guy who's making you crazy,” she said, with the air of someone who's solved a difficult math problem.

“La la la la, I can't hear you,” Mallory said, fingers in her ears.

“Oh, yeah, you can.”

Mallory dropped her hands and studied Becka. “You really are not going to let this go, are you?”

Becka shook her head. “No, I'm not. You didn't let me duck out last summer and I'm not going to let you now,” she said soberly. “And let's be honest. If you really didn't want to talk about it, you'd have left me standing on the sidewalk when this first came up.”

Mallory sighed and pushed her plate away. “Okay fine, it's Shay. Are you happy?”

“No way. Give me the rundown so I know what's going on and we can go from there.”

Mallory gave her a half smile. “Are you part pit bull?”

“One quarter. Start talking,” Becka ordered.

The tale took more time than Mallory had expected. By the end, they had migrated out of the restaurant and were sitting on Mallory's favorite bench overlooking the bay.

“Hmm. I'm going to have to get Mace to buy a motorcycle,” Becka said reflectively. “So what's bothering you about it all?”

Mallory sighed. “It's complicated.”

“That, it almost never is. Guy stuff usually falls into pretty easy categories. Girl has unrequited thing for guy. We can rule that out immediately,” Becka decided. “No guy in his right mind would leave you unrequited.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Thank your genetic donors,” Becka advised. “Next, guy has unrequited or stalker thing for girl. Is Shay getting in your way?”

“No,” Mallory sighed. “Shay's great, he just pushes for too much.”

“Lifetime commitment?”

“Worse. He wants to get into my head. Like you,” she said, with a stab at humor.

“And what do you want?”

“I don't know. We talked last night, late. I got upset.” She squirmed at the memory. Even talking about it embarrassed her.

“How did Shay react? Some guys get weirded out when women get emotional.”

Mallory shook her head. “It didn't bother him a bit. He was great.”

“Well, that's good, then.”

“No, that's just the problem. I wound up telling him things I never would have otherwise. Things I've never told anyone. He made it so easy it just seemed natural at the time, but when I woke up this morning I just wanted to crawl into a hole. And to make it worse, I realized that I—”

Becka's eyes softened. “That you what?”

“That I…” The words were too hard to say, too terrifying. “I care for him.”

“Ah.” Her tone said she understood all that Mallory couldn't say. “Now it all makes sense.”

Mallory rubbed her temples. “I don't know how to handle this, Becka, I really don't. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I don't know how to be someone's girlfriend. I don't know if I want to be.”

“Darlin', it's kind of sounding like part of you has already made the decision. You don't have much of a choice.”

“Sure I do.” Her eyes glinted. “I just walk away and put it out of my mind.”

Becka shook her head and gave a pitying smile. “Do you really think you can do that? Do you really think he'll let you?”

“It's not up to him!” she flared.

“And it's not just up to you, either,” Becka reminded her. “There are two of you involved in this.”

Mallory swallowed. “I'm really afraid, Becka. I feel like he's got all the power now and I've got none. I've given it to him with the things I've told him, with the things I feel. I just want to run.”

“Where's this coming from? Listen to yourself. Relationships are about caring, not power.”

“Of course they are,” Mallory said impatiently. “You look at any relationship and there's one person
who always cares more, and one person who controls. I see it with Dev and his fiancée, I saw it with my parents. And the person who loves more always surrenders ultimate control to the other person.”

“No.” Absolute certainty filled Becka's voice. “Not always. Sometimes both people love enough that it isn't a question of degrees and power but just of making one another happy.”

“Says the new bride,” Mallory said sardonically.

“I'm not embarrassed to believe in love,” Becka returned. “The only thing that would shame me would be squandering it, having that ultimate gift and turning away. How do you feel about Shay? Cut the b.s. for a second, stop being scared, and just let yourself feel. What is the answer?”

A pelican soared in to land on a white-topped piling. Mallory watched as it clapped its beak a few times and settled in to get comfortable. She dropped her head into her hands. “God help me, Becka, I think I'm in love with him,” she whispered. “What am I going to do?”

Becka reached out to squeeze her shoulder. “When I first realized I was in love with Mace it scared the hell out of me. It probably scares the hell out of everybody, don't you think?”

Mallory raised her head. “I don't like to think of myself as everybody.”

“Sorry, girlfriend. In this case, you're dumped in the stew with the rest of us.” Humor danced in her eyes. “The thing is, once you find out that the guy feels the same way, it's okay. Then you're in it together.”

“Easy for you to say. You knew from the beginning
that Mace was stuck on you. How do I know what Shay feels?”

“Do you think it was easy for him to tell you he wanted more the other night? You don't think he was taking a chance laying himself out there?”

“I guess so,” Mallory said.

“I'd say it's a pretty good guess he cares for you,” Becka said thoughtfully. “That's you, by the way, not some image of you he has in his head. Otherwise, the less he knew about what you thought, the better. It sounds like he accepts you for who you are.”

Mallory snorted. “Oh, yeah, right. He completely disapproves of the dancing. He's Mr. Conservative—”

“Who had sex with you on a motorcycle in a roadhouse parking lot,” Becka put in.

“Yeah, but he's still got his Yankee values thing going. He thinks I'm being way too out there with the bar. It's like every other guy I've been with, they say they adore me and then they tell me I have to change.”

“Has Shay ever actually told you to stop the dancing?” Becka asked curiously.

“Well, not in so many words. I know he disapproves. I know he'd like it if I stopped.”

Becka shook her head. “That's not what I asked. He disapproves, Dev disapproves, but have either of them told you to stop what you're doing? Has Shay ever demanded that you change?”

“No,” Mallory admitted reluctantly.

“And meanwhile he took you to meet his family, didn't he? That should tell you something right there. Trust me, just because you're in love with each other doesn't mean you always agree on everything. How boring would that be? Complete agreement is nothing,
ultimately. But complete acceptance? That's everything.”

“So how do I know if that's what I've got?”

Becka shrugged. “Take a chance. Take it for a test drive and see how it feels. Only time will tell.”