Give & Take (Redbeard Cove #2)

31. Lana

Chapter 31

Lana

B esides Chris, I haven’t told anyone at all about what’s going on between me and Raph. The only way this doesn’t turn into a whole thing is if we keep it as quiet as possible. Raph doesn’t worry at all—that’s his MO, after all, being worry-free. But he tells me he’ll do whatever it takes to make sure I’m comfortable. And when I remind him about how this might affect the girls, he nods, agreeing with me on that point at least.

Chris drops innuendos at work when no one’s around, but she doesn’t pry. In fact, she’s surprisingly subdued, but I think that’s just because she’s still dealing with the asshole on the track. She’s determined he’s not someone from Redbeard Cove, but the track’s owner won’t give her the guy’s name or address. “Privacy regulations,” she tells me. “Can you believe that?”

Things are going so smoothly that when Mac who corners me, two weeks after Raph and I crossed that line beyond return, I assume it’s something mundane.

“I need to talk to you in my office,” he tells me.

I’m not worried at all. Usually when Mac needs to talk to me or Chris, it’s to tell us he’s bringing on someone new and needs us to train them. Or he’s bought Shelby something and needs an opinion on whether she’s going to like it. He has a whole cupboard of items on his built-in bookcase with things he abandoned because we didn’t immediately express our enthusiasm.

He’s truly the gold standard in partners.

Or I thought he was, until I met Raph.

But today, he wants to see only me. Chris rolls her eyes, but appears unconcerned. So I remain so, too.

When I close the door, Mac’s pacing.

“Mac,” I say, frowning. “Everything okay?” Pacing usually means he’s got a problem he needs to work through. Mac’s like a brother to me, and we often take advice from one another.

Maybe it’s something parent-related. He started needing advice on that the moment he found out Shelby was pregnant.

But I don’t get the sense this is about him. Work, maybe? In the past, he’s offered to give me a floor manager role. Or assistant manager. Or any kind of manager, goddammit Lana! But I’ve always refused. “I’m a server, full-stop, until I decide to do something else.”

He stops his pacing, punching his hands on his hips. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Mac asks.

“What?” The question surprises me. It comes right out of left field, actually.

“If you’re going to give me your notice, just give it already. You can stay as long as you need to, I just need to know. The baby’s coming and my house is a shit-show and I?—”

“I’m not leaving, Mac.”

I expect to see relief on his face. Instead, he frowns.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Mac’s got a resting frown face, except when Shelby’s around.

But I frown back. We’ve often said in another life we’d be siblings. “It’s funny,” I say. “I’d expect you to be happy about that.”

“I am,” he says, frowning harder.

“So why the face?”

Mac sighs, scrubbing his face with his hands. He looks down at a photo he’s got on his desk, of him and Shelby and Cal, at the grand reopening of the Rusty Dinghy last summer, after Shelby revamped the whole place. It’s a good photo. I know because I took it.

“You know,” he says, “I used to look at people who had their shit together—like, romantically—and think they were bullshitting. Isn’t that nuts?”

Now I frown. So it isn’t work.

“Truly, I thought people just met someone and felt okay about them and all that”—he waves his hands around—“fluffy shit was just something Hollywood made up. Or it was only in those books you and Chris read.”

Chris and I are both romance lovers, though Chris tends to read very different kinds than I do.

“I’m struggling to find your point,” I say. That would be mean with someone else, but not with Mac. Plus, my pulse is surging. Does he somehow know about me and Raph? We’ve kept things quiet. The last thing I need is rumors flying in Redbeard Cove that poor lonely single mom Lana Bloor is hooking up with her hot nanny.

“I’m getting to it,” he says. He slumps down in his chair and indicates I should do the same with another wave of his arm.

“Lana, we’ve always been honest with each other, right?”

My pulse ratchets higher. “I think so.” Does that mean he’s going to ask me about Raph? As my boss, it’s none of his business. As my friend…it’s also technically none of his business. But suddenly I wonder if he’s going to pull the big brother card. If he knows, and he’s going to scold me for what I’m doing.

The feeling of shame starts to crawl over me, one Raph and I have talked about late at night over the phone as we lay only a few feet from each other in our respective rooms. I’ve told him I can’t shake the feeling of being ashamed for hooking up with my much younger nanny, and he’s told me that’s just societal expectations being laid on me. “We’re both adults, remember?” he keeps reminding me. “And you haven’t taken advantage of me. If anything, I came on to you. Hard.”

He’s right, about all of it, and I’ve just started believing him.

But seeing Mac scrubbing his forehead with his hands, I’m having a hard time holding steady.

“Just spit it out, Mac!” I say.

He lowers his hands. “Okay, fine. Listen, your personal life is none of my business,” he begins.

Oh no.

“But I need to tell you that in all the years I’ve known you…” he sighs. “I’ve always known you were too good for this place. Everyone knows it. We’re just surprised you lasted this long.”

“Mac, I told you I’m not leaving?—”

“Stop. You are. You just don’t know it yet.”

I gape, slightly irritated. Slightly shell-shocked. “Mac, I don’t have any plans.”

“Shelby told me she saw your nanny checking out that storefront over on Second Street. Not just a casual look, either. He was with Ida Clark.”

For a moment, these words don’t assemble themselves properly in my mind. “Wait, say that again?”

Mac frowns. “You didn’t know?”

“No I didn’t know! What the fuck, Mac?”

“Is Raphael staying in town?”

“No!” I practically squawk. It was way too loud. I can tell by the way Mac’s mouth has drawn into a line. He studies me for a moment.

“He’s going back to California at the end of the summer,” I say when he doesn’t say anything. “He’s got a PhD to finish. An apartment, a job. He’s…he’s not staying.”

My insides seem to warp at those words. It’s the first time I’ve said them to someone besides myself and Raph, and that was before any of this started happening. But they’re the truth. Raph and I have just avoided talking about the elephant in the room, because when we have, he says insane things like ‘none of that matters,’ and ‘I’ll quit,’ like dropping an advanced degree is just a normal, fine thing to do.

“Listen, Lana. If you’re worried I’m going to judge you about whatever’s going on between you two I?—”

“What makes you think anything’s going on?”

Mac sighs heavily. “You know you sound like my son right now. Denying he has a girlfriend when I hear him giggling in his room over the phone at night. Giggling! It’s all over his face, too.”

I pull my lips tight, appearing extremely cool on the outside, I know, but inside dealing with a fucking maelstrom.

“Lana, it’s why I asked if you were leaving. I told Shelby last week that I was sure you’d found a new job, because for the first time since I’ve known you, I’ve caught you smiling more than frowning.”

“I have not been randomly smiling,” I tell him, as indignant as if he told me I suddenly picked up a love for needlepoint. Not that there’s anything wrong with needlepoint, it’s just so very not me.

“The other day I caught you staring at a jar of pickles,” he says.

As much as I don’t want to, I flush. Raph hates pickles. I love pickles. We had this big fake fight about it. He told me I love pickles because they’re sour, I said I love them because they’re tangy and delicious, and he’d waggled his eyebrows, told me he had another pickle he could show me and?—

“When I asked Shelby, she told me she thought you were probably just happy. Then she let slip Cal complained his favorite outdoor buddy has stopped hanging out with him just like I did when I met Shelby and—” For the third time today, Mac waves a hand. “ Whatever. The point is, she thinks you’re hooking up with Raphael, and it makes sense now. I think so too.”

“That’s none of?—”

“You’re right, it’s none of my business. But for the record, as your friend, I want to say I’m happy for you.”

His voice is completely sincere. “I mean it, Lana. You deserve this.”

I struggle for a moment with the urge to cry—I’m completely touched that Mac’s looking out for me and the girls—and the much more ridiculous urge to deny it.

But I know when I’m beat. I lean forward, burying my face in my hands. “God, Mac. It’s absurd. It’s…wrong.”

“I mean, I have a hard time believing you seduced him.”

“Mac!”

“I’m going to assume it came about naturally.”

“Again, Mac! What the fuck!”

“Lana, you’re being way too hard on yourself. Did you forget I hired Shelby specifically because I…liked her?”

Liked is putting it mildly. And honestly, I’d kind of forgotten that part.

“And I had her move into my home when she didn’t have a safe place to stay.”

I drop my hands. He’s right. If anything, Mac should not be the one to judge me.

Which is why he isn’t.

“But he’s twenty-six, Mac,” I groan. “He’s got his whole life ahead of him.”

“See you’ve got me beat there. Shelby was twenty- eight when I met her. But nobody seemed to think that was a big deal, did they?”

“It’s different with men,” I say, somewhat bitterly.

“Maybe. But all I’m saying is whatever you feel bad about, just know you’re not the only one in this room who’s made the same mistakes. And they’re my favorite mistakes.”

For the first time since I came in here, I feel a hint that I might be okay. But I still can’t quite shake the feeling that our situations are too different.

“Anyway,” Mac says. “Point is, if Raph and you are leasing retail space, that starts to fall into the realm of things that might affect me.”

I laugh. “Shelby has to be mistaken. There’s no reason Raph would be looking at a storefront.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. He’s never…”

I trail off. I was going to say even if he was going to stay, which he’s not, he’s never expressed the least bit of interest in retail.

But we did talk about me and retail. Specifically things I could do that had to do with books that weren’t writing one.

I swallow hard. “It’s a mistake,” I say. “It couldn’t have been him.”

Mac’s eyes hold mine. He knows I’m not sure about that. But I am sure about this. “I have no plans to leave the Rusty Dinghy, Mac. And Raphael is going to be leaving at the end of the summer to finish his doctorate. Full stop.”

Because I may have crossed a line in getting together with my nanny, but I’m not getting in the way of Raphael’s life.

It’s not happening. Of all the tumultuousness of the past couple of weeks, of this I’m certain. I may be falling for this man, but it was never going to be more than a summertime thing. Besides his degree, he talked about traveling. About experiencing the world. What happens once he settles down in Redbeard Cove, a tiny town in one small, albeit beautiful corner of the world?

Most of all, he’s already done the dad thing. He raised those brothers. He may say he loves the girls—and I believe him—but that doesn’t mean I can ask him to be there forever.

It’s not happening.

Finally, Mac holds his hands up. “Okay. Fine. I believe you. But for the record, yes I would be stressed if you decided to go. I’d be fucking devastated. The whole crew would be. But just know we know you’re going to one day. And we’ll celebrate whatever it is that takes you away from us with our whole damn hearts.”

Mac making me cry was not on my bingo card today. Yet here I am, abruptly standing up and heading for the door. I pause before leaving, my fingers on the door handle. “Thank you, Mac.” I tell him. “For being the brother I never knew I needed.”

Mac clears his throat. Grumbles you’re welcome.

And another spot on my bingo card is marked as I see his eyes grow shiny too.