Lust Is the Thorn

by Jen McLaughlin

  There was no arguing that he had improved in those areas.

  But he didn’t even remotely resemble the boy he’d once been. There was no laughter in his life, no joy, no spontaneity. It was as if he were on autopilot, living the life he thought he should, and that was all he ever did with himself. The accident hadn’t just taken Mikey’s life. It had taken Thorn’s, too.

  And it had left another man in his place.

  “What’s it like, being a deacon at Saint Paul’s?”

  He let out a breath, staring at the fire. “I love it. I’m not a priest yet, so I don’t do all the stuff Father Marco does, but I get to give the homily sometimes, and I’ve stood at his side for a few baptisms and weddings.”

  “Have you heard any confessions yet?”

  Shaking his head, he kept his focus straight ahead. His profile was hard. Unyielding. “No. Not until I take my vows.”

  “That would be my favorite part of the whole priest thing. Hearing everyone else’s juicy secrets.”

  He laughed again, his features softening. “No big shocker, there. You’ve always loved gossip. I’d rather hear your secrets, though.”

  Oh, I bet you would. “Do you ever think about that night?”

  “Which night?” he asked quietly, watching the flames. “You’ll have to be more specific than that.”

  “The night.” I gave him a sidelong glance. “You know what night I’m talking about.”

  His jaw flexed, and he reached behind us for his glass. After setting it down beside him, he grabbed my empty one and the bottle of wine. He filled it, handed it off, and picked up his own. Then he said, “Every night before I go to sleep, and every morning before I open my eyes. About three times a day in between, sometimes more. It haunts me. He haunts me. He’s why I am who I am today.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. That was an insane amount of thought to devote to such a tragic night. “Why?”

  “How much do you know about that night?” he asked, frowning at the fire.

  His profile was half lit, half in shadows, and I couldn’t help but think that was a lot like his life. And I knew which side I belonged on.

  “You guys were out partying, and Mikey drove drunk.” I swallowed hard and pressed the glass to the ring on my lip. It clanked lightly. “When you guys crashed into the tree, he was ejected from the car, and you weren’t. You lived, he didn’t. I think that’s all I need to know, really.”

  A small sound escaped him, but I couldn’t define what it was. A groan? A moan? A grunt? It was a sad sound, whichever one it was.

  That much I knew.

  “Why are you asking me what I know?” I asked hesitantly. “Is there something I should know that I don’t?”

  He sat there, not speaking. I waited patiently, knowing sometimes he liked to just sit there silently. Thinking. When he was ready, he’d talk. He always did. After a few minutes of silence, he sighed. “Yes.”

  “Okay….” I stiffened. “What is it?”

  “It was the night my whole life changed, just like it changed yours.” He gripped his wineglass tightly, even though he still hadn’t taken a sip. “When he died…he didn’t die instantly. We talked for a minute or two. I don’t know how long. I promised him things, and one of them was that I would change my life for the better. Be better. That’s what I’m trying to do now. What I’m trying to tell you: It was my fault he died, so I—”

  “No.” I slammed my good hand down on my thigh. My hurt wrist was much better, but still ached too badly to be abused. “No, it wasn’t. You can stop that nonsense right now. Right fucking now.”

  He took an uneven breath and ran a hand down his face, never taking his attention off the fire. “You don’t understand. It was my fault. I was—”

  My throat ached and my eyes stung. Knowing Mikey had lived after flying from the car and suffering that much pain—it was too much. I didn’t want to know that, just like I didn’t want to know why Thorn said he was to blame for Mikey’s death when he hadn’t been the one driving the car. I was probably better off not knowing.

  It wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t bring Mikey back.

  “I refuse to discuss this any further.” I finished off my wine, setting it down a little harder than necessary on the wood floor. “I don’t want to know any more. I know enough. Believe me, I see enough of it in my head. Rehashing it won’t do either one of us any good. If you feel you have some sort of blame for that accident, then whatever. Feel guilty, if that’s what you want. But there’s no changing what happened that night, no matter how horrible you feel for whatever it is you think you did, so I suggest you move on instead.”

  “You make it sound so easy.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He set down his untouched glass of wine, but didn’t take his attention off the fire. Didn’t look at me. “It’s not. I replay it in my head constantly.”

  “That’s not healthy.” I rested a hand on his hard back. “You need to let it go.”

  “I can’t.” He locked eyes with me, his nostrils flared. “That night is what makes me me.”

  “But it can’t be all of you. There has to be more.”

  He didn’t say anything to that. Just turned his head and stared straight ahead.

  “I still talk to him,” I whispered, tucking my hair behind my ear with a trembling hand. “Alone at night, in my room, no matter where I’m sleeping. I pretend he’s there, listening to me. Helping me.”

  A sad smile slipped onto his face, and he tapped his foot on the floor, staring down at it as it moved. “Me, too. Sometimes I like to pretend he answers me, through prayer.”

  “I don’t pray,” I managed to get out. “Not since Mikey died. I’m not sure if I ever believed in it, anyway. Not really. Not like you did.”

  Finally, he turned away from the fire and faced me. The torment I saw in his expression, in the tight line of his jaw, punched the breath out of me. “That’s my fault, too.”

  “Not everything is your fault, Thorn,” I said quietly, wrapping my arm around my knee again to keep my hands at bay. Having one out of commission helped, but not much. “I don’t know if this is your thing now or whatever, but being a martyr is overrated. I swear, if you confess one more thing to me that’s ‘your fault,’ I’ll punch you in the nose—again.”

  He reached out and smoothed his knuckles across my cheek. Every time he did that, it made me tremble in ways that no other man had made me tremble. It wasn’t fair. It took him a while to speak. “It’s not being a martyr if you’re telling the truth. That night, I was the one—”

  “Stop. Please. Stop.”

  He growled in frustration. “I’m trying to tell you something—something I should have told you a long time ago.”

  My heart pounded, because I knew that whatever he was working up to, I wasn’t gonna like it. I was too pragmatic to think it would give me some kind of peace, knowing what he was about to say. Instead, it would rip another man away from me, because whatever he wanted to tell me would tear us apart. I sensed it. And I couldn’t live through the loss of a man I loved. Not again. The truth wouldn’t make Mikey come back, so it wouldn’t do either of us any good. Not this time. “I don’t want to hear it. Please. Just let it go. It was almost eight years ago. It’s time to move on.”

  He flexed his jaw. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. God, yes. Whatever it is you think you need to confess, I forgive you. Does that work?”

  He laughed. “No.”

  “Well, it should.” I rested a hand on his shoulder again. “There is nothing you could do that I wouldn’t forgive, given time. Nothing.”

  He swallowed hard. “Rose…you have no idea what you’re saying.”

  “Did—did Mikey suffer that night?”

  Thorn flexed his jaw and didn’t look at me. “No. He said it didn’t hurt at all, that he didn’t feel any pain. That’s when I knew that no matter how fast an ambulance came, it would be too late. He was going to die.”

  “God.
” I tried my best not to picture him lying there, covered in blood, the life slowly leaving his blue eyes….“God.”

  This time, Thorn rested a hand on my shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. “I’m so sorry, Rose. I wish it could have been me instead. It should have been me.”

  “Don’t say that,” I snapped, my lids flying open. I poked him in the chest. Hard. He didn’t even flinch. “Don’t you ever say that to me again, or I’ll grant your wish.”

  His nostrils flared, and he remained silent.

  “D-did he say anything about me?” I asked, already dreading the answer.

  “Yeah.” He swallowed. “He asked me to take care of you. That’s the only thing he said, after he told me he wasn’t in pain anymore. Your name.”

  I dropped my forehead to my knees, blinking away the stinging tears. “Damn it, Thorn.” Pain rolled through my body like a tidal wave, slowly spreading out until everything hurt. “Damn you.”

  He wrapped his arm around me and hugged me close. His touch was both comforting and painful. “I’ve been trying to take care of you, like he asked, but I failed. I think I fixed that.”

  “You didn’t fail me. Or him.” After taking a long, calming breath, I turned to him. His face was less than an inch from mine. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

  “I have an offer for you. I know you don’t like help, and I know you don’t need to be saved, but think before you answer it.” He trailed his thumb over my cheek. “Think of what Mikey would want.”

  I stiffened. “That’s not fair.”

  “Maybe not, but I can’t always play fair, can I?”

  I didn’t say anything. Just watched him.

  “I found a job for you.”

  “Excuse—?”

  He held a hand up, frowning at me. “Let me finish before you speak. It’s an office position, so it’s something you could do while your wrist heals. The morning of the day you got attacked, Father John told me that his office assistant in the admissions office on campus is retiring. She’s been there for forty years, so it is kind of a big deal. It’s not a position that opens up frequently.”

  I bit my tongue, holding back all the words that wanted to escape.

  “This isn’t a job that’ll open up again.” At my continued silence, he shoved his hand through his hair. “She was a survivor of an abusive relationship, so when Father John told her about you, and mentioned you were out of a job and homeless…it happened organically from there.”

  I gripped my knee, my pulse racing. “And he got the idea to talk to her from—?”

  “Me. I won’t deny it.” He dropped his hand to mine, covering it. “The job is yours, if you want it, sight unseen. It’s forty hours a week, with benefits and a 401k, and you’ll never have to worry about job stability again. You could have your new start. The one you’ve been fighting for ever since you walked out of your house at eighteen.”

  I stared at him, struck speechless again. He was making a bad habit of doing that to me—catching me offguard with his altruistic actions. “But…I…I don’t have any experience. Literally. None. I’ve never worked in an office before.”

  “They know that.” He cupped my cheek and smiled at me tenderly. He’d been doing that a lot lately, too. Looking at me as if I mattered to him, when we both knew I shouldn’t. “They’re okay with that. When Loretta started, she was fresh out of an abusive relationship with her ex, and she had nowhere to go. No one to talk to. Father John found her sleeping on a bench outside the admissions office, and he offered her a job later that day after hearing her story. It’s what the church is all about. What Father John does. He offers people like us second chances. Help. Love. Acceptance. He did that for me, and now it’s your turn. Your chance.”

  God, he made it so easy to accept this offer. For the first time in forever, I actually wanted to accept help. This was it. This was the chance I was waiting for. The moment when instead of fighting tooth and nail to get a step ahead of the crowd, a cab had stopped and picked me up, leaving the crowd behind me. All I had to do was grab it. And despite Thorn’s underhanded way of using Mikey against me, there was no question what he would have wanted for me. He’d want me to take the damn job.

  I licked my lips, staring at Thorn with wide eyes. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say yes.” He caught my hand in his. “Say you’ll take it.”

  I opened my mouth to say that exact thing, but only a squeak came out.

  He let me go, stood, and paced away. “Actually, before you answer…There’s more, and I don’t want to hear one single complaint about it.” Thorn picked up his wine and downed it in one gulp. My jaw dropped, because he had barely touched a drop of booze all weekend, and that shock was enough to buy my silence as he finished. “I got you a place to live. Put down a deposit on it and everything. I know your credit is shot, so it’s in my name, but it’s yours. It’s only a few blocks from campus.”

  My eyes narrowed, and my heart beat so hard that it echoed in my ears. It was like I was stuck in some sort of twilight zone where I no longer had control over, well, anything. Not my life. Not my body. Not even my job. He knew how I would react to him literally taking over my life and just arranging the pieces to his satisfaction.

  And he’d done it anyway.

  I stood up and took a step toward him, anger finally bringing back the words I had been swallowing for five minutes now. “Excuse me? Because I must be hearing things. It sounds like you just said you picked out a place for me to live without consulting me…after you also procured a job for me, again without asking me.”

  “Yeah.” He set his glass down with a steady hand. Everything about him was steady. His eyes. His frown. His position. His stubbornness. The way he flexed his jaw and tipped his head back, staring down at me like he had it all figured out, and I just had to be a good little girl and fall in line with his plans. “You heard me correctly.”

  “I’m not living in an apartment you paid for. No. Hell no.” I poked him in the chest. Hard. “I’m not some little doll you can put in place.”

  He caught my fingers, trapping them in his. “I never said you were.”

  “And yet here you are, arranging my life for me.” I tried to yank free, stumbling backward. “I won’t live in that apartment. You can kiss my ass.”

  His jaw hardened. “Yeah, well, I paid for it already, as well as the first month’s rent. Nonrefundable. So you’re going to go there, and live there, because I already paid for it up front. And you’re going to like it.”

  “The hell I am,” I shot back, anger mixing with gratitude and that stupid hope that had never died making my vision blurry all over again. I snatched my hand back, hiding it at my side so he didn’t touch me again. When he touched me, all my thoughts got incoherent. “You wasted your money for nothing. In case you forgot, Gallaghers don’t take charity. Not even from you. I’ll take the job, and I’ll do my best to be good at it, but I’ll be damned if I’ll live in your apartment like some freeloader.”

  He caught my chin and turned my face up to his, his grip unyielding yet somehow gentle. I tried to back away, but he didn’t let go. “I can’t get it back, and I didn’t waste my money on something you’d refuse because you’re too proud to accept help from someone who cares about you. You’ll take the apartment, and you’ll—”

  “That’s not what this is.” I slapped his hand away and stumbled backward, hitting the wall. His hand hovered in the air. “This is about you assuaging your guilt over something that happened a long time ago. Well, guess what? You’ve paid your debt. You’ve watched over me like a good little boy, and your job is done.”

  “The hell it is,” he growled, slamming his body against mine. “This isn’t for Mikey, or for my heavy conscience. It’s for you.”

  The sharp edges of the stone wall surrounding the fireplace dug into my back, but that pain was nothing compared to the exquisite torture of having his body pressed against mine. “Bullshit. This has nothing to do with me.”


  “Believe it or not, I care whether you live or die, freeze or starve. I care whether you have a place to stay, or warm arms wrapped around you lovingly as opposed to hitting you. I care about your life. Your choices. Your happiness. I’m willing to bet on you. To give you everything I can.” He lowered his face to mine, stopping just short of our noses touching. “Is that such a bad thing?”

  Yes. God, yes, it is. “You shouldn’t have spent your money on me,” I said, my voice breathy. “I don’t want it.”

  “It’s my money, so I can spend it how I want.” He sucked in a breath, too, his gaze dipping south to my mouth. “I choose to spend it on you. I choose you.”

  “Thorn…” I slid a hand between us, resting it against his chest, because if he came any closer, our lips would touch. And we both knew why that couldn’t happen. “I never asked you to do that. To choose me.”

  “And you never would. That’s not who you are.”

  “I know.” I licked my lips. “But yet, you’re asking me to do that very thing.”

  “Maybe that’s not fair. Maybe that makes me a jerk.” He cradled my face, his touch as gentle as his voice was hard, and pressed his body fully against mine. It was then, in that moment, that I realized his voice wasn’t the only thing about him that was hard. “But you’re all I have, Rose, and no matter what you say or think, I was the reason you lost your brother. So now I choose to spend my money on giving you a second chance at life. It’s not charity. It’s family. And you’ll take it.”

  I swallowed hard and dropped my head back against the wall. “Damn you.”

  “I know.” His voice cracked on the last word, and he dropped his forehead to mine, inhaling deeply. “Let me do this. Let me help you. Let me…let me…”

  I didn’t know what he was going to say, but I let instinct guide me. I turned off my mind, fisted his shirt, and said, “Yes.”