Love Unrehearsed (41 page)

“I know,” I grumbled quietly.

“No, I don’t think you do. Your entire life you’ve been obliviously happy. Now you question everything more than you did before. But what you need to focus on are the things that are right and true in your life. Me. My family. We are constants. I’m not going anywhere and you know that. But some guy you don’t know who donated some sperm is not worth the head space he’s taking up. Dan and Jennifer were your parents and I know they were taken way too early from you but you need a mom or a dad; my parents are all too willing to step up and give you what you need.

“This guy . . . this Joe person, he makes no difference to our lives. You and me—that’s all we’ve got. And if your friends want to make choices that don’t include a future with us, I’ve got no problem with that, either. None. Cut that shit clean off and we’ll make new friends. We surround ourselves with people who care and love us. That’s how we roll.”

He was right. So freaking right, as usual. I’d recognized my fears of abandonment when I thought Ryan’s parents were moving him out of the apartment right before we got engaged. Everyone I loved eventually left me. Everyone. And now some guy I didn’t even know was tugging on my emotions and twisting my thoughts just because I needed to get something back; needed to validate why this information about me being adopted was even dropped on me.

Still through all of that, I almost wanted to laugh at him. “That’s how we roll?”

“That’s how we roll,” he said, serious at first until the edge of his mouth tipped up. “You have no relationship with him. He doesn’t want to make one with you, no problem. One less person fucking with our happiness, as far as I’m concerned.”

I smiled at that thought; how he was able to make me love him more and more every day.

His eyes dropped down to my lips, his head tilted in the opposite direction, and he murmured, “C’m’ere” as he leaned down to kiss me. I wrapped my arm over his shoulder so I could pull my body even closer while my other hand found those soft curls of hair by his neck. He groaned in my mouth as I tugged on his hair.

“I need to spend an entire day kissing you,” I breathed out on his lips.

He pulled on the tips of my hair hanging right next to my breast. “Tomorrow. All morning. No phones, no computers. Your mouth and your body are mine.”

Someone banged on our trailer door. “Ten minutes, Ryan.”

His shoulders slumped, as did mine. His eyes skittered over to my laptop screen. “What you got there?”

I’d forgotten about my Internet searching. “The totally awesome front door for our new house. You like?”

“Yeah, let me see it.” His lips curled just a bit and he sat up, moving the computer closer to get a better look. “
Nice
. Add it to the list.”

Well, that was easy.

“You want to see more?”

“Why? You design the whole house?”

“No, but Marie sent some pictures. She said this is where we should get married.” I opened the email and made the attachments full size on the screen.

Ryan’s eyes scrunched together before going wide. “Wow. No, scroll back. Back. Stop. Holy shit, that’s cool. Where is that?”

“Italy. A place called the Grotta Palazzese. What do you think?”

Ryan’s smile widened, taking in the restaurant. It was located inside the opening of a cave and had breathtaking views of the vast Mediterranean Sea. “That’s wild. Italy? Is that what you want? Something like that?”

I shrugged, not firmly decided on anything. “I don’t know. But that definitely looks like a cool place to have dinner.”

He gave me his look, the one that said he’d fly me anywhere I wanted and give me the wedding of my dreams as long as I said
yes
along the way.

“I think we need to go there and check it out, even if it’s just for dinner. Brings us back to freeing up your responsibilities, though, Tar.”

“I know. And I think I have a solution.”

Ryan raised a brow. “You do?”

After I told him my idea, he was more than happy. He was downright relieved.

Going to Italy was easier said than done. After spending another few days with Ryan in Vancouver, I flew back to Rhode Island by myself. The month of June was almost over, Marie was slightly miserable, Tammy wasn’t really speaking to either of us, and Pete was drowning in debt, his days of climbing ladders and doing manual labor for a living on hold indefinitely.

To say I was looking forward to returning to all of this would be a lie. At least the paparazzi and gossip rags were being somewhat nice, printing photos of our happiness when they caught Ryan and me out shopping a few days ago.

Ryan and I had a nice time wandering around, taking in some sights and spending some money on stuff we didn’t need but could afford. I was sporting a gorgeous antique diamond bracelet that Ryan spent a small fortune on and he bought himself a nice platinum chain with a stainless steel dog tag that had a tribal design on one side and my name engraved on the other.

But now I was sitting in the passenger seat of my car, Marie behind the wheel, since she picked me up at the airport, and the amazing time I had with Ryan sadly becoming another memory.

I watched the landscape zoom by once again, feeling a sense of déjà vu, and wondering if things would settle.

Going back to Mitchell’s Pub was starting to feel like a burden, and that was not good.

“Did you book your flight?” I asked, wondering when the other shoe was going to drop.

Marie glanced over quickly. “Yeah. Class starts July ninth.”

My mind flipped through the calendar, knowing I already had a problem, but I wasn’t about to let it halt her plans.

“You’re going to miss Ryan’s wrap party because of me.”

I felt my shoulders tense as I glanced over at her. “Mike needs to keep his big mouth shut.”

Marie barked out a laugh, “I know you’re supposed to be in Pittsburg at his parents’ on the twenty-second as well, which you failed to tell me about.”

“I wasn’t keeping it a secret.” Well, I was, but I wasn’t going to tell her until after she’d left.

She passed a slow-moving camper in the center lane. “Liar. You said you didn’t have anything firm until the Teen Choice Awards on August seventh.”

And therein was my problem, right in a nutshell. Since cloning wasn’t possible, something had to give, just like Ryan had said. “You need to worry about your schedule and leave me to worry about mine,” I growled, teasingly of course.

“I thought you were trying to go to Italy the week before that?”

“No. Ryan’s not sure if he’ll have to go to L.A. earlier. He’s waiting to hear.”

I dug around in my purse for my calendar. “When are you coming back then?”

“July twenty-eighth.” Her voice did an excited upswing, making it sound like a question. I could tell she was treading lightly. She also knew that I had no one to fall back on.

“You’ll come back a lean, mean fighting machine,” I joked, trying to let her know I was totally supporting her decisions.

Marie gave me a weak smile. “I don’t have to go for this session, Taryn. I could put it off. Give it a year, maybe. I dunno. I know I’m putting you in a tight spot.”

I adjusted my ring. “No. Definitely not.”

“Taryn, I’m rushing this. I don’t even know if Mike wants a relationship with me. I’m fighting with Gary over who gets to keep the damn toaster and shit. I shouldn’t be making any big moves.”

“If this is what you want then you go for it now. Time to do what you want to do for once.”

“But—”

“But what? Are you going to doubt your desires because you’re unsure of Mike’s intentions? You want to be a bodyguard, knowing what it entails, then do it. And no buts. I haven’t seen you this excited about something in years. You want to forge a new career path, then now is the time. You’re wasting your education and talents being stuck behind the bar.”

“I’m not stuck . . .”

“Yes, you are. We both are. It’s time for the next chapter.”

“I need an income, Taryn,” she countered. “I can’t go without a job.”

I sighed. “We’ve had this discussion already.”

“Taryn, you can’t pay me a salary that I didn’t work for. You’ve already loaned me money for the lawyer. And it’s going to be a while until I see a settlement from my divorce so I can pay you back.”

“Marie, what did I say?”

She huffed. “It’s not right. You can’t keep bailing your friends out.”

I turned in my seat to look at her, keeping the fact that I was going to cash out some of my inheritance to cover things if I needed to. The bar was making more money but not enough to cover several full-time salaries. “You would do the same for me and you know it.”

“You’re going to have to hire another bartender or two and someone will have to be there to manage the place. And I can’t expect you to hire someone for only two weeks and then fire them when I get back. Cory is great, but you know as well as I do that he’s young and isn’t ready to take on that amount of responsibility. And what happens if I get down there and find out I can’t handle it? Mike said this is pretty intense stuff—like combat training, firing a gun while rolling on the ground and stuff. I mean, what the hell do I know about disarming someone or kicking someone’s ass? Last time I was in a fight was when we were in high school and I punched Sophie Lithgow in the face for calling me a slut.”

I laughed. “It’s a start. And
that
was classic, by the way. She deserved that—calling
both
of us sluts.”

“Yeah, but I at least earned the title,” Marie boasted.

“No you did not.”

Then she gave me a crooked stare, insinuating that she did.

We were silent for another half mile when I finally said what was swirling in my thoughts. “Ryan sort of hinted again that I should sell the bar.”

Marie’s mouth popped open. “Why?”

“Because I can’t be in two places at once.”

She groaned softly. “You sure you want to do that?”

My knee-jerk answer was no, but I said, “I don’t know. I’m thinking about it.”

She shook her head adamantly. “I don’t think you should sell it.”

I was thankful she said that. “Is it wrong of me to want to have a fallback plan?”

“Hell no! Look at me. Bastard locked me out of my own damn house! I barely escaped with the clothes on my back and now he’s threatening to smash our china that his aunt got us just so I don’t try to take it in the divorce. I don’t know where I would have ended up if you hadn’t taken me in. That’s not to say Ryan would do any of that nonsense to you. Honestly, I think you’d be just fine doing something else if you did sell the bar but the part of me going through a shitty divorce says you should keep your safety net.”

The smart woman inside me had been burned too many times by men, and so maintaining self-preservation was a moral imperative. “I hate feeling like that.”

“I know,” she muttered. “What did your mother always tell us?

“The one where you can find trash on any street corner, but you should always hold out for a man with a heart of gold?”

“No, no. That was a good one, too, but the one where she always said that you should make sure the man loves you more than you love the man,” she said. “According to Ryan, the sun rises and sets on your ass so I think you’re good.”

Thinking back to those times when my mom gave me her little quips of wisdom spread warmth up from my heart. “My mother was a wise woman.”

Marie grinned. “Yes she was. Too bad I didn’t listen.”

I scratched my head. “Yeah, that makes two of us. This time I am, though.”

“Yes indeed. Trading in the bad boy for the
badass
boy.”

For some reason, a picture of a shirtless, beefy Mike Murphy flashed through my thoughts. “Mike’s pretty badass.”

“Yes he is.” She smiled. “He’s the reason why I’m sure things need to end between me and Gary. I didn’t realize just how bad I had it until Mike came along. Gary has never made me a priority. Not once did he ever put my needs ahead of his own. When I look back at our relationship, even before we got married he never made me feel as if I was important. You’ve seen it. After a while, that shit starts to wear on you. But Mike . . . I know he’s pulling in a few favors to get me into this school. He hasn’t hesitated once about taking care of me. Not once.”

“Mike’s been really grumpy,” I told her. “Ryan’s ready to ship him here—
soon
. Fortunately, they’re just about wrapped on
Slipknot
.”

Her face lit up. It was such a beautiful thing. “Really?”

I smiled just as broadly. “He thinks Mike’s in love with you.”

“Really?”

“Really, really.”

After a few seconds of grinning from ear to ear, she said, “Ryan’s madly in love with you, you know. Still . . . please don’t sell the bar.”

I bristled a bit.

“I’m sad that I’m going to miss your engagement party at Ryan’s parents’. I’m sure Ellen will stuff you full of food.” She didn’t have to tell me that those words hurt her to say.

That reminded me of one more thing I had to do: time to see if my next bright idea would pan out.