Riley Thorn and the Corpse in the Closet by Lucy Score

15

7:04 p.m., Saturday, August 15

“Does this show too much boob?”

Nick whipped around so fast Riley worried he’d given himself whiplash. But then whiplash would mean a trip to urgent care and missing Santiago Family Dinner. Gee. Darn.

There was a beat of silence as his gaze traveled from her heeled sandals to her smokey eyes—thank you, Ulta eye shadow palette. Then he carefully put his beer down on the coffee table, turned off the TV, and headed toward her.

She took a step back and then another one. Before she knew it, her back was against the door, and Nick was pinning her there with his hard body.

He’d showered, but he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Her green sundress with the definitely-too-low neckline was obviously overkill.

“See, that tells me it’s too much boob,” she complained.

His hand came up to cup her breast. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“I’m trying to make a good impression with your parents, not entice their son to maul me in the middle of dinner.”

“Thorn, baby. I’m the only one in that room whose opinion matters, and I like the dress.”

“Your opinion is not the only one that matters,” Riley scoffed. “I made a terrible impression on your mother.”

He brought his other hand to her other breast and squeezed, sending delicious shocks spiraling through her system. “Nowhere to go but up.”

“You’re saying that because they have to love you. It’s in their DNA.”

“Why does it matter if they like you or not?” he asked, his thumbs doing wicked things to her nipples through her bra.

“That’s a ridiculous question. They’re your family. Of course it matters if they like me.”

“I’m not following.”

“That’s because your hands are on my boobs, and you lose the power of thought,” she said, pushing his hands away.

“What were we talking about?”

“Nick!”

He grinned, and she was temporarily blinded by dimples.

“Look, all I’m saying is you’re my girlfriend. You’re coming home with me and getting into my bed tonight. Their opinion has no effect on that.”

“You don’t mind dating a girl that your parents could hate?” Riley clarified. It was a sentiment that went against her good girl nature.

His lecherous expression made her knees go weak. “Thorn, my family’s disapproval would make you even hotter in my eyes.”

“That is so seventeen-year-old girl of you,” she complained.

He lowered his head, and she shivered as his mouth skimmed over her throat.

“If you give me a hickey before dinner with your parents, I will be very unhappy with you.”

His teeth grazed her skin, and she poked him in the belly. Or, rather, the rock-hard abs.

“Have you been working out?” she breathed.

“A guy’s gotta make an effort,” he said. His tongue darted out to drag over her bare shoulder.

“So you don’t care if your parents like me or not,” she pressed.

“Not in the slightest. Now if they’re rude to you, then I’ve got a problem. Words will be had. Dishes thrown. But no matter what, tonight ends the same way it was always going to end.”

“How’s that?”

“With me inside you.”

“Gah.” Her knees gave up the fight against gravity, and she slid several inches down the door before he caught her.

“Now let’s get this over with so we can come back here and I can find out exactly what you’ve got on underneath that dress.”

She was wearing sensible, no-line briefs.

“Will you excuse me for a minute? I need to change…something.”

* * *

The Santiago residencewas a large contemporary home perched on the hill in the Floribunda Heights neighborhood or, as Riley called it, Where the Rich People Live. Thanks to tall hedges and immaculate landscaping, it was almost impossible to see the house from the street. All Riley saw were glimpses of dark gray wood and glass.

“Wow,” she said when Nick parked at the front door. “Did you grow up here?”

“Nah. My parents bought this after my sister and I graduated and moved out. Bought all new furniture too, since we weren’t around to ruin nice stuff anymore. They were counting down the days.”

“That’s…nice?”

“I’m telling you, my parents’ seal of approval is nothing to strive for,” he insisted.

“Do you guys not get along?”

He shook his head. “Nothing like that. We just don’t get each other. They want me to be someone they understand, and I don’t care. Makes family get-togethers fun.”

They got out of his SUV, and Riley yelped when he gave the top of her dress a little tug to expose more cleavage.

She slapped his hands away.

“Come on, Thorn. Give me something to enjoy during the thinly veiled parental disappointment portion of the evening.”

“You are such an ass—”

The front door opened, and Riley, still trying to contain her breasts, was met with two questioning gazes. Marie Santiago looked much the same as last time Riley had seen her. Vaguely disgusted. The man standing next to her was definitely Nick’s dad. His skin was darker. His silver hair was slicked back, and he had a great mustache. But he had the Santiago dimples and testosterone geysering out of his pores like a nice cologne.

“Your girl got a bee down her dress or something, Nicky?” he asked.

“Hi, Dad. Mom,” Nick said, taking Riley’s hand and dragging her inside.

After making sure she wasn’t flashing nipple, Riley allowed herself to check out her surroundings. The interior of the house was just as confusing and modern as the exterior.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Nick’s mother asked.

“You’ve already met while on a date with my ex-partner. But, okay, if we’re making it official. Riley Thorn, this is my mother, Marie, and my father, Miguel.”

Marie scoffed. “I wasn’t on a date with Kellen,” she insisted, gesturing with her wine glass.

“What’s her name?” Miguel demanded loudly.

“Riley,” Nick shouted. He turned back to her. “He’s hard of hearing and stubborn as hell. He won’t get hearing aids, so if you want to have him do anything besides smile and nod, you have to scream.”

“Is this why you’re so comfortable with my roommates?” Riley whispered.

He tugged her into his side and gave her waist a squeeze. Marie choked on her wine.

“Are you a fan of modern architecture, Charlie?” Miguel asked a few decibels louder than necessary.

“Riley, Dad. Not Charlie,” Nick yelled.

“Huh?”

“It’s okay. I can be Charlie,” Riley insisted.

“No, you can’t.”

After another minute of exchanged shouts and some spelling, Miguel got the message.

“So what do you think of the house, Riley?” he barked.

“It’s very…dark,” she observed.

“Too much sunlight is damaging to the skin,” Marie sniffed and she studied Riley’s pores for evidence of a subpar skin care regimen.

“All this shouting is giving me a headache.”

They all turned to look at the woman who appeared in the foyer. She wore a pantsuit and had her light hair scraped back in a tight, no-nonsense bun. She had frown lines from what looked like years of life’s constant disappointments. Judging by how thin and pointy she was, Riley guessed maybe she was just constantly hungry.

“Your brother was just introducing us to his…friend,” Marie said to the hungry woman.

“My girlfriend,” Nick corrected. “We live together.”

Nick’s sister sent a fine mist of red wine into the air. “You? A girlfriend? Ha!”

“Honestly, Carmela,” their mother said.

“This is why we can’t have nice things,” Miguel muttered, producing a handkerchief from his back pocket and bending down to clean up the wine spit. “I told you we shoulda moved to Florida, Marie.”

Riley rolled her lips together and tried not to laugh. Maybe Nick hadn’t been exaggerating when he said his family was weird.

“Riley, this is my sister, Carmela. Carm, my girlfriend, Riley.”

Carmela’s frown lines deepened. “You look familiar,” she said accusingly.

“I’m sorry?” It sounded to Riley like Carmela was expecting an apology for that.

“Riley’s been in the news this summer,” Nick said.

Really not wanting that particular topic to come up, she stepped on his foot. He grunted but got the message. “Ow, okay. So who’s playing bartender?”

“Carmela, get your brother and his friend a drink,” Marie ordered.

“Girlfriend,” Nick cut in.

“Tell him to get his own damn drink,” Carmela snapped back. “Or is your favorite kid too good to pour himself a glass of wine?”

“Shoulda moved to Florida,” Miguel muttered to the floor.

Somewhere a bell chimed.

Miguel straightened from his obsessive floor polishing. “That’ll be the pork tenderloin.” He bustled off in the direction of the chiming.

Marie sighed. “The man can’t hear a word we say, but an oven timer goes off, and he’s suddenly got Superman ears.”

“Let’s get this over with,” Nick said cheerfully, steering Riley by the shoulders.

Instead of the kitchen, where the majority of the Thorn family socializing happened, Nick led her into a formal dining room with a large window overlooking the river and Harrisburg’s skyline.

She was so wowed by the view, she didn’t notice the other occupants of the room until it was too late.

“Riley?”

Shit.In the past two months, she’d learned it was a very bad thing when strangers already knew her name when she walked into a room.

She turned away from the glass and felt her jaw open so far she worried it might hit the very expensive rug under her feet. “Andy?”

Andy Pendleton—tall, cute, fellow Shippensburg alumnus, and fondly remembered college ex-boyfriend—stood next to the table with a beer in his hand. He had glasses now and looked as if he used actual grooming products in his curly hair. But he still had the same charming grin.

“You look… Wow. It’s been a while,” he said.

“You two know each other?” Nick asked. His brow was furrowed as he mentally marched toward the inevitable conclusion.

“We dated,” Andy announced.

“In college,” Riley added.

“You dated my brother-in-law?” Nick looked as if he couldn’t decide whether to swallow his tongue or punch the guy in his parents’ dining room.

“The good old days,” Andy said with a nostalgic grin, completely oblivious to Nick’s discomfort. “Remember Homecoming?”

Riley felt the color flooding her cheeks. “All except the streaking. That’s still buried in a tequila haze.”

“You two slept together?” Nick croaked.

She patted him on the back. After a few months of dating Nick, she’d gotten used to running into women who had shared his bed at some point since he lost his virginity at sixteen. Even her mother’s second cousin had apparently taught him a thing or two when he was eighteen.

People had pasts. Nick just had a more active past than most.

Now that the tables were turned, it was actually kind of funny.

“Here.” Carmela appeared and thrust wine glasses at Riley and Nick without enthusiasm.

Nick chugged his down, took the glass from Riley, drank hers as well, then handed both glasses back to his sister. “More.”

“Get it yourself, lush.”

“I’m not leaving these two alone in a room together.”

“They’re not alone. I’m here, and so is Esmeralda.”

For the first time, Riley noticed the young girl sitting at the table and quietly reading a book that looked like it was half her size. She had the thick, dark Santiago hair, Carmela’s frown, and Andy’s chin and freckles. The girl looked up from her tome and eyed the adults. “Can you keep it down? I’m almost finished with this chapter.”

“She’s very advanced for her age,” Carmela insisted with a defensiveness that made Riley wonder if someone in the room had suggested otherwise.

“I can see that,” Riley said agreeably. “What are you reading?”

“A collection of works by Patrick Henry.”

“Our girl is really into history,” Andy said proudly, ruffling his daughter’s hair.

“Takes after her dad,” Riley said, remembering Andy’s constant barrage of historical trivia in college.

“How many times?” Nick asked.

“How many times what?” Andy asked.

“How many times did you sleep with my girlfriend?”

Carmela blinked. “You slept with Nicky’s girlfriend?”

“We dated. In college,” Riley cut in hastily.

Esmeralda had gone back to reading.

Carmela looked at the wine glasses. “I’m getting another bottle.”

“You really do look great, Rye,” Andy said, giving her a fond once-over.

Nick reached over and hiked up the neckline of her dress.

“Nick,” Riley hissed.

“Oh, good. You remember my name.”

“Excuse us for a minute,” she said, dragging him into the hall. She chose a door at random, found an empty powder room, and pushed him inside. “What is wrong with you? I’m supposed to be the embarrassment tonight. Not you.”

He looked green and twitchy.

“You and my brother-in-law. Naked. More than once.”

“It was a long time ago. Neither one of us was a virgin when we met,” she reminded him.

He paused mid-pace and swiped both hands down his face. “Oh my God. There are others?” Whirling around, he turned on the faucet in the sink and shoved his face under it.

“Take a breath before you pass out,” she suggested, dragging him out from under the spray and handing him a towel.

“What is this feeling?” he demanded, tugging at his shirt like it was too tight. “It’s horrible. I feel nauseous and sweaty, and I just want to punch Andy in his fucking face. No one besides my sister wants to punch that guy in the face. He’s too agreeable. What’s happening to me?”

She chewed on her lip for a second. “Maybe you’re jealous?”

“Maybe you’re jealous,” he shot back. “Sorry. Reflex. This isn’t your fault. Of course you have a past. I just never thought about how it would feel to meet your past.”

She took his face in her hands and held him still. “Look at me.”

“I can’t. I’m looking at your boobs, which look amazing in that dress, and now there’s another guy remembering your boobs in my parents’ dining room.” He tried to rearrange her dress again, and when that didn’t work, he tried pushing her breasts deeper into the garment.

She took a step back and slapped his hands away. “You met Griffin and didn’t have this kind of reaction.”

“Griffin Gentry is a short, whiny asshole who screwed you over. You’d never go back to that pre-pubescent turd, and he’s too stupid to know how badly he fucked up.” He was referring to her spray-tanned news anchor ex-husband and the lawsuit he’d filed and won against her after she broke his nose with their wedding picture when she caught him in their bed with a twenty-something weather girl named Bella Goodshine.

Not only had Nick punched Griffin in the face on camera, he’d also managed to get him to drop the settlement so she no longer had to write her cheating ex a check every month. Nick had been tight-lipped on the how, and Riley decided it was better if she didn’t know all the details.

“Thorn, baby, is this how you feel when we run into someone I…”

“Slept with?” she suggested.

“Oh my God. I made you go get coffee with me and Jonesy. Thorn, you should have told me this is physical torture. I had no idea. I would never—”

She held up her hands. “Maybe you had no idea because you don’t still have feelings for the legion of women you went to bed with.”

“Of course I don’t have feelings for them!”

“And I don’t have feelings for Andy.”

He took a breath and let it out. “Okay. That’s good. I can work with that. Maybe I don’t need to murder him with a salad fork and throw his body in the Susquehanna.”

“That’s probably a good thing because I think your sister can take you.”

“She’s terrifying,” he agreed. “You’re sure you don’t have feelings for him?” Nick asked, sliding his hands up and down her waist.

“Feelings? No. Fond memories? Yes.”

He closed his eyes and growled. “Great. Now I want to kill him again.”

She grinned, looping her arms around his neck. “This is sweet. I like that you care.”

“I’m glad you find my emotional scarring so entertaining,” he grumbled, nuzzling into her neck.

“It’s nice to be on the other side of this for a change,” she teased.

“This is the last time. We’re moving to Canada.”

“You’ve never slept with a Canadian before?”

“My mom’s Canadian. I didn’t want to take any chances getting it on with a second cousin or something.”

“Full disclosure—I dated my neighbor’s nephew from Nova Scotia for a summer when he was visiting.”

“Canada is out. How about Costa Rica?”

“Costa Rica works.”

He cupped her face in his hands. “Just remember who you’re here with,” he said gruffly.

“Who could ever forget Nick Santiago?” Riley teased, brushing her mouth over his. In true Nick form, he took the kiss to a very dirty place. She was clinging to the vanity for support while his hand worked its way up the skirt of her dress when there was a knock at the door.

“Stop hogging the bathroom. Esmeralda has to wash her hands before dinner,” Carmela announced.

“There’s nine goddamn sinks in this house,” Nick yelled back.

“And she wants to use this one, so get the hell out!”

“Why must my children revert to adolescent behavior when they come to dinner?” Marie lamented loudly from the hallway.

“This is what happens when you have a favorite kid,” Carmela said snidely.

“I don’t have a favorite. Right now I don’t like either one of you. Andy is my new favorite.”

They exited the bathroom and found most of the family in the hall.

Carmela wrinkled her nose. “Oh, God. You’re not one of those couples that pees together, are you? That’s disgusting.”

“Bite me, Carm,” Nick said, slinging his arm around Riley’s shoulders. “Where’s the wine?”