Frenemies(30)

This wasn’t how I’d planned our reunion.

There was no knowing glance or secret smile. His eyes were darker than usual, the rose in his cheeks more pronounced. He was definitely worked up about something. Something that appeared to be me.

“What is wrong with you?” I demanded.

“What’s wrong with you?” he retorted. “Helen told me all about the conversation she had with you. You are out of control, Gus!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Helen—”

“Don’t try to put this on her! I had to drag the story out of her! She was actually trying to protect you!”

“I bet she was.” I glared at him. “I don’t know what she told you, Nate, but she’s playing you—again. This is what Helen does.”

He glanced around then, which is when I noticed that we were attracting attention. Not in a Janis Joplin karaoke way, thank the gods, but attention nonetheless.

“I can’t believe you would try to mess with me like this,” Nate hissed at me. “But it stops now.”

He propelled me across the well-appointed living room with its lush Oriental rug and huge blue-and-white china vases, into the drafty front hall laid with bricks and sporting a wrought-iron banister on the stairs. I was forced to concentrate on the decor, because the only other thing to concentrate on was the fact that Nate was manhandling me.

I let him do this mostly because I was determined that this time I would not cause a scene. I wouldn’t cause one, and I wouldn’t be part of one. The vision of me in the blueberry gown, reflected back to me in the Park Plaza bathroom mirrors, was with me still. Which meant Nate got off pretty lucky.

“Exactly what is it you think I’m doing?” I asked him when we were more or less alone.

“Like you don’t know,” he scoffed. “Helen refused to come tonight, by the way. She’s mad at me because I forced her to break your confidence, but I’m glad she did.”

“I still have no clue what you’re talking about,” I assured him. Although I wasn’t that dim. I had an inkling.

“Stay away from Helen!” Nate ordered me, leaning closer for emphasis. “I’m glad that you want to be friends, Gus, but ranting on about what good friends we are in some weird attempt to make Helen jealous isn’t going to make me anything but mad. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

He wasn’t making sense, of course, but I understood him anyway. I could see how it had gone. Realizing she’d overplayed her hand, Helen had no doubt taken advantage of the holiday week to let Nate drag this story out of her. She’d even gotten “mad” at him, the better to make him feel all self-righteous and furious with me.

“Let me guess,” I said dryly. Because I could practically see the scene unfold in my head like a movie. “Helen stopped by to extend an olive branch, I ranted alarmingly about my close friendship with you, and she wasn’t necessarily threatened but … ?”

Nate looked as if he pitied me.

“Yes,” he said. “She told me everything.”

It was genius, really. You had to appreciate the beautiful simplicity of it. She was so good, it was scary.

I almost regretted the fact that I was going to have to kill her.

Preferably with my bare hands.





chapter eleven





I let my extreme, focused outrage take charge, and the next thing I knew I was standing in front of the grand house in Winchester, watching my breath form huge clouds in the frigid night air. I tucked myself a little deeper into my coat and wished passionately for a car.

A few minutes later—when I was reconsidering my burning need to race back into the city and confront Helen in her lair, mostly because my feet were turning into ice, and not metaphorically—Henry’s Jeep pulled into the driveway.

I was going to have to learn to be more specific about the wishes I made.

A million dollars in my pocket right now, I thought fervently, but nothing happened. There were only my hands in my pockets, curled up in their mittens. It was very disappointing, and then there was Henry to contend with, too.

“And what to my wondering eyes did appear,” Henry intoned as he climbed the front steps toward me. He stopped on the step below mine and smirked. We were at eye level. “But Augusta Curtis, Boston’s own Christmas cheer.”

I wanted very much to fling something snarky right back at him, but I held myself in check. Not because I’d suddenly discovered my inner maturity, but because I’d had an idea. I looked at him for a long moment, considering it. It was flawed, that was for sure.

“What?” he asked, looking more amused than unnerved. “Is it because I said ‘Augusta’? I don’t know what your issue is with it, it’s a great old name. Of course I could be biased—”

“Is there any possibility at all that you would do me a huge favor?” I asked him.

Henry smiled, and rocked back on his heels.

“Gus,” he said, as if enjoying the shape of my name in his mouth. “There’s always the possibility.”

“How much of a possibility?”

“That would depend on a number of factors, obviously.” He was enjoying himself. “How much you wanted the favor versus how much fun it would be for me to do it, versus—of course—how much more fun it might be for me not to do it. It’s a tricky analysis that can only be performed on a case-by-case basis.”