by Megyn Ward
At the mention of my father, Mr. Gilroy face falls into a frown. “You sure you want to do that?” His hands tighten on my shoulders for a moment. “Jack’s—”
“A bitter, mean drunk who’s let me down time and again,” I finish his sentence for him. “I know what my father is, Mr. Gilroy. But he’s still my father. I have to know he’s okay.”
His hands and eyes go soft. “You’re a good girl, Hennie.” He pulls me into another hug, this one nearly lifting me off my feet. “Go on in and see Mary, she’ll be happy to see you.”
I didn’t know how true that was after what I did to her son, but when I peeked around the corner of the kitchen doorway and saw Conner’s mother bent over the open over, basting a turkey, I remember everything. How she used to let me help her make dinner sometimes, teaching me how to cook, here and there. We baked cookies once, something my own mother never had the patience or desire to do.
We lived in a shitty, third-floor walk-up, barely scraping by on my father’s disability and my mother’s pay as a part-time receptionist and she thought things like washing dishes and making dinner for her kids was beneath her.
I look up to find Conner’s mom is no longer bent over the turkey. She’s standing by the stove, looking at me, her dark hair, threaded with silver, pulled into a messy bun, her soft blue eyes confused and a little suspicious. “Well, you’re not Cari, and you’re not Jessica—thank the lord—and I know my Con didn’t bring you.” She stoops down to close the oven door before pinning me with another look. “So, I’m wondering who you are and how you got in my house.”
“Henley.” I push my name out of my mouth on a harsh breath, forcing it to make a sound. “Henley O’Connell. I got a nose job,” I add the last when she doesn’t move or speak, thinking maybe she doesn’t believe me.
“Henley?” Her eyes go wide when she says my name, her ladle hitting the floor with a clatter. And then she’s across the kitchen, throwing her arms around me. And just like that, for two glorious hours, I was home.
The way Conner is looking at me now brings it all to a screeching halt.
He’s angry that I’m here. Feels like I’m invading his space. Hell, he probably thinks I’m some sort of stalker—which if I look at the situation objectively, is exactly what I am.
I tricked him into taking my virginity. Offered to pay him to have a sexual relationship with me. Climbed through his bedroom window armed with a breakfast burrito and practically begged him to fuck me. And that was just my first twenty-four hours home.
And now everyone’s staring at him like he did something wrong. Like he’s the asshole. Like he’s the one who should be apologizing.
And he isn’t.
Conner’s not in the wrong here.
I am.
I stand slowly, forcing myself to measure each movement carefully. Grace doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m too decisive. Direct. I have to think and plan every step to get it right so they flow together. “I just remembered, I can’t stay,” I say, aiming an apologetic smile at Mr. Gilroy’s beefy shoulder. “I forgot I made plans with Tess. We’re—”
“No, you didn’t.” Conner’s voice cuts across mine, silencing me in an instant. “Tess spends Sundays with her dad.”
I’ve always had a hard time looking at him, especially when other people are looking at me but
I have to look at him now. Propriety demands it, and as soon as I do, my heart does what it always does when I look at him. It flips and swells. Pounds and flutters. Stops and starts. That’s what looking at him does to me.
It makes me feel like I’m dying.
“After—afterward.” I stammer out the lie, scrambling for cover. Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly and start over. “We’re meeting afterward. For dinner. I need to go home and change before we—”
“Stop.” He’s staring at me over the back of the couch his brother and cousin are sitting on, his hand gripping the bottle of wine in his hand like he’s about to fast pitch it through the living room window. “Stop lying. You don’t have other plans, and you’re not going anywhere.”
I feel my hands start to curl themselves into fists, so I deliberately flatten them against my thighs, fighting to remain calm.
Ladies never lose their temper.
“Is that so?”
“It is.” Relaxing his grip, he carefully sets the bottle of wine in his hand on the sofa table in front of him. “You’re obviously someone’s dinner guest.” He reaches into his pockets, pulling bottles of Guinness, setting them next to the wine. Lining them up in a row. “Don’t worry about me. I’m just here to deliver beer and tune-up my mother’s car.” He smiles at me, nothing more than a quick, angry flash of teeth. “So, please, feel free to keep pretending I don’t exist.”
It hits me like a punch, my mouth falling open to deny it. To say he’s wrong. Imagining things. That I don’t ignore him.
To keep lying.
Don’t be ridiculous.
Before I can make things worse, Conner’s mom appears in the doorway.
“Conner Jonathan Gilroy.” Like everyone else, she looks at her son like whatever is happening, he’s the one to blame. “What’s happening?” she divides a look between us before looking at her husband for an explanation. When she doesn’t get one, she frowns at Conner’s profile. “What are you—”
“Nothing.” His anger evaporates, and he aims a quick look around the room before focusing on his mom. “Your car in the garage?”
She nods up at him, wiping her hands on a dish towel while shooting me a nervous look. She doesn’t know what’s going on, but she knows enough to know I’m involved.
“I’ll get to it then.” He turns away from me completely to drop a quick kiss on his mom’s cheek before slipping past her, toward the kitchen. A few seconds later the quiet is punctuated by the slam of the back door.
Fifty-one
Conner
I’m not in the garage more than five minutes before I hear the back door slam. I think it’s my dad coming out here to kick my ass for being such a prick. That’s alright. I deserve it.
I am a prick.
Shit, let’s be honest, I’m hoping he does come out here and kick my ass around the yard. Maybe it’ll knock some goddamned sense into me.
“You want to tell me what your fucking problem is?”
Nope.
Not my dad.
It’s my dickhead brother.
And he’s alone.
No Patrick to pull us apart when shit gets violent.
And this shit is going to get violent.
“Don’t have a problem,” I say, barely sparing him a glance while I pop the hood on my mom’s ’76 Bronco. “What’s yours?”
He doesn’t say anything, just stands over me and seethes while I check the radiator and transmission fluid.
“You want to be mad at me for whatever excuse you manage to pull out of your ass today? Fine,” he finally says, his tone tight. Controlled. “But don’t take that shit out on Henley because it has nothing to do with her.”
Seriously?
Is this fucker kidding right now?
I slam the hood shut and nail him with a hard glare. “Are you for real?” I skirt the front of the car and don’t stop until I’m in his face. “It’s got everything to do with her. Who the fuck do you think you’re fooling? You don’t give a shit about Henley or how she feels. You brought her here to mess with me. To mess with us.”
“And why would I do that, exactly?” he says, trying his best to sound confused but he’s not. He knows what I’m talking about. He understands. And he knows I’m right.
“Because it’s what you do. What you’ve always done. You’re a prick, Declan,” I say, spelling it out for him anyway. “A miserable, selfish prick, who for some reason I’ve never been able to understand, feels compelled to destroy and infect everything and everyone he comes in contact with, like a goddamned disease.”
“I thought you’d be happy to see her,” he says, shaking
his head, brow pulled low, eyes narrowed. “I asked Henley to dinner to—”
“To fuck with me.” I spit the words at him, not buying his bullshit. “Because it’s what you do.” I drill a finger into his chest hard enough to rock him back on his heels. “You fuck with me—you can’t help yourself. Half of me thinks you went after Tess because you knew how important she was to me and you couldn’t help yourself. You fucked her and then fucked her over because like I said…” I’m no one’s idea of a runt, but Declan’s still a half a head taller and nearly twice as wide. Right now, I give zero fucks. This is going to end bloody, one way or the other. “You’re a goddamned disease.”
I think that’s going to do the trick. I think it’s enough to get him to take a swing at me, but it isn’t. Instead of taking a swing, Declan takes a step back. “You’re right.” He nods his head, swallowing hard. “About all of it—you’re right,” he says, taking a step back. “I’ve done a lot of bad shit, and I’ve hurt a lot of people, but I’m trying to make up for it. I’m trying to make it right.”
“How?” I shake my head at him. “How the fuck were you going to do that?” I take a step toward him, closing the gap he put between us, trying like hell to hold on to the rage that’s slipping through my fingers. “By bringing Henley here so you can jerk us around, just like the good ol’ days?”
“No, that’s not…” he takes a step back, hands open, palms up. “I thought you’d be happy to see her, that’s it. I just want you to be happy, Con.” He knows what I want. He knows what I’m pushing for and wants it clear he’s not interested in a fight. “I know you haven’t been. Not for a long time and I know you blame—”
Fuck this.
I swing on him, lunging forward to extend my reach, crashing my fist into his face, sending him sprawling in the muddy grass behind him. “Let’s go, fuckstick,” I say, standing over where he’s laid out, glaring up at me. “I don’t have all day.”
He scrambles to his feet, charging me with a roar. I don’t even try to move, I just stand there and take it, the force of the tackle lifting me off my feet for a second before slamming me into the front fender of his truck, knocking the wind out of me. I clip him in the jaw with a fist before landing another one on his ear. He roars again, hands fisted in the front of my coveralls and pivots, trying to toss and flip me onto my back but I have a leg locked around the back of his knee and a hand on his throat, so all he manages to do is send us both tumbling into the mud at the edge of the yard.
He lands on top, popping his torso up to punch me in the jaw before I manage to work my arms and hands loose to block it. I finally get free, lifting my top half off the ground to swing wide into his kidney. I’m about to follow it up with another one when I get a face full of freezing cold water. Through the blur, I see my mom standing a few feet away, the garden hose in her hand on full blast.
On top of me, Declan starts sputtering and slapping at the torrent of water hitting us both. I shove him off, and we both lay there, side by side, wet and bleeding, covered in mud. I stare up at the sky, chest heaving. Jaw aching. Knuckles bleeding. I wasn’t done. Not by half.
In the distance, I catch the distinctive purr of Patrick’s Audi being started. A few seconds later, I hear it pull away from the curb, the engine’s sound fading as it drives away.
Before I can ask where he’s going, my mom throws the hose into the yard and shuts off the spigot. “Patrick took Henley home. Dinner is canceled. Get off my lawn.”
Fifty-two
Henley
“That wasn’t about you. You know that, right?”
From the corner of my eye, I see Patrick turn his head, giving me a quick look before refocusing on the road. “Not really. Those two have a long history of knocking the shit out of each other, and finding any excuse they can in order to do it.”
I know he’s right. Conner and Declan have never been close. Their relationship has always been complicated. When Conner slammed out of the house, Declan surged to his feet. “What the hell is his problem?” he says to no one in particular. “I was just trying to—“
I look at Patrick. “Can you take me home please?” I need to get out of here. I shouldn’t have come. “If not I can call a car.”
Patrick looks up at me, jaw tight, neck stiff. He looks angry and so much like his cousin that for a moment, I have a hard time breathing. Before he can answer me, Declan rounds the couch and charges down the hall, muttering something about someone being a fucking crybaby.
I don’t realize I’m following him until I’ve got my hand on the back door knob and I feel Patrick’s hand close around my arm. “Don’t go out there,” he says, pulling me back. “Come on,” he says, giving my arm a gentle tug when the punches start flying. “I’ll take you home.”
Thinking about what happened, I know he’s right. Conner’s issues with his brother go further than me. But he’s also wrong.
“Declan never liked the fact that Conner and I were together.” This is the first time I’ve ever acknowledged the fact that Conner and I were anything more than friends to anyone but Tess. “He didn’t think I was pretty enough. I was a prudish, dirt poor bookworm his brother had to hide so he wouldn’t catch shit from his friends about dating.” I face angled away from him, so I don’t have to look at him when I say it. “He was right. I was all of those things.”
“Con’s never been one to care about what others had to say about him.” He didn’t try to lie. Tell me that I was overreacting. That no one would’ve cared if they’d known we were together. I appreciate it as much as I’m hurt by it.
“That’s because he was Conner Gilroy.” I turn my head a bit, catching sight of Patrick’s profile. “Gorgeous, popular, brilliant Conner Gilroy with his great family and perfect life. No one ever had anything bad to say.”
“And you didn’t want to be that something bad?”
That’s part of it, but if I’m being honest with myself, it was because I was selfish. I didn’t want to break the spell he was under. I was afraid if people knew, they’d eventually start to whisper about it loud enough to intrude on the bubble we existed in. That Conner would wake up and look at me and see what everyone else saw. He’d realize they were right.
I don’t say any of that though. “We didn’t belong together. We still don’t.”
“Then why are you here?”
Because I wish we did. I want us to.
“I don’t know.” I don’t know what else to say. How to explain something I don’t even fully understand myself.
Pulling into the portico in front of my building, Patrick shifts into park before turning to look at me. “About a year or so after you left, Conner disappeared.” He looks conflicted like he’s telling me something he shouldn’t. “He told his mother he was going to the library, walked out the door and that as it. He was gone for three days. No one knew where he was. He didn’t call. He was just gone.”
“But he came back…” My heart is hammering against my ribcage, my mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton. I don’t know why. It was years ago. Obviously, Conner came home. He’s fine. “Where did he go?”
Patrick shakes his head. “He never said, but when he came home, he wasn’t Conner anymore. At least not the Conner he was when he left.”
Before I can say anything else, the passenger door is opened from the outside. My doorman's hand appears to help me out the car. “Thank you for driving me home.” I offer Patrick a polite smile. “I’ll have your shirt cleaned and bring it to the library when you come into volunteer.”
“Keep it,” he says, returning my smile. Whatever he was trying to tell me is gone. His frustration dissipated. “I’ve got about a hundred of them.” He shifts into drive. “You did good today. You should come to the game next Sunday. We can always use another coach.”
“I’d like that.” I smile again before allowing my doorman to help me to my feet, moving to shut the door but he stops me before I can.
“There’s no such thing as perfect, yo
u know,” he says, his gaze aimed straight ahead. “Not for anyone.” Before I can answer him, he turns to look at me and smiles. “Goodnight, Henley.”
“Goodnight, Patrick,” I say, stepping away from the curb. The car door is shut, and he drives away.
I take a shower, taking more time that I needed to scrub my face and wash my hair. I have to fight with myself to not follow up with my usual regime of skin lotion and face crème from my dermatologist. Looking at my reflection in the mirror, I feel myself start to panic. It’s only been a few days, and my freckles are already starting to darken. Like the girl I used to be is slowly sneaking up on me.
Turning away from my reflection, I throw my hair into a quick braid and pull on a pair of yoga pants and another sweater.
Jeans and yoga pants in one day.
My mother would die.
Rooting around in the fridge for something that might pass as dinner, the landline on the counter starts to ring. I ignore it. The only person who calls me on it is the concierge. He calls every time he sees me heading up to my apartment. I think it freaks him out that I don’t have him running around, stepping and fetching for me. A few seconds later my cell starts to ring along with it.
Weird.
Reaching for my cell, I turn it over to see Conner’s name flash across the screen, and I answer it.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Daisy—you want to answer your phone and tell the desk monkey down here to let me up?”
“What?” I look at the landline, still ringing. “You’re downstairs?”
“Sure the fuck am,” Conner says. “And I want to come up.”
Fifty-three
Conner
What the fuck am I thinking? What the fuck am I doing here? Coming here is the emotional equivalent to dousing myself with gasoline and striking a match. It’s like I want her to hurt me. Reject me. Make me feel like shit.
