by Zara Keane
Luca emerged from the mass of children. He looked unimpressed to see her. “Where’s my dad?”
“I told you, pet.” Ms. O’Brien beamed at him, unperturbed by his surly attitude. “Your dad can’t collect you today. Olivia will babysit you for the next few hours.”
Luca’s gaze was trained on a point past Olivia’s shoulder.
“Eye contact,” whispered Miss O’Brien.
The boy ignored her. “What will we do all afternoon? I don’t want to bake again. It’s getting boring.”
Olivia gave him an ineffectual pat on the shoulder. “We’ll figure something out. Do you have your coat?”
His eyes never leaving the mysterious point past her left shoulder, Luca fetched his jacket from a low peg in the cloakroom. Olivia helped him to do up the zip while Ms. O’Brien located his shoes. Hopefully his wariness would ease off over the course of the afternoon.
Ms. O’Brien handed her the little boy’s school bag. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Luca. Have fun with Olivia.”
Luca and Olivia slid one another dubious glances, his eyes skimming past hers for a second. Fun…for four hours? The drive back to Ballybeg would take thirty minutes, give or take, leaving a good couple of hours before it was time to bring him home. It had been a long time since she’d babysat a small child. When her brothers were young, she’d followed their lead and figured it out as she went along.
But this kid was different. He came fully formed with a preprogrammed agenda and set ideas but wasn’t always the best at communicating his expectations. Olivia swallowed a sigh. She’d agreed to look after the child, and she’d follow through.
They exited the building and paused on the pavement. Drops of rain had started to fall. “So…what would you like to do today, Luca? Play a game? Read a story? Eat a snack?” Her mouth stretched into a rictus of a smile. The options she’d reeled off sounded lame even to her ears. Judging by the expression on his face, Luca found them equally uninspired.
“Are we going back to Ballybeg?” he demanded.
It hadn’t occurred to her to do otherwise. But come to think of it, it might be easier to keep him entertained in the city than in Bridie’s ornament-crammed house. Until Liam O’Mahony and his crew had a chance to convert the cottage’s loft into a temporary apartment, she was still availing herself of Bridie’s hospitality.
Olivia scanned her surroundings. A brightly colored plastic sign caught her attention. Playland: A Paradise for Children of All Ages. Perfect. With a bit of luck, it was also a sanctuary for desperate babysitters. “Have you been to Playland before?”
Luca eyed the colorful sign warily and shook his head.
“Come on. Let’s give it a go.” She took his hand in hers. It felt small, warm, and suspiciously sticky. They crossed the street and pushed open the bright green door.
Inside, Playland was more reminiscent of purgatory than paradise. Oppressive heat, clashing colors, and the cacophony of a hundred squealing children. And if the stench was anything to go by, there was a plumbing problem in the bathrooms. Well, feck. To think she’d forked over twenty-five euros for this hellhole…
She exhaled through clenched teeth and attempted to let go of Luca’s hand. “Let’s take off your jacket and shoes. Why don’t you try out that climbing frame? The winding slide at the top looks cool.”
Luca clung to her hand with a vise-like grip. This did not bode well.
She tried again. “The sliding tube might be fun. Or the bouncy castle?”
The little boy shook his head.
“Come on, Luca. You have to try something.” She tugged down the zip of his jacket and hung it by the entrance. His shoes came next. He placed them neatly underneath the coat. “See?” she said with determined cheer. “You’re all set to play.”
“I wanna go home,” he said. “It’s too loud.”
“We’ve already paid. Let’s try to have fun. There’s got to be something here you like.”
The kid scanned the room. “I guess that climbing wall looks okay.”
“Fantastic. You go on up, and I’ll take a photo with my phone to send your dad. Sound good?”
Luca shrugged. “I suppose.” Looking like a convicted man on the way to meet his executioner, he took a cautious step toward the climbing wall. Bracing himself, he began his ascent, careful and deliberate.
“You’re doing great,” she called, standing back to get a good shot. “Your dad will be so proud.”
Everything was fine until he reached the second to last rung. He froze, hanging there suspended, neither moving up nor down. Aw, feck. She shoved her phone into her pocket and battled her way through hordes of children.
“What’s wrong with him?” demanded a pug-faced girl of around seven. “Why isn’t he moving?”
“I don’t know,” Olivia said. “Maybe he’s afraid.”
Pug-Face wrinkled her flat nose. “He’s a scaredy cat.”
“We’re all scared of something, kid. Now move your ar—bum and let me get through.” She reached the bottom of the climbing wall. Her charge hadn’t moved a millimeter. “Come on, Luca,” she shouted in what she hoped was an encouraging tone. “Climb down a bit, and I’ll lift you down the rest of the way.”
The boy didn’t so much as twitch a muscle, never mind move. He was chanting something under his breath, half moan, half prayer. Sweat beaded beneath the collar of her blouse and underneath her arms. Desperation and central heating were doing a number on her. She stretched up, but he was too high to reach. Being short was wretched. Not even her four-inch heels added sufficient height.
“Luca, you can’t stay up there all afternoon. There’s a queue of kids behind you waiting to use the slide. You need to either climb up to the platform and slide down or reverse.”
No response, not even a flicker of movement. The chanting grew louder. Drat. What was she to do?
“He’s a right thicko,” Pug-Face said with sufficient volume to reach Luca and half the Playland clientele. “We’ve got one in my class. He goes to special ed.”
“He’s not thick,” Olivia said through gritted teeth. “He’s scared.”
Pug-Face was unimpressed. “He’s bloody thick. Why’s he moaning like that?”
“Piss off and play,” snapped Olivia. “You’re not helping the situation.”
More and more children began complaining about the blocked access to the slide, the sea of disgruntled little faces growing ever wider. The noise was driving her to the edge. How many kids did they squeeze into this joint, anyway? There had to be a hundred brats clamoring for Luca to move. Okay, maybe a hundred was an exaggeration, but there were enough to make her vow to get her tubes tied at the earliest opportunity.
At the top of the ladder, Luca remained resolutely still.
“Right. Guess I’ll have to join him.” She kicked off her heels and yanked her pencil skirt up her thighs. Had she known scaling a kid’s climbing wall would be on today’s agenda, she’d have worn jeans. The last of the queuing children reluctantly cleared a path for her.
The first part was easy. But the higher she climbed, the clearer it became that the grips in the wall were designed for hands and feet far smaller than hers. After a few embarrassing missteps, she overtook Luca and pulled herself up onto the small platform separating the climbing wall from the slide.
“Give me one of your hands,” she said, panting.
Luca hesitated, then slowly reached a tentative arm up.
“Good boy. And now the other.”
She hauled the child up beside her. He sat rigid on the wooden platform, hands over ears, his incessant chanting a monotonous mantra. “Luca, we’re going to have to go down the slide. You know that, don’t you? We can’t sit up here all day. There are kids waiting.”
“Get down, you moron,” Pug-Face shouted, pudgy arms folded over her fluorescent pink T-shirt. “I want a turn.”
“Yeah,” yelled another kid. “Stop making that stupid noise and slide down.”
“Why does he
have his hands over his ears?” a small girl asked in confusion. “If his singing’s too loud for him, why doesn’t he stop?”
“Because he’s a thicko,” Pug-Face repeated smugly. “Even if he doesn’t have a flat face like the one in my class.”
“Jaysus, girl,” Olivia snapped. “You’re one to talk. Take a look in the mirror before criticizing another kid.”
Pug-Face’s lower lip quivered. “Mammy, did you hear what she said to me?”
A woman with electrocuted bleach-blond hair and an orange spray tan materialized by the girl’s side. She gawked up at Olivia. “Did you just insult my Patsy?”
Olivia met her glare for glare. “Yes, I did. I’ve been trying to coax Luca down, and your Patsy’s constant taunting is not helping the situation.”
The woman crossed her arms over her leopard print chest in a pose to match her daughter’s. “I’ve raised her to speak her mind. If she doesn’t like someone, she should say so.”
“That’s all well and good, but not when she’s using it to make ableist comments.”
“What are you on about?” Leopard-Print stared at her. “You’re as thick as your kid. Shut him up and get him down. Patsy wants a turn.”
“He’s a thicko,” whined Pug-Face aka Patsy. “He needs to go to a home for spastics.”
“Did you hear what she said?” Olivia took Luca’s small hand in hers and glared at the girl’s mother. “Is this what you mean about Patsy being entitled to speak her mind?”
The woman’s Oompa Loompa face twisted in disgust. “He is a spastic, isn’t he? He’s not normal.”
Luca stiffened beside her, his small body going even more rigid than it had been before.
Olivia squeezed his hand. “Do you even know what spastic means, you daft woman? Because if you did, you’d know what you’re saying makes no damn sense.”
“Whatever he is, he belongs in a home.”
The taut thread of what was left of Olivia’s frayed patience snapped. “Patsy can bloody well wait. Luca and I are going to sit up here for as long as it takes. We’ll come down when we’re good and ready.”
With that, she put her hands over her ears and began to chant, mimicking Luca’s tone. The louder she got, the quieter the boy became. Finally he stopped altogether, his dark orbs meeting hers. It was the first time he’d initiated and maintained eye contact. The dark shade and almond shape of his eyes were identical to his father’s.
She gave him a smile. “You ready to slide down? You can sit on my lap.”
He dropped his hands from his ears and nodded.
At the bottom of the slide, a crowd of irate parents and children awaited. A beefy man wearing a bright yellow Playland T-shirt loomed over them. The embroidered label on his chest proclaimed him to be the manager of the establishment. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave. We can’t have one child disrupting everyone else’s fun.”
“Luca got scared,” she snapped, glaring up at the big man. “He didn’t set out to sabotage other people’s fun.”
“She insulted my Patsy,” whined the leopard print woman.
“Your Patsy needs to learn manners and tolerance. Calling people names isn’t a desirable character trait.”
“Ladies, please.” The Playland manager wore an exasperated expression. “You’re setting a terrible example for the children.”
“What crap,” Olivia said. “Most of them are behaving like feral beasts. I doubt we can set them a worse example.”
The manager’s face turned beet red. “It’s time you left.”
“I’ve been chucked out of classier places than this joint. Your clientele stinks and so do your bathrooms.” Olivia struggled to her feet and grabbed Luca’s hand. “Come on, kid. Let’s exit this hellhole.”
Chapter Sixteen
JONAS STOOD IN the hallway of his cottage, doubled up with laughter. “Playland?” he exclaimed between heaves. “Were you out of your mind? That place is a cesspit.”
Olivia wrinkled her gorgeous little nose. “It certainly smelled like one.”
His hand skimmed her shoulder when he took her coat and hung it on the makeshift coat stand next to Luca’s little jacket. Her sweet, musky scent teased his erogenous zones when she moved past him toward the living room.
“I’m going to bed,” Luca said, tearing off in the direction of his room and his beloved dino encyclopedia.
“Hey, wait a minute. Don’t I get a good night kiss?”
The boy jerked to a halt, hesitated, then turned back to plant a reluctant kiss on his father’s cheek.
“I’ll be in later to tuck you in, okay?”
Luca nodded. “Night, Dad. Night Olivia.”
“Sleep well, Luca,” Olivia said, but the boy was already disappearing into the sanctuary of his bedroom.
Jonas exchanged an amused glance with her. “He needs a bit of down time before sleep. A place like Playland isn’t ideal for a kid like him. Sensory overload.”
“His senses weren’t the only ones done in by that place and its clientele,” she said dryly. “It’s an interactive ad for contraception.”
He laughed and ushered her over to the sofa—tidy for once, thank feck. “I can’t believe you got yourselves thrown out of a children’s play center.”
Her dark blue eyes twinkled with merriment. “Laugh away, O’Mahony. I seem to recall you had quite a talent for getting us barred from places in our misspent youth.”
He grinned at the memory. “Just the once. And that was because the manager harassed you. Bry was as much to blame.”
They froze at the mention of his little brother’s name, the humor of the past few minutes evaporating in a millisecond.
“He was a good guy,” she said quietly, “and a good friend. I’m sorry for my part in what happened.”
“I…” He paused, grappling for the right words. “You know I don’t blame you. It was an accident.”
A flashback to that awful night hit him like a blow to the solar plexus. The memory of a wet, bedraggled, and terrified Olivia running toward him on the beach. The knowledge that he’d have been at the beach party earlier had it not been for his train from Dublin being delayed. The nagging doubt about whether or not his presence would have made any damn difference to the tragic outcome.
Her mouth trembled, and she pressed her hands to her lips. “I can’t remember which of us suggested swimming out to the rock that night. I think he did. He was so keen to impress me, still convinced I’d change my mind and date him instead of you. The warning flag was up on the beach, but we were too drunk to care. We’d raced one another to the rock so many times over the years. It never occurred to me that anything could go wrong.” She broke off on a sob and buried her face into her lap.
Jonas sank onto the sofa beside her and stroked her back. “We can play the what if? game for the rest of our lives. What if I’d taken an earlier connection? What if you and I had never hooked up the previous weekend in Tipperary and triggered Bry’s jealousy and competitiveness? What if the beach party had taken place the previous night when the water was calm? We can go over and over the possibilities until we drive ourselves mad. But there’s no point. Nothing can erase what happened.”
She raised her head and dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. “Bry drowned and I didn’t. It makes no sense. He was always the strongest swimmer of the three of us.”
“A case of shit happens, Olivia. For whatever reason, his time was up and yours wasn’t.” He routed in his pockets and produced a small packet of disposable children’s tissues. One trick he’d learned to master since Mam left on her cruise was to carry spare tissues at all times. He dabbed her face with it like he would for Luca, realizing his mistake when he observed her bemused expression. “Sorry. Force of habit.”
She reached for the tissue, her hand closing over his. “Thank you.”
He stared into her eyes, mesmerized by the swirls of emotion reflected. “Do you want to join me for a glass of wine?”
Her hesitation la
sted a heartbeat. “Why not?”
Jonas located two white wine glasses in the back of a kitchen cupboard and checked they were clean. He uncorked the bottle, poured, and brought the glasses back into the living room. “Here you are. Sláinte.”
He took a sip of his wine, watching how her pink lips touched the rim of her glass. Whatever lipstick she’d been wearing earlier had worn off, exposing their natural rosy hue. The urge to nibble them sent a surge of heat to his groin. He took a hasty gulp of wine, spluttering when it went down the wrong way.
“You okay?” Her brow creased in concern.
“I’m fine,” he gasped and took another sip.
“This wine is delicious.” She licked her luscious lips in appreciation. If she’d deliberately set out to torture him, she couldn’t have done a more effective job. “I like my wine crisp and dry but with a hint of fruit. I’m guessing wine experts would have a more eloquent way of describing it.”
He was more than willing to follow her lead and change the topic of conversation. “I’m no wine expert. But I know what I like when I taste it. Luca’s mother gave me a few tips. She’s a qualified sommelier.”
Olivia ran a fingertip around the rim of her glass. “I didn’t know that.”
He shrugged. “No reason you should.”
“Do you have much contact with her?”
“At the moment, none.” He swirled the rich golden liquid. “She just got married.”
“Ah,” she said with a grimace. “Awkward. How do you feel about it?”
“Indifference, but I feel bad for Luca. She didn’t even invite him.”
Her eyes widened in horror. “You’re not serious?”
“Alas, yes,” he said with a tinge of bitterness. “Some people aren’t cut out for parenthood.”
“No, some people aren’t. Something with which I’m all too familiar.” Her eyelashes fluttered down, and her cheeks were a most becoming tinge of pink.
Jonas didn’t know Olivia’s parents well, but they’d never made a good impression. They’d always been genial enough when he’d visited their house as a teenager, but distracted and self-absorbed. Olivia had rarely invited him and Bry round to her house, preferring to meet at theirs or on neutral territory. Funny how that realization had never occurred to him at the time.
