Friends & Fortune Cookies: A Sudden Falls Romance (15 page)

“That’s a perfect title for you!” he said. “How far are you?”

I shrugged. “It’s a work in progress.”

We made it to the bookstore and found a surprisingly robust crowd for four in the afternoon on a Monday. And Stephanie’s book sounded amazing.
Single White Female: A Horror Story.

It figures it would also be a dating book.

I realized at that moment that if I wanted this promotion, I was going to have to really double down and work hard for it!

With no distractions from any friends with potential. Because history had shown me that the only potential was the potential for Joe to completely trash my heart.

Chapter 24 — Joe

The orthopedist looked at my x-rays and ankle, still a little swollen with purple-and-blue-turning-yellow-and-gold bruising. Not as bad as I’d expected.

“This is what we call a lucky break.” He indicated the x-ray. “If you’d broken this bone or this bone, you’d be in a solid plaster cast and wouldn’t be able to put any weight on it at all. But this bone here….” He pointed to a different part of the x-ray “Should heal nicely in a walking boot. What do you do for a living?” He turned toward me and flipped the light off behind the x-ray.

I gave him the answer that would be true for my recovery period. “I’m a rehabber. And we’re in the middle of a big project.”

“Well, baby it as much as you can. If it starts swelling significantly, or you have renewed bruising, then get off it and come back. Let your pain be your guide. If it hurts, stop what you’re doing.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

I left with a promise to be good and ditched the crutches in the bed of the truck. Not pain-free, but it could have been a lot worse. At the job site, I found guys standing in the yard, and Alex on the phone, pacing the length of the front porch.

“What happened?” I asked.

“They sent the wrong waterproof lining,” Ken answered.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t realize it until after we got the old siding off and the insulation installed. We’re supposed to get two inches of rain tonight.” This from Flea, who was pure nervous energy in the best of circumstances. Today, he looked like he might vibrate right out of his boots.

“Ah, hell.” What else could go wrong?

I looked toward Alex. His face was flushed, and his voice was getting louder, though I couldn’t actually make out what he was saying from this distance.

He hung up, and I got the sense he’d be pretty happy to chuck the phone as far as he could throw it. “What happened?” I asked once he came off the porch.

“Apparently, I ordered the wrong thing and didn’t realize it. We’re going to have to ship it back.” He let loose an inventive and vehement string of profanity.

“The guys filled me in. Is there a local supplier?”

“Yeah. But we’re going to have to pay for the convenience.” He sighed. “I fucked up, Joe.”

“What happened?”

“New vendor. Our usual guy accepts ordering over the phone but was out of stock. New place only does online ordering. Computers and I...” He cleared his throat. “Lisa wasn’t around to help with it and...” He held up his hands in a sign of surrender.

This was as defeated as I’d ever seen him look.

“I’m a fucking idiot.” He shoved by me and disappeared around the side of the house. I stood there dumbstruck. Something crashed, and the sound of breaking glass echoed.

I hobbled across the lawn. Flea stepped forward, and I waved him off. “I’ll handle it.” I pulled out my wallet, slid out two twenties, and handed them to Flea. “Go grab some coffee and donuts, and bring them back. We’ll get the liner and meet you back here.”

“You got it.”

“I want change!” I yelled back.

The guys took off.

I made my way around the side of the house and found Alex crouched on a cinder block next to the dumpster, head down on his crossed arms resting on his knees.

“Dude. These things happen,” I said.

“Yeah. All the fucking time.”

Something had been nagging at me since I got back. And I didn’t know how to ask. Only that... I needed to. “So, how bad is it?”

Sharp eyes came up. “What do you mean?”

“Level with me. How much can you read?”

Alex’s shoulders and eyes dropped simultaneously.

“Not much.”

“And Lisa’s been keeping you together?”

“Until recently.”

“What changed?”

“She got
busy
with work. Or so she says. I think she resents being saddled with an idiot.”

“First of all, that woman thinks you hung the moon. Whatever is going on, I wouldn’t doubt that. And second, you’re not an idiot.” I sat down next to him. “When we were in Iraq, I got separated from my unit. All the street signs were in Arabic. I was completely lost. I barely got out, for Christ’s sake. I certainly couldn’t have run a business there.”

“I’ve run it into the ground. Dad is rolling in his grave.”

“The one thing I know about Uncle Tommy is that he was always proud of you. He wouldn’t have left you his legacy if he didn’t have faith in you.”

“Why do you think he left it to both of us?”

“Because we have complementary skills. If anything, he’d be pissed at my not sticking around.” I recognized the truth in that. And in the argument Gracie and I’d had last night.

Alex shrugged.

“You’re better at the actual work—as evidenced by the fact that I rolled off a two-story roof.” I pointed to my ankle.

Alex got to his feet and then helped me to mine.

“How is the ankle?”

“Not as bad as it could be.” For which I was very grateful. “Even the ribs seem to be healing faster than expected.”

Alex tilted his head as if he was listening for something.

“It’s awfully quiet.”

“I sent the guys for donuts and coffee. Let’s go get the lining so we can get this house under waterproof before it rains.”

“Thanks, man.”

We got the rolls of waterproof —at a significant markup—from a home-improvement store. After all the bills I’d paid last Friday and this expense, the business fund was low. I had an annuity I could cash out, but after that, we were tapped out. I suddenly regretted giving the guys that forty bucks.

I couldn’t let this business fail for Alex. If this didn’t work out, I had a job. And someplace else to go.

Which proved Gracie’s point for her. I had no ties here except her. And I had a go-to reaction: “If it doesn’t work here. I’ll go somewhere else.” No wonder she didn’t trust me.

Chapter 25 — Grace

“A good case of food poisoning can serve as a reminder that you are so insignificant that you can be brought down by a one-celled organism.”
~ Luddite in Love: A Cautionary Tale of Dating in the Modern Age,
Grace Mendoza

The next Friday afternoon found me, once again, in front of my computer. I’d put in some significant words on my book over the course of the week. Joe had been hard at work at the job site. He’d called a couple of times, but I hadn’t seen him since dropping him off Monday morning. I seriously regretted our kiss. It hadn’t done anything but make things weird and uncomfortable. Would I see him again before he bolted from town after the house was finished?

I wallowed in a serious case of self-pity.

And then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, my whole computer rebooted itself.

Oh God! Had I saved my book? My head throbbed, and I thought I might be sick.

I’m generally a compulsive saver. The only keyboard shortcut I knew, using it about every other sentence. The ‘ctrl’ key, ‘S’ key, and I were best friends.

I’m hard on electronics, and computers have a bad habit of shorting out and going down on me. I’d been through about one a year at the office. The IT guys were baffled. My sisters, who are both extremely tech-savvy, thought I must have some weird electrical disorder. I wasn’t ruling it out.

The phone rang, and I didn’t recognize the number. But I was game for any sort of distraction that didn’t involve buttons and a backlit screen.

“Hello?”

“Grace? It’s Rob Starzman. From
It’s Just Coffee
.”

The one and only guy I’d been out with that I’d actually given my number to. The only one I’d been
tempted
to give my number to. I closed the lid to my laptop.

“How are you?”

“I’m finishing a long, long week. I was wondering, would you like to have dinner tonight? Have you been to Zen?”

Somehow, it seemed sacrilegious to go there without Joe. “I was just there. How about Paccino’s?”

I shoved the image of Joe aside in my mind. He looked grumpy. He wouldn’t approve of this. I shoved him harder and concentrated on the conversation at hand.

“Sounds great.”

I gave Rob my address, realizing belatedly, that might not have been my safest move. We hung up. For safety’s sake, I needed to let someone know where I’d be. After the conversation I’d had with Joe on Sunday night, I felt weird telling him. Katie was the next logical choice.

“Hey, sis. Can you call me around eight?”

“Umm. Yes. Why?”

“In case I need an out. I’ve got a date tonight.”

“Where’s Joe?”

“That’s been weird lately.”

“And you don’t want to tell him you have a date?”

I was pretty sure I didn’t want to examine my own motivations at this point. “I don’t want to deal with him right now.”

“Uh oh. Did you two have a fight?”

“Sort of... Not really... Maybe.”

“That clears it up.”

“He... expressed interest.”

“
Finally!
”

“Katie!”

“Don’t call me Katie.”

“Katherine. That’s not going to happen. It’s
can’t
happen.”

“Maybe it should.”

I wasn’t having this conversation. “Could you please call me at eight?”

“Sure. Where are you going and who are you going with so I can tell the police where to look for your body?”

“
Cute.
Paccino’s. Rob Starzman. He’s an attorney in private practice. I met him through
It’s Just Coffee.
”

“Have you searched for him online?”

“No. Why would I?”

She sighed. “Well, if you can find a reasonable amount of Facebook activity going back a few years, it’s probably a good chance that he’s legit.”

I had a Facebook account but almost never used it.

I could hear the clickity-clack of her fingers against her keyboard. “Dark blond hair? Brown eyes? Kind of cute? Age thirty-two?”

“Yup.”

“He’s legit.”

Which I’d already suspected having met him. “Thanks.”

“Talk to you at eight.”

Rob was right on time, looking cute and studly. I got in his car and immediately sneezed.

“Bless you. Seasonal allergies?”

“Aaa-choooo!” I grabbed my purse from the floorboard to look for a tissue.

A few short striped hairs clung to the fabric of my black bag, giving away the problem. “You have a dog, don’t you?”

“Yes. Are you allergic?”

I sneezed again. “Yeah.”

“
Really
allergic?”

“Not normally this bad.” I sneezed three times in a row, and the dull pain throbbing in the back of my head instantly became a pounding headache. I swallowed and realized my stomach was very much not happy.

“You... don’t look so good,” he said.

I sneezed yet again. “It’s not very gentlemanly of you to point that out.”

“I mean you look really pale.”

“Would you be upset if we rescheduled?” I said around another fit of sneezing.

“Not at all.” He pulled a U-ee at the next light.

By the time I got home, I feared I was incubating a cold. By six thirty, the sneezing had stopped—probably was just the dog hair—but I had to acknowledge something was wrong. Either the flu or food poisoning. By nine, I was ready to call the medical examiner.

I had a fever, chills, and body aches and had thrown up everything I’d eaten in the past month and a half. The doorbell rang at nine fifteen, and I briefly entertained the idea of getting up, much as I had when my phone had rung several times earlier. But when my initial effort caused my head to swim and nausea threaten to rise again, I fell back limply onto the couch.

After a knock, a pause, and the scrape of a key in the door, Joe let himself in. “Gracie!” he called, loud enough to spur the demon drum corps in my head into action.

“Shhhhh...” I pleaded almost soundlessly. I whimpered, and my eyes snapped closed as he flipped the light switch, throwing blinding shafts of brightness directly into my skull.

“What’s the matter?”

“Sick,” I croaked, monosyllabic conversation the peak of my capability.

“How sick?”

“Dying.”

“You’re not dying.” Joe’s tone conveyed a touch of exasperation at my melodrama.

“Light. Off.”

A quiet click, and the room was once again bathed in blessed darkness.

I heard him cross the room and then felt him touch my forehead experimentally. “God, you
are
burning up. Have you taken anything?”

The slight negative motion of my head set off a chain reaction of pain then nausea. I grabbed the bucket at the side of the sofa and threw up what little water and juice I’d forced down.

Joe supported my shoulders and held back my hair. My stomach emptied, and he helped settle me back on the couch then pushed a flyaway lock of hair out of my face. His hands were wonderfully cool against my forehead.

He disappeared long enough for me to listlessly tug my afghan back over myself. Automatically, my eyes drifted closed. They opened again slowly when Joe rudely disturbed me by sliding a thermometer between my lips and under my tongue.

What felt like seconds, but was probably more like a minute or two, passed and Joe pulled the thermometer to check the reading. Whistling almost inaudibly, he said, “You are sick, Gracie!”

“What is it?” I asked, morbidly curious at the proof of my imminent demise.

“One hundred two point seven.”

Joe handed me two Tylenol and a glass of lemon-lime soda. “Down the hatch.”

“I’ll throw up.”

“We’ll take that chance.”

Obediently, I swallowed the tablets with a few sips of the pop. Moments later, I was asleep.