April Fools Page 3

  “Hey,” Owen said, “why you gotta drag me into this? My lightsaber is pretty spectacular. Tell him, Fee.”

  She shook her head. “You know the rule. When it turns to Star Wars puns, I’m out.”

  None of the men had a chance to complain.

  “That reminds me.” Asher handed something across the table to Fiona.

  “What’s this?” she asked—then she recognized the material. “My sweater.”

  “You mentioned on the phone it was chillier in Baltimore than you’d expected, so I swung by your place to get it.”

  Fiona smiled, touched by the sweet gesture. “That was so nice of you.”

  Asher shrugged off the compliment, looking somewhat relieved to have her grateful attention distracted from him when Tris arrived.

  “Hey, Fiona, fellas.” He looked at Teddy, and Fiona did the introductions, as he was the only one of her friends who hadn’t been to the pub before.

  “Uncle Tris, this is Teddy Martin, the other writer on the show. And you remember Owen Winters and Asher McCarthy, of course.”

  Tris shook all their hands. “Sure do.” He gestured behind the bar to the framed, signed headshot Owen had given Tris during his last visit. “Still appreciate the picture, Owen. You got a lot of fans on this side of the country. They’re always impressed when they hear my niece writes for Wild Winters and find out you’ve been in the bar before.”

  Owen preened. The guy loved being famous. Way too much. “Yeah, well, I feel there’s something I should confess, Tris. It’s been weighing heavy on my mind for quite a while now, and I think I need to come clean.”

  Fiona leaned back and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Owen was about to launch into some big old pile of ridiculousness, judging by his dramatic tone. The man truly was born to be an actor.

  “Oh yeah?” Tris asked with a slight grin.

  “As you know, the first time I was here, Fee and I were only nineteen and on break from college. I was young and in love—”

  Teddy pretended to cough, barking out the word “lust” as he did so.

  Tris snickered.

  Owen continued as if nothing had happened. “I was an innocent boy, really, and I’m afraid I was led astray. Fiona insisted that we sneak down here in the middle of the night and steal a few shots of whiskey.” He gestured toward her. “There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to impress her and, well…she made me do it. I told her it was wrong, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  Fiona recalled that night very well. And everything he said was true. But the roles were reversed.

  Tris laughed. “Yeah. That’s our Fee. Bad to the bone.”

  She snorted at her uncle’s joke.

  “Just the same,” Tris said, “I’ll be sure to add those drinks to your tab tonight in order to help clear that conscience of yours, Owen.”

  Owen frowned. “But—”

  “No, no,” Tris said, well able to give as good as he got. “No more apologies. Nothing like cold hard cash to absolve you of your sins.”

  “You sure he’s straight?” Teddy asked Fiona, not bothering to hide his question from Tris. “No shot he’s even a little gay?”

  “No shot,” Tris replied. “But my wife is stopping by later if you want to consult with her on that.”

  Teddy gave him a wink. “Well, if you ever change your mind…”

  “You’ll be the first man I call.” Tris laughed. “What’ll you have?”

  “Pitcher?” Owen said, looking around the table.

  “Yeah,” Asher said. “We start drinking liquor and no work will get done. What’s that beer Baltimore is famous for?”

  Fiona winced. “No. Hell no. For the love of all that’s holy, can we drink something other than Natty Boh?”

  “How about Guinness then?” Teddy asked as he wiggled his eyebrows at Tris. “As a nod to our charming Irish host.”

  Fiona tried to hide her smile behind her hand at Teddy’s over-the-top flirting with her fifty-something uncle.

  Tris grinned and shook his head. “I can tell you’re going to be trouble. We’re going to have a talk later, Fee, about the company you’re keeping in California.”

  “Sounds long overdue, Uncle Tris.”

  Tris returned to the bar and Asher tried to get them on track. “Okay. Let me just pull up the file of the script. Here it is. ‘Anything Goes.’”

  The finale was going to be a wild ride for the show as the main characters decide to spend one night in “anything goes” mode while on an impromptu trip to Baltimore. The concept had been Fiona’s, and they’d all fallen in love with the idea that for one night, all the characters would do whatever they wanted without fear of consequences…and with hilarious results, of course. It was Fiona’s favorite script so far, and she couldn’t wait to see the finished product.

  Though she didn’t tell him often, lest it gave him an even bigger head, Owen was probably one of the best comedic actors she’d ever seen. Actually, the whole ensemble was over-the-top talented. It was one of the reasons the show was such a hit. Entertainment Weekly had run an article just a few weeks ago, claiming that Wild Winters had found the award-winning combination of writing and acting with Owen Winters at the helm.

  They’d given him some serious shit for that quote, though Owen swore up one side and down the other he’d never told the reporter he was in charge. Fiona tended to believe that was the truth. While they liked to call their work a team effort, there was no denying Asher was the one they’d all point to if anyone asked who the lead writer was, and she would probably be a close second.

  The rest of the cast was arriving in a week for the filming, which meant Asher was right. They really did need to buckle down and get to work. The producer had asked for quite a few changes, and a couple of them were pretty massive.

  Asher continued clicking keys. “Let me open my email. Al sent a list of things he wants changed, including that part in the opening scene where—”

  Teddy’s phone pinged and his eyes lit up. “Ooo la la. My night just got interesting.”

  Asher peered over, squinting at the picture. “Who is that?”

  “Dimitur. My little Bulgarian bonbon. Tinder has been very, very good to me.”

  “That can’t be a real guy,” Asher persisted. “He looks like a model. Twenty bucks says someone is trying to catfish you.”

  “Let me see,” Owen said, grabbing the phone from Teddy. “Damn. If his lightsaber matches the rest of him…”

  Fiona snuck a peek, her eyes widening. “Whoa. That’s a loss for our team…if he’s real.”

  Teddy scowled. “Of course he’s real.”

  “Just the same, plan to meet him here. You can grab a table in the pub and we can keep an eye on you.” Poor Asher had been the dad of their group since they were eighteen years old.

  “Fine. Oh! He wants to FaceTime. I’m going outside.”

  Teddy was gone within seconds, passing Tris, who was on the way to their table with their pitcher and mugs.

  “That Teddy guy is a piece of work,” Tris said with a chuckle. “Pop is going to love him.”

  “My fear is he’ll flirt with Pop Pop too.”

  Tris laughed at Fiona’s genuine concern. “Oh my God. I’d pay to see that. Enjoy the beer. I’ll be back to check on you in a little while.”

  Owen grinned and waved to two women at a nearby table who’d obviously recognized him.

  Asher looked longingly at his computer. “I told Teddy coming here to work was a mistake.”

  “I said the same thing.” Fiona looked away when the two women started giggling, daring each other to come over and say hi. Sometimes she was really embarrassed by her gender.

  “Owen.” She waved her hand in front of his face.

  He misunderstood her annoyance, picking up the pitcher and pouring her a glass. “Oh, sorry, Fee.”

  “I’m not worried about the beer. I thought we were going to try to work on this scene.”

  Owen had already turned his attention
back to the women at the other table.

  Asher closed the lid on his laptop. “This is pointless.” He picked up his beer and took a long drink. “I love Guinness. What do you say we get shitfaced tonight and hit the ground running tomorrow?”

  2

  “Finally. Asher for the win. I’m all-in on shitfaced,” Owen said, raising his glass as well, chugging the dark lager.

  Fiona had been around these guys long enough to know that resistance was futile, and if she was really being honest, she didn’t feel like working anyway.

  One pitcher turned to two, then three, then the happy-hour crowd started rolling in. Her uncles Killian and Justin stopped by their table to say hello as they waited for their wife, Lily, to join them after she got off work at the Baltimore aquarium. They were indulging in their weekly Sweet Thursday tradition, which Uncle Killian explained was their way of getting a jump on the weekend, a pregame happy hour to kick off Friday and Saturday with style. They went to grab a table, their usual from the looks of it, and ordered their own pitcher of Guinness.

  She glanced around the room, delighted to be in the midst of so many members of her family. This didn’t happen often, so when it did, she made sure she enjoyed it.

  Tris and Padraig loved live music, so whenever they could get someone to play at the bar, they did. The Thursday-night crowd was being treated to some classic covers by a local band.

  Fiona took another sip of beer, then giggled at something Asher said, the Guinness working its way through her until she felt boneless and carefree. Teddy’s bonbon arrived shortly after six, and the two of them grabbed a table in a quiet corner. The guy was real—and he was even better looking in person.

  “Maybe I should check out Tinder,” she murmured.

  Her words captured both Asher’s and Owen’s attention, and she realized the beer had loosened her tongue.

  “Wouldn’t that piss Brock off?” Owen asked. Her best friends had just sort of begrudgingly accepted her boyfriend. Which meant she was about to make both of them very happy.

  “We broke up.”

  Owen’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Asher was even slower to believe. “When?”

  She bit her lip. “Six weeks ago.”

  “What?” Owen asked loudly, drawing attention from several nearby tables. “Why are we just now hearing about this?”

  She crinkled her nose. “Because it was kind of a dick move on my part.”

  Asher smiled. “What did you do?”

  “Dumped him on Valentine’s Day,” she mumbled.

  Owen’s brows creased, clearly confused. “Didn’t he send you a dozen long stems on Valentine’s? You got them at the office and all the women acted like he’d sent you a million bucks or something.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. He sent flowers.”

  “Wow,” Asher said. “That is a dick move.”

  Owen shook his head. “I’m not buying it. Not buying that as your reason for not telling us about the breakup. It’s been six weeks, Fee. You’ve had plenty of opportunities to say something. Why didn’t you?”

  She needed new friends. Ones who didn’t know her so well. She never got away with a damn thing with these guys. “I was afraid I’d backslide.”

  Asher sighed. “The big gesture.”

  She nodded, then instantly revised her opinion. In truth, there was something very comforting and safe in being able to say absolutely anything without fear of judgment. Owen, Asher and Teddy loved her, warts and all.

  “He didn’t really send those roses. The card was signed ‘Love, Brock’…in his secretary’s handwriting.”

  Owen grinned. “Much as it pains me to say this, you should probably cut him some slack. The guy is in Dubai, Fee.”

  Brock Vanderbilt was a talented civil engineer, and it wasn’t unusual for his job to take him out of the state or the country for several months at a time. However, the old adage that absence makes the heart fonder never seemed to apply to her and Brock. They were as tumultuous on different continents as they were in the same city.

  The man was her white whale, her Kryptonite. She’d started dating him a few months after she and Owen split in college and over the past five years, they’d engaged in a never-ending cycle of on-again, off-again. Teddy joked after their last split that they’d just broken Ross and Rachel’s record on Friends. At least, she thought it was a joke. Sadly, as a comedy writer, she knew every joke held a kernel of truth.

  The problem was, Brock was a master of big gestures. She’d break things off, then he’d swoop back on the scene with some over-the-top, killer romantic gesture and, like a sucker, she’d fall for it, hook, line and Cyndi Lauper-style. Time after time.

  “I know he’s in Dubai. It’s just…God, I keep trying to make him something he’s not.”

  “He’s not your dad.”

  This wasn’t a new conversation. “I know, Asher. My father adores my mom and they love spending time together—even if it’s doing something as simple as watching a movie on the couch with microwave popcorn. I mean, he seriously loves her, would die for her, and he wants to be with her. Is it so wrong to want the same thing? To want to be the center of someone’s universe? To matter to someone on that level?”

  Asher chuckled. “Admit it. You want to be the center of everyone’s universe, Fee.”

  “Oh, shut up. I do not.” Then, because she could never lie to them, she added, “Not much, anyway.”

  Owen wrapped his arm around her shoulders and tugged her close. “You can be the center of mine. And Asher’s and Teddy’s.”

  She pulled away from his friendly embrace, her eyes narrowed. “You mean I’m not already?”

  Owen picked up his beer. “Stuck my foot in it there. So what makes you think the breakup is going to stick this time?”

  “I told you. It’s been six weeks. All my previous backslides all occurred within two weeks of the split.”

  “Which would be impressive—if Brock were in the country. But it’s easy to swear off a guy who’s on another continent. What happens when he reappears in California and stands outside your bedroom window with a boom box over his head like fucking John Cusack?” Owen asked.

  “Oooo…Say Anything,” she murmured. “That would be hot. And hard to resist.” She, Asher, Teddy and Owen had a standing monthly date where they ate pepperoni pizza, drank cheap beer and watched cheesy eighties movies. It was hands down Fiona’s favorite night of every month. Last month’s fare had been Doc Hollywood. A dashing, young Michael J. Fox in the ’80s. Her kind of man.

  “Seriously, Fiona,” Asher said. “You have to admit your record when it comes to Brock isn’t stellar. What makes this any different from the last twenty-two breakups?”

  And this was why she hadn’t told the guys about dumping Brock. Because she did have a shitty track record. And even though, deep down in her heart, she knew it was over, there was nothing short of time that was going to prove her sincerity to her best friends.

  “There have only been eight legit breakups,” she said, in a weak-hearted attempt to defend herself.

  “And forty-seven minor skirmishes,” Asher added to tease her.

  “Listen, I get it. I know I’ve been the queen of backsliding when it comes to Brock, and me just saying it’s different this time doesn’t really hold a lot of weight, but—”

  “Why do you think it’s different this time?” Leave it to Asher to give her a chance. While Owen was clearly still skeptical, Asher would always believe. It was what she loved about both of them. One kept her grounded while the other let her dream.

  “I got those roses, saw the card, and realized we were both just going through the motions. I didn’t get excited by the flowers. They didn’t spark any romantic feelings. In fact, they sort of pissed me off. Because I knew he’d sent them out of some sense of obligation after his secretary reminded him it was Valentine’s Day. When he’s away, he’s not thinking about me. And that was when I realized…I’m never thinking about him, either. When he’s aro
und, we serve as eye candy for the other’s work functions, we go out to fancy restaurants, and he drags me to that stuffy country club he belongs to, where I pretend to enjoy spending time with all the snooty doctors’ wives while he talks golf, drinks whiskey and smokes cigars.”

  “You don’t like those women?” Owen asked, feigning shock. If there was one thing they could rely on, it was Fiona’s head exploding after a night at the club. “And here I was thinking you were going to start training for the next marathon with them.”

  “If I ever say ‘Oh, wouldn’t running twenty-six miles be a fun way to spend a Saturday?’ shoot me. You know the rule…”

  “You only run that far if someone is chasing you with a knife,” Asher and Owen said in unison.

  “Right. I jog every morning just so I can eat more fries and drink more wine. My running has a purpose.”

  Asher put the conversation back on track. “I hate to be that guy, but none of these Brock complaints are exactly news, Fee.”

  “I know. I’m sitting here pointing out all the bad stuff because I have to keep justifying to myself that I made the right decision. I called him when I got home on Valentine’s to say thanks and before I knew it, the words were sort of spilling out of me. I asked him if he loved me, and he said he did, but there was this tone in his voice…”

  Owen sighed. “Are you sure you heard a tone?”

  Fiona was big on tone. It was sort of her thing. And it drove the guys nuts. “Yes. He sounded tired. Like he was only saying he loved me because he had to.”

  “That’s not a good tone.”

  She looked at Owen, trying to decide if he was teasing her. When he didn’t crack a smile, she forged on. “I don’t love him anymore. I knew it on Valentine’s Day. I’m not sure I didn’t know it back in the summer when we split up the seventh time for those three days. I have to stop trying so hard to make him the one. He’s a nice guy, with a great job. And yes, he’s attractive, and sex with him was decent, but—”

  “If a woman ever said sex with me was just ‘decent,’ I’d jump off a bridge. That’s not exactly high praise,” Asher muttered.