Status Update (5 page)

“No comparison. You’ve blown every sex dream I’ve had out of the water.”

She blushed. He’d been in the house less than ten minutes, kissed her senseless and now had her toying with the idea of giving him a tour of her townhouse—starting and ending with the bedroom.

No relationships.

Screw it. Josie had included getting laid on her list. Laura was suddenly seeing the wisdom in that.

Bryan ran his hand along her face with a soft stroke that had her pussy clenching. “You look beautiful, hotshot.”

She grinned at his use of her high school nickname. “Thanks.”

“If I never see the inside of a hotel room again, it’ll be too soon.”

“You were only gone two weeks.” She was sorry when he released her and continued into the townhouse. He smelled good, like soap and fresh-cut wood. “Why do you smell like wood?”

Bryan seemed surprised, then lifted his arm to smell himself. “I was helping an elderly neighbor carrying in some firewood before I left the house.”

“I thought you lived in an apartment.”

He nodded. “I do. I’m renting the first floor of an older home near Leiceister Street. Nice old neighborhood. The house I’m in is the only one that’s sectioned off as a rental.”

“Sounds like a good deal. There are beautiful homes on that street.”

Bryan took her proffered hand and gave it a squeeze as she led him into the living room. “You’ll have to come visit me and I’ll give you a tour. The house I’m renting was built in the forties. Really classic old-style.”

“I’d love to see it.”

“What’s all this?” Bryan asked as he noticed her rather extensive spread on the coffee table.

“I’m hosting a red-carpet party for the Oscars tonight.”

“Oh.” Bryan stopped and looked around, obviously confused by the lack of people. “I’m sorry. I’m interrupting. I didn’t realize you were entertaining.”

Laura stopped him with a hand on his arm when he turned, intent on heading back toward the front door. “No, I’m not. This is
my
party.”

Bryan gave her a funny look. She couldn’t blame him. She’d made all her favorite foods, enough to feed an army. In her defense, she had expected Katie would join her when she went grocery shopping. She’d be eating leftovers for lunch and dinner for the entire week just to get rid of all of it.

“You’re having a party by yourself?”

She laughed. “Georgie thinks I need to throw a theme dinner party. I thought I’d practice the concept since I’m a bit rusty on entertaining and the Oscars seemed like the perfect opportunity. I’ve always loved awards shows, but Mason, my ex, hates them. So when we were still married, I usually went upstairs to watch them on the smaller TV in our bedroom while he watched sports on the big screen. This year, I’m watching in style.”

He gestured to her comfy sweatshirt and lounge pants. “That’s your red-carpet style?”

“I considered dressing up, but the fashion part of the show goes on for hours, then once you add in the awarding of the Oscars, I decided on comfort over glam.”

“How very un-Hollywood of you.”

“But,” she said, lifting a champagne flute, “I am drinking bubbly and eating a feast. Would you want to hang out with me for a while? There’s plenty of food.”

“I’d hate to disrupt your party of one.”

She shrugged. “It would be more fun to have someone else around to criticize the ugly gowns with me.”

Bryan tugged off his jacket and threw it over a nearby chair. “Then count me in. Joan Rivers has nothing on me. I’m king of the trash-talkers.”

She went to the kitchen to grab another glass, then filled it and offered him the champagne. “I’m glad you stopped by.”

“That reminds me.” Bryan reached for his coat and pulled a CD out of the pocket. “This is from Trina. For your daughter. I told her that you mentioned Katie liking her style of music. Her band cut their first album—recorded it in the studio at school. She wanted Katie to have a copy.”

Laura took the CD, touched by the gesture. “Well, isn’t that sweet? I’ll drop by Katie’s apartment after work tomorrow and give it to her. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

She and Bryan sat down on the couch. Laura was amazed by how easy it was to be with him. They’d gone twenty-seven years without speaking or seeing each other, but they had picked up the friendship exactly where it left off without a hiccup. She touched her lips, recalling his kiss. Maybe this time around, she could talk him into a friends-with-benefits deal.

“I never would have pegged you for a red-carpet fan. That’s one of the things I liked best about you back in high school. You weren’t obsessed with having the right clothes and hairstyle. You were all natural.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I was a tomboy.”

Bryan lifted one shoulder casually. “Nothing wrong with that. We had some good times. Remember that trip we took to the city?”

Laura laughed. “Oh my God. I’d forgotten all about that. Ten of us in my dad’s Caprice Classic. And I’d only just gotten my driver’s license. What the hell were we thinking?”

Bryan took a sip of his champagne. “We were thinking we could score some fake IDs.”

“Jesus. We were idiots. None of us knew where we were going. Ryan and Angel shared a seatbelt in the front seat, while Rachel was stuck sitting on the floor in the back. It’s a wonder we weren’t all killed.”

Bryan rested his arm along the back of the couch, as Laura struggled not to be distracted by how close his hand lay to her face. It took all the strength she had not to lean closer and rub against his rough fingers, like a kitten seeking affection. What was wrong with her?

“The part that gets me is we made the ninety-minute trek there, actually got out and went sightseeing for a couple hours, drove home and still made our curfew.”

Laura nodded. “Incredible, right? My mother found pictures I’d taken from that night shortly after I graduated from high school. She was pissed. She started yelling at me. I told her I was pretty sure the statute of limitations on getting in trouble for that had run out. I mean it was two years after the fact and she was absolutely furious.”

Bryan laughed. “Fortunately, my dad never found out. Christ, I shudder to think about the lashing I would have gotten for that if he’d caught us. Sometimes I envied you with your dad. He wasn’t super strict like mine. How’s he doing?”

Laura’s stomach clenched, although his question didn’t hurt as much as it would have a couple years earlier. “He passed away three years ago. Brain tumor.”

“Oh shit, Laura. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

She smiled sadly. “How could you? It’s okay. When I look back, I realize I wouldn’t be sitting here if things hadn’t gone the way they did.”

Bryan tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“My father’s illness sort of shone a light on some of the things that were going wrong in my marriage. Opened my eyes to some problems I’d been ignoring.”

“What sort of things?”

Laura blew out a long breath. “God. Everything. When we were at the hospital, waiting to find out if the tumor was cancerous, the doctor came out after surgery and gave us the bad news. The cancer was stage four and spreading. He told us Dad was looking at maybe six more months to live.”

Bryan leaned closer. “You must have been devastated.”

“I was. But at that point, it was mostly shock, disbelief. I looked around the waiting room. My sister was crying as her husband held her. My brother had his arms around his wife and my mom, the three of them clinging to each other. And I was alone.”

Bryan frowned. “Where was Mason?”

“At work. He’d asked me that morning if I wanted him to come. I said no.”

“Why did you say that?”

Laura had considered that conversation many, many times. “He’d been complaining about how busy work was, how the flu had left them down two salesmen and how he really needed to work the floor. You know his family owns Sanders’s Auto, right?”

Bryan nodded. “I remember that from high school.”

“Yeah. Well. He made that long speech about how rough things were at work, and then he hit me with the question about coming with me. At the time, I thought I was being an understanding, patient wife. Saying no because it seemed selfish of me to ask him to be there when things were so tough at work.”

“That wasn’t a selfish request, Laura.”

She grinned, though there was no humor in the expression. “I know. But I also realize that’s not why I said no. I was angry with him for asking if he had to come. Shouldn’t he have wanted to be there? Why would he fucking ask me that? My dad was dying.”

Bryan grasped her hand and squeezed it, offering her the comfort she hadn’t received that day at the hospital. “I’m sorry he wasn’t there for you.”

Laura shook her head, trying to shake loose the bitter thoughts. “I didn’t mean to dump that on you. Ancient history.”

Mercifully, Bryan let the subject drop. “Is your mom doing okay?”

Laura nodded, grateful for the reprieve. “Yeah. She still has good days and bad. In the end, I sort of saw his death as a blessing. He was suffering so much and I hated seeing him in pain. No one should ever have to live like that.”

“Was he sick long?”

“It seemed like a long time when we were going through it, but actually it was only a few months. He was lucid almost until the end. Knowing he was going to die gave him the chance to make peace with it and to say all the things he’d ever wanted to say. Those last few weeks we spent together were some of the best of our relationship.”

“I’m glad you had that time with him. Sometimes death isn’t quite that kind. It sort of sneaks in and steals someone away in the blink of an eye.”

Laura suspected Bryan was speaking from experience. “Is that what happened to your wife?”

It occurred to Laura that while she and Bryan had been talking for nearly a month, they hadn’t really said much. Usually their conversation involved a discussion of their daily lives, memories of the past, funny little jokes or stories. They hadn’t shared anything along the lines of personal information.

“Corinne had type one diabetes. She’d been diagnosed as a child and had learned to live with her condition, but it took its toll on her. She was quite thin, weak. I’m not sure she ever got a handle on her insulin levels. Hypoglycemia was always there, looming in the background.”

“I’m surprised she had Trina. I thought it was dangerous for women with diabetes to have babies.”

“Not all women, but for Corinne, yes. I tried to talk her out of getting pregnant, fought her for nearly a year. I wanted to adopt, but Corinne flat-out refused. It started to put a strain on our marriage and—against my better judgment—I gave in. It was a hard pregnancy. She was bedridden the last four months and Trina was born early—a preemie.”

Laura’s chest ached as she thought about how difficult that time must have been for Corinne and Bryan. Laura had been blessed with a healthy body. Her pregnancy—even with twins—sounded like a cakewalk compared to what Corinne had suffered. “But she had Trina. She was fine.” She recalled Bryan telling her Corinne had died five years ago. That would have been around the time Trina was fourteen.

“She was really sick after the birth, but eventually, she regained some of her strength. Even so she was never quite the same—physically. Her body was worn out.”

“That must have been hard for you.”

Bryan waved it off, though she imagined him trying to care for a sick wife and newborn baby. “We were young and in love and had a beautiful baby girl. Life has a way of flying by while you’re too busy paying attention to other things. Those first couple of years with Trina were very happy. Like most first time parents, we took at least seven million pictures, filled five photo albums and swore our child was the most perfect baby ever born.”

Laura grinned. “Sorry. That can’t be Trina because Kevin and Katie were the most perfect.”

Bryan acknowledged her words with a chuckle. “See what I mean.” He sobered up quickly.

“So what happened to Corinne?”

“When Trina turned four, Corinne started talking about having another baby. I put my foot down. We started arguing, Corinne constantly pointing to Trina as if to prove she could have children, me reminding her of how sick she was after Trina was born. She went off the pill without telling me and got pregnant again.”

Laura sucked in a deep breath. “How old was Trina?”

“Five. Corinne had terrible morning sickness and her insulin bottomed out on a daily basis. She had a miscarriage during her fourth month.”

Laura put her hand over her mouth, fighting not to cry. “I’m so sorry.”

“Obviously we were both devastated. I wasn’t really in a good state of mind at the time.” Bryan stopped talking, but Laura sensed there was something he wanted to tell her. Something he wasn’t proud of.

“I’m sure you weren’t,” she said.

“I went to the doctor and had a vasectomy without telling Corinne.”

Bryan’s stiff posture caught Laura off-guard. Did he think she would condemn him for that?

“I see.”

“When I told her what I’d done…” Bryan paused. “Well, let’s just say it was the worst fight we ever had.”