"I'd love to stay in this area, and size doesn't matter to me—"
"It should," Sam snickered, though he was summarily ignored.
"—and I'd love a bigger kitchen, something open and maybe an island. Lots of windows and natural light. Definitely a tub. I can't live without one." I shrugged. "But that's it. I can be flexible, and I'm not too picky."
"I'll see what I can do," he murmured.
Shannon launched into an analysis of every neighborhood in town, and she forwarded me listings from her phone while Matthew sat beside me, his hand on my thigh and his eyes never wavering.
Maybe that odd sensation was just me making space for him.
22
Matthew
Matthew: I'm in bunker hill for a few hours and then heading out around 7
Matthew: want to grab dinner?
Matthew: I can get take-out?
This was the game we played, the battle of wills we fought every day. Lauren was busy being busy and just once, I wanted her to come to me, and I wanted her to stay with me. We were closer after New Orleans, and slipping further into messy, complicated intimacy with each passing day. But for every obstacle we bested, two more stood in our path.
I stared at my phone, knowing it was fully charged and the reception in this part of town was impeccable, and flicked a glance at my watch. Twenty-five minutes. Sometimes I thought she read my texts but waited, letting some indiscernible amount of time pass before responding.
I told myself I could live with it, I could handle the need for distance that I knew she saw as self-preservation, but I was greedy and I wanted all of her. Especially today. After another run-in with my favorite inspector and Angus's most recent renditions of batshit crazy, I wanted an easy night with Lauren. But nothing was as easy as I wanted it, and Angus was making a lot of appearances these days. None of them pleasant.
He threw a crystal paperweight at Shannon three weeks ago, narrowly missing her and bringing down the glass wall separating her office from the interior workspaces. He didn't give a reason, and more than likely didn't have one.
There was surprise visit from state auditors the next week. They were following up on a tip about undocumented workers, and needed to see five years' worth of filings.
News of the lucrative brownstone sales finally made it his way, a month after the fact, and Angus showed up at the bank last week, requesting twenty grand in cash from our business account. He had his own account from back in the day, but bitched out a bank manager for access to our funds. He didn't get it, thankfully, but Shannon spent the following day smoothing things over with the bank.
We got word from a small-run community newspaper that the original Wellesley headquarters for Walsh Associates cleared escrow this week. They wanted us to comment on centralizing our operations at the Beacon Hill office, and Shannon managed a decent sound bite despite being blindsided by the news.
These were uncommonly public shows of the division within our family. He cared enough about his reputation and the firm's prominence to keep his assholery at home and under the radar, but between the bank and the office sale, things were taking a markedly external turn.
We later convened in her office, the five of us staring at each other, shrugging and shaking our heads in response to this turn of events. There were plenty of theories about why he sold the office and what he did with the cash and why his stunts were occurring with such frequency, but we attributed it to a new level of bastardhood and went back to work.
I wish I could say this wasn't typical Angus. I wish I could say his antics were the product of hitting the bottle too hard by all standards, but this was who he decided to be after my mother died: a violently angry man who seized every opportunity to share his rage.
Angus didn't break windows when we were younger, but in some ways he was worse then. One day while we were at school, not even six months after she died, he destroyed everything with any glimmer of my mother attached to it—pictures, clothes, even the little blankets she knit for Erin's crib. In his fucked-up, diluted world, we were to blame for her death, and though I hated hearing those words now, it didn't compare to the way they sounded when I was eight.
Another glance at my phone told me Lauren hadn't responded, and though I wanted to throw it across the fucking room, I tapped out a message. I was strung too tightly to play the game today.
Matthew: we've spent every one of the past 33 nights together. let's stop pretending I won't see you tonight. my place.
Standing between Patrick and Sam, I watched as Riley described his plan for the third of the four Bunker Hill restorations. His technical vocabulary wasn't precise and even his most detailed ideas sounded vague, but he was making progress and I needed my brothers to recognize that. Riley worked unbelievably hard at giving everyone the impression he didn't care, but I knew he did, and I knew he needed this walk-through to go well.
And thankfully, his fly was zipped.
"So we're moving this staircase," Riley said.
Sam paged through the designs and studied the exterior elevations. "Any thoughts on rain catchment? Have you considered a roof garden?"
"Would you shut up with the roof gardens? No. End of discussion," Patrick said.
Sam muttered something about Patrick needing mood-altering drugs and inspected the exposed studs and ductwork. "Can someone walk me through the insulation plan? I have less drafty tents than this structure, and this wall?" He pointed over his shoulder. "This wall is from the fifties or sixties. It's fucking criminal that we're not upgrading this. There's nothing special about it, and it's flimsy as fuck."
Riley flipped back several pages of design plans spread over a makeshift sawhorse desk and said, "This is what I'm thinking—"
"No one gives a shit what you're thinking, turnip. Don't waste my time with your stupid bullshit," Angus roared from the doorway. He stormed to the desk and slammed a two-by-four against the plans, missing Riley's fingers by an inch.
Patrick and I groaned in harmony, and I met his eyes with an exasperated headshake, my arms crossing over my chest as I assessed Angus. His formal wool coat and old-fashioned hat were out of place at the Bunker Hill construction site, and he looked small, bloated, and hunched. His silver hair poked out from his hat, disheveled, and his face red. He looked every one of his sixty-eight years, and if I had to guess, I'd say he spent the morning reminiscing with his old friend Johnnie Walker.
"This needs to stop," Patrick murmured.
No amount of new office space or glossy magazine spreads was changing Angus, or his sick fixation with fucking us over. Whether it was replacing windows or him stirring up trouble at job sites, we couldn't run a business like this much longer. Hell, I couldn't protect Lauren from it much longer.
Angus advanced on Sam. "What the fuck do you think you're doing here? You're not involved in this project, princess. I saw to it myself that you stayed as far away from this as possible."
I saw him for what he was—an abuser hungry for a fight—and unless we left right now, we weren't walking out of this house unscathed. I gestured to Patrick, and caught Riley by the elbow, but Sam was already in it.
"I know it's difficult for you to understand, Angus, but we work together on most builds."
"That's what they tell you?" Angus swung a glance at me and Patrick. "That's because they don't want to hurt your little feelings. They know you're selling snake oil. They know sustainability is for hippie queers who think slapping some solar panels on a roof makes you an architect."
We did not have time for this today. I stepped forward. "Angus—"
"Don't fuckin' Angus me. Not in the mood for your shit today, boy," he yelled, the lumber wagging in his hand. "You know he's an impostor. Tell the princess how you and Patrick have final say over his designs. Tell him how the contractors go to you with their problems because they know the princess can't answer them. Tell him that all he does is pick out fancy window dressings while everyone else covers for him."
Regardles
s of whether I handled all of Sam's structural analysis, I wasn't selling him out to Angus.
"No, he's not, and you have to—"
"Matt comes to your rescue now, princess? Always did need someone to rescue you. That whore never wanted you, but she spoiled you, turned you into one ripe mama's boy, and then your cunty sister picked up where the whore left off. Is that what did it? All those women, they turned you into this."
Angus waved the two-by-four at Sam's slim navy suit and sneered at his pink plaid Oxford, paisley tie, and pocket square.
"Or is it because you look like a little girl? And you dress up in faggoty colors because you like pretending you're a girl? Does your boyfriend like this? I bet he likes hearing all about the window dressings and solar panels, too."
"While this soliloquy is truly impressive, I don't see a point in listening much longer. Your information is inaccurate, and I've told you a hundred times, I'm not gay, and claiming I am is not an insult."
Angus stalked Sam. With every step he pushed one end of the two-by-four into Sam's chest until he hit a wall. Even hunched, Angus was still a bit bigger than Sam and the look in his eyes was pure hatred. Sam was in decent shape but he struggled with more medical issues than I could count—childhood diabetes, asthma, anxiety attacks, digestion problems—and I wasn't watching while Angus exacerbated any of it.
"You've never been good enough for my name, and you never will be. You're a liar, and an abomination, and hell's too kind for filth like you. You never should have been born. All these problems," Angus gripped Sam's wrist and twisted his medical alert bracelets, "were God's way of trying to erase his mistake."
Dropping Riley's elbow, I advanced on Angus. I grabbed the lumber, but he was stronger than I expected, and it smashed into my jaw. I staggered backward and heat rushed to my skin, the coppery flavor of blood spraying over my tongue.
"Who the fuck do you think you are? You, Mr. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mr. Big Shot Engineer. You're a fuckin' joke, just as bad as that faggotty-ass princess. You don't know the first thing about art or preserving history. You just know steel and concrete."
I cocked my head and rolled my eyes, ignoring the pain radiating from my jaw. I reminded myself to stay detached, and ignore the bait Angus dangled. "As always, it's great to see you too, but we have other properties to check today."
Gesturing to Sam and Riley, I stuffed the plans back in their canister and we moved toward the door where I could only hope to find some ice and plenty of beer.
"I hear you got yourself a girl. A pretty little blonde thing. Better watch yourself," he warned. "They're all whores. They lie and they cheat and they spread their legs the second you turn your back. Maybe I'll introduce myself to her."
The canister slipped from my fingers, bouncing against the plywood floor as I crossed the room in three strides and yanked Angus up by his lapels. Bile teased the back of my throat, and panic warred with rage in my veins.
"Don't you dare say a word about her. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about," I whispered, my words icy and quiet.
A disgusted scowl pulled at Angus's lips. "You gonna hit me? You beat up senior citizens?"
Narrowing my eyes at Angus, I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back. "You aren't worth the energy." Glancing up and down at my father, I searched for a reason why my mother would have wanted anything to do with the sniveling, derisive man in front of me. She was recently immigrated to this country when they married, and only nineteen, sixteen years younger than my father. I wanted to believe she saw something good in him. "What would Mom say if she could see you today?"
"This is over," Patrick hissed. He pointed at Angus. "You're drunk, and one more bullshit stunt from you and I'm putting you in a seventy-two-hour psych hold."
"You and that cunt of a sister of yours, you think you're so fucking smart. You'd be nothing without me. This business, everything, you owe it to me."
Angus clasped the front of his coat together and picked up the two-by-four. He sidestepped me, and I let him go. He stopped at the door, his back to us. He sighed, and his shoulders slumped, his head hanging forward. For a split second, I thought my father heard me—truly heard me after all these years. Then he pivoted and speared me with his cold, empty eyes. "She'd say that's what you get for being the rotten pieces of garbage who let her die."
The door slammed behind him.
Rationally, I knew Angus was a vindictive, angry drunk who needlessly blamed us for Mom's death, and he was hell-bent on getting his pounds of flesh from each of us.
Emotionally, I couldn't claim the same level of objectivity. It was all too easy to drown in Angus's loathing, and I knew Sam already spent the better parts of most evenings doing some version of that. I found myself struggling to tread water, and as I looked around the room, I knew I wasn't alone.
For a few minutes, we were silent. I saw Patrick's fingers flying over his phone, and I knew he was either updating Shannon or calling his buddy at the State Police to make good on that psych hold. Riley's hands dug deep in his pockets, and he kept his eyes trained on the ground. Rubbing a hand against his chest, Sam stared out the window.
"All right," Patrick muttered as he gestured toward me. "Broken or bruised?"
"Bruised."
Patrick glanced around the room, confused. "Who drove?"
"I did," Sam whispered. "We are not going back to the office tonight."
"I have beer," Patrick offered. "And whiskey." He glanced at my face. "And ice."
Considering we grew up under the same roof and then lived together at Cornell and now we worked together all goddamn week, I didn't make a habit of spending time at Patrick's apartment, but I went along anyway. True to form, he put Riley to work stowing his outdoor furniture in preparation for the snowstorms expected in the coming weeks while I rinsed the blood out of my mouth.
I found Riley flipping through the stack of industry journals and magazines on Patrick's kitchen table. "Do you actually read all of this?"
Patrick locked his fingers around four beer bottles and shook his head. "Asking that tells me you don't."
I didn't know how they could nag each other right now.
"Can someone tell me what we're going to do about this?" I snapped. "This is fucking insane. He is fucking insane. How am I supposed to have a life when he's whacking people with two-by-fours and throwing paperweights and trying to hijack the business accounts and threatening to go find my fucking girlfriend?"
Patrick busied himself with the bottle opener, and I waited, hoping he'd have the answer. He always had the answer.
"That's just it, Matt," Sam said. "You don't. We just need him to hurry up and die."
Lauren didn't respond to my text, and after rereading it forty-one times while holding a bag of frozen peas to my face and mainlining whiskey, I remembered she hated being told what to do. This was her method of teaching me a lesson about my caveman tendencies.
So I went to her. The walk from Patrick's place in the North End to her Beacon Hill apartment burned off most of the alcohol but it did nothing for the waves of anger and frustration in my system.
"Miss Halsted," I said when she opened the door. She was wearing the clingy yoga pants that did terrible things to my imagination and that little UCSD t-shirt that stretched across her chest in the best possible way, and I forgot most of my argument.
"Mr. Walsh, you should know you're only allowed to tell me what to do when I'm naked," she said, her eyebrow arched. The stern expression stayed in place just long enough for her to notice the contusion. "Oh my God, what happened to you?"
Her fingers passed over my jaw, and she frowned at the bruise. Flinching, I pushed her hands away and stepped back, trying to locate my anger.
"It's nothing, I don't want to talk about it." She peered at me, incredulous, and I knew if she showed up at my door with a big-ass bruise on her face, I'd freak the fuck out too. Of course, that would require her showing up at my door of her own accord, and that
seemed rather unlikely. "You didn't return my text."
"I wish you'd tell me what happened." I shook my head, and she muttered something about cavemen. "If you wanted to see me, you could have asked, Matthew."
I reached out, stroking my finger down her cheek, over her lips, and we stared at each other. It was clear I was on the prowl, but I didn't think either of us knew what I wanted.
Her face in my hands, I kissed her, my tongue moving between her teeth, begging her for all the things she held back. I didn't care how much my jaw hurt; I just wanted to feel her, to own her tonight. She wrapped her hands around my coat, pulled me inside, and slammed the door. My hands were under her clothes within a heartbeat, and her skin, her sighs, her scent—they were the balm I required to feel whole again.
"I love that you're naked under this," I murmured against her mouth.
"If that's what you like, I'll stop buying fancy panties," she whispered. She unfastened my belt, drew my zipper down, and pressed her palm over my cock, and if she asked me right then whether I liked her daily game of Make Matt Beg, I would have said yes. It was so simple, her hand on my body, but it leveled me every time.
"Don't…don't do that," I said. "Fancy panties are nice, too."
No need to mention I considered arriving at her door with a pair in my hand. This probably wasn't the time to discuss the pussy necklace in my pocket either. I didn't leave the house without it.
Clothes landed in piles around us, and I pulled her to the velvet sofa, settling her on my lap. She was damp and ready, and I couldn't keep my mouth away from her nipples and I wanted her like this—always. I wanted this place we created where she stopped caring about everything else, where the only thing that mattered was how we fit together, where we could get lost in each other. This was what I wanted.
Burying my face in her hair, I murmured filthy words about her ass, her tits, her pussy, about wanting my fuck toy, my dirty little slut. And the tension riding my nerves subsided as I breathed her in.
The Walsh Brothers Page 20
