The Walsh Brothers

by Kate Canterbary

  His words bit into my flesh like a whip. "I'm thrilled to hear I'm simply the person who's fucking you right now. That's great, Patrick."

  "Are you still seeing Batista? This guy left his wife for you?"

  "Are you kidding me? Really?" I shook my head. "I'm going to assume that you're not suggesting that I'm some kind of slut. You spend forty-five minutes at Cornell and you've bought into every rumor mill in town. I thought you were smarter than that."

  "I thought you were smarter than making a habit of fucking the people in charge."

  "Wow," I murmured. I shifted in the chair and recrossed my legs to absorb the sting. "Wow. I really misjudged you. I was wrong about so many things."

  "Apparently so was I." He shrugged, and gestured toward me. "I don't know why I thought you'd ever let me in, but I was really fuckin' wrong about that."

  I shouldered my bag and stomped toward the door. Whirling around, I studied Patrick's rigid form and the spasming in his jaw. "Not that you deserve the truth or anything, but I do still see Batista, and I've told you about it multiple times."

  Patrick turned his head to the side, but didn't meet my eyes. "What?"

  "Yeah. You might remember me talking about my friend, Charlotte. I see her when she's in town." Patrick's eyes narrowed, the tension in his jaw easing slightly. "She didn't leave her wife for me, you bastard. Her wife left her because she's transsexual, and going through reassignment surgeries and the wife couldn't hang anymore. Charlotte Batista confided in me about it. We're friends. So no, Patrick, I don't just fuck the people in charge, and I definitely don't fuck you anymore."

  My apartment was too small, too hot, too empty, and after a ninety-minute whirlwind cleaning session interrupted by periods of ugly crying, I needed to escape. I changed into jeans, a black t-shirt, and silver flats, and charged out of the apartment with nothing more than my keys and wallet.

  A cell phone was bound to cause trouble.

  People-watching on the Red Line was adequately distracting, and the trip to Brighton ebbed my tears. Ringing the buzzer, I prayed that Marley and Jess were at home rather than pregaming—they upheld the college tradition of starting the weekend off right with startling fidelity.

  "Andy, hey." I whirled around to see Jess leaning against the doorway in her favorite clubbing dress with half of her hair curled in loose waves and a mascara wand in her hand. "What're you doing here?"

  "I'm sorry I didn't call," I sighed, feeling the rush of tears prickling my eyes again. "I had a huge fight with my boyfriend, and it's been an awful day, and I just need to talk to someone."

  "Yeah, so, about that," she said, pointing at me with the wand. "You didn't bother to tell me you were seeing someone."

  "Oh, I know, I'm sorry—"

  "Can you just wait?" She held up her hand to stop me. "Let me finish. I haven't seen you in two months, and you blow us off every single time we make plans. You have this big dramatic problem right now, but you're never there for me when I go through a bad breakup. I can't even…you literally never ask about me, or my life. I mean, I thought that since we were living in the same city again we'd be friends, but it's obvious to me that you're just a selfish bitch."

  I should have checked the weather this morning. It would have advised me to stay in bed to avoid the shit storm coming my way. "Jess, I'm sorry—"

  "Let. Me. Finish," she said, ticking off her points with her wand. "So it's fine if you want to have your own life or whatever. I'm not sitting around and crying because you don't want to have sleepovers with me anymore, but you've been a complete bitch since you showed up here in January."

  Marley tiptoed past the door, and when I tried to catch her eye, she made a beeline for the other side of the apartment.

  "You don't think I notice that you hate the clubs we go to, and the guys we hang with, and you think you're too fuckin' smart to even talk to us. Marley's too nice to say anything, but you treat her like she's dog shit, and I'm done with you. We were friends in high school, and that's it. You need to find new friends to deal with your little boyfriend dramas."

  I didn't have the strength for a counter-argument, and it probably wouldn't have amounted to much. Wrapping my arms around my waist, I nodded, and stepped away from her door.

  "And if I had to guess," Jess called, her words landing on my back. "That boyfriend probably figured out you're a cold, self-centered bitch and you're too busy admiring your own asshole to give a fuck about anyone else."

  The door slammed behind me.

  I debated skipping the subway and wandering along Beacon Street until I reached my apartment, but shouldering the weight of the day alone was starting to crush me. One more step seemed like too many. I watched the city stutter by with my head pressed to the Red Line window.

  Emerging at the Park Street station, I squinted toward Beacon Hill and knew wallowing at my apartment wasn't a wise choice. Not in the bed where I told Patrick I loved him. Not that he remembered, of course.

  I stumbled toward the Theatre District, and found myself at the only dive bar divey enough to handle me: The Tam. I took up residence at the far corner of the bar, ordered three shots of vodka, and put on my best 'don't fuck with me' face. I craved some communal anonymity but I wasn't above backhanding the first bro who sidled up next to me.

  Turning over my palms and forearms, I studied my skin, expecting to find myself bloodied and bruised from the blows levied by Jess and Patrick. Bruises would have been better, and part of me craved a physical representation of the pain inside. I knew how to heal bruises. I didn't know how to recover from this.

  It was a slow night at The Tam—anyone with a shred of sense was outside enjoying the weather, and not wishing for open wounds to appear on their body.

  The bartender leaned against the bar with a nod toward my empties. "'Nother round?"

  "Um, vodka gimlet," I replied, my head braced in my hands. I hoped my vodka therapist was answering calls at this hour. A thorough sort-out was in order since I was complete shit as a friend and girlfriend, and patently incapable of holding either title. That, and I was utterly alone in the world.

  "Comin' up."

  I wanted Jess to be wrong—grossly wrong—but she wasn't. I was a terrible friend to her. I treated Marley like an imbecile. I hated going out with them and faked my interest in all of their conversation topics. Badly. I expected them to be waiting with open arms when I needed them, and had the balls to be surprised when they weren't.

  And Patrick…oh, Patrick. He wasn't without fault, but he wasn't entirely wrong either. Pain radiated through my chest at the memory of his words.

  You're not the center of the universe.

  I thought you were smarter than making a habit of fucking the people in charge.

  I don't know why I thought you'd ever let me in, but I was really fuckin' wrong about that.

  Patrick rewriting the partnership agreement was exactly what I didn't want—special treatment based on our relationship. But why couldn't he have told me sooner? Why did I have to find out from Tom, and his suggested snooping? Why did Patrick let me look like such a fool?

  "Vodka gimlet," the bartender announced, and I fisted the tumbler before it touched the cocktail napkin. "I know that look."

  "Listen, dude. This is a beautifully made gimlet, and for that, I thank you. I promise to tip generously. A few more of these and my day won't look like such a monumental clusterfuck anymore, but I'm in no shape for bar banter."

  "My bar, my banter," he quipped. "Like I said, I know that look. Either your boss is putting you through hell, or your boyfriend is. Am I close?"

  Snickering, I set the empty tumbler on the napkin, and after I sent a purposeful glance toward the glass, he started fixing another. "They're putting me through hell, that's for sure," I mumbled. "They're the same person."

  "Shit."

  "Amen." I lifted my glass in salute. "While you're here, you should also know my oldest friend just told me that I'm a self-centered bitch, and my only other f
riend is my boss-slash-boyfriend's future sister-in-law."

  "In that case, this one's on me. Start talkin', sister."

  21

  Patrick

  I was in lavender withdrawal, and though I didn't know much about heroin withdrawal, I couldn't imagine how that could be much worse. Andy, and all of her lavenderness, lived in my cells, and I suspected detoxing required the assistance of a witch doctor. Maybe leeches.

  When I finally scraped my jaw off the floor Friday night, Andy was long gone. I gained an unhealthy amount of satisfaction from calling Dave Lin and ripping him a new asshole over the bullshit he was spreading. I stalked her apartment for hours, eventually giving up around one in the morning. All of my calls went to voicemail, and I ignored the possibility that fiendish texting was overkill. Convinced she'd show up at my door or text me in the middle of the night, I spent the entire weekend awake, watching a Spanish language soccer channel while the phantom scent of lavender mocked me from every corner of my apartment.

  Eating, sleeping, and bathing took a backseat to staring at my phone, although there was the ancillary benefit of picking up some conversational Spanish.

  There was no getting around that I was a steaming bowl of douche stew and there was no need to examine my failure to mention the firm's partnership structure to Andy. It wasn't a master plan to trick her into staying. I was willing to rewrite those documents when it was her time, and that time wasn't coming until she spent a couple years at the firm and my siblings embraced the idea of her as a partner. It was an idiotic omission and I let it turn into a landslide of jealous, insecure bullshit.

  Monday morning felt like a joke. We were going to be an official, legitimate couple—finally. All that rightness was now a pile of wrongs.

  My bed earned a baleful stare when I shuffled toward the shower, and I hated the smooth blankets and neatly stacked pillows staring back at me. I remembered her making the bed while I bitched about my trip to Cornell last Thursday morning, and her wry comment that I had more separation anxiety about a night apart than most toddlers.

  Sleeping there without Andy didn't interest me. Hell, sleep in any location without Andy didn't interest me.

  Stepping into my closet brought me face-to-face with an assortment of dark-colored clothes, and a pile of absurdly random knee socks. My fingers stroked over a yellow pair with green bullfrogs, and I ached to go back in time. If it weren't for the certainty I'd soon be able to lock Andy in an office and talk this shit out, I would have spent the day scowling on my sofa.

  Taking the long route around Beacon Hill to the coffee shop Andy loved on Tremont Street gave me time to evaluate my precise depth in the insanity quicksand, and the route from Tremont Street to the office reminded me the quicksand was of my own design.

  When I reached the office, I headed straight for the attic, grateful for the distraction of talking shop. At the top of the stairs, I rounded the corner into the small, safe room that always renewed my faith in my siblings and our work, the one room in the office free from any tint of Andy, and I froze in my tracks.

  She was the last person I expected to see seated between Riley and Matt at the round table. But then I remembered: she was Matt's apprentice now.

  She didn't belong to me anymore. If she ever belonged to me at all.

  Laughing at a story Riley told, she didn't shift her focus from him for a moment, and not a single trace of sadness over the state of us was evident.

  I just needed a breadcrumb.

  "Anytime you're ready, Patrick," Shannon whispered.

  Clutching my messenger bag to my chest, I sank into my seat and turned to Shannon. "Can you get this started?"

  She frowned. "Are you okay? You look…a little green."

  Andy was glowing. Her skin was sun-kissed and her dark eyes shone brighter than usual. She wore a thin gray v-neck blouse, the trendy kind that was a little too big and a little sheer, and I wanted to trace the edges of the fabric, feeling her smooth skin against my fingers.

  "Run the meeting, Shannon," I snapped. She recoiled at my tone, and I hated myself for it.

  "It's a lovely morning to see you all. We're living in the middle of our own jobsite right now but I'm sure Riley can tell us about the progress on that in a few moments. If we can survive the next few days without injury or incident, I will gladly pick up the bar tab Friday night. But right now, no time to waste." Shannon snapped her fingers and pointed toward Sam. "Go."

  I kept my shoulders hunched and eyes on my screen, typing nearly verbatim notes without listening. Their projects were not my primary concerns. They probably didn't crack my top ten.

  Her thin beaded bracelets and matching necklace caught my attention from across the table. They looked new.

  Andy felt my eyes on her necklace, and her hand went to it. It was new, and before I got worked up over her spending the weekend shopping for jewelry while I was decomposing like a discarded banana peel on the couch, I remembered the farmers' market. Andy and Lauren did yoga and organic vegetable shopping every Saturday, and she liked to pick up handmade scarves and bowls and random shit at the farmers' market.

  For a heated second, our eyes met over the edge of my laptop, and I was instantly deaf to Sam's report. Andy's gaze dropped to my coffee cup. Her eyebrows inched up, knowing I passed at least nine perfectly good coffee shops before arriving at her favorite. She knew I went there with the hope of running into her.

  The meeting trudged on, and I hated every single one of them for existing. They were keeping me from fixing things with Andy and I hated it. I plotted methods to break Andy away from Matt for the morning but my creativity took a hit from the lack of sleep and mild hysteria.

  "Hey, so, you guys aren't bringing dates to the wedding, right?" Matt asked as we started to adjourn. "None of you have actually RSVP'd."

  "Did you doubt that we were coming?" Shannon asked. Matt held up his hands and shrugged. "Are you bringing your dominatrix?"

  Riley stretched his arms over his head and yawned. "Yesterday's news, Shan. That hasn't been happening for two months."

  "Well now I'm disappointed." She turned toward Sam. "What about you, Stark? Or is a weekend with the same girl too long for you?"

  "Shameless as always," he muttered. "I will not be bringing a guest, Matt."

  "Okay, so…" I felt Matt staring at me but my eyes locked on Andy again. "Yeah. Just make sure you book your rooms. I don't care what you do, but I don't want anyone attempting to crash with me and Lauren."

  We had a beachfront cottage reserved at the Cape Cod inn where Matt and Lauren were getting married. Andy's birthday landed two days after the wedding, and we planned to make a long weekend out of it.

  Frowning, her eyes darted to mine.

  It was either a breadcrumb or an indication I was going to be enjoying the Cape alone.

  The task of getting Andy alone could have served as the premise for the next Mission: Impossible.

  She spent the majority of the day with Matt, visiting his properties. When they did return, they were busy geeking out over new environmental impact metrics. I loitered near the doorway of their makeshift office, eavesdropping on their discussion of solar panel return on investment thresholds.

  They didn't notice me.

  Much to Theresa's dismay, I pulled up a chair and took over the edge of her desk to keep an eye on Andy. She never looked up from her screen, and I was ready to go to war with Matt for burying her in work.

  Late in the day, she sent a set of plans to the printer. The large format printer lived in a small, stuffy room near the garage, and it was my one opportunity, short of kidnapping.

  Holding up the first page off the printer, she stood with her back to the door while my eyes traveled over her body. Her hair was everywhere, a thick, curling mass liable to suffocate me in my sleep one of these nights. I loved it. Navy pants hung low on her waist, and I abandoned all of my precisely planned speeches as my body was drawn to hers. I had to touch her.

  My arms wrapped
around her waist, and I sucked that first hit of lavender deep into my lungs. "Andy…you have to listen to me."

  Her muscles tensed under my hands. She shook her head.

  "You have at least thirty more pages. I know you're not going anywhere. You don't have to say anything. Just listen. Please." I swept her hair behind her shoulder, dropping my forehead there to assemble the right words. "I was wrong. So wrong. About everything. I didn't mean any—"

  "That's not true," she murmured. "That's not true."

  "Baby," I sighed. "I said stupid, awful things and I'm an asshole. That morning was terrible, the drive back was ridiculous, and I took it all out on you. Come home with me, and I'll fix it. I'll explain everything."

  My lips brushed over the skin beneath her ear, and I felt my misery decreasing by the gallon. Loving her and needing her the way I did was crazy, but I wanted the craziness.

  Andy twisted out of my arms and glared at me, her eyebrow angling upward. "You let me believe I had a future here. You manipulated me."

  Exhaling loudly, I crossed my arms over my chest and matched her hipshot stance. "Because you do. I wasn't lying when I said it was just bullshit paper, Andy."

  "I understand it's bullshit paper to you, but to me? To me, it's proof that I let this—" she gestured between us, "—make decisions about my career, and they probably weren't smart decisions. You kept it from me while you knew I needed to be on a partner track. How am I supposed to feel anything other than manipulated and trapped? You had so many opportunities to tell me. So many."