Lovers and Other Strangers Box Set: The Boston Stories (31 page)

"Yes, you are little brother. I couldn't be happier for you. I'm so happy that if you elope I won't even hold it against you, Mom and Nana on the other hand may cut your heart out and hand it to you."

"If I promise grandkids?"

"That may save you, just!"

"I want pictures if I can't be there! That any help?"

"Yeah, I miss having all my girls around me."

"Loser! I miss you too."

"You always were the least sentimental of us. Bye."

"Remember I want pictures!"

"Yeah, yeah. Bye!" The line went dead. Old fashioned gentleman? He could try it, hell if it didn't work he could always revert back to caveman and drag her down to city hall by her hair. Either way they were getting married and she was gonna be sleeping in his bed permanently.

***

She parked her car and grabbed some of her stuff. When she got to her door she dropped some of the bags to dig through her purse to find the code she'd written down for the alarm. Once she was inside she disarmed the system and set up a new code. She punched up her phone and brought up the app they had her download and watched as her four different point of views showed up on the split screen. Now she could monitor her place at any time from her phone. She hit a button on the screen and the image changed to just outside her door. That would be nice when she didn't want to get out of bed to answer the damn thing.

Hell, she was in a lousy mood and then some. She was exhausted from not getting any sleep last night and crying most of it besides. Joseph's backrub, those hands should be registered as dangerous, had left her aching. Why, when she was finally ready to tell him she loved him and finally ready to give up her vaunted God-damned virginity did he freak out and send her away like she was some naughty school girl. He'd said he loved her. Did he know she was a virgin? Had she tipped him off somehow? Did he think she'd want to get married first? Did she want to get married first? She had always thought she would 'give it up' when she found a guy that she truly loved.

But she'd loved Joseph forever. Oh crap! Was that it? Had she been waiting for a guy that could measure up to the guy who actually saw her in high school? That was a sobering thought, had she subconsciously been waiting for Joseph all this time, what if he'd never shown up? Thinking like this was going to make her crazy. She needed to haul her stuff in and then she was going to take a long hot soak. Except being in the tub made her think of Joseph washing her hair and how much she had wanted him in there with her.

Hell, everything upstairs made her think of him because now she saw everything through his eyes. Their own little pleasure dome, except she was here and he wasn't. Maybe she should call him, just to let him know she was okay. No. She needed to get through the next couple of hours at least on her own. Get her stuff in, take a long hot bath, get some dinner, then she could call him without sounding like a desperate twit that couldn't function with out him in her life. If nothing else this last week had taught her she was capable and she would be okay on her own. Okay maybe, but it would be a whole lot nicer if he were here.

He hadn't been back to the old neighborhood since Mom and Nana moved to Florida. Sal and Delia had moved in with him so there really hadn't been much need. Mac's hadn't changed a bit. It even smelled the same which was a little weird, stale beer and fried meat. He supposed the menu hadn't change in the 7 years since he'd been here so it shouldn't have been that odd. When his eyes got adjusted to the lack of light he scanned the room. Mostly empty, since it was Sunday. What he imagined were regulars up at the bar and a couple of the booths were full.

He could tell which was the couple he was meeting almost immediately. Right age, both sitting on the same side of the booth. He had his arm draped around her she was holding his other hand in her lap. They had their heads bent toward each other. The jukebox was too loud to tell if they were talking or if that was their natural posture. Years of being a cop had taught him to read body language and theirs said lovers. Even if they had had Evie right away that meant they had been married for thirty-six or more years. He smiled to himself. He and Evie might be getting a later start but he wanted to believe that they would still be sitting that close, curled up around each other, heads together when they were old and gray too. He rolled over to them.

"Mr. and Mrs. Tolland?"

"Yes," they sat up straighter and pulled away from each other a little, though Cam noticed that he didn't take his arm away from her shoulders. "Are you Joseph Camenitti?"

"I am, I wanted to talk to you about Evie."

"She's alright isn't she?"

"Yes ma'am she's fine, I..." He took a deep breath and stared at his knees. "I faced a hail of bullets and was less nervous than this. Sorry, I wanted to tell you that, actually I wanted to ask you, hell, I want to marry your daughter."

They both smiled back at him. "Are you asking for our help? Evie is a wonderful girl but she tends to keep her head down to the point that she can't see if someone wants her attention."

"I think I've managed to get her attention. I have to be honest we haven't been dating long, actually we only met again about two weeks ago but we went to high school together so..."

"Wait, Joseph, not THE Joseph?"

"Excuse me?"

"Everyday of her sophomore year she would come home raving about a boy named Joseph. She would tell me about every single thing that boy did, all the athletic accomplishments, the girls he flirted with," Cam felt himself start to turn red. "Even what he wore. The sun and moon set on that boy for her. Then by junior year I never heard about him anymore."

"I would have graduated by then. Did she mention that Joseph ever kissed her?" The woman smiled at him and it was easy to imagine what Evie would look like in forty years. Her mother was still a beautiful woman.

"I seem to remember one week in particular, where there were a lot of breathless sighs and some girlish screaming. It was so different from her usual manner. That girl was so serious all the time. By junior year she started doing more with her art stuff so boys kind of got pushed to the back of her thoughts."

Now he felt himself relax. "I would like a little of your help, Mr. and Mrs. Tolland."

"If you're going to be our son in law, I think you can call us Evelyn and Walter." Walter's voice made it clear that Mr. and Mrs. Tolland were much too formal for them."

"Thank you, Walter. I would like it if you could keep this to yourselves for a while. I haven't actually asked Evie yet but she is kind of old-fashioned, and I love that about her. I wanted to tell you what I planned before I asked her. Like I said I know it hasn't been very long but I don't want her to get away again."

"I have a question I want to ask even though it is none of my business. If the answer is no, that is fine but I want to know the truth. Can I expect grandchildren?"

"Evelyn!" Walter yelled. Cam laughed hard and long.

"Oh don't Evelyn me! I have three grown children and no grand babies, heck none of them have settled down long enough to even try. If he can't, he can't, then I'll have to bug the other two but... well?"

"Ma'am, I may be in a wheelchair but um, as far as that goes, everything seems to work like it is supposed to. I haven't actually fathered any children so I suppose I could be shooting blanks but I hope not. Even though we haven't been together very long I've already told your daughter I want kids. She didn't start telling me I was crazy so... sorry that is about the best answer I can give you." Now Evelyn blushed which made her look twenty years younger. "I'd like to marry her as soon as possible but that would mean eloping. If you aren't okay with it then we could wait and just live together I suppose but I'd rather do this the right way."

"Her mother and I eloped, broke Evelyn's mother's heart but her father gave us the money he would have spent on a wedding to buy a house. Said it was the best idea I ever had."

"Walter!"

"Okay, the best idea I ever had after I picked you."

"We won't need your money for a house. We will have one too many as it is. I own my house in JP outright."

"Good to know. What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a cop, I got shot on duty. I get a disability pension but I still work for victim's services. We try to help people get their lives back together when something bad has happened. I've been lucky with my investments too so I am pretty well off, not rich, but more than comfortable and able to pay for a couple of grand babies to go to college." He grinned at Evelyn and she blushed again. If he couldn't spend time with Evie right now, her parents were pretty good company. "So there won't be any hard feelings if I take your daughter to Vermont and marry her."

"As long as there is a party back here afterward I think we could live with that." Walter said more to Evelyn than Cam.

"There would have to be something to celebrate or my mother and grandmother will, in the words of my sister,'cut my heart out and hand it to me'."

"Glad to hear you are used to strong women, I always thought that when Evie got the attention she deserved she'd become a force to be reckoned with. Consider yourself warned."

"Appreciate it, sir." Cam tried to hide his smile. Evie had started coming out of her shell and he'd loved her even more for it.

"Have you picked out a ring for her?"

"No, I haven't yet. I wanted to talk to you first." Evelyn twisted her engagement ring off her finger and put it in Cam's hand. It wasn't the biggest stone but it was beautiful just the same. Simple, almost plain but even in the dimly lit tavern you could see the fire in the stone. It was funny how it reminded him of Evie, all that fire beneath a simple exterior. He tried to give it back. "I couldn't, I can afford a ring for her, really."

"This isn't about what you can afford. She's the first to get a proposal and this was her grandmother's ring. Walter gave it to me when we got engaged. If Eden ever settles down then she can have my mother's ring. This is to continue the line. You can go buy her a knockout wedding band then she'll have the something old and something new taken care of." Cam leaned over and kissed his, hopefully soon to be, mother-in-law on the cheek.

"What do I do with it if she says no." He didn't even really want to think about it. Damn, would she shoot him down?

"You give it to her to bring back to me and I'll tell her she's a damn fool!" Both Walter and Cam tried not to laugh because neither wanted her to line up against them.

"Yes, ma'am, I'll let her know. Do you have anymore questions for me?"

"I expect we'll get to know you better over the next couple of months. I appreciate you coming to talk to us. Can't be easy when you're a grown man. I hope everything goes the way you want. I do expect to see you and Evie for dinner occasionally." Walter gave him a stern look, letting him know that it was not an idle request.

"And grand kids, I expect you to give me a couple of grand kids!"

"Yes, ma'am. Should I put in an order for one of each?" Cam liked teasing her mother almost as much as teasing Evie.

"That would be lovely! A boy, handsome like his father and a girl like her beautiful mother would be perfect." Damn if the woman didn't make him blush like he was a school boy.

"I'll see what I can do."

He put the ring in his pocket struck by the trust and generosity of Evie's parents. Half and hour ago they hadn't even heard of him and now they were giving him a family heirloom. Somehow asking her to marry him with her mother's ring made all of this even more right. Now he had to go down to the jeweler's and pick out the perfect band to go with it.

***

Evie wrapped her head in a towel when the phone rang.

"Eric?"

"Eves, Mom told me about you getting some of your chisels stolen. You need a loan from your rich brother?"

"You mean my pain in the ass brother?"

"Yeah, that one."

"I don't know yet. I haven't heard from the insurance company how much they are going to cover but if I'm stuck I'll definitely hit you up. How are you doing?"

"Great." Evie heard the downbeat in that word and knew he was lying.

"Liar. So I'll ask again, How are you doing?"

"Really want to hear a guy that has more money than he ever dreamed of bitch how he's not happy?"

"If that guy is you, sure. Money isn't everything Squirt."

"Hey, you can't call me that when I'm a good eight inches taller than you."

"Sure I can, you're still my little brother no matter how much money you make. So spill it, rich guy."

"Fine, remember when I got into this business because I thought it would be cool to see my art out there, with people using it?"

"Yeah, not so fun anymore?"

"No, somewhere along the line I made the mistake of being successful and now I an stuck playing this character all the time. Damn, I fucking hate Rik Toil. Seriously, I have fantasies about killing him off. What do you think about a plane crash?

"You'd need a body."

"Shit, you are the practical one. I envy you, getting to do your art without having to make it commercial."

"Yeah, begging for commissions, hoping to catch the eye of an influential critic, trying to keep the nasty grabby artists away from you."

"Whoa, rewind that last bit. Someone being less than proper with my sister. I know some guys who could take care of that for you if you need help."

"No, I can handle it. Actually, I've got a boyfriend now, sort of."

"What! you mean you finally found someone better than your dream date?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Hey the walls in our house weren't the thickest. I'd hear you kissing your pillow, whispering some guy's name." Evie turned bright red and was damn happy her brother couldn't see her.

"You're awful!"

"Hey, it is a younger brother's duty to spy on his big sister. Seriously, its in the hand book." It was a good thing he could make her laugh or he'd have been dead already.

"Eric, have you ever fallen in love?"