When the Lights Go Down

“This feels a little sacrilegious.”

Her sister-in-law cracked a peanut shell open with her teeth. The pile of broken shells at her feet had been growing steadily for the first four innings. They’d already sworn to their server that they’d clean up the mess. “I said I’d pick up the peanut shells! Jeez. And it was your idea to play hooky. Who’s up next?” She tossed another husk to the floor.

“Their cleanup batter. Ten gets you twenty it’s an intentional walk,” she said automatically, shading her eyes with one hand before remembering where she was. “And that’s not it. Look at this place.” She waved a hand at the private box around them. “We’re supposed to be squeezed into bleacher seats between a bunch of rowdy drunks, with some underage kid in front of us losing her lunch all over her shoes. My lemonade should be spiked with cheap vodka from a flask you’re hiding in your purse, and we should both be well on our way to a good sunburn by now. And Sarah and Addy should be here, too. What’s happened to us?” Although she knew her sisters would be with them if they weren’t both past their due dates at this point. They’d responded with total jealousy when Maxie and Grace texted them a selfie from the stadium.

“Welcome to the world of adulthood.” Grace sat back and propped her bare feet on the coffee table in front of them. She had already kicked her high-heeled, strappy sandals to the side of the sofa. “The company box. God, I’m glad I kept this perk in the budget. Non-alcoholic drinks because we both have to go back to work tonight. And shade.”

“That’s just what I mean.” Maxie shook her head in disgust and took another sip of her slushy. Let out a little yell as the Mariners’ base runner tried to steal second, only to be tagged out in a rundown between the second and first basemen. “Face it. We’ve lost our youth.”

Grace snorted as she sucked on the straw in her ice tea and then choked a little. “Come on, girl, it’s not all bad. Remember the vomit.”

“True. There is that.” Giving in, she propped up her feet on the table beside her sister-in-law’s and graciously accepted the rewards of aging. After all, there was something to be said for getting regular attention from the servers, who poked their heads in every fifteen minutes to see if they needed anything.

“So,” Grace said after cracking open another few peanuts shells, “we’ve been here for four innings, and you haven’t mentioned Nick Drake once, despite giving me every detail of your script review, your consults with Heitman, the résumé of every man and woman you’re putting on this crew and a fairly detailed rundown of the prop list for the show.” Grace pinned her with a bland look that was somehow also impossible to dodge. “What gives?”

She’d been holding in the words for a week.

“I haven’t seen the damn man!”

Grace tilted her head. “Since when?”

She bit her lip. “Since I, um, attacked him in a public elevator.”

“Ahh.”

Maxie shook her head and clenched her teeth. Kicking the table away, she jumped up and paced over to the plate-glass window. She leaned her forehead against the cool glass for a moment, but it wasn’t as soothing as she’d hoped it would be. After a moment, she laughed and turned to face the sofa again, leaning the back of her head against the glass.

“When I told him we had to be ‘all business’ after that second incident, I thought he’d try and schedule more of those meetings he’s so fond of.” She sighed and rapped her head lightly against the window, hoping it would help clear her mind. Didn’t work. “I didn’t think he’d up and vanish on me. Not that I care.”

“Right. You’re the picture of indifference.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

“See, we’ve found our youth again.” Maxie grinned.

Grace’s next words stopped her cold.

“You know, he’s got a box here.” Crack, crunch, toss.

“Who? Nick?”

“Who else?”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I’ve watched a game from there. I knew his name rang a bell when you said it, I just didn’t make the connection right away. It’s been a year or two, but we’ve met several times. His company invited us when they were trying to woo your brother.” Maxie waved her on. Tell me more. “They wanted to franchise Tyler’s, take it nationwide. Hell, who knows? Worldwide. Nick’s company thinks big.”

“His company?” Her brother had nearly done business with a man she couldn’t stop picturing naked. Too strange. “I’m embarrassed to admit I wasn’t really paying attention to that part. God, I’m a jerk. Is he a really big deal?”

“He’s a venture capitalist. An angel investor. Deals in all kind of things. Companies or concepts with potential. Normally people pitch to angels rather than vice versa, but Nick’s a more proactive breed. He goes looking for prospects. Your brother decided he wanted to move more slowly and keep sole ownership.” Grace looked up at Maxie, her brow wrinkled. “I thought you were interested in this guy. Haven’t you found out anything about him at all? All you’d have to do is search his name on Google. There’s gotta be a million hits about him.”

“I want to jump him, not hire him. He just makes something in my brain go haywire.” Grace’s phone rang, preventing Maxie from continuing with that dangerous line of conversation. She flopped back onto the couch as her sister-in-law got up and started pacing with the phone.

What had she thought he did for a living? Ran around and saved his mother from making bad financial decisions? Backed shows all over the theater world? She supposed she’d mentally tagged him with some kind of generic “Finance Dude” title. Who the hell knew what a comptroller did, after all? He could have been a relatively regular guy just looking out for his mom.

Except no one would ever mistake Nick Drake for a “regular guy.” Or even a generic Finance Dude.

No, she’d known it was an unknown field to him, but their conversation over dinner had revealed that he’d mastered the most salient details quickly. His command of the information with which she’d supplied him in her sales pitch had been swift and complete.

But it still seemed weird for her to think of him with responsibilities that had nothing to do with her. She’d been so focused on her reaction to him that she hadn’t stepped back to acknowledge the fact that the man had a life. One that might keep him too busy to engineer ways to drop in on her and challenge her “all business” declaration, like she’d secretly hoped he would.

Okay. She’d let him live.

Grace was smiling as she bantered over the phone. Maxie caught the last piece of her conversation. “Yes, dear,” she said, “I’m planning an afternoon affair with another man. Can you text me his number? You’re a doll. Love you.” She kept the phone in her hand until the message alert went off and then tapped the screen. “Bingo.”

Waggling her eyebrows at Maxie, she held the phone to her ear.

“What are you doing?”

She grew suspicious, if only because her sister-in-law was backing away from her. She seemed intent on getting as much heavy furniture between the two of them as possible. The sudden roar of the crowd meant she was missing something exciting on the field, but she kept her eyes on Grace, whose face had lit up.

“Nick? Hi, it’s Grace Tyler.”

She’d wrap her hands around that woman’s neck and squeeze until she was dead. She jumped off the sofa and rushed toward the back of the room.

Grace clapped a hand over the end of her cell phone, trying not to laugh and failing. “You’ll leave your brother a widower.”

“He’ll get over you.” She circled the sofa, angling to trap the devil between the big screen TV and the bar.

“I can tell from the roar of the crowd that you’re at the ballpark, Nick.” Grace kept the sofa between them, jumping up on the coffee table rather than going around it. “You’ll never guess. Yup. About ten doors down, I think. Step out onto your balcony and wave. I hear there’s a new connection between our families, and I wanted to know if you’d—”

She ducked through the sliding glass door at the front of the room and yanked it shut behind her. Faster than she looked, that girl.

Maxie would have tugged the door open and dragged her in by her perfect blond pageboy, but she knew that Nicholas Drake would witness the assault.

She might not have been able to prevent Grace from leaving, but she could damn well keep her from coming back in. She shoved the coffee table up against the stationary half of the sliding glass door. The table was a couple inches short of filling the entire track, so the door would still slide open a bit, but that was okay.

Grace wasn’t that skinny. She was stuck out there.

After raising a hand and waving down the long row of balconies, Grace slid the phone in her pocket and tugged on the door.

Maxie watched her struggle, pleased with herself.

Grace pressed her lips to the minute crack in the door. “I see we’ve found our youth again. Should I call your mother?”

“You’re a traitor, and should be left in the bleachers with the drunks and the vomit.”

“Charming, sister mine. You have approximately ninety seconds before he gets here.”

She jumped like a cat on fire. Dragging the coffee table back to where it belonged, she grouched at her sister-in-law. “If you don’t have a mirror in your bag, I swear I will throw you right off that balcony.”

She caught the silver compact one-handed. Made do with lip liner and strawberry-flavored ChapStick and wondered why she didn’t ever remember to get her eyebrows done. Maybe that was the secret to Grace’s always-polished appearance.

When she was done, she winged the compact back across the room, catching Grace’s wince as it smacked into her open hand. Served her right. Maxie turned to the door with a sharp inhale as it opened.

It was like having double vision. She shook her head, waiting for her memory of elevator Nick—eyes hot, breathing hard with lust—to dissolve over the clear lines of the tall man in the suit who was lounging with one shoulder propped against their doorway.

“You’re saving me from the world’s most boring corporate outing,” he said with a smile. “I’m glad.”

“Bankers?” Grace asked as she walked over to take his hand, air kiss him on the cheek and pull him into the room.

Maxie clutched the couch cushion beneath her butt with both hands and reminded herself that Grace was not hitting on her man. Reminded herself also that he wasn’t her man, even if there was no reason for someone to cling to his arm like that.

“Worse. Accountants. Although I did invite these genius kids I’m trying to seal a deal with. The four of them are a trip.” Nick smiled down at Grace, who wrinkled her nose and offered to order him a drink. When he took her up on it, she disappeared into the hall. Strolling over to where Maxie sat fuming, Nick dropped into one of the straight-backed chairs across the coffee table from the couch and hooked his foot beneath the rung of another, dragging it closer so that he could prop both shiny loafer-shod feet on it. Draping an arm over the back of his chair, his back to the game, he might as well have twiddled a toothpick in his mouth for all the sense of urgency he seemed to possess. There was no sign of the Nick who’d been with her in that elevator.

“Hello, Ms. Tyler. Working hard?”

She forced her aching fingers to loosen their grip. Crossing her arms over her chest, she kept her voice as cool as an iced margarita when she answered. “I am a well-oiled machine, Mr. Drake. The crew’s good to go.” Her smile was sweet, her voice perky. “Your playwright’s the one who’s causing the production delays.”

“Hmm, yes.” He rubbed the knuckle of his index finger above his lip and nodded again. “That impression has been growing on me, as well.”

Whoa. Backpedal. The last thing she wanted to do was spook the backers.

“I’m not saying the play’s not good. It is. It’s brilliant, actually.” She didn’t have to lie there, thank god. The only explanation she might have for the playwright’s uncanny talent with words might be demonic possession, since he could barely string together a coherent sentence in person, but she wasn’t about to knock it. “But he shouldn’t have this much power at this late stage of the game. He’s too stressed out about achieving perfection and that means rewrites, which were fine at the beginning, but he needs to lock it down now. Your mama’s backing his choices all the way, though, and his delays are costing us. Heitman’s gotta be the final word, not this kid. No matter how talented.”

“How much is it costing us?” His eyes narrowed.

“Less with me than with any other stage manager out there.” She stood up. This was a time to hold the high ground, so to speak.

“That’s not exactly encouraging.”

Before she could even register what was going on, Nick was pacing and barking orders into his cell phone.

She really needed to register the fact that this guy was not from the theater world. She kept forgetting that run-of-the-mill disasters in the lead-up to a big show would seem like complete and utter chaos to a civilian, particularly one who was used to the less...colorful world of business.

She tugged at his sleeve as he snapped out commands at some poor soul who had to be his mother’s personal assistant.

The assistant had probably never dealt with anything more challenging than organizing fundraising tables for the annual Lincoln Park Zoo Ball. This latest leap into the arts by Nick’s mother was probably the biggest shitstorm from which they’d ever had to protect themselves.

“Listen, Nick.” She ducked as he whirled around, his elbow breezing through the space her temple had occupied a moment earlier. “Hey! Watch it, Drake. Listen—”

Shouting in the wind, she was. There was only one thing to do.

She snagged a liter bottle of club soda off the bar and shook it.

Hard.

Right as her hand cranked the cap off she spun around, seltzer spurting volcanically from the bottle. She had a split second to wish she wasn’t always quite so sure of herself.

Then she blasted him square in the face.

In the silence that followed she could hear a high-pitched voice squeaking from his phone, rising in volume when no one answered.

Nick’s pale blue Oxford was plastered to his chest. Club soda ran off his chin, beaded up and then soaked into the wool of his charcoal-gray suit coat, dripped off the spiky tips of his hair. She was splattered with it when he tossed his head back and whipped the wet ends of his hair out of his eyes, his phone still clutched in one hand.

Slowly, cautiously, she raised her open hands in front of her.

No sudden movements.

Just as slowly, but without a hint of caution, he walked toward her, wiping the phone off on his pants and slipping it into a pocket. She retreated one step at a time until she ran into the hard edge of the table, which caught her just beneath her butt. She leaned even farther back from the hips, certain there wasn’t enough room in this box to escape him. He didn’t stop his approach until he was pressed hard against her thighs, hands braced on the table on either side of her.

Her elbows ached from leaning on them. Maybe hosing him down with club soda hadn’t been the best way to get his attention.

He lifted one hand and wrapped it around her throat.

She sucked in a breath and shivered as the liquid soaking him seeped into her jeans, her shirt. Excruciatingly aware of the hard wedge of thigh that was pressed against her crotch, she shifted slightly and saw an answering fire flare in his eyes. His voice was a growl that thrummed against her nerves and sent heat racing through her system.

“Do you know what I’m going to do to you?”

She surrendered. Hooked her ankles behind his waist and used his shoulders to pull herself up.

“If it doesn’t involve getting me naked on this table, I don’t want to know.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. His warm breath brushed her mouth as his face dipped toward hers, eyes half-shut in that slow burn of a smile.

“I’m so glad we agree.” The words slipped out between barely-there kisses. She tolerated that for a moment and then captured his bottom lip in her teeth and nipped, hard. Stay still and kiss me.

The sudden blaring of 80s hard rock from across the room was more of a shock than a turn-on, she had to admit.

“What the—” Nick was prevented from pulling away by her legs, which were still wrapped around him.

“Ignore it. They’ll call back later.” She didn’t normally approve of begging, but if that was what it took...

She ran her hands up his arms, across his shoulders and then cupped his face in her hands, pulling him back to her.

He came willingly, lifting her butt up onto the table behind her for leverage.

“If there’s some theater emergency that requires your immediate attention, I swear we’ll be right back to the part where I strangle you.”

He flexed his hands on her hips, drawing her tighter against him. The thick length of him against her made her groan. She slid her fingers around his neck to thread through his hair as she arched her back, increasing the pressure.

“Those calls get ‘Cabaret.’ Or, hmm, yessss—” His hands slid up her sides until his thumbs brushed the undersides of her breasts. Her mind went blank, but her lips kept forming the words as her head dropped back and she gave in to the need pounding through her body. “Or ‘Send in the Clowns,’ not GNR.”

GNR.

Guns N’ Roses.

The words registered.

“Sweet Child o’ Mine.”

Her eyes flew open as she snapped forward. Pain exploded as her head cracked into Nick’s. She clutched a hand to her brow as he did the same, a grimace on his face.

For a moment, she forgot the world and simply stared at him. How had she lost her head so completely around this man, and where the hell had Grace disappeared to anyway? That had to be the longest walk for a drink ever. Thank god. Because if Grace had walked in while she was trying to climb Nick like a tree, Maxie would be hearing about it forever.

“Sweet Child o’ Mine.”

The words crashed back into her brain and she jumped off the table and shoved Nick to the side, whooping as she slid over the back of the couch and dove for her bag.

“The babies! Where is my damn phone? One of my sisters has gotta be going into labor. They know better than to call us at the ballpark for anything other than life or death emergencies.”

It was ringing again, Guns N’ Roses was calling to her, but she couldn’t find her phone in her bag before the ringing stopped. She’d call back whichever family member was trying to reach them on the way to the hospital.

“Where the heck is Grace?”

Nick lifted the phone to his ear again as she danced in place and pulled up her call log. Her brother-in-law J.D.’s name topped the list. “Sarah’s baby!”

Damn Nick, didn’t he have any sense of urgency? A baby was on the way and he was just standing there making calls.

At the door, she reached for the knob and jumped back just in time to avoid a broken nose as it crashed open and Grace barreled through, laughing, shouting.

“Sarah’s having a baby! At last, damn,” Maxie said.

“Sarah? Spencer just called me to say that Addy’s on her way to the hospital.”

They stopped for a moment to stare at each other. Both babies?

“Damn. That stuff about women’s hormones syncing up if they spend a lot of time together is some powerful shit.” Maxie shrugged. However it had happened, the babies were on their way and they needed to hustle.

“I’m not in an E-Z Out lot,” Maxie said. “You?”

“I cabbed it. You won’t be able to get your truck out ’til the game ends.”

“I’ll leave it. Shit. They’re gonna tow it, aren’t they? Oh, well.”

“Maxie.” It was Nick.

“Don’t worry,” she said without looking back, tossing the words over her shoulder as she rummaged through her bag for cash to pay off their tab. Grace was shouting down the hall for their server, who’d disappeared—of course—after practically never leaving their side during the game. “Talk to Heitman,” she continued. “Get your mom to back him up and put a choke chain on Smith and everything will be fine. We aren’t even close to disaster.”

Grace reappeared without the server and shrugged. Turning to Nick, who was now standing behind her, she thrust out the money she’d gathered from purse.

He waved it off. “Ladies,” he said.

“Just take it, will you?” She shoved the fistful of bills at him, not sure why he wouldn’t stop talking and take it.

“Aunties.”

That caught both of their attention.

“Go two blocks east on Addison. At the corner of Fremont, on the south side of the street, my driver is waiting for you.” He nodded to Maxie. “You’ve seen Tommy. He’ll take you to the hospital. And if you give me your parking ticket, I’ll get your truck out of the lot.”

Maxie heart thumped an extra beat. She rubbed at the sore spot in her chest with the edge of her fist, telling herself it was the emotion of the moment, nothing more. She tried to say thank-you but couldn’t get the words out.

Grace didn’t hesitate. She threw her arms around Nick and smacked a loud kiss on his cheek.

“Nick Drake, I love you more than Kerry Wood.” Grace’s infatuation with the Cubs’ relief pitcher from the nineties was family legend.

“I’m flattered,” he said with a smile, giving her a kiss on the cheek, too. “Now, get out of here. Call me with the good news.”

Calling out their goodbyes and thanks, Grace tugged Maxie out the door. She broke free for just long enough to run back inside and say goodbye to Nick the way she really wanted to. She flung her arms around his neck, rose up on tiptoes and pressed her mouth to his.

“Thank you,” she said, and then gave a sharp yank on his tie. “And if you kiss my sister again, I’ll cut your heart out,” she whispered in his ear.

“Duly noted. Now go.” He smacked her ass. The sweet sting only made her laugh.

Sprinting through the crowds at Wrigley, Maxie and Grace elbowed and bumped their way down the long ramps to the ground-floor exits and then jogged down the sidewalk on Addison, both of them on their phones, trying to find out which sister was in labor.

Of course, it turned out that both Addy and Sarah had been hiding labor pains all afternoon, not wanting to alarm anyone until they were sure that their babies were coming.

And coming right now.

“Thank god they’re both at Northwestern.” Maxie laughed as they tumbled into Nick’s car, calling out directions to the driver. “If I had to pick which one of them to visit, I’d be hearing about it from the other one until my dying day.”

“I hate to break it to you, dear. They’re not going to be in the same room. You’re still going to have to choose.”

“They can’t share a room? Princesses. Fine, we’ll do shifts. Trade rooms every hour. Deal?”

“Hey, I don’t want to be guilt tripped any more than you do. Deal.”

The hospital was enormous. There also seemed to be a preponderance of idiots on staff, none of whom were able to provide them the most basic information about Addy or Sarah. Grace did manage, however, to find her husband and kids. The group of them, even larger once their mom arrived, made such a stink that a large woman in flowered scrubs cornered them at the reception desk and explained that the Tyler sisters were not, in fact, the only patients in the hospital.

By the time they finally made it to the labor and delivery floor, it was clear that someone had telephoned ahead with a warning. Two R.N.s met them at the elevator doors and took command like drill sergeants. Maxie clamped down on her normal urge to give directions, not take them.

She had to admit that, in this particular scenario, she might not know best.

As the hours blurred, Maxie learned more than she ever wanted to know about the stages of labor and dilation and epidurals. The latter seemed to provide immediate relief to Addy, who looked up at her for the first time in hours and asked for the final score of the Cubs game. Sarah, who was three doors down the hall, had waved off the epidural and was still powering through her labor pains, pacing slowly back and forth across the linoleum floor.