Down on Love

“Why did you crash my graduation party?”

“Because I wanted to see you.”

“Why?”

“Because I missed you.”

George’s stomach swooped. She pressed on with all the questions she’d never gotten a chance to ask him. “Why did you kiss me?”

“Because I wanted to. Because you were smart and interesting and funny. Just like now. More so now, although back then I wouldn’t have thought it possible.”

“So, what, you felt like kissing me just for fun? ‘Hey, I know what’ll be funny—I’ll kiss George, drive her crazy.’”

“I drove you crazy?”

“You knew.”

“I guess I did. A little.”

And before she could take a steadying breath, Casey pulled her into his arms and kissed her—again. Softly at first, as if venturing into it to see how she’d react, then firmer, when she didn’t resist. She ran her hands up over the lapels of his jacket, across his shoulders, and around his neck—and she melted into him. After all this time . . .

BY DESIGN

 

UNSCRIPTED

 

DOWN ON LOVE

 

 

 

JAYNE DENKER

Kensington Publishing Corp.

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

Many thanks to the following people who helped me out with
Down on Love:

 

Chuck Crane, for taking the time to share, in detail, what a herniated disc feels like and what it does to you. Glad you’re healed, dude.

 

Suzanne Stokoe of Stokoe Farms in Scottsville, New York, who patiently answered all my questions about what it’s like to run a pumpkin and Christmas tree farm. And thanks for the twice-yearly fun—your place is the best.

 

As always, my family, for their patience, and my writing family (Jordy Albert of the Booker Albert Literary Agency and John Scognamiglio of Kensington Publishing) for their support and even more patience.

 

Jasmine, our last remaining kitteh, my creative partner, and Writing Scarf
. Couldn’t do it without your help/hindrance.

“We have to end this.”

“What, the ugly breakup wasn’t final enough for you?”

“Hey, you were the one who made it ugly.”

“You have your memory of it, I have mine.” Georgiana Down fidgeted in her galley kitchen, the Formica counter a comforting barricade between her and Thom. His showing up at her place was quite a surprise—an unwelcome one. “Mine happens to be the more accurate one.”

She was a little curious about why he was invading her space, but not enough to actually ask. Whatever he had to say, she was positive it wouldn’t be good. It never was and, now that she thought about it, never had been. In the eight months since they’d broken up, there had been plenty of time to pick their relationship apart, over and over again, and it certainly came up lacking every one of the several hundred times she’d turned her magnifying glass on it.

“George . . .”

Her ex heaved a sigh, running his hand over what was left of his thin-up-top light-brown hair, then patting it back down in case he’d made himself look windblown. It had never bothered George that he was well on his way to chrome-dome status, but it always bothered him. She had often begged him to shave it all off, to thumb his nose at his genetics, but he’d repeatedly refused. He had probably been right; Thom wasn’t exactly the tough-guy type. He’d end up looking more like Moby.

“George, look—you have to understand what this is doing to me!”

“You?”
Oh lovely, the Thom-as-center-of-the-universe thing. She hadn’t missed this one bit. “It isn’t doing
anything
to you.”

“Yes it is!” he burst out, starting to pace, which wasn’t a very effective aggressive move—not in her tiny, shadowed apartment. For really good, forceful pacing, you needed more than four feet of free space. She didn’t have that—not by a long shot. “Why can’t you think of someone other than yourself for once!”

George bit the inside of her bottom lip to keep from guffawing in his face. Thom Tyler lecturing her about selfishness, when he’d written the book on it? Really? Instead of sniping at him, she took out her aggressions on a freshly peeled apple. Which looked a lot like his head, actually. Smiling now, she centered the circular apple slicer and gave a mighty shove downward. The sharpened metal blades
thoomped
neatly through the Twenty Ounce, and she thought she should feel a little guilty for imagining doing the same thing to Thom’s head, like in an old cartoon, from back when animated violence wasn’t frowned upon. She gave up and relished the gory vision for a few seconds, then made her amends by picturing his sectioned head coming back together neatly and bloodlessly.

Out of the corner of her eye, George could see him staring at her accusingly, impatiently, as she wiggled the core out of the center of the slicer. Waiting for the proper response he’d already formulated in his head—an abject apology he expected her to pony up immediately—as if she could read his mind. No dice. She did know what he wanted, no mind reading necessary, but she wasn’t obligated to meet his expectations. Not anymore. George glanced up as she grabbed a paring knife and cut the first of the six sections into thinner slices. Her eye was drawn to her laptop, open on the trunk that acted as a coffee table, just behind his knees. She had things to do online. More interesting things than bickering with her ex. In fact, things that would drive him even further around the bend. Because he was asking her to . . .

“End it. Just . . . stop with the blogging, okay?”

“No.”

“I could sue you for libel. Or is it slander? Whichever,” he rushed on with a dismissive flip of his hand. “I could.”

“Not a chance. I never used your name.”

“My friends figured it out pretty easily!”

“Have I ever written anything that wasn’t true?” She already knew the answer. He hesitated and averted his pale eyes. He knew the answer too. “So you treated your ex-girlfriend like shit and she’s pissed about it. Happens to a lot of idiot guys. You’re not as special as you think.”

“My reputation—”

“That’s your own damned fault.”

“I can’t get a date!” he burst out.

George lost the battle with the laugh she was trying to keep down.

“It’s not funny!”

She brushed a stray lock of hair away from her forehead. The strawberry-blond stuff was wavy and wispy and always seemed to be escaping from whatever device she employed to keep it under control. “Oh, I think it’s hilarious.”

“You would.”

“You’re not getting even a tiny drop of pity out of me. Boston’s a huge town. Don’t tell me every single woman you run across in this entire city turns you down because of my blog.”

“This city is a lot smaller than it looks, when it comes to who knows who.”

“Whom.”

“Stop it. And people in my social circle know all about it. Word gets around, and the next thing you know, I’m a laughingstock.”

“You’re hyperbolic, is what you are.”

“You’ve spent the past six months—”

“Eight.”

“—eight months ripping on me in public. For the whole world to see. So yeah, I blame you. And,” he added through gritted teeth, “I’m
politely
requesting that you stop.”

“I’m not quitting my blog. How can I,” she added, with a heavy dollop of sarcasm, her stock in trade, “when it’s gotten me all this?” She swept her hand, damp with apple juice and pulp, around the ridiculously small, yet ridiculously expensive, apartment she shared with Ingrid, a total stranger as of eight months ago, when she found herself scrambling for a place to live that didn’t have Thom in it.

Thom smirked, and she knew he was comparing her new, bland, cramped place in a high-rise overlooking Commonwealth Avenue with the gorgeous condo they had shared on a leafy backstreet in Brookline. “I can’t believe you gave up . . . us, and everything we had. For what?”

Refusing to be sidetracked, and even more irritated by the smug look on his face, she said, “Did it ever occur to you that you can’t get a date, not because of what I said about you on my blog, but simply because you’re an asshole?”

“You’re just as tactful as ever, I see.”

“I’m just saying you should consider the possibility that any . . .
shortcomings
. . . are your own.”

He picked up on her double entendre, as she knew he would. He may have been a jerk, but he wasn’t stupid. He smirked. “I never heard you complaining.”

“That’s because you never listened.”

“Let’s not start this again—”

George scooped the pile of apple slices into a bowl. “I agree, for once. Let’s not. You’ve said your piece, and now it’s time for you to go.”

“But—”

“Now. Before I decide to detail this little encounter in my next blog entry. My readers would eat it up with a spoon.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Good-
bye,
Thom.”

She crossed to her apartment door and yanked it open, then stood there, silent, gesturing with her paring knife for emphasis, until her ex stomped into the hallway.

“Stubborn bitch.”

“Arrogant dickwad.”

And she slammed the door as hard as she could.

 

George glanced at the two things that were fighting for her attention. Laptop? Pie? Laptop. Pie. Pie should have won out, no question, but it wasn’t as daring and subversive an activity as it had been when she lived with him. Thom never liked sweets and never approved of having them around, so on the occasions that she indulged—for the soothing therapy baking provided, as well as for creating a tasty dessert—he’d looked at her like she’d decided to eat a five-pound bag of sugar with a tablespoon.

Still, she’d started one, and she wanted to put it together before the apple slices turned brown. But she had so much work to do on her blog: an entry to write (chronicling the latest run-in with her ex would be fun, even if—or maybe because—it would make him apoplectic), messages to read, advice to the lovelorn to dole out.

She drifted toward her computer for just a peek at her inbox, glanced through a few messages, jumped on one asking her for advice.

“Brilliant, my lovely,” George murmured to the screen. “‘What should you do?’ indeed. You know what I’m going to say.” She pasted the e-mail into the text box for a new blog post and added her reply.

Just as she hit the “publish” button, her phone rang. She switched to the live view of her blog to make sure the entry had come up correctly while she answered her phone with her other hand. It was Sera, her sister. Hm.

“Hey, bee-yotch. Haven’t heard from you in a while,” George said, skipping the tiresome preliminaries.

“I could say the same of you, only more so.”

It was unusual to hear from Sera, but not entirely unwelcome. Still, George kept to safe topics until she could suss out her sister’s mood, which tended to be a bit . . . changeable. And dangerous, if you caught her on a bad day. Which was pretty often. “How’s my little squidgy?”

“Fabulous and brilliant, as always. If you visited, you’d know that.”

Well, Dig Number One sure came bright and early in the convo. George pretended she didn’t hear. “Is she reading Tolstoy yet?”

“We’re holding off till she’s a year old. Just Dickens and Austen right now.”

“How’s the wife?”

“Also fabulous and brilliant. And . . .”

“What?”

Sera sighed. “Injured.”

“What happened?”

“She was doing some summer work. At one of the local farms—”

“What’d she do
that
for?”

“Just for some extra cash. I haven’t been able to take on as many orders as I used to before Amelia, so money’s a little tighter than usual. Jaz wanted to make sure we had some backup funds until tax season started.”

“And?”

“And she grabbed a hay bale, went to lift it, twisted around, and . . . herniated disc. She’s in pretty bad shape.”

“Ooh, that sucks. I thought Jaz was tougher than that.”

“So did I. So did she. It was just an accident. But . . .” Here Sera faltered, and George tensed up. She knew a rant was imminent. Take cover. “It was a
stupid
move. She never should have taken that job—I don’t know what she was thinking. Now we’re worse off than before. I have to take care of everything myself—work, and the baby,
and
taking care of Jaz. I swear, I’m going to lose it.”

Yep, there it was. George held the phone away from her chin and let out an aggravated sigh. Her sister made it sound as if she was worked to the bone, but George knew better. The truth was, Sera had a pretty easy life. Not one George wanted, but one that sometimes—only sometimes—she just
might
admit she envied: a loving spouse, a beautiful baby, a flourishing artisan pottery business. Trust Sera to wring drama out of one accident and focus more on how it affected her than discussing Jaz’s injury. George hoped it wasn’t too serious, but she couldn’t ask while Sera was in full-on rant mode.

She let her sister go on for a while as she perused the first of about two dozen messages in her blog’s inbox, tuning Sera out so effectively she almost missed the bomb her sister dropped. Wait, what? No, she didn’t hear that. Couldn’t have.

“Stop. Go back. Repeat what you just said.”

“I
said,
” her sister repeated, aggravated, “I need your help.”

“I heard that part. But I’m not sure what I can do from here.”

“You can’t do anything from there. That’s why I just said you have to come here.”

Ooh, not an auditory hallucination after all. “Are you
crazy?
”

“Just for a while! A couple of months, tops.”

“George,” Sera snapped, “I never ask you for anything.
Anything.
Ever. You’ve been doing whatever you wanted for years, out there in Boston. The least you can do is come back home and take care of Amelia so I can get some work done.”

“Take care of—?” she choked. “Christ, Sera, hire a nanny!”

“We can’t afford a freakin’ nanny. And we won’t be able to afford food for your darling niece if I don’t fill some pottery orders.”

“Oh, come on. You’re not that hard up.”

“Like you know my situation. When was the last time you ever visited to find out for yourself ?”

Sera had her there. After she’d graduated from college, nearly fourteen years ago, she’d left Marsden, their little hometown in the heart of the Catskills in New York State, for good. She hadn’t even gone back when Amelia was born. Sera had never forgiven her for that. But she just couldn’t. She had this unreasonable, unfounded, but very real (at least to her) fear that if she ever set foot in Marsden again, the town itself would snap closed around her ankle like a bear trap and never let her out again.