Restored (The Walsh Series Book 5) (12 page)

"You're in so much trouble," Lauren said, and she sounded downright giddy.

They continued sniping at each other while I watched guests flow in and out of the kitchen. From this vantage point, I could see straight through the great room and into the front hallway, and that was where I spotted Magnolia.

I'd known she was attached to this project, and Sam mentioned that we'd see her here tonight. Since this project was in Riley's hands, he was the only one who had regular contact with her, plus their sporting events.

I watched Magnolia from across the room, shocked that my memory of her was a wild distortion of reality. In my mind, she was everything—sexy to the
n
th degree, skinny but somehow curvy, too, tall and graceful, glammed up, and gorgeous. But seeing her here, now, I realized that she was just a girl trying to fit in, just like me. She was tugging at her skirt and gingerly patting her hair, and looking around with an anxious wrinkle in her brow, as if she wasn't sure what to do with herself.

Months ago, during our big, honest conversation, Sam and I had talked about the whole incident involving her. I understood his perspective, and I accepted and appreciated that he hadn't wanted to embarrass her by calling out her flirting. I would have also appreciated him telling her that he had a girlfriend, but that was in the past and we'd moved on.

Except…I hadn't moved on. Not all the way. I mean, I'd moved, but not far enough that I couldn't still see where I'd been before.

"I'll be right back," I murmured, although Will and Lauren were deep into comparing where they each ranked in their trio of siblings.

Marching toward Magnolia, I struggled to find the right opening line. Part of me knew it was time to do this and it didn't matter if I was a babbling mess while I did.

"Hey," I said, coming to an abrupt stop at her side. Too loud, too perky, too wide-eyed, and way too much stiff smile. One word and I was all kinds of awkward. "Would it be okay if we talked? For a second? Privately? I'm Tiel, by the way, in case—"

"Oh, I remember," Magnolia said, her cheeks pink and her eyes cast down. "And yeah, sure, of course."

I gestured between us, drawing an invisible box that I subsequently mimed grasping and shaking, although I knew this was a terrible way to express our need for a quiet, isolated space. "Is there a room? Like, one that isn't being used for all of this—all of these activities—"

Eddie Turlan's hands landed on my shoulders as he shuffled behind me to access to hallway. "Pardon," he murmured.

I squeaked, a tiny, repressed scream held in check by the fear of embarrassing my husband at this massively posh event. I was certain that my face was melting from that sweet second of contact with a real music legend. The gift in this moment was not only gaining a story to tell for decades to come, but also my complete lack of fangirl screams. This was what adulting looked like.

"What about one of the pantries? Off the kitchen?" Magnolia asked, waving over her shoulder. Her eyes were darting from me to the floor, and she was ignorant to my very real Eddie Turlan Experience. "There are some big closets upstairs, too. Oh, and the cellar, but the last time I was down there, I got a face-f of cobwebs and a big spider was stuck in my hair. And yeah, I work with gardens so I'm cool with spiders and all of God's creatures, but not in my damn hair. So the cellar is
not
my favorite location here but now you're probably thinking that's the perfect spot for this little chat."

I blinked at her for a beat, not sure I understood all that. "You said something about the kitchen, right?" She nodded, pointing in that direction with her glass. The force of her movement sent liquid sloshing over the sides and onto my dress.

"Oh, holy spunk trumpets," Magnolia panted, her eyes impossibly wide. She used the cocktail napkin she'd had wrapped around the base of her glass to pat my dress. It didn't help.

"Why don't we find that pantry?" I asked, stepping away from her frantic hands.

Magnolia looked up at me, her lips parted and her eyes shining with trepidation. "Okay, yeah. Just follow me."

She led us toward a back room off the kitchen, past the catering crew and the wall of champagne cases, and it was suddenly very quiet when the door whispered shut and she turned to face me.

Time to put this girl out of her misery.

"So listen," I started. "I was in the middle of losing my mind the last time I saw you. I couldn't hear any sense or logic that night, and I want you to know that we're good. Really. I know you're close with Riley, and that's—"

"I have a boyfriend," she cried, her hands flying up and waving at the empty shelves.

What was left of her drink was now soaking my chest and torso, but she was too wrapped up in what she was saying to notice.

"I'm not using Riley because I couldn't get Sam, or anything absurd like that. That's not me. I don't even think I'm smart enough for that kind of trick. We just like arguing about sports. I like sports. I know, plenty of girls don't, but I grew up with brothers and someone always had to play outfield. But I've been seeing my boyfriend since last summer, and we live together, and I'm not out to bag a Walsh. I've made some mistakes and lost a really meaningful professional mentoring relationship with Sam, but that's what happens when you convince yourself he's just playing really, really,
really
hard to get, and there are times when I think back on everything and I'm like, Wow. I'm not that bright." She shook her head with a groan. "I'm so sorry, Tiel."

"It's all good," I said, and it was the truth.

I didn't need to carry around slightly bitter jealousy when it came to Roof Garden Girl. I got the guy. Such that he couldn't look at my tits without conjuring some indecent thoughts, I was keeping the guy, too. Not to mention he was the most loyal man I'd ever met.

But…tits. They were my daily affirmation that I had this man on lock.

"What?" she asked, her brow wrinkling with confusion. "I meant what I said. I'm honestly very sorry, and now that this project is finished, I won't be seeing Sam at all anymore. Not that I've been
seeing
him, but—"

"Magnolia," I said, "I get it. You work with Sam, and Riley, too, and it was a mistake. It happened, it was bad, it's over, and life goes on. You're going to keep working with the guys, and I'm sure you're still going to games with Riley, and
it's all good
. I trust Sam, and I'm not going to freak out if he sees you because we all know he's married. No more mysteries in that department."

Her hands dropped from where she had them suspended between us, still mid-gesture, and frowned. "Oh," she whispered. "Thank you for being, you know,
not
crazy. That's refreshing."

I shrugged, and took a breath to think about what I wanted to say. This pantry was spectacular, and I was definitely going to bug Sam about building something like this at the firehouse. "It's taken me a fair amount of time to be
not crazy
." I smoothed my hands down my skirt and glanced up at her. "Look. I'm sure I'll see you around, and I don't want that to be weird. I don't want you to assume that I'll force you into the spider dungeon, or anything terrible like that. And maybe you'll stop throwing drinks at me. That's no way to make friends. We'll be
not crazy
, and it won't be weird."

"Not crazy. Not weird," she vowed. "And I'll keep my hands off the Walsh boys."

"Mouth, too," I added.

For a split second, I thought I'd strummed that chord too soon. But then Magnolia laughed, saying, "Adding it to the list now."

"Perfect," I said with a smile. I pointed to the door. "I should get back out there."

"That's a good idea," she said.

We went our separate ways—not without a supremely strained moment where we exited the pantry but then walked in the same direction, side by side, for thirty seconds, not saying a word. We kept peeking at each other and forcing smiles until I "remembered" that I needed to visit the ladies' room on the opposite side of the house.

When I returned to Lauren and Will, I saw Shannon, Matt, and Sam at the other end of the hall. It looked like their interview was finished, and they headed straight for us.

"I'm ready," Shannon said to Will, a hand pressed to her abdomen.

"What's wrong?" Will asked. He pulled her close, folding her under his arm and pressing his lips to the crown of her head.

"I don't know. My stomach feels off, and I want to go home," she said. "I think I'm getting Andy's food poisoning."

"Then say your goodbyes, peanut," Will ordered. "Five minutes, and then I'm throwing you over my shoulder."

"Sweetie, I don't think it's contagious," Lauren said to Shannon. "Patrick doesn't have it."

"I want some sparkling water and my pajamas, and I don't want to analyze the origin of my belly ache," Shannon said, a slight whine creeping into her voice. "And don't you dare hurry me, commando. I'm done when I say I'm done, and your meathead ass isn't carrying me anywhere."

Sam appeared, his hand settling on my waist. We stepped away from the group, moving just beyond the immediate conversation. He lowered his lips to my ear, and whispered, "It would be wrong to tear this dress off, right?"

"You may
not
tear this dress," I said. "I'm not even comfortable wearing something this expensive. Ruining it would be insanity. I'm going to keep it, and tell stories to our grandchildren about the time their grandfather insisted I buy a dress roughly the same price as a low-end used car. It will be a little family folktale, and I'll show them the dress, and they'll ooh and ahh all over it. Or, I could make miniature quilts out of the dress, and hand them down to our children and their children as heirlooms."

"Right, so here's what I heard: dress intact, panties ripped, ass slapped."

I glanced up at him, smiling coyly. "I'm not wearing any panties."

M
arch

"
A
fter a year
and a half of work, I think it's fair to say that we're all pleased to change the status on the Turlan project to
complete
," Patrick said, and a chorus of agreement went up around the table. "But there's another thing we need to handle with that property."

"If you tell me they want even one more change," Riley said, "I will eat my goddamn shirt. Then I'll move to Brazil and live among the people of the rain forest. At least they won't demand that I re-stain their floors five times."

"Don't eat your shirt yet," Patrick said. He stepped away from the table, and returned with a large paper-wrapped frame. "This arrived Friday afternoon, but I wanted to wait until we were all together." He placed it on the table and held out his hand to Riley. "Open it."

With a heavy sigh, Riley started tearing the protective covering. "We should really get an intern or someone who can open your mail for you, Patrick, because this is a little—" His voice vanished as he took in the four-page spread in
Homes New England
featuring the extensive project.

"The magazine hits newsstands today," Shannon said.

Riley leaned in to read the text, his arms crossed over his chest and his brow wrinkled. He didn't say anything for several minutes, instead studying the up-close photos of his intricate plaster and tile restorations, and sweeping shots of the kitchen and parlor.

"This is nice," he mumbled.

"
Nice
?" I repeated. "It's fucking incredible." I stabbed a finger toward the layout. "You did this, RISD. And you see that? That section titled 'In the Blood'? It says in no uncertain terms that you kicked this restoration's ass just as well as any of us could, and maybe better."

"There are three more articles running in the next month," Shannon said. "Plus several more interview requests coming your way."

"Sam designed Turlan," Riley protested. "Matt did all the structural. Patrick managed the entire timeline, and I don't even know what the budget was on that property. I didn't do anything. The credit doesn't belong to me."

"That's okay," Patrick said. He moved the frame off the table and leaned it against the brick wall. "For what it's worth, your version of not doing anything was damn good, and you should do it more often."

Matt pointed to the magazine spread. "You can hang that in the office you never use. Remember? The one you had to have?"

"Fuck you," Riley muttered. "And for the record, I'm in your office because you always pay for lunch."

"Like that's going to continue," Matt said, laughing. "If you're running projects like that one, you can afford your own meatball subs."

"All right, moving—" Shannon pressed her fist to her mouth and sucked in a breath through her nose, her free hand curled around the edge of the table. "Moving—" Her voice caught in a sharp gasp.

"Shannon…" Patrick leaned back in his chair and studied her. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I'm—" Her shoulders jerked forward, and she waved her hands in front of her face. "All good."

I caught Matt's eye, and he shook his head, mouthing, "I don't know."

"You're sure?" Patrick asked.

"Definitely," Shannon murmured, but then she shook her head and pushed away from the table.

She started to say something, but her words were obscured by unmistakable gagging. She darted toward the tiny washroom tucked into the corner of the attic. She tried to close the door behind her, though it gaped open, leaving us an audience to her distress.

"I'm out," Riley said, holding up his hands in surrender. "I'm sorry. I can't do puke. I'm a sympathetic vomiter. I'm gonna go build some shit."

While Riley gathered his things, Andy collected a box of tissues from the windowsill and headed to the bathroom with Patrick hot on her trail.

"We should—" I started, glancing toward the far side of the room.

"Yeah," Matt said. "We should."

We wandered across the room, all the while feeling as useful as a drawer full of dull knives. "We're here to help," I said when Patrick and Andy noticed us approach.

"I've got this," Andy said, gesturing toward the door. "All of you: finish the meeting, and I'll get her home."

She stepped closer to the bathroom, but Patrick wrapped his hand around her waistband and dragged her back. "You just got over major food poisoning," he said, weaving his arm around her torso, "and you are not taking another step."

Looking down, I stared at my wingtips for a minute while Patrick recounted the gory details of Andy's brush with listeria. She was all right now, after several weeks of recuperation, but she'd lost a substantial amount of weight in the ordeal. The outbreak was linked to some questionable cheese. Patrick instituted a ban on all food trucks and festivals until further notice, and forbade all varieties of basement-cultivated cheeses.

While the food-borne illness discussion did terrible things to the twitchier parts of my brain, I was more fascinated by their show of affection. In the two years they'd been living and working together, I'd never witnessed a true Patrick-and-Andy moment in the office before. Sure, there were light touches and inside jokes and all those non-verbal conversations that none of us understood, but they kept it exceedingly professional.

More painful retching echoed from the bathroom, and Andy pivoted in Patrick's arms. "I'm completely fine, and she needs someone right now. I can't stand here and not help her."

Patrick walked Andy back toward the conference table, and said, "Do not come any closer. If you'd really like to help, go to your office. No, no. Go home and get some rest. I can't handle seeing you suffer again."

He kissed her forehead and murmured something I couldn't hear. She shook her head and gestured in obvious disagreement, but he held her hands to his chest and spoke into her ear until she started nodding. After a long embrace, she collected her things from the table and headed downstairs.

Patrick returned to our uncomfortable gathering and knocked on the door. "Does your husband know you're sick?"

"Shut up," Shannon groaned.

"I can call Will," Matt offered as he reached for his phone. "Although he'll probably answer by telling me that he's still devising new ways to kill me."

"Nah," Patrick grunted, his fingers already flying over his screen. "Got it covered, but one of us should probably go in there and assess the damage."

Speaking before I thought about my words, I said, "I'll go." I shrugged out of my suit coat, unknotted my tie, and rolled up my sleeves. "You're all paying for my dry cleaning if this ends poorly, though."

"That's no problem," Patrick said. "I figured you'd want the whole suit replaced. We're getting off cheap with dry cleaning."

Shannon was slumped against the wall, her legs drawn up and her hands resting on her knees. Her ponytail was askew, her mascara was smudged, and she barely lifted an eyelid when I closed the door and settled on the floor across from her.

"You might want to vacate the premises," she said. "My aim is bad and the splash zone is wide."

I tossed her a roll of paper towels from under the sink. "What's the deal here? What are we working with? Stomach flu? Another case of listeria in the office? What?"

Shannon pressed her palms to her eyelids and sighed. "Fetus," she murmured.

I blinked at her, convinced that I'd misheard. "Excuse me?"

"Fetus," she repeated. "I'm pregnant."

She patted her belly, and I realized she was wearing leggings, a belted tunic, and riding boots—not her usual office attire.

"I thought Andy and I had the same stomach bug, but then it turned out she had food poisoning. Will dragged me to the doctor last week, and surprise!"

"Were you…" I struggled to find the right word. Shan and I used to talk about
everything
, but our worlds were different now. This territory was murky. "Were you trying?"

She shook her head, her eyes still closed. "Nope. And before you ask, yes, I was on the pill. My husband is
very
proud of himself for accomplishing that feat."

My surge of jealousy was not small, and I felt like an asshole for it. But I wanted me and Tiel to be making a similar announcement right now, and not because we were checking off boxes or needed a new activity to entertain ourselves. We wanted to give our kids the kind of unrelenting love and acceptance that was missing from our childhoods, and build a family over the wreckages of our own.

"Will things ever be good with us again?" Shannon asked, breaking me out of my thoughts.

"What?" I asked, confused. "I'm sorry, I was—"

"I know," she interrupted. "You were somewhere else, and I was working on not vomiting, and it hit me that I'm having a baby, and we're sitting here, together, but we can't even talk. We don't talk anymore. Not really." She rolled up her sleeves and loosened her collar. "I know we both needed to grow, and that required space and distance. I get that, but sometimes I think we grew so far apart that we don't know each other anymore. I'm closer with your wife than I am with you, and even though I love her, I don't see that much of her. I'm a little heartbroken about this state of affairs right now."

She wasn't wrong. "Okay," I said. "We're not avoiding you. Things have been…busy."

"It's funny how that's your excuse now," Shannon said. "We used to work seventy, eighty hour weeks and still managed to talk every day. We're not
busy
, Sam. This operation is finally under control, and we don't spend every waking minute working to keep the wheels on anymore. It's not about being busy. You shut me out a long time ago, and even though you think you've reopened that door, you haven't. We're strangers, and I fucking hate it."

"You want to talk? Let's talk. Maybe we should start with your sudden marriage, or your
years-long
secret relationship with Will? Yeah, let's talk about that. Tell me how I shut you out with that one."

"How about
your
sudden marriage? Or how about the time when you spent three fucking months in the wilderness, and didn't once call, text, or drop a damn postcard in the mail?"

"You eloped to get back at me?" I asked.

"No, you dickhead, we eloped because we wanted to," she said. "Not everything is about you."

"And there you go," I said, gesturing toward her. "Going to Maine had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me dealing with my shit. Could I have done a better job of staying in touch? Yes. Did I need to disconnect from everything?
Hell
yes."

She scrubbed her hands over her face with a sigh. "I don't want it to be like this," she whispered. "We need to get out of survival mode. We've been running as fast and as far as possible, and we've been running so long that we don't even realize we're still doing it. We don't have to run away anymore."

"That's why I needed to leave, Shan," I said. "I couldn't do it
and
be here."

"It felt like I failed," she said. "It felt like I let you go over the edge while I did nothing to stop it, and every damn day I wondered whether you were still alive. I knew it had to be bad for you to leave like that, and all I could think was that you'd gone into the woods to kill yourself and I couldn't do a fucking thing to stop it."

Shannon balled up the paper towels she was holding and tossed them across the room.

"Then, when you came back, you went to Tiel." She held up her hands before I could object. "I love your wife, Sam.
Love her
. But you went to her first, and you've been holding us at a distance since. It's like you still aren't sure whether you want us around, and I don't want it to be like that. I want us—all of us—to be okay."

She ended that statement by puking and gagging for several unpleasant minutes where I considered the possibility that I was also a sympathetic vomiter. When she finally dropped back to the floor and thunked her head against the wall, I handed her another wad of paper towels.

"I think we're getting there," I said. "We're on our way to okay."

"I really hope so, Sam, because this kid," she started, her hand on her belly, "needs a big, noisy, messy, crazy family."

Nodding, I asked, "When are you going to share this news with the rest of the tribe?"

"Soon," she said. "It's not like I can keep it to myself much longer. I woke up yesterday morning and nothing fit. I mean
nothing
. I feel like an overstuffed sausage in these leggings." She held up her palms and shrugged. "But this was quite the shock, and we needed a minute to digest, just the two of us."

"Tiel and I…we've been trying," I said.

Shannon peeked at me for a quick second. "How's that going?"

I nodded, knowing that Tiel and I were due for a conversation on this topic. We'd been tap dancing around it for months now, quietly hoping the stars would align and we'd get lucky one of these months.

"I have no complaints about the
trying
element, but we have yet to see any success."

She blew out several breaths before responding. "Don't stress about that shit," she said. "I know that is easier said than done, and it's probably obnoxious hearing that from someone who got knocked up without trying, but give it time."

"A lot easier said than done," I laughed.

"Really, though," she said. "That kid is going to be so lucky to have you and Tiel. You're going to be the best parents, and I can't wait for that to happen."

"I have to admit, Shannon, I'm a little shocked to hear that. Where are the words of caution? Why aren't you asking about my medical issues or recommending genetic counseling? What about…I don't know, there has to be something else you're dying to say."

She rubbed her belly again, and her sick grimace tipped into a smile.

"I'm kind of dying for a pregnant friend actually, and Tiel would be an awesome pregnant friend. She wouldn't guilt anyone into going to the gym, and the absolute last place I want to be right now is the gym. She already has a million cute, flowy dresses and skirts that she'd look like the most adorable pregnant lady in the universe, and I know she'd happily share them, too. I might have to borrow some soon. And despite the fact I was a pain in your ass about her, I truly love Tiel. She's good people, and she's the best people for you."