Always You: A Lilac Bay Novel (Friends with Benefits) (3 page)

“God, Riley. I’m really sorry. I know how hard you worked on all of this.”

I swallowed past a sudden lump in my throat. I
had
worked hard. And it wasn’t fair.

Before I could tell him that, Andrew spoke up again.

“So maybe this will get your mind off things,” he said, his tone more encouraging. “I’ve been doing a little research of my own.”

“Research on what?

“Oh, just a little thing called the Heather Dale show.”

I sat up straighter in my chair, the frustration and anger immediately shooting out of my system. I had completely forgotten about Heather Dale. “We’ll ignore you messing up the title of her show,” I said. “Tell me.”

“So, it looks like they're taking submissions online,” he said. “There's an application to fill out, along with instructions for making a video. Nothing too complicated or overly long. It definitely looks like something we could do.”

I grinned to myself. “Something
we
could do?”

Andrew cleared his throat on the other end of the line, and when he spoke again he sounded defensive. “Well, it's not like I’m going to let you do it by yourself. You'd get all the credit. I mean, I know we established that you’re uber-competitive in everything you do, but—”

“Okay, okay. Enough of that now. Tell me what we need to do.”

“Here. Open your email. I’ll send you the link to the website.” Before he had even finished talking, a new email appeared in my inbox.

I opened it eagerly, and there was the link to the submissions page.

“Look, I have to go,” Andrew said, before I could take more than a cursory look. “Carl is in a shitty mood today.” Carl was the head of the financial department where Andrew worked. He just so happened to be Millie’s son, and came with the personality to match. “Apparently we need to have payroll done by Wednesday. Which makes absolutely no sense, but what can you do.”

“You can apply for a supervisor position the next time one comes up,” I said, without missing a beat, and Andrew laughed. It was a long-running thing between us—me trying to get him to advance at work, him laughing me off. We did it automatically at this point.

“Look over the submission page and we’ll talk after work, okay?”

“Sounds good,” I muttered, my eyes already glued to the screen.

“Have a good afternoon.”

“You too. Oh.” I pulled my attention away from the screen long enough to give him an actual goodbye. “Andrew, thank you for doing this. Seriously.”

He chuckled lightly on the other end of the phone. “Hey, it's the least I can do for the girl who always brings me lunch.”

I
t took
Andrew and I the better part of a week to finish our application. The instructions on the website called for a three minute video audition in addition to the written application, and we had both agreed that this was where our little island could truly shine.

Spring was a beautiful time on Lilac Bay, and not just because the grass got a lot greener. The real appeal of the island in April is its people. Winters on this bay in northern Lake Michigan take their toll on all of us. Not only are we confined to our houses by heavy snow and cold temperatures, but we eventually become confined to the island itself. There is no bridge connecting us to the mainland—when the bay starts to freeze our boat access cuts off completely, trapping most of us here for the duration of the season. We have a small airstrip that allows for emergency travel and food deliveries, but the cost of airfare keeps casual travel to a minimum. For many, the winter months are the most challenging part of living on this island. Every fall, without fail, some family decides they can’t stand the thought of another winter, and moves to the mainland. We even have a name for it—the November Migration.

But the harshness of a Lilac Bay winter makes the spring particularly beautiful. Once the ice has melted, once the trees start to bud, there’s a palpable relief on the faces in town. April is filled with a quiet excitement thrumming though the population—pure joy that we’re still here, that we’re outside, that a warm summer awaits us. In April, we’re at our best—excited, joyful, kind, neighborly.

And this was what Andrew and I wanted to capture in our video. We spent our lunch breaks and hours after work each day taking video of the town, the shops, people out and about doing their shopping, catching up, gathering in the square for no other reason than the fact that they could. We also carefully recorded some interviews with our friends and neighbors, telling them that we were working on a promotional video for the town’s website.

After we felt satisfied that we had enough video, we pulled out my trusty Sony point-and-shoot and spent another long afternoon taking picture after picture to include in our application.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we had professional stock photographs on file at Town Hall?” I asked Andrew, not quite ready to be done feeling bitter about my department’s lack of investment in the town. “Like, I don’t know, maybe in the tourism promotion department?”

In his typical, look-on-the-bright-side fashion, Andrew pointed out that the photos we took were nearly as good as a professional's anyway. He had a point. We had been lucky to have the weather cooperate—our photos showed vibrant green rolling lawns in the Town Square, budding trees, pops of bright colored flowers, all in front of a brilliant blue sky and the sun dappled sparkling waters of the bay. They looked beautiful, if I did say so myself. In fact, our whole application looked good.

Andrew, who had a knack for techy stuff, downloaded a video editing program from the Internet and we managed to get all of our film pasted together. We’d even set the whole thing to music. It probably wasn’t the flashiest submission they would get, but so what? Lilac Bay wasn’t exactly a flashy place. The application we had put together felt like us, and I was proud of it.

So I was surprised to find Andrew, camera in hand, when I showed up for our weekly Rec League game at the high school sports field on Friday night.

“What’s with the camera?” I asked, dropping my duffel bag at his feet. “I thought we were done.”

“We are,” he said. “Well, we
were
. But I figured I could get some good shots during the game. You know, Lilac Bay in all its glory, the townspeople and tourists alike, enjoying a good old-fashioned game of baseball. What could be more all-American than that?”

“Excellent point.” I looked around the field for confirmation. “So we’re playing baseball tonight?”

That was the thing about the island Rec League—you never really knew what you were in for until you showed up. Though we were technically a softball league, we only had enough players to make up four teams—and that included a team whose revolving roster consisted entirely of tourists who wanted to sign up for a game or two during their week on the island. It was hardly enough to form an entire league, and it got pretty old playing against the same people every week all summer long. So the Rec League would occasionally bring in teams from the mainland. And that meant we were constantly switching between softball, soccer, kickball—basically whichever teams we could convince to take the ferry out to the island on a Friday night. We’d even played a rousing game of Frisbee golf once against a group from Elk Rapids, though we’d all agreed never to invite that particular team back when a wayward Frisbee ended up konking Mrs. Parker’s schnauzer, Buttons, in the head.

“Yeah,” Andrew said, snapping a few pictures. “Baseball. Against the Big Hotel.”

“Sweet,” I muttered, my eyes darting to the opposing team’s dugout. Sure enough, the pristine white uniforms of the Big Hotel’s staff were visible from here as the players got settled. The Big Hotel—technically named the Ottawa, but no one local ever called it that—was, obviously, the biggest hotel on the island. It was also the fanciest. Set on a high bluff far above the town with breathtaking views of the bay, the Ottaway was a five-star, full spa, concierge-included kind of place. And since that level of style is apparently difficult to sustain on an island like Lilac Bay, the hotel did a good amount of their seasonal hiring on the mainland. It was a huge object of contention amongst the islanders—all of those shiny-haired, perfectly-dressed mainlanders showing up on the Big Hotel’s private ferry every morning, leaving every night. They never shopped in any of the local stores, never ate in any of our restaurants. Even worse, they took up good jobs that the people of this island desperately needed.

To say there were hard feelings was an understatement.

“You look like you’re about ready to dance on their graves,” Andrew pointed out, and I grinned at him.

“That obvious?”

He laughed. “You’re not the only one.” He nodded towards the stands, and immediately I could see what he meant. Our games usually attracted a fair amount of attention—it’s not like Lilac Bay was known for its evening entertainment—but tonight the stands were already filled, ten minutes before we were set to start. Jerry Brooks was walking around, passing out tin-foil wrapped hotdogs from a box while the local Brownie troop was hawking lemonade on the edge of the field.

“Pretty festive atmosphere,” a voice that sounded awfully like Andrew’s said.

I turned to see his twin, Edward, along with his boyfriend, Zane, approaching.

“Everyone’s excited to see us kick a little outsider ass,” I said, pointing at the dugout.

Zane slid his sunglasses—definitely designer, probably cost more than my entire wardrobe—down his nose so he could peer over at the opposing team, and gave a little shudder. “I’m so glad I’m not one of them anymore.”

“Because you played so much baseball when you worked at the Big Hotel?” Andrew asked skeptically.

“No, but I was still associated with them. And that was bad enough.”

Edward slung an arm over his boyfriend’s shoulder. “You’re fully one of us now, babe.”

Andrew opened his mouth and I stepped down on his foot in warning. He liked to remind Zane that he was not, in fact, a true islander, having come here right along with the other mainland recruits to work in the Big Hotel. But he had fallen for Edward pretty much at first sight, and had moved to the island permanently only a few months later. We had a rule around here—if you could make it through a full winter, you could officially call yourself a permanent resident. Andrew generally believed in that sentiment, but the opportunity to give his twin a hard time was too great an inducement to ignore.

“How’s the restaurant?” I asked the boys. Last summer they had reopened their grandparent’s old place, Rose’s, and had been serving some of the island’s very best food ever since.

“Not bad,” Edward said, grinning. “Business is up almost forty percent from last month.”

“Which has nothing to do with the fact that the bay was still half frozen last month and the ferry was barely running,” Zane said, rolling his eyes.

“Hey, we’re kicking ass,” Edward argued.

“Speaking of kicking ass,” Andrew said, slipping his camera into his duffel bag and pulling out a mitt. “We should probably get over to the bench.”

Edward and Zane followed us across the field.

“Just look at those white pants,” Edward muttered. “Who do they think they are?”

“Stuck-up, snotty, too-good-for-all-of-us losers?” I suggested, making the boys laugh.

“Starting the trash talk a little early, aren’t you, Ri?”

I turned to see my former roommate Jenny approaching our bench, all smiles, and immediately felt a flash of guilt.

Jenny was one of the sweetest people on the island, and, unfortunately for her, one of the most innocent, too. Despite our general hatred of the place, none of us liked to make fun of the hotel in her presence—namely because her family owned it.

“So who’s the big loser tonight?” she asked.

Shit. I shot an uncomfortable look at Andrew, who appeared in no hurry to help me. “The Big Hotel, actually,” I told her brightly, hoping I could make light of it. “We’re going to crush them, just like we crushed the Elks Club last week.”

Jenny’s eyes shot over to the opposing bench, a flicker of embarrassment flashing across her face. “I’ve told them over and over again that those uniforms look stupid,” she muttered.

Jenny’s grandparents owned the Big Hotel, as had her great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents, a long line of Hillmans holding the most valuable property on the island for more than a hundred years. Which meant that Jenny’s family was seriously, seriously rich. And that wasn’t the easiest position to be in on this island.

“I think the uniforms are kind of classy,” Zane offered, and I smiled at him gratefully. It wasn’t Jenny’s fault no one liked her family’s employees.

“I think yours look much better,” she said quickly, her eyes flickering down to the T-shirts the twins and I were wearing. They were a bright mustard yellow and emblazoned with not-quite-straight letters spelling out our sponsor’s name. Unfortunately, Fran’s Fine Fudge and Treats hadn’t fit, and the T-shirt guy had made the rather unfortunate executive decision to just call us Fudge. Definitely not the best looking uniforms on the planet. She met my eyes, blushing a little, and I felt even worse for letting her hear me bashing the hotel. Jenny was sensitive about it, had been since we were little kids, and always seemed more than a touch desperate to distance herself from her relatives and be considered one of the gang.

“Hey, you up for drinks at Cora’s later?” Andrew asked her. “The whole team is going, win or lose.”

Her resulting smile took up her whole face. “I’d love to!”

“Come on.” Zane slipped an arm through hers. “Looks like they’re getting ready to start. Why don’t you come sit with me and we can gossip about all the cute boys.”

“I’m standing right here,” Edward muttered.

“Thank you for that,” I said to Andrew, once Jenny and Zane had headed off for the stands.

He shook his head. “Don’t thank me, it was purely selfish. I just couldn’t stand that hurt puppy look on her face anymore.”

I scowled, but he held my gaze without flinching. Okay, so sometimes Jenny did look a little like a hurt puppy. But that wasn’t her fault. She was sensitive, that was all. Sensitive, and maybe a little—flakey. But she was a good friend and she’d given me a place to live when my options were severely limited. For that she had my unending loyalty.

“Well, you made her happy and I appreciate it.”

The corners of Andrew’s lips curved up a little, almost a smile, and then he shoved his hat down over his forehead. “No problem.”

“Alright team, listen up!” David Jenkins called from the front of the dugout, and the noise level immediately dropped. Hell, half the crowd in the stands also ceased talking. David just had that kind of effect on people. Tall, painfully handsome, and a life-long islander who had been playing for the Rec League since he was a kid, David was respected by just about everyone on Lilac Bay. And lusted after by more than half of us, despite the fact that he was currently dating Andrew’s cousin, Iris.

“I know we all want nothing more than to pull out a win against the mainlanders today,” he continued, and the bench erupted in cheers—joined by more than a few people in the stands. “But let’s play a good, clean game. Show them what the
real
people of Lilac Bay are all about.” More cheers.

“I should have been taping that,” Andrew muttered in my ear. “Talk about your pro-Lilac Bay propaganda.” His eyes scanned the stands and his face settled into a scowl. “Look at them all just eating it up,” he said, loud enough for his brother to hear.

Edward gave his twin a wicked grin. “You’re still pissed because he beat you in the Island’s Sexiest Man contest last summer.”

“Give me a break,” Andrew scoffed. “You think I wanted to win that damn thing? It’s demeaning.”

“Then how come you get salty every time it’s his turn to coach?”

“Shut up,” Andrew muttered, pulling his hat down farther over his forehead. Edward and I made eye contact, both snickering, while Andrew very determinedly gave David his undivided attention.

“Okay, we’re up to bat first so here’s our order.” He pointed at me. “Riley, I want you leading off.”

There was a general outburst of cheers, wolf whistles, and a few taunts from my teammates. I took my hat off and waved it at them, bowing.

“Edward, you’ll take the number two spot.” David went through the list, assigning the batting order. I could feel Andrew tense up a little when David announced that he himself would be batting last, the clean-up position—Andrew’s favorite.

“Definitely still salty,” I muttered in his ear. Andrew flicked my hand.

“If you’re not careful, I won’t cheer for you,” he muttered.

“Yeah, right.” I grabbed the batting helmet and my bat and headed out towards home plate, taking a few practice swings as I went. The crowd of locals on the stands behind me cheered as Posey Conley, one of the twins' other cousins, announced my name over the PA system.