And Then There Was You Read online

  He loved working in the front of the house, but he was so ready for three o’clock to roll around. Barring disaster, he had tonight and tomorrow off. The time was unspoken for: he was deliberately making no plans just because it felt good to have a stretch of time with nothing in it. Maybe he would head into Portland tonight to see what was going on at Vibes or Bounce House; maybe he would stay in and watch a movie, or attend to projects around the guesthouse that he had been putting off for far too long. The bathroom door was squeaking; a cupboard was hanging cock-eyed; the bulb in the closet had burned out . . . They were all things that he never got around to doing since they didn’t bug him enough to supply any motivation to correct them.

  Going back to the main floor, he checked on the kids. They were giggling quietly over their coloring books and casting sly glances through the window to the man seated outside at a table. It was one of the bakery’s regulars, a middle-aged man with the manners of a toddler. Right now his index finger was swirling around within the pumpkin filling of the cookie.

  Riley grimaced as the man pulled his finger out, coated in the filling, and stuck it in his mouth to suck it off. They had a couple of odd ducks among their customers. There was the woman who kept trying to order a burger and fries, neither of which the bakery served, and the man who blessed the loaves he bought with holy water. As for the man today, the kids had dubbed this one Mr. Piggy. Not for his size, or Rivers would have told them to knock it off, but for how he ate.

  Watching Mr. Piggy eat was a nauseating affair. He slurped and burped and poked his fingers into his food, chewed with his mouth open, noisily sucked the jelly out of doughnuts and scraped his nails through the almond paste in the bear claws. Sometimes he talked on his cell phone while doing this, having loud conversations about pesticide application and backpack dusters, oblivious that he was disturbing whoever was unfortunate enough to be sitting at the tables around him. Rivers used Mr. Piggy as a teaching moment with the kids for mealtime behavior at home.

  Gigi considered her own finger and what was left of her meal. Noticing Riley’s pointed gaze, she thought better of it and picked up a marker instead.

  Someone gagged at Riley’s shoulder. It was Rivers, who was now staring out the window as Mr. Piggy’s finger stirred the filling. “Gross,” she whispered. “Every time he comes in, he is just so gross.”

  “Don’t watch,” Riley said.

  “I can’t look away.”

  Riley couldn’t either.

  Mesmerized in her revulsion, Rivers said, “I took crème brulee off the menu for one reason and one reason alone. That man sitting there. The way he slurped at his fingers over and over made me hurl.”

  “It was cute when the kids were two.”

  “Not so cute when someone is forty-two. How do you get to be his age and still be eating like that?” She winced as the finger went back into Mr. Piggy’s mouth. “It’s moments like this when I remember Mom and Dad did a few things right.”

  “Fair enough.” It rankled Riley to say it, but that much was true. If he had eaten like that at the family table, he would have been excused in a shot to finish his meal by himself in the kitchen. “Even a stopped clock is right two times a day, I suppose.”

  “Hey, they were right a little more often than that.”

  His temper heating up, he snapped, “Not a lot more.”

  She put her hand on his arm soothingly. “I’m not defending them, Riley, don’t get bent out of shape. I was there. I know how much they messed up.”

  Rivers had made her peace with where they came from; Riley struggled with it. Their parents couldn’t stop fighting long enough when the twins were young to see how it was affecting them. On the rare occasion they did see, their response was to blame the other parent and use it as fodder for yet another fight. As a child, Riley was a tiny planet caught up in an orbital whirl around two giant, snapping suns, unable to break free. He was not a naturally angry person, but eighteen years saturated in their constant needling had grafted some of their anger onto him against his will. He was unable to think of them without that anger flaring to life, and sometimes he heard them in his voice when he was pissed off at someone, whether rightly or wrongly. He hated that.

  Jesse and Gigi giggled harder as Mr. Piggy twirled two fingers blissfully in his cookie. Rivers cleared her throat meaningfully and then hid her head behind Riley’s shoulder to giggle herself. “Ugh.”

  “He’s probably single,” Riley said.

  “Never. I’m not that hard up,” Rivers retorted as the man sucked his fingers clean. “Well, I am, but I have some standards. What if he bats for your team?”

  “No thanks. I’m busy with . . . anyone else.”

  Mr. Piggy picked up the cookie to lick out the remaining filling. Overwhelmed, Jesse buried his head in the crook of his arm and shook. Gigi’s chest heaved in silent merriment. The windows were tinted, which would make it hard for the man to see that he had an audience if he turned. That was the only reason Riley could watch without guilt.

  A party of six pushed in their chairs and waved before heading out the door. The burble of noise in the bakery reduced even further once they were gone, the servers finding other tasks to attend to in the absence of fresh customers.

  Rivers made a pleading sound for mercy as Mr. Piggy got started on his second cookie. “He reminds me of this guy in my first year of college. Tom or Tim. He ate like he was never going to see food again, shoveling it in his mouth three times a day. Half of it fell off his fork to his tray or the table. Even the floor.”

  “At least he used a fork.” Riley had gone to a different college, separating the twins for the first time in their lives. He didn’t remember anyone who ate like this man unless he went all the way back to first grade, when being gross at lunchtime was hilarious to a table full of little boys and girls.

  Rivers couldn’t take it anymore after another minute and fled for the back. The place emptied out further, the servers returning to clean up and then vanishing on their breaks. Even Mr. Piggy took off, Riley stepping outside to wipe off the table.

  His phone jingled a few minutes later with a text from Daisy Morris, sent to both Riley and Rivers, saying that she was leaving the library now to collect the kids. She and her husband owned Weathership’s Playhouses and Forts, and their backyard was a wonderland to the elementary school-aged crowd. Jesse and Gigi always had a ball playing hide and seek with the Morris children, who were the same ages.

  The door opened. Riley looked up from the register with a polite smile.

  The polite smile widened to genuine in a heartbeat. It was Theo.

  The guy was a vet, but he belonged in a catalogue for men’s clothing. It was those blue eyes, sharp and startling under that shock of dark hair, the firm jaw and the patrician nose. Riley had expected the vet to be a stocky old dude, not this slim, fresh-faced man.

  The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up neatly to just beneath his elbows, a long scratch starting on the back of his right hand and vanishing under the cuff. His trousers looked ironed. And expensive. Riley was a scruffy dresser by nature unless he was going out, but even his nice clothes somehow managed to look scruffy on him. It drove Dreyer up the wall in that joyless year of dating. Dreyer put more thought into his apparel than anyone Riley had ever met, while simultaneously professing that he didn’t care at all since clothes weren’t important.

  All that mattered was the verse, Dreyer said. He was a poet. A bad one, according to Rivers. He left his poems scattered all over the guesthouse and got pissed every time Rivers referred to them jokingly as Dreyer Sheets.

  Theo came up to the glass display cases beside the counter. A nervous air clung to him. Riley had noticed that at the clinic, like the guy was unsure of himself. Yet he treated Sherlock with great kindness and competence, so there was nothing for him to be unsure about. It could be shyness, a quality that Riley found intriguing since he didn’t share it.

  “Those don’t look like running shoes,” Riley joke
d.

  “I spent twenty minutes chasing a mad cat around the clinic,” Theo said wryly, holding up his arm to show off the shallow but long scratch. “I think that counts as enough exercise for the day.”

  “Why was the cat mad at you?” The questioner was Gigi, who was staring up to Theo from her chair.

  “Jesse, Gigi, this is Doctor Sullivan,” Riley said. “He’s the vet that I took Sherlock to see.”

  “But you can call me Theo,” Theo said to Gigi. “The cat was mad because she was having a nice nap in the sunshine on the porch at her house, and her owner brought her to the vet for a shot.”

  “Finish up the drawings you’re doing because Mrs. Morris will be here any minute,” Riley warned. The kids’ heads bent down diligently over the coloring books.

  “How is Sherlock settling in?” Theo asked.

  “He’s doing great,” Riley said. “Right now he’s hanging out with our neighbor, and a spot should be opening up at Derry’s Dogs in a few weeks. We’ve set up an interview for next Wednesday.” A daycare for dogs made him chuckle at first, but after touring the place, he saw the sense in it. The boisterous, thundering pack of medium-to-high energy canines were having their boundless enthusiasm channeled into fun activities rather than being bored and alone and destructive at home. Hubble had been so slow-paced in comparison, happy to lay around like a lump in the hours between his morning and evening walks. He wouldn’t have had any need for a daycare, but Sherlock was more social and had plenty of energy to burn. Since bringing him home, he had been stuck to their sides like glue.

  Theo’s eyes widened on the plethora of goodies in the cases. “Wow.”

  “Take your time,” Riley said.

  “Those are good.” “And those are good!” Abandoning their artwork, the kids had popped out of their chairs to cluster around the veterinarian. Their fingers poked at different places upon the glass. “And these are the best! They’re called thumbprint cookies, but you’re not supposed to eat them with your thumb.” A strained look passed between Jesse and Gigi.

  “Give him time so he can pick,” Riley called over the cases.

  “Do you like chocolate, Doctor Theo?” Jesse asked. “Or those, that’s cinnamon pull-apart bread. It’s my favorite.”

  Theo smiled at Doctor Theo. “I think the problem is going to be that I like everything in there.”

  “Those are my favorite,” Gigi said, pointing to the Halloween cookies. Only a few of the ghosts and pumpkins were left. “I wanted both, but Uncle Riley said I had to pick just one. So I picked the ghost. Koala is making witch and black cat cookies in the back today.”

  “Kids!” Riley said.

  “We’re helping him!” Gigi cried with injured innocence. “It’s a lot to choose from.”

  “It is,” Theo agreed. “I believe I’m in a cupcake mood today. What are my options?”

  “Chocolate, vanilla, red velvet, and . . .” Riley leaned down to see into the case. “One last s’mores cupcake.”

  “S’mores,” Theo said. “I’ll have to go with s’mores.”

  “Is it your birthday?” Gigi asked.

  Theo paused. “Well, actually it is.”

  “It’s his birthday today!” Gigi cried to Jesse.

  “I’m right here,” Jesse said from Theo’s other side. “I can hear him. How old are you?”

  “I’m thirty-five,” Theo said.

  Amazed, Jesse exclaimed, “That’s really old! Mom and Uncle Riley turn thirty-two on Christmas Eve, ‘cause they’re twins so they have the same birthday, and you’re even older than they are.”

  Riley groaned at his nephew’s artlessness. And how was this vet thirty-five? Riley had had him pegged for late twenties, thirty tops.

  A familiar blue minivan went past the bakery. “Okay, clean up your markers and books. Mrs. Morris is here,” Riley said, turning away to pull a loaf of sourdough bread out of the racks mounted on the wall. As he slipped it into a bag, he noticed that Jesse had come behind the counter to get out the cardboard box of candles and the lighter.

  “What are you doing?” Riley asked.

  “It’s his birthday, Uncle Riley, so he needs a candle in his cupcake.”

  “Okay. I’ll put the candle in, but you need to clean up your mess on that table. Right. Now.” Riley put the sourdough on top of the case to remind him to give it to Mrs. Morris. Sliding the glass door open, he took out the last s’mores cupcake and set it down beside the register as the kids jammed markers into their plastic containers.

  Theo was taking out his wallet. Riley shook his head. It wasn’t just shyness in the vet; it was a vague sense of sadness and fragility. And why was he buying a cupcake for himself on his birthday?

  Riley could give him this little treat as a gift. Plucking out a blue candle from the box, his hand paused above the frosting. “Is this all right?”

  “It’s all right,” Theo said.

  Riley inserted the candle into the frosting and flicked the lighter. The wick caught fire and the flame trembled in the soft flow of air. “Do you want me to sing Happy Birthday?”

  “Oh God, no.” Theo laughed. “Anything but that.”

  “Hurry up, Jesse!” The kids surrounded the vet again and burst into a loud, off-key rendition of the Happy Birthday song. Theo looked mortified and Riley tried to shush them to no avail as Mrs. Morris came in.

  “Time to go,” Riley said once the song petered out.

  “He has to make a wish and blow out the candle first,” Jesse protested.

  Theo humored him and blew it out. Then the kids were gone in a whirlwind of sweatshirts and backpacks, Mrs. Morris hustling after them with the loaf of sourdough bread tucked under her arm.

  “Sorry about that,” Riley said.

  “That’s okay,” Theo said, sliding out the candle. “I’m not sure what to . . .”

  “Here. I’ll take it.” Riley put the still smoking candle aside. “It’s always wild with the kids around. Do you have any kids?”

  “No.”

  He was gay. Riley sensed it. And single, presumably; there was no ring around his fourth finger, and then there was the matter of him being here for his own birthday cupcake. “Do you want me to pack this into a box to go, or would you rather eat it here?”

  “I should eat it here. My cat firmly believes everything I bring home belongs to her, or it’s at least an item to be shared whether it’s good for her or not.”

  “I would have thought a vet would have a perfectly behaved pet.”

  “You’d think so, and then you would meet my Target.”

  Theo helped himself to napkins from the dispenser as Riley came around the register with a rag to clean off the kids’ table. A green marker had fallen onto a chair unnoticed. He stuck it in the pocket of his bakery apron and wiped everything off.

  Sitting down in the chair that Jesse had vacated, Theo inspected the cupcake. “This is amazing. Did you make it?”

  “Either my sister or me.”

  “Are your parents bakers as well?”

  That old anger tweaked again and Riley pushed it down. He shook his head and plucked up a yellow marker from beneath the table. “Our dad was a trucker, retired now, and our mom is a therapist. She practices to this day. Neither of them likes the kitchen in general.”

  “Then where did the idea for the bakery come from?”

  “My brother-in-law adored baking, and he got my sister into it. After Ari died, she ran a little cake business, but she wanted to expand from that. And so we opened the bakery.” His feet ached from standing all morning. “Would it be all right to join you?”

  “Please do.” Having unwrapped the paper cup from the cupcake, Theo hesitated before taking a bite. “Would you like some of this?”

  “I’ve got a better idea.” Understanding that some people felt odd eating alone with company, Riley claimed a chocolate cupcake for himself and sat down in the second chair. A great gust of air went out of him. “That’s like magic. What a crazy day it’s been.”


  Theo bit into his cupcake and chewed with pleasure. “Before the bakery, what did you do?”

  “Some of everything,” Riley said ruefully. “I went to college with no plan for what I wanted to do with myself, and finished it the same way. I’ve waited tables, stocked clothes in a department store, pumped gas, answered phones, worked in an amusement park. Not in that order. Crap jobs, really, all over the state and down into southern California, too. We were born outside Seattle, but we fled Washington for college and never went back.”

  “Sounds like you didn’t enjoy Washington.”

  “It wasn’t the place, just some of the people.” Their parents, to be specific, but Riley bit that part off. Theo likely hailed from a nice, normal family. Most people did, and so they couldn’t grasp why others chose to distance themselves from their own kin. Mom and Dad were unable to call a cease-fire even for Rivers’s wedding, which was why she and Ari eloped rather than deal with the drama.

  “Do you live together?” Theo asked. “You and your sister and the kids?”

  Irritation rose within Riley, though it wasn’t directed at the vet. He and Dreyer had tangled over this exact topic many times. “My sister’s property has a guesthouse in back. I’ve been living there since Ari started going downhill. He had cancer as a kid and it returned as an adult. Jesse was a baby then, and Rivers was pregnant with Gigi. After he passed away, Rivers needed help, so I stayed.”

  Dreyer had had no respect for that. He thought Riley was putting his life on hold, and that Rivers would make do without him. She could find someone else to help. But Dreyer never had an answer when Riley asked who that mysterious someone else was. Ari had been an only child of two only children; his mother died long ago and his father was an old man who lived in Germany, in poor health and on a limited income. The twins’ parents were one step above useless. Sending money or gifts here and there was the limit of their involvement. There were no aunts or uncles or cousins to step in.