The Cornerstone (42 page)

I updated my cash flow spreadsheet and checked the corporate credit card balances to ensure we weren’t up against our limits. We always managed to max out the cards on the days when we were taking clients to lunch, and that annoyed the shit out of me. It was Tom’s responsibility to watch the charges, but I took a peek at least once a week to be safe.

“Closing time, peanut.”

I shot back in my chair, yelping in surprise, and found Will leaning against my doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest. The pose did fascinating things for his biceps. And forearms. The whole thing was…fascinating.

“Patrick was here, like, two minutes ago,” I said. My heart was skittering in my chest. “You’re going to get caught if you keep stalking me like this.”

He shrugged, and ran his thumb down the line of his jaw. His beard was getting thick again. “Maybe I want to get caught.”

“Yeah, we’ll deal with that issue in a minute,” I said. “How did you get past the security system?”

Back before Angus died, there were a few incidents with him that necessitated a tighter approach to office safety. We’d selected a highly recommended—and very expensive—firm to outfit the building with limited access areas, cameras, and keypads at all the entry points.

Will pushed off from the door and sauntered to my desk. “Is that a serious question?”

“That’s the best system on the market,” I said as I gathered my things.

He helped me into my coat and held out his hand for my bag. He was insistent about things like that, and I usually hated all manner of chivalry but…it was growing on me. All of this was growing on me, and I didn’t want to think about Will leaving for another deployment. That shadow was lurking around every corner, but I didn’t want to look it in the eye just yet.

Not knowing when he’d leave made it easier. It wasn’t until the clock was running that I had to reconcile my reality of small bites of time with Will.

“That system wouldn’t stop someone who wanted to get in here,” he said. He hitched my tote over his shoulder and took my hand. “You’d have the exact same level of security with a dead bolt.”

“Lovely,” I murmured. “Another unjustifiable expenditure. That’s precisely what I need right now.”

“What you need is a break,” he said. “You’re going to relax next week in San Diego. Hell, you might fall in love and decide to stay there.”

At the top of Joy Street, I stopped to face Will. “Fall in love with San Diego? Or…something else?”

Will smiled and pulled me against his chest. “Let’s find out.”

SHANNON

“I
’m on to
you,” Lauren said, leaning into my shoulder.

She showed up at my office late this afternoon wearing a bold, bright smile, slammed my laptop shut, and informed me we were going out. Apparently, barking orders ran in the family.

“What was that, Drunk Girl?” I asked.

The tavern down the street from the office was one of my favorites, and since I wasn’t alone in loving The Red Hat, the place was packed. Matt tagged along, and was on the other side of the bar watching basketball.

“I said I’m on to you,” she laughed. “I know what you’re up to.”

I’d been preparing for this. After everything that happened over lunch, it was obvious Lauren had a good idea—if not the full idea and most of the details—which bare-chested military man was in my apartment, and she was going to kill me with kindness until I confessed.

“Oh, so you’re aware that I’ve been dropping engagement ring hints all over Patrick?”

Her eyes widened and she held up her finger. “We’ll come back to that one in a second.” She propped her hands on her hips and shot me a sharp look. “I hear you’re leaving town tomorrow. What’s the story, morning glory?”

This was the part I hated: keeping things from Lauren. She confided her secrets in me, and I dropped more than my share on her. She arranged my father’s burial when I was too distraught. She changed my brother’s life in too many ways to name. She brought Will into my life, and now…I wanted to tell her. This was like a jar filled with summer fireflies, buzzing and beating the glass to get out and live in a wide, open space, and my fingers were loosening the lid.

“There’s not much of a story, Lo. Seriously, it’s just—”

She waved her hands in front of my face and grabbed my shoulders. “Did you hear that?” she asked.

“What?” I couldn’t hear anything over the dull roar of crowd noise and music.

She made an exaggeratedly impatient face and jostled my shoulders. “You just called me Lo.”

Shit.

“You know who calls me Lo?” she asked.

I shrugged and studied my wine. White, chilled, average quality, not strong enough to get me through the beating she was going to issue any minute now.

“My brothers, most notably, my brother Will. My parents call me Lolo, and Wes, too. Everyone else calls me Lauren, or Miss Honey. Only Will—the one with the bone frog tattoo on his arm and the anchor on his chest—
consistently
calls me Lo.”

“It’s cute,” I said, sliding my phone out of my suit coat and studying the newest emails waiting for me. “It fits you.”

“It really doesn’t, but let’s deconstruct that one another day.” She squeezed my shoulders and hell, Drunk Lauren was strong. “Will is Scheduled Sex. You’ve been seeing him between deployments since…since when, Shan?”

There was an expression one of my torts professors liked to throw around—three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead—and I laughed out loud at the thought of it. This was
never
a secret. Riley, Erin, and Nick all knew the second night we were together. Everyone knew I was going somewhere and seeing someone. Tiel could draw his tattoos from memory.

There was no secret here, and there was some relief in that revelation. A shiver moved through my bones, and I didn’t know whether I wanted to laugh or cry. “Will is Scheduled Sex,” I confirmed. “And I’ve been seeing him since your wedding.”

“You’ve been keeping this from me for more than a year and a half?” she cried. “Shit, I didn’t think you’d admit it so quickly. Tell me
everything,
you dirty little slutbag.”

A rush of emotion was rising up in my chest, as if giving voice to these realities made them more real and tangible. Will was mine and I was saying that out loud. “I didn’t want to lie to you, but it just—”

“I know that I sound like I’m mad, and I’m not. I love you but I just feel the need to scream at you.” Lauren’s eyes narrowed. “Where is he right now?”

“My apartment,” I said. I tangled my fingers around my long seed-pearl necklace. Every text from Will today was in reference to this necklace, and the thoroughly perverted things he wanted to do while I wore it.

“Mmhmm.” She drained her drink and set it on the bar. “Mmhmm. Of course he is.”

“It’s not…” My voice trailed off, and I didn’t know what I was trying to deny. It wasn’t more than scheduled sex? It wasn’t going to happen again? It wasn’t getting serious? None of that was true, and now that I’d drawn back the curtains on the history of Shannon and Will, I couldn’t stomach another mistruth. I was going to stand there, twisting in my discomfort, and surrender to the reality that Will was mine.

Mine
. Not for anyone else, not anymore, not ever again.

Lauren sighed, and I knew she wasn’t mad. She was disappointed, and I was well-acquainted with that reaction. It was how I felt when Sam proposed to Tiel. I knew it made me an asshole for withholding some of my happiness for him because he didn’t include me in his plans to get engaged, but we’d been through so much together. I was pissed that his life was changing in a way that excluded me, but I did the same thing to Lauren. I’d
earned
her disappointment.

“The first time it happened we decided you didn’t need to know about it,” I said, laughing. “The last thing you needed to hear on your wedding day was that your brother broke my vag…and the bed.”

“You two must think I’m about as sharp as a spoon.” My forehead wrinkled in confusion, and she continued, “He asked me a minimum of nine hundred questions about you while I was getting my hair done before the ceremony. And have you seen my photos? I had the photographer crop you two out of some of the images because it looked like you were molesting each other.”

“Oh…”

“And let’s not forget about that time when you two were at my house for dinner,” she said, pointing her glass at me. “It was like a game of strip poker.”

“He broke into my apartment that night,” I said.

“Of course he did,” she replied. “That’s the kind of shit he does. He knows everything, he’s bossy, and likes getting his way. I cannot imagine what the two of you see in each other.” She ran her hand through her hair, sighing. “It’s nice that he has some time off, even if he isn’t sharing that news with anyone.”

“I’ve been telling him to call you,” I said, shaking my head. “We’ve been trying to sort some things out, and…he’s a little stubborn.”

“There’s something to be said about pots and kettles, and birds of a feather, and taking one to know one,” she murmured. “In other news: you two are going somewhere?”

I nodded. “One of his friends is getting married. In San Diego.”

“Good,” she said, and I looked up to find her smiling at me. “Good. I like this.”

“That’s great, but please don’t announce it,” I insisted.

“Shannon, this isn’t my relationship to announce, and I’m a little insulted that you think I’d issue a press release or dump a long, babbling post on Facebook about my brother and my best friend. But please explain this to me: why is it a secret?”

I held out my hands to her, trying to conjure all the stress and drama of the past eighteen months into the space between my fingers. “We just wanted to disappear for a weekend, and then it turned into…I don’t even know what it is.”

“This is a ridiculous question but here goes: have you talked to him about this?”

“It sounds logical coming out of your mouth,” I said, “but in practice, it’s rather to difficult to have those conversations.”

“Don’t I know it,” she murmured. “Can I just say that I’m happy for you? I remember last November, when you came back from New Mexico. You saw him there, right?”

Nodding, I kept my eyes cast down, not wanting to see the joyful warmth in her expression. Any day now, he’d head out for another deployment. Things would return to the way they were before I knew what it was like to have him with me every day, every night. It wasn’t something I was looking forward to.

“You were glowing when you came back, but then I didn’t see that glow for a long time. Not until last weekend, when you came this close to slapping the shit out of Tiel.”

“Please don’t do this,” I said. “Don’t get invested.”

“Did you know Andy almost bailed on my wedding?” Lauren asked, a petulant scowl on her lips.

“Wait—what are you talking about?”

“You remember. She and Patrick were going through their thing, and they were pretty much separated. So, of course, she thought I’d take Patrick’s side because I was marrying his brother.” She gestured toward me. “What I’m saying is: you’ll always be my friend and my sister-in-law. I’m going to be happy for you and I’m going to get invested, but I can keep it to myself if that makes you feel better. I’ll just be over here, quietly cheering for you.”

Those words loosened the knot in my throat, and some stray tears spilled over. “You’re a bitch for making me cry in a bar,” I said.

“You’re a bitch for keeping this from me for a year and a fucking half,” she said, wrapping her arm around my shoulders.

“You’re a bitch for figuring it out,” I laugh-sniffled.

“You’re a bitch for making me beat it out of you,” she said.

Matt came up behind us and folded us into a hug. “Every time,” he muttered. “Every time you two go out, you get sloppy drunk and run a bar tab the length of my arm.”

“I totally thought you were going to say cock,” Lauren giggled. “It’s not your arm, but it’s still pretty long.”

“Your mouth, Mrs. Walsh,” he whispered. “Still shocks me.”

“You’re a bitch for talking about my brother’s junk all the time,” I yelled.

“Says the girl with the broken vag,” Lauren said, smirking at me. “See? You’re already getting me back for it.”

*

San Diego was
Boston’s opposite in every way. Where San Diego was sunny and bright, Boston in November was routinely gray. Everything here glistened and shined with newness, and my life back home was dedicated to preserving things that counted their age in centuries. The Pacific was a serene, sparkling sapphire when we touched down at the airport, nothing like the choppy, blue-green of the Atlantic. Despite the drought, bougainvillea vines edged the freeway, and there wasn’t a barren tree in sight.

Just as Boston was all mine, San Diego was Will’s, and I could have scooped a cupful of his happiness right off him the minute we stepped into the terminal. The entire cab ride from the airport was filled with half-complete stories about friends, beaches, high school, and SEAL training, each one piling on top of the other as he interrupted himself with a new memory.