Thursday Nights (The Charistown Series) Read online

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  Thursday Nights

  Copyright © 2013 by Lisa N. Paul

  Cover Design by Okay Creations

  Formatting by JT Formatting

  Super Dandy Publishing

  Ebook ISBN: 978-0-989-24650-7

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners:

  AAA, Baileys, Batgirl, Big Red, Cheers, Circus Peanuts, CliffsNotes, Converse, Ferrari, Ferrari Spider, Fruity Pebbles, Henley, Hershey Kisses, Jeep, Jetta, John Mayer, Maroon 5, Pink, Ferrari, Ferrari Spider, Post-it, Philadelphia Eagles, Rolodex, Starbucks, Seinfeld, the Soup Nazi, Spiderman, Top Gun, University of Pittsburgh, the Vampire Diaries.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One – Words, Janie, I Need Words

  Chapter Two – A Details Kind of Girl

  Chapter Three – Get Un-Angry

  Chapter Four – Expecting Someone Else?

  Chapter Five – Are you Sure You Can Spare It?

  Chapter Six – That Went Well . . . No?

  Chapter Seven – Stoopid Girls

  Chapter Eight – Those Two

  Chapter Nine – Greek Yogurt

  Chapter Ten – You’d Better Be

  Chapter Eleven – More Than One Step

  Chapter Twelve – She Was My Wife

  Chapter Thirteen – Is This A Bribe?

  Chapter Fourteen – Circus Peanuts

  Chapter Fifteen – I’m Done Pretending

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Preview of Running on Empty by L. B. Simmons

  For Jodi

  Because of you Thursday nights are more than just another night of the week.

  Thank you for the love and the inspiration. You mean the world to me. Raise your glass!

  For Daddy

  While you never got to see the finished product,

  you were so damn proud of the process.

  Thank you for believing in me.

  I miss you.

  Seven Years Earlier

  It was time to start moving on.

  It had been six months since Max found out his wife had been cheating on him again and was having a baby with the bastard. Six months since she left him standing in the driveway, watching her leave him. Six months since her car was sideswiped, and the woman he had spent more than ten years loving was killed. He hated what she did to him, but he’d spent those months mourning the loss of the life he knew and the woman he loved. But no more.

  Max slid his feet into his boots and headed for the kitchen. Swiping his keys and wallet off the counter, he opened the door to his apartment and came face-to-face with his deceased wife’s parents. Two people who had hated him for years.

  “Oh, Max…” Mrs. Smyth stammered. “We were just about to knock.”

  Through the anxious and claustrophobic feeling overwhelming him, Max found his voice. “I was just heading out for the night. Is there something I can do for you?”

  Mr. Smyth looked down at him with sad but serious eyes. “Just a half hour of your time…please, Max.”

  Being six-foot-three, there were few people that were taller than Max, but Mr. Smyth was one of them. Back in the day, he swore that his father-in-law loved looking down on him in more ways than just physically. Max’s mind was reeling. The man had even said please. He didn’t want to be with these people, but his curiosity kept him standing still. What could they possibly have to say that he’d want to hear? Yet, how could he say no to the only thing they had ever asked of him?

  Max nodded and led his former in-laws into the main room of his new apartment. He paced the floor, making a path on the newly laid carpet as he tried to contain his breath, and steeled himself for the reason of their surprise visit.

  “Max,” said Mrs. Smyth, or Gina as she now insisted on being called. “We know you probably don’t have anything to say to us. Lord knows you probably don’t want to hear anything we have to say . . . but we have been trying to get in touch with you for almost six months.”

  He stopped pacing and looked at the woman who stood in front of him. Her platinum hair was perfectly coiffed and her designer clothes professionally pressed. The diamonds in her ears and on her left hand were probably worth more than what he made in a year. She was the model image of what money could buy, but when his gaze traveled up to her face he saw that time had not been kind. Gina looked tired and old. The deep purple smudges under her eyes spoke of the sleepless nights Max himself knew so well.

  “You have my attention, Gina,” Max said with a little too much bite. Harvey reached for his wife and gently guided her to sit down on the couch.

  “Chloe was always…troubled,” Gina started to explain as Max sat on the chair facing the couple. “She was the reason we moved from Texas to Pennsylvania in the first place. Chloe suffered from depression. She was emotionally needy and when it suited her, manipulative. Back in Texas, she had a boyfriend, and when they broke up she swore the boy had harmed her.”

  Max watched the grimace on Harvey’s face as he picked up where Gina left off. “Chloe had threatened to kill herself if she had to see the boy at school anymore. Coincidently, a job position had opened up in Pennsylvania when all this was happening, so we decided to make the move and give her a fresh start.”

  The man paused to assess Max’s expression. Blank.

  “Of course, we weren’t here a full week before she met you,” Harvey added without a bit of animosity. “I did some asking around and heard you were a good kid, so I stepped back.”

  “Then why did you hate me so much?” Max finally asked the question that had tugged at him for years.

  Looking at each other, and then turning sympathetic eyes to Max, Chloe’s parents said in unison, “We didn’t.”

  Max pulled his fingers through his hair in frustration as his heart began to thrum in his chest. “What the hell? I saw the way you looked at me. You never accepted me or my relationship with your daughter.” He could feel the flush rising in his neck. “Chloe said so herself!”

  Harvey quietly leaned forward, hands on the knees of his designer suit. “Son…”

  “I am not your son,” Max insisted, his voice loud but shaking. Standing, he clenched his fists, knuckles white. “You hated me. You never once looked me in the eye. You even disowned her for marrying me. I’ve never been anything to you,” Max spat. “Why are you here?” His voice was a shout now, the emotion becoming harder and harder to tamp down.

  “Sit down, Max.” Harvey’s eyes pleaded, but his voice was firm. “You need to hear what we have to say, and then I promise, you will never have to see us again.”

  Not knowing what else to do, Max sat back down but didn’t release his fists. Harvey inhaled deeply, laced his fingers with Gina’s, and continued.

  “We knew you loved our daughter from the first moment we saw the way you looked at her. You were still just a boy, but your devotion to her was that of a man. But w
e also saw the other side of the relationship—her side. When the two of you were still in high school and she’d be alone in her room on the phone with her friends,” Harvey said thoughtfully, “she would say how she had you wrapped around her finger. That was when Gina and I finally admitted that Chloe had bigger problems than depression. We felt horrible that we let it get so out of control and that you got wrapped up in a mess that we maybe could’ve stopped.” Harvey looked at a silent Max, an emotion on his face Max had never seen there before—embarrassment.

  Gina’s gentle voice permeated the fog that was taking over Max’s thoughts. “We tried to talk to her, we begged her to stop seeing you. But she told us to mind our own business. She said she loved you and this time was going to be different. We wanted to believe her…we really did. Then we started to hear the way she manipulated you about your going away to college. She didn’t want you to go. We hoped you would leave anyway, but you didn’t. When we told your parents our fears, they agreed to talk to you. But honey, nothing worked.”

  Max couldn’t believe his ears. His parents had met with Chloe’s? Why didn’t they ever tell him? Would you have listened? His inner voice asked even though he already knew the answer. After all, he never went to West Chester University, did he?

  Gina continued her account of the past. “We had hoped she would finally let go of you when she went away to college herself, but that was when she told us she planned to marry you. All the while she was seeing other guys behind your back.” Gina looked down at her hands. “When we threatened to tell you about her cheating, she just laughed and said, ‘Tell him! He loves me, he will never believe you.’ That was the same summer you and Chloe moved in together.” Max thought back—it was the summer that she told him she wanted to get married.

  “My God,” Max whispered, his voice breaking. “I was no more than a toy to her. A puppet.” He walked over to his liquor cabinet and poured himself a healthy shot of bourbon. His stomach felt tight as he looked at the two people on his sofa. How was this happening? How could he have been so blind? He tried to focus on the familiar taste of the amber liquid and its slow burn down his throat into his belly instead of the sharp pain of the words flying out of the Smyths’ mouths like darts, each one hitting the red bull’s-eye.

  Eyes glassy with unshed tears, Gina explained how over the years they kept in touch with Max’s parents because Chloe refused to return their phone calls or answer their letters. But she always cashed their monthly checks.

  “What? You were sending her money? I don’t understand. She never told—” Max’s brain was on overload.

  “No, Max,” Harvey said in a deep voice laced with pain. “We were sending both of you money. Large amounts actually. The checks were written in both of your names. Yet every time we spoke to your parents, they would tell us how hard you were working to make ends meet so you could one day buy your wife the house of her dreams. We never told your parents about the money we sent, but our bank statements showed the checks had been deposited. I don’t know why we kept sending the money…” Harvey looked at his perfectly shined shoes and sighed. “I guess it allowed us to feel like we were still part of her life in some way.” Max stood and walked to the counter, his hand shaking as he poured another drink. “We must have sent over a million dollars in the ten years that you lived together.”

  Max choked on his alcohol. A million dollars? Christ!

  “Where did she put the money? What was she saving it for?” Max’s mouth asked the questions, but his heart already knew the answer. “She was saving it for when she left me, wasn’t she?” he asked quietly. He paused and looked at the guilty faces staring back at him. “Wasn’t she?” he yelled.

  The boom of his voice visibly startled Chloe’s parents, but they made no move to answer his question. They didn’t have to—the writing was on the wall. They knew she hadn’t told him of the checks, yet they continued to give her money. They knew somewhere in their heart of hearts that betrayal would be her end game, and they stood back and stayed silent.

  “Max…” Gina spoke so quietly Max had to focus to hear her. “I know our words must hold no value to you, but we had no idea that Chloe was hiding the money. We didn’t even think to look for it until after she died. At the hospital, when you announced that she was carrying another man’s baby…well, that was the first we had heard about her cheating on you since you’d gotten married. We always hoped that she’d stopped once you were married. And while we weren’t surprised by her behavior, honey, we were horrified by the consequences of her actions. She really did hurt one of the nicest, kindest, most trusting men around. There are not enough I’m sorry’s to make up for our regret.”

  Max’s heart was pounding. He could hear the blood flowing through his ears, and he couldn’t think of anything coherent to say. So he just stood there, holding his glass, staring at the amber liquid in front of him.

  Harvey and Gina stood up and walked over to Max. Tears inched down both of their tired, pained faces. Harvey placed an envelope on the counter next to the bourbon.

  “Here are the documents regarding the bank account where Chloe kept the money. Everything has been changed over into your name. You may not want it now, but it is your money. Thank you for loving our daughter. We’re sorry that it came at such an awful expense for so many years. Hopefully one day happiness will find you…until then, we hope this helps.”

  The man patted him on the shoulder, and then the soft click of the apartment door told him he was alone.

  And that was exactly how he intended to stay.

  Janie blew on her Grande Starbucks as she waited for her friend to arrive. Watching people order their complicated drinks and seeing the annoyed baristas roll their eyes at the incorrect ordering procedure always reminded her of the Seinfeld episode with the Soup Nazi. The thought made her smile as she sipped her cup of liquid energy. Even in a small shop just outside Philadelphia, the crowd was big and anxious.

  The ease of the moment seeped out of Janie’s body only to be replaced with tension as a woman’s voice shouted, “Come on, kid, move! I don’t have time for your crap!” The only thing more upsetting than the sound of the irritation coming from the mother’s voice was the look of complete surrender on the little girl’s face. When her tear-filled brown eyes met Janie’s, Janie could feel her heartbeat quicken, and the memory crashed into her like a wave, pulling her under and keeping her there.

  She was only eight years old when she watched the youngest of her older siblings happily pack the last of his belongings into his beat-up station wagon. Her mother had been in the kitchen, drunk and screaming about all of the sacrifices she had made for her “ungrateful excuses for children” and how they could all just go to hell. Janie had followed Evan around, watching him load up his odds and ends.

  “Please, Evan, don’t leave me here with her. She’s so mean,” Janie’d begged. But Evan ignored her pleas, just like the three siblings before him.

  As he was leaving the house for the last time, he’d looked at her—not in the eyes, never in the eyes. “Sorry, kid, you’re on your own. Take care.” And he left.

  Janie had watched him drive away until she could no longer see his car. When she heard her mother’s voice, she reached up and wiped the tears from her eyes.

  “Kid,” her mother had said, “get your shit and get out. I’m having company for at least a couple of hours. When the door is unlocked, you can come back in, but not before. You understand?”

  Janie nodded, grabbed a blanket and her favorite book, and had left the house. At least it’s a hot day and won’t be too cold once the sun goes down, Janie remembered thinking.

  “I don’t wanna see you too soon, kid,” her mother had shouted as she slammed the door.

  “Why did they even bother giving me a name?” she’d whispered to herself as she headed toward the park.

  Janie had sat on a park bench with her legs pulled up to her chest as she allowed herself to escape into the fairy tales she was reading.
On that day, like every day before and all the days after, she promised herself that she would find someone who would love her someday. She would find someone who, unlike her father and her siblings, wouldn’t abandon her, and unlike her mother, would actually make her feel special and treasured. Someday.

  “Janie, earth to Janie. You in there?”

  Janie gasped at the sound of her best friend’s voice and took in a deep breath.

  “Where were you just now, Jane?” Lyla asked.

  “I was right here, Ly. Right here.”

  Words, Janie, I Need Words

  “Hey, Janie, the girls are lookin’ hot tonight,” Lyla announced as she leaned over to give a playful squeeze to Janie’s breasts.

  “I know, right?” Janie laughed, the silliness familiar and comfortable. Janie could feel four pairs of lust-filled eyes glued to the breasts in question as a group of men stared at her and Lyla from across the bar. And then, as if by magic, another round of drinks appeared at their table, carried by two of the previously leering men.

  It was Thursday night. And just like every Thursday night, Lyla and Janie were at Danny’s on Main, sipping cocktails and entertaining themselves—and their mostly male audience—by telling silly, sexy stories and sometimes-embellished tales. They found it funny, and maybe a little pathetic, how little it took to get a man’s attention. Just the mere mention of words like tits, breasts, or vagina and men would get pie-eyed. If the word pussy came out of either woman’s mouth, it was an all-out drool fest. Janie and Lyla couldn’t help themselves; it was a way to let loose toward the end of a crazy workweek. Plus, the responses were always priceless, and the free drinks certainly didn’t hurt.

  Behind the bar, Max served up shots and poured beers while Janie recounted the details of her latest date with the douche du jour.

  “So, let me get this straight,” Lyla said as she seductively moved her thick, espresso-colored hair off her narrow shoulders. “That cheap loser actually told you to leave the tip?”