Somewhere in Between (Madison Square #1) (23 page)

I flinched.

Drew took a step toward him and grabbed a handful of Peter’s shirt. “Don’t you ever fucking talk to her like that again.” Drew released him, shoving him back into the hall. Peter backed up and brushed himself off. He shot a nasty look in my direction, then headed down the hall.

Drew shut the door and turned to me. “Think he got the message this time?”

Chapter 19

Drew (Then)

“Can you believe this shit?” I said, gesturing to my open laptop.

Red leaned over to look at the screen. “What?”

“They’re selling kits on how to write a best man speech.”

Red looked at me and shrugged. “So?”

“So? That’s ridiculous. Whatever happened to just giving advice for the hell of it? Now people want to sell you some bullshit kit.”

“Why are you researching this anyway? Can’t you just write from the heart?”

“I needed a place to start.”

“What do you have so far?”

I sat up straight, cleared my throat, and read dramatically from the legal pad in my lap. “Good evening, friends and family.” I sat there, watching her face for a reaction.

“That’s it?” she asked.

“Hey, this is harder than it looks.”

“Don’t you have some funny story from when you were kids or something?”

“Yeah,” I sighed, “but isn’t that kind of cheesy?”

She folded her legs up under her on the couch and pulled her hair into a ponytail. “Not if it’s something personal,” she said.

Things had gotten a little easier between us since the day we spent at the park. I made it my mission to make her feel like she wasn’t so alone anymore and we had grown a lot closer since that day. We settled into a rhythm, spending almost all of our free time together.

Tonight, we ordered a pizza and she was helping me with my best man speech for David’s wedding, which was approaching fast.

“When is the wedding anyway?”

“Saturday.”

“Saturday? Like, four days from now?”

“Yeah.”

“Why so soon? Wait!” She sat up and grabbed my arm. “Is Millie pregnant?” she whispered as her eyes widened.

I laughed. “No, but I said the same thing. They want to be sure that mom can be there.”

She dropped her head “Oh.” Her voice was soft and sad. “How is she doing?”

“Not bad, but not great either.”

“I’m so sorry, Drew.” She rubbed my shoulder.

I nodded. I never knew what to say when people said they were sorry. It felt wrong to say thanks. I was anything but thankful for watching my mom waste away.

“I wanted to talk to you about the wedding, actually,” I said. “What do you think about going with me?”

“Me? Don’t you have a rolodex of girls chomping at the bit to go out with you?”

“None that I want to go with. Come on, Red. It will be fun and my family loves you.”

“I don’t know.” She sounded more than a little reluctant.

“Hey, if anything it gets you off campus and away from Kerri. Plus, there’s cake.”

“Well, if there’s cake…” she said with a smile.

“So, you’re in?” I tried not to sound too eager.

“Yeah, I’m in.”

“Great!” I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “We leave tomorrow,” I said quickly and turned back to my laptop.

“Tomorrow? Jesus, Drew. Could you give me any less notice? I need to pack. Shit, I hope I have something to wear.” She hopped up from the couch and grabbed her bag.

“Wear whatever you want.” I shrugged. I watched her flit about the room, gathering her books into her bag and slipping into her shoes.

“You really don’t understand women, do you?” She laughed.

“That’s just one of the many things you love about me.” I shot her a cheesy smile. Red just shook her head and tossed a pillow at me.

***

The next day, we pulled into my parents’ driveway just as the sun was setting. I grabbed our bags from the trunk and headed toward the house with Red in tow.

When we stepped inside, the house was crazy. The dining room table was covered in trays of little white boxes tied with a blue ribbon. Mom and my Aunt Evelyn were on the phone talking to different relatives who were coming in. Papa Jack had most likely escaped to the bar. I couldn’t blame him.

I set our stuff down by the door, walked up behind mom, and wrapped my arms around her shoulders.

“I have to go, Rachel. Drew just got here. Okay, see you there. Bye.” She hung up the phone and turned to hug me. She wore a light pink scarf and a gray cardigan sweater. Her eyes were a little more sunk into her face and she was nothing but skin and bone. She was deteriorating faster than I thought. Maybe David was right to move up the wedding.

“Alex,” Mom said, stepping out of my arms to give her a hug.

“Hey there, Mrs. Coll—I mean, Emma,” Red said, gently wrapping her arms around Mom’s frail body.

I leaned down and whispered into her ear, “Nice save, Red.” She rolled her eyes at me, but couldn’t hide the smile spreading across her face.

“I didn’t know you were coming, but I’m so glad you did. You can help me keep this one in line,” Mom said, looking up at me.

“Hey, I’m not the trouble maker in this family,” I said. “If I recall, at Rachel’s wedding, it was Aunt Jean who had one too many whiskey sours and ended the night on top of a table.”

Mom giggled. “Well, that’s true.”

“So, where is everyone?” I asked.

“Your father is at the bar.” See, smart man. “Millie and David are doing a walkthrough of the hall and the rest of the family is descending tonight. Oh, speaking of which, the hotel lost Evelyn’s reservation and now they’re full, so you and Alex will have to bunk together.”

I swallowed. Sharing a room with Red was going to seriously test my newly acquired willpower.

“I put some extra blankets and pillows in there and you can make up a pallet on the floor, Drew.” Mom met my eyes and winked at me.

“I can take the floor,” Red said. “I don’t mind.”

“No way, Red. Mom’s orders.”

She nodded.

“Well, I’m going drop our stuff and then I gotta go meet David for a tux fitting.” I looked at Red. “You going to be okay here?” She nodded again.

***

I walked into the tux rental place. David was already in his tux and the tailor was taking measurements. I laughed at the sight of a guy on his knees in front of my brother.

“I didn’t realize this was a happy endings sort of place,” I said as I approached.

David just shot me an irritated look.

“Whoa! Someone’s tense.” I held my hands up in surrender.

“This wedding is killing me. I swear to God, if it wasn’t for mom I would grab Millie and be on a plane to Vegas tonight,” David said, shaking his arms out to the side, earning him a glare from the tailor hemming his pants.

“That bad, huh?”

“You don’t know the half of it. I had no idea all the shit that goes into this. Millie is freaking out because her cousins from Arkansas said they couldn’t make it at first, but now they are coming, so she is frantically redoing the seating chart.”

The tension was rolling off of him in waves. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“It’s not funny!” He whipped his head around, glaring at me.

“It kind of is.” I chuckled and crossed my arms across my chest.

“Where’s Alex?” he asked, wincing as the tailor stuck him with a pin.

“Oh, I left her back at the house. Mom was putting her to work making some kind of tissue ball thing.”

“How is that going?” he asked, pulling at his sleeve.

“I don’t know. It looked complicated to me. I got out before they asked me to help.”

“Not the tissue thing. The Alex thing.” He scoffed.

“Oh, it’s not,” I said, pretending to inspect a rack of ties.

“Why not?”

“Because right now she needs a friend more than she needs anything else.” I sighed.

“Why can’t you be both?”

“Because I will fuck it up and then she will hate me and be on her own again.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do. She deserves someone so much better than me.”

“You know what mom says.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that I want her to be happy, and right now the best way I can make that happen is to be her friend. She needs to belong to someone, to be a part of a family without the fear of it all being ripped away. So that’s what I’m going to be for her.” I leaned my shoulder against the wall and focused on my shoes.

I looked up and David was studying me, his eyes narrowed.

“What?” I asked.

He stepped down from the platform. “You really love her, don’t you?”

“Yeah, it fucking sucks.”

He dropped his head and nodded.

***

Later that night, I was getting ready for bed when Alex came into the room. She was staring at her fingers, which where stained a light blue color.

“What happened to you?” I chuckled.

“Damn tissue paper stained my hands. I can’t get it off. I scrubbed them raw in the shower and look at me,” she said, holding her hands up to me.

“You look like you gave a hand job to a Smurf.” I laughed.

She swatted at me. “It’s not funny. I have to get this off,” she said, scratching at her fingers.

“Hold that thought.” I headed into the bathroom and dug under the sink until I found some cotton balls and mom’s nail polish remover.

When I got back into the bedroom, Red was sitting on the bed, staring at her blue fingers. She looked up when she heard me coming. I took a seat next to her and wiggled the bottle at her. “Acetone,” I said.

I opened the bottle and held the cotton ball over the top, letting the purple liquid soak into it. I reached for her hand and gently wiped the cotton ball across her palm. The blue was coming off slowly, but it was coming off. I went through a few cotton balls, but it seemed to do the trick.

I reached for her other hand and she held it out to me. I could feel her staring at me, but I did my best to ignore it, focusing instead on removing the blue dye from her hand.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice quiet.

“No problem. Mom picked up a few tricks over the years. She says that raising two boys forced her to be creative.”

She laughed. “No, I mean, thank you for bringing me here.” I looked up, meeting her eyes as she continued. “It really means a lot.”

“Of course, Red.” I smiled. “I told you, we’re family and that comes with the motley Collins crew and Sean.”

Red laughed. “We can’t leave out Sean.”

“He wouldn’t stand for it,” I whispered, suddenly distracted by the light in her eyes.

I shook my head and finished cleaning her hand. “There, you’re all set.”

She held up her hands and smiled. “I’m gonna brush my teeth. Be right back.”

While she was in the bathroom, I finished making up my bed on the floor. When she came back in, she looked down at my makeshift bed with a frown. “I feel bad making you sleep on the floor.”

“It’s not a big deal, Red. I don’t mind. Besides, what kind of gentleman would I be if I made you sleep on the floor?”

“Well, we can just share the bed.” She shrugged.

I raised my eyebrows at her. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I mean it’s not a big deal. It’s not like anything would happen.” She pulled back the covers. “Unless you want to sleep on the floor?”

“No, I’m just…” I wasn’t sure what to do. The idea of spending the night with Red curled up beside me was definitely appealing, but very, very dangerous. “Okay then, but I have to warn you. I like to cuddle,” I joked. Well, sort of joked. “Wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea.” I raised my eyebrows at her.

She just laughed. “I think I can handle it.”

I just hoped that I could handle it.

I grabbed my pillow from the floor and walked around to the other side of the bed. I pulled back the covers and climbed in next to her. She settled under the covers, facing me. I relaxed onto my back and looked up at the ceiling.

“Good night, Drew,” she said. She already sounded sleepy.

“Night, Red.”

“You’re my best friend, you know that?” she whispered, her eyes closed. I could feel her body beginning to relax next to me.

“Yeah, I know.” I chuckled.

“I love you, Drew.”

I tensed. I knew she meant as a friend, but hearing her say the words was hard. I looked at her lying next to me, so peaceful and beautiful, her hair spread across the pillow, her face relaxed.

“I love you too, Alex,” I whispered. I wish I could tell her just how much.