Lucky Daddy

by Lively, R. S.

  Reilly: When do ye plan on coming home?

  I hadn’t planned to come home. Not ever. Reilly was part of the reason why I left to begin with. I don’t know how I can handle seeing him around town. It will be like experiencing heartbreak over and over again.

  Me: If it was up to me, I wouldn’t.

  Reilly: Aw, it ain’t that bad here.

  It is. Because I have to see the man I love, and he does not love me back.

  Yeah, I’m just tickled to death to return home.

  Chapter Four

  Reilly

  Rain falls in sheets as I stand by my grandpa’s casket. There are hundreds o’ people here. I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire town came out to offer support. Everyone knew Grandpa, or Lucky, as everyone called him because he always won. Whether it was raffles, cruises, scratch-off tickets, near-death experiences, and who knows what else, Grandpa always came out on top. Until his death, that is.

  Anthony stands beside me, along with his ma and his da. The only person missing is Gwen, and things seem so different without her here. I wish that she hadn’t lost her job. When we were messaging the other day, it was the first time in years, and I had wanted to tell her that I wanted her to be here. I’d wanted her here for me, not my grandpa, but I couldn’t ask that of Gwen. She’s my best friend’s sister, and I can’t imagine the anger and betrayal he would feel if I ever made a move on her.

  So for years, I tried pushing her away. In my mind, I put her in a box, and I stayed the hell away from her because being close to her… Shite, I just wanted to hold her all the time. And my plan had worked over the years, up until she left and took me heart with her. Not that she knew I adored her, but everyone has their secrets.

  At the same time, I’m glad she lost her job, because it means I will see her again. I shouldn’t want to see her again. I should be hoping that she would stay in Oregon, living the big city life and finding a good guy to settle down with.

  My fists immediately clench at the thought of her with a man who isn’t me.

  “Reilly?” Anthony whispers into my ear, bringing my attention back to the present moment instead of thumbing through my wishful thoughts.

  “Aye?”

  “Everyone’s leaving and going to the pub. You coming?” The black umbrella covers his brown eyes. They are so different from Gwen’s eyes.

  “I’ll be there in a moment. I need a few minutes by myself.”

  Anthony pats my shoulder. “You got it. I’ll be in the car waiting for you. But take your time, okay?”

  I nod. He gives me a side smile before turning on his heel and walking away, straight into the blinding conditions of the rain. A few people stop to shake my hand, as well as Ma’s hand, before heading to their cars. “You okay, Ma?” I grab her hand as I look at her. She’s so small and she seems so sad. I’m worried.

  She pats my forearm with her other hand. “Aye. I’ll be alright in time. I’m going to head to the car. I can’t be here anymore.” Ma pulls her hand away from mine and she walks away from Grandpa’s casket.

  Once I’m finally alone, I bring the umbrella down, letting the rain soak me to the core. The rain feels like needles stinging my face as I stand there, watching them lower my grandpa’s casket into the ground. It’s hard to believe eighty-five years of life all came down to a hole that is six feet deep.

  My hair sticks to my head and droplets of water fall from the ends, trickling down my face and gathering in my beard before falling onto the ground. My shoes sink into the grass. Water sloshes over my ankles and soaks my socks, but I don’t care. I’d shrivel up like a prune out here if it meant I never had to leave my grandpa.

  They start throwing dirt over the casket, despite the pouring rain. It’s more like mud at this point, but even though it’s pouring, my grandpa still needs to be buried, and time waits for no one. I stroll over to the people tossing dirt and raise my voice over the white static of angry rain. “Do you mind?”

  Mark, one of my regulars and the local funeral director, stares at my outstretched hand. “What? You want to do it?” he asks, a bit confused.

  “Aye. I’d prefer it actually.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” he says. He hands me the shovel and the rough wood of the tool slides along my palm, scratching my flesh. But I don’t mind.

  “I appreciate it,” I nod, taking my jacket off and plopping it over Grandpa’s headstone. I close my eyes and rest my hand on the tombstone for a minute. I swear, for a brief second, my heart stops, because I feel my grandpa’s hand on top of mine. But when I open my eyes, the only thing there is the hard, pelting rain.

  “You sure, Reilly?”

  “Aye, Mark. I’m sure. I need to do this.”

  “I’ll see you at the pub. I’ll tell Brock to start pouring drinks.”

  I tilt my chin down in acknowledgment as I watch Mark walk away. “Like Brock would even be there, am I right, Grandpa?” I laugh, forcing the shovel into the mound of dirt before throwing dirt into the hole. It falls with a thud on the cherry oak casket and the sound reminds me of thunder. “Can’t believe ye really gone. Just last week, you were spewing on about St. Patrick’s Day and the party you were going to throw. Ye old man, partying like you’re twenty-one. That’s probably what killed ye, ye know.” I shake my head, digging the metal head of the shovel back into the mound of mud. “I’m pissed at ye, you know,” I grunt, tossing another heap over the hole. “No warning. No nothing. I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. The last time I saw you was six days ago. I had decided to close the pub so you could go home early. You said you’d see me the next day, but I never saw you. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t fucking ready.” I toss another heap of dirt over top Grandpa’s casket.

  “I could really use your guidance right now. I just want to talk to you again, ye know.” I feel a bead of rain tickle my skin and I wipe my brow. “She’s moving back,” I admit, looking around to make sure no one is here with me. “What the hell am I going to do? I haven’t seen her in years, but my heart still burns for her.”

  I stare at the Claddagh I wear on my right hand. My grandpa wore it during the years he was married to my grandma. When she passed away, he gave it to me. It’s an Irish ring. It has three elements: love, friendship, and loyalty. The heart that sits in the middle represents love, and the hands that hold the sides symbolize friendship, while the crown is a sign of loyalty. There are different ways to wear it, and I choose to wear it on the ring finger of my right hand, with the point of the heart facing toward my wrist. It means I’m not looking for a relationship.

  I know, deep down, that I’m waiting on Gwen. Even if it means I can never have her. “I bet ye rolling around in your casket right now, laughing at me. You always said she would come back, and I’d have to face my fears. I always thought you were wrong. She was so determined to get out of here. So strong-willed and independent. I didn’t think she’d ever give this town another look. I mean, not that she has a choice. Ye know she lost her job, right?” I keep talking to him, hoping like hell he could somehow hear me as I bury him beneath the soil.

  “I bet ye did. Ye had a way of knowing these things. What do I do, Grandpa? I won’t have the strength to leave her alone after all this time. It’s easy when she’s gone because I don’t have to see her.” The dirt is already covering half of the hole by now. I can’t see his casket anymore, but that still doesn’t stop me from talking to my grandpa. “It’s been years. Four or five, maybe. I’ve lost count. I bet she is even more beautiful than she was the day she left.”

  The rain starts to ease up. I wipe my hand across my face to get rid of some of the water that is blinding me. “It doesn’t matter. I guess torture is in my future because Anthony would never allow it. Why would he want some expressive, Irish-Italian guy with a bad temper and big personality going out with his sister?” I shovel another heap of muddy dirt over the hole. “Maybe I’m overthinking things. Maybe he wouldn’t actually care, and we could all live happily ever after.” I f
orce the shovel into the ground after filling the hole completely.

  I glance down at my watch to see that a few hours have already passed. I’m sweating like crazy. “Shite!” I turn to see if Anthony is still waiting for me. I wouldn’t blame him if he wasn’t, but my eyes land on his dark blue Lexus still sitting there in the parking lot. I wipe my hands on my suit, not caring that doing so left traces of mud on my attire. “This is why I have to try to let go of Gwen. Anthony is the type of guy to wait in a car for hours in the rain, while I bury my grandpa, and not ask any questions or complain. Not even once.”

  I squat near the headstone and place my palm flat along the middle where it reads ‘Lucky’. “Ah, but we were the lucky ones, Grandpa. I love ye, ye old man. I’ll see you at some point. Tell Grandma I said hello and that I love her. It’s going to be hard without you here.” I pause and sigh, feeling fresh tears beginning to sting my eyes. “I’m going to miss you so fucking much. It hurts so goddamn bad. Right here.” I thump the middle of my chest with my fist. “I’ll always try to make ye proud.” I lay my head against the stone and the rain starts to pour again, washing away the tears and mixing them amongst the dirt and the grass.

  I feel a hand land on my shoulder, and when I turn my head, I see Anthony standing there with a bottle of Locke’s Irish Whiskey—my grandpa’s favorite. “Thought I’d give you some time to yourself before we had a drink of our own with Lucky.” Anthony unscrews the top, taking a big swig. He coughs and his face turns red. “Jesus. What the hell is in this? I thought Irish whiskey was supposed to be the best.”

  I toss my head back and laugh, letting the rain wash away the tears. “Aye, it is. Ye just a wee bitch.” I grab the bottle from him, taking a few gulps myself. This is the whiskey that Grandpa and I would cheer to every night.

  “Am not. It took me by surprise, that’s all,” Anthony says, leaning against the headstone.

  I pour some whiskey over the dirt that covers Grandpa’s casket, splashing some on his headstone before taking yet another swig. I hand the bottle back to Anthony, and this time, he drinks it with no problem.

  Anthony pours some over Grandpa’s grave, too, and then screws the lid back on. “Rest in peace, Lucky. You’re going to be missed.”

  “Yeah, he is.” He would be missed so damn much. What brings me the most comfort, though, was that he died in his sleep. His heart just stopped beating. I couldn’t ask for a more peaceful death for my Grandpa, could I?

  We start walking back to Anthony’s car and he shoves the bottle against my chest. “We really need to talk about his will, Reilly. We can’t put it off much longer.”

  I open the door to the Lexus and glance down at my wrecked clothes. They are soaked and there is dirt and mud and sweat all over them. “I’m going to ruin yer fancy leather.”

  Anthony slides inside. “I don’t care. Just get in. And stop changing the subject. We have to talk about it. There are things you need to know.”

  I lay my head against the window as we drive away from the cemetery. I don’t want to know those things, though. I want to put all of this behind me and move on, but Anthony won’t let it go. Not until we talk about it. “Give me a few days, alright?”

  He lets out a sigh and the blinker of his Lexus flashes as he makes a left-hand turn. “Fine. My sister is coming home on Saturday and we are surprising her with a welcome home party. I know it isn’t great timing, but how about we talk Saturday morning, before she gets there?”

  My heart hammers in my chest at the thought of seeing her so soon. “How about we meet tomorrow morning? I’ll be hungover and probably a grouch, but it’s tomorrow morning or nothing.”

  “Tomorrow morning it is. I’ll come to you. Alright?”

  We pull into the pub about five minutes later, and I stay in the car for a moment longer. This is the last place I want to be right now. “Yeah, that’s fine. Tomorrow morning it is,” I repeat.

  I have no intention of being sober over the next few days anyway. My grandpa used to say, “Give yourself three days to drink to your emotions and let the whiskey burn them out of ye.”

  And I’m ready to burn.

  Chapter Five

  Gwendolyn

  “You won’t believe what I just saw!” I shout in the car, hoping Camilla—or Mills, as I call her—can hear me. As soon as I got into my car, I called Mills.

  Mills yawns. “Gwen… It’s two o’clock in the morning. What are you doing?”

  “I’m on the road,” I say, biting my lip. There is just one teeny, tiny, little problem with the phone call. I haven’t told her yet that I had lost my job and am moving back home. We’ve been best friends since the second grade, and nothing has ever come between us. I don’t think this would be the breaking point, but part of me is afraid she might think differently of me. She isn’t that type, but there’s this little piece of me that feels like I let her down.

  “On the road to where?” she grumbles.

  I sigh. “I’m coming home.”

  “What!” she screams, making my speakers crackle from the high-pitched sound coming out of her mouth. “How long are you visiting for? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You know Reilly’s grandpa died?” I ask, changing the subject.

  “Everyone knows that. I’m sure that when you get home, you’ll cuddle him to sleep like you’ve always wanted to do.”

  “I have not.”

  “Pah-lease. Yes, you have. Anyway, why are you coming home?” she asks, bringing the question back around, full-circle. She sounds more energetic now, like she took a shot of sunshine right in the vein.

  “I just saw a tumbleweed, Mills. I really only thought they were in movies.”

  “Yeah, cool. Neat-o. Anyway, Gwen, you have five seconds to tell me why you are coming home before I call your mom and tell her that it was you who wrecked the car at fifteen and not a deer.”

  I gasp. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Try me.”

  My stomach rolls from the disappointment I feel in myself. “I got laid off, Mills. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “Oh, Gwen. Why didn’t you tell me sooner? When did you find out?”

  “Two weeks ago,” I mutter, hoping she doesn’t hear it.

  “Excuse me?”

  I clear my throat and glance at my driver’s side mirror to make sure no one is in the other lane. Then, I flip my blinker on and get over to the other side of the road. It doesn’t look like anyone else is on the road, but I want to be safe. “I found out two weeks ago. It was on a Thursday. They barely even let me finish the week. I had to say bye to my kiddos the very next day. I packed up my apartment, and now, I’m heading home.”

  A few moments of silence pass before she speaks again. “That’s awful. I’m so sorry. I know how badly you didn’t want to ever come back home again. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I was scared, ashamed, and disappointed. I don’t know. I was feeling a lot of things. I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me, too,” I admit, letting my eyes follow the pavement in front of me.

  “I could never be disappointed in you, Gwen. Not ever. I can’t imagine how you’re feeling right now, but everything will work out. So, what are you going to do when you get back?”

  I sigh, because the first thing that comes to mind is seeing Reilly. “I don’t know. I need a job. I guess I’ll look for that.”

  “And Reilly?”

  I roll my eyes. “What about him? I’ll see him if I have to, but that’s about it. You know he can’t stand me. I might as well leave him alone, even though I’m not the same annoying teenage girl anymore.”

  She snorts. “Sure you aren’t.”

  “Hey!”

  “What? It’s true. You are going to hear him say ‘ye’ or ‘shite’ and you’re going to fall in love all over again.”

  Again? I’m still in love. I never stopped being in love with Reilly.

  I laugh at her impression of him. “I’m stronger now. I can handle it.”


  “Well, let me know when you’re close. Drive safely. Okay?”

  “Alright. Love you.”

  “Love you, too. And Gwen?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Everything will be fine.”

  “I know. Get some sleep for me, Mills.”

  She yawns. “Will do.”

  I hang up and lean my elbow against the door. My phone dings, and at first I think it’s Mills again, but when I check the screen in the middle of my console, my eyes bug out. It’s him. It’s Reilly. I glance back and forth to see if anyone is around to witness this, but then I roll my eyes at myself. “Get yourself together,” I mutter before clicking on the message.

  Reilly: Your brother said you’d be home tomorrow. How’s the drive?

  “Take deep breaths, Gwen. He isn’t interested. He just wants to be polite because you're moving back home,” I tell myself. Since texting and driving is dangerous, I use the dictate button on my phone so that it can type my message for me.

  Me: Yep, been on the road for three days. I’m ready for it to be over. How are you doing? What are you doing up?

  Reilly: Just burning through emotions.

  I know what that means. I remember his grandpa saying something like that once upon a time.

  Me: What day are you on?

  Reilly: One. And I’m meeting Anthony in the morning to talk about the will.

  Me: One less thing you have to worry about.

  Reilly: Always the optimist.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I grumble to myself. And how would he know if I’m an optimist? He hardly knows me. I want to scream. I toss my phone on the passenger seat of my car, forcing myself to forget all about Reilly O’Hara. Okay, that’s a lie. He is all I can think about lately. Hell, for the last thirteen years, he has been an itch that I haven’t been able to scratch, and it has become really annoying. Maybe he and I just need to have sex to get it out of our systems, and then we’d never have to speak to one another again.