Going for Broke: Oakland Hills Friends to Lovers Romantic Comedy (Friends with Benefits) (18 page)

B
illie crept along the narrow
, winding street, trying to read house numbers without driving into anything. If she’d ever been to Aunt Trixie’s house, she’d been too little to remember it.

There. The big one. Seeing there wasn’t room on the street, she parked in the driveway, hoping nobody would get mad at her for blocking the garage.

Trixie didn’t seem like the kind of lady to get mad. She had a reputation for being sweet and crazy, which was just what Billie was craving right now. Somebody who wouldn’t judge.

She’d packed her bags and left Grammy’s house before Jane returned from work because she couldn’t bear to fend off her I-told-you-sos. Crying had made Billie’s eyes red and swollen, and her complexion wasn’t much better. Jane would’ve guessed in a second it was something heartbreak related and launched into another lecture about how Ian was all wrong for her. It was the last thing Billie needed to hear right now.

In a few hours, when she reached her mother’s house up in Rohnert Park, her face would be back to normal, and she could pretend everything was fine. Mom would be too busy with her own life and Billie’s two younger half sisters, one of whom still lived at home, to fuss over her. Billie would blame the work on the house for needing a short-term place to sleep. It was over an hour’s drive between Rohnert Park and her job in Flores Verdes, maybe an hour and a half in rush hour, and the bridge toll would add up, but she had nowhere else to go.

She got out of the car and popped the trunk. Inside were three plastic storage bins filled with family photos she’d promised Trixie. Billie hadn’t let them go into the big storage units, fearing they’d get lost in the clutter. Giving them to Trixie, a sentimental grandmother type, to sort and store was perfect.

Visiting would also give her time to recover before she went to her mom’s.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket just as she was climbing the steps with the first box. Balancing it on her thigh, she pulled it out and looked at the screen.

An official email from the City of Flores Verdes.

Pulse accelerating, she set the box down on the doorstep, tried to take a calming breath, and opened the email.

The text was a blur. She’d never been a fast reader, and it was even worse under stress. The phone shook in her hand.

Her eyes kept tripping over a few key words: temporary, administrative, pending, leave, report, investigation.

The door opened. “Billie! How wonderful!” Trixie flung her arms wide and embraced her, phone and all, on the threshold.

Billie barely glanced at her.

She tried reading the email again, but tears were blurring her vision.

“What’s happened?” Trixie asked. Three little dogs tumbled out of the house, dancing around their legs. “Never mind, come inside first.” She picked up the box with one arm and hooked the other around Billie’s shoulders.

In less than two minutes, Billie was sitting at Trixie’s kitchen table with a glass of something alcoholic in front of her.

“No, no, it’s nothing like that.” As Billie pushed the glass away, she noticed her hand was shaking.

Trixie gently pushed it back. “Nothing like what?”

In Billie’s experience, grandmothers only offered liquor when somebody died. She looked down at her trembling fingers. “It’s not like when I heard about Grammy dying. That—” Her voice cracked. The reminder of her recent loss pushed her over the edge, and she dropped her face into her hands and sobbed.

It was wrong of her to cry about some guy or a stupid job when a wonderful human being she’d adored had just passed away. Embarrassed, she pressed her fingers against her eyes and told herself to get a grip. But thinking about her dead grandmother, not surprisingly, didn’t help her feel better.

Trixie squeezed her shoulder and made soothing noises. One of the dogs, a remarkably ugly, tiny thing that almost looked like a Chihuahua, was pawing her shin and looking up at her with his extended tongue draping down the side of his neck. So distracted by the tongue—was that normal?—Billie stopped crying.

“Is he OK?” she asked, staring.

“He’s wonderful. Why don’t you hold him?” Before Billie could answer, Trixie lifted the dog and put him in her lap. “His name is Zeus. Your grandmother’s cat is around here somewhere, too. She’s taken to sleeping in Hugo’s favorite chair. Don’t be afraid to chase her down for a cuddle too.”

Billie sniffed hard, trying not to drip snot on the dog. “I am so sorry. I just—right when I got here, I saw this email”—she accepted the tissue Trixie offered and blew her nose—“that said I’m basically on probation for letting a guy kiss me at work.”

Like she’d been earlier, she was more angry than sad, and now that the first shock was over, she began to embrace her rage.

How could they do this? She’d worked so hard. She’d put up with so much shit. Mountains of it, from the public and from her boss, every damn day. And she’d never complained.

“There’s going to be an investigation.” Billie scratched the dog’s bony skull, trying not to take out too much aggression on his fragile body.

“That’s good,” Trixie said. “You’ll have a chance to tell your side of the story.”

“If there was somebody else in the office,” Billie said, “I’d have a chance. But they laid off everyone else during the recession and never replaced them. It’s just me and him.”

“You and whom? The one who kissed you?”

“God no. That’s Ian. He came by to take me out to lunch.” She blew her nose again, smiling and sighing into the tissue at the same time. “My boss saw the illicit act and reported me. He hates me, and I saw him doing much, much worse just last week, so now he’s trying to snuff me out. Like a gangster.”

“How much worse?”

“As worse as it gets,” Billie said, shivering. “They— Never mind.” She couldn’t talk about that stuff in front of a grandmother.

“Oral?” Trixie asked.

Billie gasped, accidentally sucking a wad of tissue into her mouth. Spitting it out, she smiled through her tears. Oh, she was in the right place. “No, thank God, you’re right, that would be much worse. This was just garden-variety missionary penetration.” She wiped her nose. “I walked in behind them, so Doc had his back to me. He was on his feet and her legs were wrapped around his hips. She was splayed out on the desk, doing all the work.” She stopped when she realized she was describing it like a TV homicide detective.

“Perhaps he has a bad back,” Trixie said. “Is he an older man? They often have lumbar issues.” She glanced at the ceiling.

“He has issues all right,” Billie said. “I wish I’d reported him when I had a chance.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“It didn’t seem right to lose your job just because you were having a little fun. It didn’t hurt anybody.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“Yeah, well, look where it got me,” Billie said.

Trixie grabbed her hand and pushed the glass into it. “You’re right here with me, and I couldn’t be happier about it,” she said. “That’s excellent brandy you have there. Drink it.”

“I didn’t have lunch. It would go straight to my head.”

“Then you can take a nap.”

“I have to drive up Sonoma County after this,” Billie said, looking with regret at the amber liquid glistening in her hand. “I’m moving in with my mom for a while.” At least she didn’t have to worry about the long commute tomorrow.

She felt angry tears building again.

“Why not move in with that nice guy you were kissing earlier?” Trixie asked.

Because he’s the reason I’m running away
. “We’re not on those kind of terms.”

“Are you sure?”

The thought of moving into Ian’s paint factory was terribly appealing. It made her chest hurt.

Shaking her head, Billie picked up the glass and drained it. And then, when she was done coughing, she placed it with a loud thud on the table. “I wish I knew,” she said in a choked voice.

Trixie went over to the sideboard, picked up a bottle, and refilled her glass. “Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me all about it?”

A
t noon the next day
, Billie crept down the stairs of Trixie and Hugo’s house, embarrassed she’d slept so long. After all the drinking, talking, eating, talking, and drinking some more—mixed with crying and laughing—she’d gratefully accepted the childhood bedroom of one of her second cousins.

Pausing on the stairs, she sent a quick text to Jane, letting her know she was fine and would talk to her later.

“Trixie? Hello?”

“She’s out in the garden,” Hugo called out. She’d met Trixie’s husband last night, but he’d retreated to the TV room right after dinner. Now he sat at the dining room table, putting together what looked like the Millennium Falcon out of Lego blocks, with a gray cat curled in a ball on the chair next to him.

“Hi, Astro,” she said, keeping her distance because she knew Grammy’s youngest cat was shy. So nice of Trixie to adopt her. Billie turned her gaze to the incomplete spaceship.

“Old set of Mark’s,” he explained. Mark was Trixie’s middle child, one of her cousins she barely knew.

“That’s a lot of pieces.”

“I hope they’re all there. Found it in the attic,” Hugo said. “You sleep all right?”

“I slept great. Too well. I’ll get out of here as soon as I say good-bye to Trixie.”

Hugo smiled. “Don’t bet on it. She’s adopted you.” He reached over and scratched the cat’s ears.

Last night, Billie had consumed every morsel of the nurturing Trixie had dished out. “She’s very sweet, but I can’t stay.”

“If you say so.” He raked his fingers through the pile of little pieces. “Just so you know, we’re both happy to have you here as long as you’d like.”

“Thanks, but—”

“No sense telling me. Go tell Trixie. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Pulling her hair into a ponytail, Billie headed for the kitchen, remembering seeing a door out to the back garden from there. She cast a longing look at the teapot as she walked by the stove but continued on to a small sun porch that opened up onto the yard.

In a raised planter near the back of the property, Trixie was pruning a rosebush with an electric hedge clipper. Cocooned in leather gauntlets and protective earmuffs and goggles, she slashed at the thorny canes in broad strokes. Billie didn’t want to interrupt her and watched her work until she hacked off the last leafless canes and cut the power. Seeing Billie, she waved and walked around the broken rosebush canes to join her.

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” Trixie said loudly. She still wore the bulbous orange plastic earmuffs. “I’ve been meaning to do this for weeks.”

Billie helped her remove them. “I wish you’d woken me up. I can’t believe I slept so late.”

“You needed it. Tonight we’ll get you to bed early and you’ll sleep around the clock again, you watch.”

“Oh, no. Thank you, but I need to get going.”

Trixie shoved the goggles up onto her forehead. “Of course you’re staying. You need to find that girlfriend of Doc’s.”

“Excuse me?” A fuzzy memory came back to her. Something she’d said last night.

“You were going to go to the sandwich shop and talk to her.”

“Why—” But then Billie remembered. The brilliant plan she’d come up with last night—after she’d started her second bottle of wine. She’d decided to find the woman Doc had entertained in the office, and somehow get her to… something…

It had made sense last night. So had singing “Poker Face” in Spanish over the dinner table.

“I can’t do that. I’m on leave. That’s a favorite lunch spot for people who work at city hall. Somebody might see me.”

“You said you’d wear a disguise.”

In the cold, sober light of day, her plan’s insanity was obvious.

“I was drunk last night,” Billie said.

“There’s more wine inside if that helps you find your courage.”

That would be great, showing up drunk near work when she was under investigation for personal misconduct on duty. “No thanks. I’ve given up alcohol. I think forever.”

Trixie squeezed her arm. “Think about it. You need to do something to defend yourself. Isn’t that worth taking a few risks?”

Billie thought that taking risks was what had gotten her into this mess. “Do you mind if I make myself some tea?”

“Only if you promise to stay one more night,” Trixie said.

The offer was tempting. She’d realized that if she went home to her mother’s, there was a strong chance Ian would drive up and demand to see her, and she wasn’t ready for that yet.

“You drive a hard bargain,” Billie said. “All right, thank you. I’d love to stay another night.”

“Go inside and eat something with that tea. And don’t let Hugo bore you with his hobbies. He doesn’t realize not everyone is a huge fan of that sort of thing.”

Billie thanked her again, went inside for her lunch, and couldn’t help but think about the plan that, last night, had seemed the answer to all her professional troubles.

Would it really be so dangerous to talk to the woman? So what if her city colleagues saw her? It was only a sandwich shop. Even people on administrative leave were allowed to eat sandwiches.

She was still wavering when she got a call from a friend of hers at work who told her about a rumor going around.

“He’s telling people you were doing it doggie-style on his desk,” Aisha said. “That’s just wrong.”

“I know it’s wrong!” Billie cried. “I didn’t do it. I swear to God, Aisha.”

“Of course you didn’t. That man is lying like a rug. I don’t believe a word of it, and neither does anyone else.”

“Somebody does. They put me on leave.”

“That’s routine. Don’t let it crush your spirit,” Aisha said. “You’ve got to fight for yourself.”

The message was finally getting through. “You’re right. Thank you for calling me. I owe you.”

“No problem. Now go and kick his bony ass out of town.”

While Billie was on the phone with Aisha, another coworker called and left a message with similar words of support. A third sent a text. A fourth, an email.

All of them were getting out the pitchforks, ready to stand behind her.

Moved by the support, Billie prepared for battle and drove to Flores Verdes. She parked around the corner from the Sammy Shop, her determination firming up with each second, and marched to the door of the restaurant. So determined she hadn’t even considered a disguise.

The woman hadn’t seemed to like Doc very much, before the sexcapades, so maybe she’d be willing to help Billie out. All she was going to ask was for the woman to tell the truth. And sign a teeny tiny statement that described in very tasteful detail what had happened in the office that day. The city couldn’t put
her
on leave.

After a quick peek through the glass door, Billie walked into the shop, her pulse racing. The lunch hour was long over, and most of the tables were empty. Billie knew from experience they’d accept takeout orders until three but discouraged indoor seating after two.

There was nobody behind the long counter where they prepared the sandwiches. Some of her courage threatened to abandon ship, but she glanced at the customers who were there, confirmed she didn’t recognize them from city hall, and went over to the register. Some sixth sense about people walking in off the street and getting near the money would lure somebody out to ask her what she wanted.

And she was right.

And it was her. Braid Woman.