Ever After (Dirtshine Book 3)

by Roxie Noir

  I’ve got regrets like a long, twisting waterslide. Easy to hop on and let them take you, out of control once you’re on. One leads to the next and the next, all the way down to the bottom.

  I should have insisted on driving Frankie. I shouldn’t have tried to ruin Gavin’s life. I should have stuck with rehab the first time I tried it.

  I shouldn’t have offered Allen his first snort.

  I shouldn’t have handed him the needle that killed him.

  I take another slug, and another. After enough I stand, stumble fully clothed to bed where I drift in and out of consciousness, half-awake dreams haunted by a bridge and a train and a girl.

  She still doesn’t know, I think to myself reflexively every time I come awake again.

  She saved me, but I fucked it up again anyway.

  I feel like absolute shit the next morning, but I get on with my life because I’ve got to. Despite one hell of a hangover, when I walk into the pub at ten ’til three I can tell something is off right away just from the look John, the daytime barman, gives me.

  That is, he smiles at me. It’s strange and awkward and he’s clearly not used to doing it, so it’s puzzling as fuck. I stand there, in the doorway that leads back out to the alleyway, and wonder why the fuck John is smiling at me. Maybe he’s practicing to ask someone on a date.

  Thought he was married, though.

  I’m still wondering what’s got into John when the office door open. John looks at me again and smiles a little harder, the smile now beginning to look a little frightening and painful.

  “Liam,” calls Shelley, the woman who owns this place. “Need to talk to you.”

  She’s got a helmet of gray hair, a face that wouldn’t look out of place on a bulldog if bulldogs wore bright blue eyeshadow, and a voice that sounds like chains being dragged over gravel thanks to forty-odd years of chain smoking.

  Sheila is also an absolute fucking angel. She’s an old friend of Harry’s — neither has ever said how they know each other, exactly, so the story has got to be good — and the only person I could find willing to hire a dissolute addict with no money and no skills who’d just finished his third stint in rehab.

  “What is it?” I ask, leaning against a wall.

  She jerks her head back into the office.

  “In here,” she rasps.

  My heart drops, because Sheila’s never needed to talk to me in the office before. When I accidentally dropped a full of bottle of Laphroaig the second week I worked here, she had no problem chewing me out in front of John, the customers, God, and everyone.

  It’s about the scene last night. It’s got to be.

  “All right,” I say, and follow her into the tiny, messy office.

  The desk is stacked with papers. There are cases of liquor stacked up against one wall, and three precarious-looking filing cabinets against the other. There’s no computer, because Sheila doesn’t believe in the things, and the whole room reeks of second-hand smoke.

  “Sit,” she croaks.

  I sit on one side of the industrial wooden desk, nerves jangling, as I spin through every possibility I can think of.

  Someone’s been stealing and she thinks it’s me. No, she wants me to snitch on whoever’s doing it.

  The pub’s shutting down. I’m out of a job.

  She’s selling the place.

  She’s finally got lung cancer and she’s telling me she’s got six months to live.

  She’s going to ask if I’ll sign her nephew’s drum kit and turn up at his birthday party.

  Admittedly, that last one isn’t terribly dire.

  Sheila heaves herself into a steel office chair that groans under her weight, then squeaks when she leans forward. The fluorescent light in the office doesn’t do the deep lines in her face any favors, and she sighs dramatically, her yellowed nails tapping an uneven rhythm on the desk blotter for a few long seconds.

  “What is it?” I finally ask, because I can’t stand it anymore.

  “Jaysus, woman, get it over with,” Sheila mutters to herself.

  Then she straightens, picks up an envelope, and hands it to me, her eyes watching my face.

  “Sorry,” she says.

  I take it slowly. I don’t want to. Nothing good has ever come from opening an unmarked envelope, but it’s not as if I’ve got a choice. I tear into the thing and pull out two slips of paper.

  A paycheck and a termination notice. I stare at it in silence, a fist squeezing my heart in my chest.

  “What the fuck?” I finally say. “If I’m doing something wrong you can’t come and fucking speak with me about it?”

  “It wasn’t up to me,” she says, looking at her hands. “Liam, I’m—”

  “Don’t fucking give me that,” I say, my voice rising. “You own the place outright, it’s not as if you’re answerable to a board of supervisors.”

  “The Winsteads own the building,” she says, her gravelly voice low.

  The Winsteads. Fuck.

  “I own the business, but I lease the building itself from them, because they own this block and the next and the next and most of the fucking town, you know,” she says, holding up one hand palm-out to shut me up.

  “It was that fucking prick Alistair,” I say, my breath leaving my body in a rush.

  “Yeah,” she confirms, sounding defeated. “I don’t know what exactly you did, Liam, but the boy’s in a state.”

  I get to my feet and start pacing, though the office is so small I can only get about a step and a half before I turn around.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I say. “It’s not a crime to be nice to a girl who comes in for a drink to escape her wretched boyfriend.”

  “I heard fiancé,” Shelley says. “That’s not all I heard.”

  “I didn’t fucking touch her.”

  She laughs humorlessly.

  “If that’s your defense it’s a lost cause,” she says. “Everyone fucking knows, Liam.”

  “Knows what?” I say, gesturing wildly with the envelope, still in my hand. “Knows that we speak sometimes? Knows that we sometimes converse over beers?”

  Sheila just snorts.

  “Everyone knows you’re over the moon for the American girl who’s already got a man,” she says. “Look, Liam, I’ve got a friend who runs a bookshop in Dunburne, half an hour away from here, and she’s got an opening for someone to keep the shop during—”

  “It’s a fucking lie,” I snarl. “Alistair Winstead’s a dimwit who’s got a prick the size of a birthday candle and the personality of a sickly badger, so of course he’s got to bully anyone who might have the wits to strike up a conversation with a girl he fancies, because otherwise she might be swept off her feet by someone who doesn’t look like an inbred rodent and who can talk about more than counting his money.”

  I turn, jerk the door open.

  “Liam,” Sheila says. “You’re not wrong about any of that.”

  “But let me guess, I’m still fucking fired?”

  She doesn’t answer, just looks at me, so I slam the door to the office and walk back through the bar. John’s still there, still trying to smile at me though it’s not going very well.

  “Hey, you all right, mate?” he asks.

  “Fuck off,” I snarl.

  For good measure, I slam the back door, too.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Frankie

  I don’t sleep that night. Alistair and I don’t say another word to each other, not in the back of the limousine he insisted we take, not after the driver drops us off at the front entrance of the mansion.

  He’s just drunk, I tell myself. He’s drunk, and I’m sure that staying this long with his family has taken its toll on him as well.

  He’s not really like this, he’s just like this right now.

  I spend hours lying awake, trying to convince myself of it. I remind myself of the time he took me to Coney Island for my birthday, of the carriage ride around Central Park, of when he proposed six months ago at a rest
aurant high above Manhattan with a thousand-dollar bottle of champagne.

  But even though I know there were good times that weren’t about money, I can’t think of any right now. Every time I try my brain slips to him, shaking the glass, snapping his fingers. Smashing it on the floor like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

  And I think I know what he’ll say tomorrow, sober, when I try to talk to him about it.

  Darling, I’m so sorry, I thought you’d enjoy a night out at a pub, just the two of us.

  I just love you so much I can’t stand the thought of you coming here alone and talking to someone else.

  I know I behaved a bit badly, you have as well, you know.

  When the sun comes up, my stomach is still in knots.

  I don’t want to leave my suite that morning. If I could, I’d avoid Alistair forever, avoid his family, just go back home to New York and wait for all this awfulness to blow over.

  But I can’t. No matter how awful he was last night, my parents did raise me right and I can’t just stay at someone else’s house and completely ignore them. I’m here as a guest of the Winsteads, and whatever it is they think of me, I have to be polite.

  Alistair doesn’t, though. He’s not at breakfast, he’s nowhere to be found midmorning. Elizabeth kicks my ass at tennis and he doesn’t even show up to tell her how much better she is than me.

  He’s not at lunch. Not at tea. I’m starting to wonder if he’s dead, or if maybe he’s gone back to New York without telling me and simply left me here alone with his family. If he had, and they all knew, someone would tell me, right?

  I’m not sure they would. His mother and sister don’t say a word to me if they don’t think it’s necessary. I’m sure Elizabeth only deigned to play tennis with me this morning because she knew she could kick my ass, and she enjoyed it.

  “It’s so lovely that you try,” she told me once our match was over.

  I have no response.

  Finally, before dinner, dressed in my last dinner outfit before I have to start repeating dresses, I find Eunice in the hall outside his suite and ask her if he’s been out of his room all day.

  “I believe he’s in the study right now, Miss,” she says, ducking her head slightly. “He’s been in there for some time.”

  I blink.

  “Oh, thank you,” I say. “I didn’t realize he’d... never mind. Thanks, Eunice.”

  She looks amused at the double thank-you, and I turn, walking down the hallway.

  I don’t know what I’m about to say. I’m nervous, so nervous I’m sweating, and I’ve spent my day practicing a thousand things that I could say but I’m not sure which is the right one.

  Is it please don’t embarrass me anymore?

  Is it we need to have a serious discussion about our future?

  Is it I barely recognize you like this?

  I stand in front of the study door, stock-still. I don’t move for a whole minute, then two, memorizing the wood grain pattern because I have a sick, heavy feeling in my stomach.

  It’s the feeling that talking might not be working. Alistair keeps saying one thing and then doing another, and at what point do I stop caring what he says?

  I hate it. I hate the thought that talking might not work, because what then? I’ve come into adulthood with the idea that reasonable discussions are how grownups fix things between themselves, and if that’s not true, I’m not sure what is.

  One more conversation, I tell myself. Just give him that.

  I knock on the study door. Silence. Eunice must have been wrong, but I knock one more time, just in case. I’ve come this far, I can’t back down now.

  Within, there’s a distinct shuffling sound. A whisper, and then — clear as day — there’s a giggle.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I turn the knob on the door but it’s locked.

  “Sorry, a moment,” Alistair’s voice calls out.

  There’s another long pause, and I wish desperately for x-ray vision. I feel like an idiot and an asshole standing out here in the hallway. Finally, after ages, the knob is unlocked and the door opens to Alistair, already dressed for dinner, an annoyed expression on his face.

  He rearranges it the moment he sees it’s me.

  “Françoise,” he says, his pale eyes giving me a quick up-and-down. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Behind him, someone stands from a chair and walks toward us.

  Bridget, and right away I know that I should be suspicious and jealous and maybe even angry that they were locked in the study together, but I can’t summon up any of those feelings. At best, I’m mildly annoyed.

  “Hi, Françoise,” she says, tilting her head prettily to one side. “Alistair was just showing me some of his old family albums. I’ve been bothering Lizzie to show me for months, but she’s just never gotten around to it.”

  Sure, I think. I have no idea whether she’s lying or not, but I’m having a hard time caring right now.

  Bridget smirks. Her mouth makes a shape that she probably thinks is attractive, but looks like a bill, and she wipes below her lower lip with one thumb.

  “Do you mind if Alistair and I talk alone?” I ask in a tone of voice that indicates I don’t care whether or not she minds.

  “Of course,” she says, turning to Alistair. “See you at cocktails?”

  He smiles at her, but it’s hollow. His mind is somewhere else, and Bridget leaves. I shut the study door behind myself and cross my arms over my chest.

  “I don’t know what you’re being so unreasonable about, we were simply looking over old photographs and didn’t want the maid coming in,” he says.

  I’m taken by surprise, because I’ve been rehearsing something completely different to say to him, something about last night, about taking me into considerations sometimes when he does things.

  “What?” I ask.

  He’s suddenly uncertain, flicks his eyes over me again.

  “I can tell when you’re angry about something,” he says, but his voice is considerably less assured than it was even a moment ago. “And you’ve got no right.”

  I stare at him, caught off-guard. This is strangely unlike him, to go on the offensive when I want to talk. Usually he at least waits until I tell him what I want to say before dismissing me.

  “I came here about last night,” I say, slowly.

  Alistair pushes his floppy hair off his forehead, looks at me appraisingly. Then he sighs.

  “Yes, I apologize for drinking too much,” he says. “I was having a lovely night and I suppose I just wanted to keep it going with you.”

  I raise one eyebrow.

  “We haven’t gone on a proper date in ages, Françoise,” he says. “Just the two of us, alone. In New York we’ve always been with friends, your family, and of course here my parents and Lizzie are always around. I just wanted to get out of the house with you, alone, spend time together like we used to.”

  I’m honestly surprised. It’s almost exactly what I thought he’d say, and I’m not usually that good at predicting him. It’s still bullshit, though.

  Alistair studies my face. I’ve never been any good at hiding my emotions, but I have no idea what he’s finding there, so I have no idea what prompts him to go on.

  “And I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out you’ve not been behaving well either,” he says, his voice suddenly softer, but with a sharp edge. “Sneaking out at night and going to pub? Chatting up the barman when you’re out alone, by yourself?”

  I swallow, look away. It sounds so awful when he puts it like that.

  “I haven’t done a single thing wrong,” I whisper, tears quaking in my eyes.

  I’m angry. Furious, because who does he think he is? He was just in here, alone, door locked, with Bridget and I know she wants his balls.

  But he’s also right. I did that, and I kept telling myself how it wasn’t that bad which is the surest sign possible that I knew I was doing something bad.

  “No?” he asks
. “That bloke really does work at a flower shop, then?”

  “You smashed a glass on the floor!”

  “I pay for you to come here, stay with my family, in my home—”

  “I haven’t done shit and you know it, Alistair—”

  “—Only for you to sneak around behind my back—”

  “—You rescheduled flights without telling me, you act like I’m your pet for fuck’s sake—”

  “—And lie to my face about it?”

  “You were just in here with Bridget with the door locked!”

  Now I’m crying, hard, stomach roiling, hands balled into fists at my sides. I was right about what he’d say and I completely hate it. He’s done the same thing he always does, take my words and explain why they’re wrong. Why he’s right, he’s noble, he’s a good man for putting up with my constant bullshit.

  Only this is worse than usual, the lens that’s suddenly letting me see all the times he’s done this. It’s a pattern, repeating, and I have a horrible, crystal-clear moment of clarity.

  This is going to be my life. Constantly apologizing for what he’s done.

  I stand there, tears rolling down my face, feet planted on the floor. I’m just staring at him, his hands in his pockets, looking smug and comfortable as always.

  And I don’t know what to do. I’m tired of talking to him, I’m tired of trying to make myself heard. Every time I try I just end up apologizing, and I know I’m not perfect, but I’m also pretty sure that I’m not entirely at fault.

  I wonder how much he’ll get his way. I wonder how much I’ll give in to this tactic, whether I’ll end up moving to England, living here, being miserable. I wonder if I’ll finally acquiesce to getting rid of my career and being a housewife who runs the estate.

  “Darling,” he says, and there’s tenderness in his voice but I don’t think it’s real. I’m not falling for it. “I do wish you’d just let me make you happy.”

  I can’t even talk to him, I realize. Not even that one small thing.

  I clear my throat.

  “I don’t feel well,” I say. “Could you please tell everyone that I won’t be at cocktails or dinner?”