The Walsh Brothers

by Kate Canterbary

  "What is this?" Riley asked, gesturing to a small pass-through between the interior and exterior. That, along with a grimy white tile backsplash, was revealed with the top layer of drywall removed. "Other than a respite from the cold for squirrels?"

  "Milk door," I murmured. "It's where the milk bottles were delivered, and the empties returned."

  Riley shifted his weight and flipped through his notebook. That was one of his new things: keeping track of shit. I was actually impressed with how well he was doing. He snapped a picture and scribbled some notes, and though it was troubling he'd never encountered a milk door, I was more concerned with the kitchen. I was determined to preserve as much of the 1890s materials as possible, and there was no reason to demolish anything when it only required restoration. The cabinetry was in remarkable shape considering its age, and once we repaired the hardware and removed the flaking paint, it would be as good as anything new.

  "All right," I said, my arms outstretched as I held the plan in my mind. "We're opening up that wall. The lower cabinets stay, and the uppers form this side of the island. Move that block"—I gestured behind me—"to the opposite end, and that's the space for the refrigerator. Then blow out the dry goods pantry, and we have some clean, parallel flow lines." I glanced to Riley, and the pencil frozen over his notebook. "Did you get all that?"

  "Um…" He flipped to a new page and started sketching. "Could you repeat the part about the walls? Which ones are we changing?"

  I went through each section of the kitchen again, and tagged every cabinet with blue painter's tape and a notation about its new home. I trusted Riley, but I also knew he was likely to lose that notebook.

  "You two are comedy." Pivoting, I saw Magnolia in the doorway. "Listening to you bitching and snapping at each other on a dreary Friday morning is better than candy."

  "Gigi," Riley called, his deep voice booming.

  She approached, immediately leaning in for a hug and brushing her lips over my cheek, and though I'd defended this exact behavior a couple of days ago, it felt different now. The embrace she offered Riley was quick, and then she shifted toward me, smiling.

  "What about the backsplash? Tearing that out too?" she asked. It was covered in a thick layer of glue and decades of dirt, but there was something pristine under it all.

  "No, that just needs some attention," I said, purposefully stepping away. "It can be cleaned up, and it will look better and last longer than anything we could replace it with."

  She peered at the tile, nodding. "Sounds good. What else are we looking at today?"

  "There's a plumbing issue, a fireplace issue, and a flooring issue. Take your pick," Riley said.

  "I love plumbing," she said, shooting a wink in my direction. "I always like getting my hands on the pipes."

  I led the way to the second floor, taking two steps at a time while Magnolia and Riley recounted last night's football game. They were both New England sports fanatics, yet held very different views on players, coaches, and game strategy.

  "Here's the issue," I said, interrupting their playoff prediction debate. "The pipes throughout the property need to be replaced; we knew that. At every other junction, we have rotted or missing floors and it's very easy to install new supply lines. But we have immaculate penny-drop tile in here, and we're not disturbing it."

  "Now we're trying to find a magician plumber," Riley said.

  "Yeah," she said, squatting to trace the black-and-white tile pattern. "You'd never match these, not unless you found a box in the attic or something. These were custom."

  "I want to go in through the first floor ceiling," I said, ignoring Riley's shuddering groan behind me. This wasn't his preferred plan. "It's a standard flat ceiling, and cutting into it is the only way to retrofit the plumbing and preserve these floors. I don't care if it's a pain in the ass or really fucking expensive; it's the best solution."

  Magnolia leaned back on her haunches, her lips pursed as she considered this. "I never would have thought of ripping out a ceiling to save a floor, however…" She wrapped her hand around my forearm to pull herself up, but she didn't retreat. "It sounds like your best bet. What's left? Fireplaces and flooring?"

  "It's fine," I stammered, backing out into the hallway. "The fireplaces just need servicing, and maybe some new flashing before we get a heavy snowstorm."

  Magnolia paced the hallway, her fingers running over the bird's-eye oak walls. "Flooring?"

  "The genius here wants to cannibalize the planks from one room to make up for the ones we're missing in the dining room and main parlor," Riley said.

  She sidled up beside me, elbowing my bicep. "Which room?"

  "Fourth floor. The maid's room," I said. She was close, well into my personal space with her body angled toward mine in a manner that spoke of intimacy and heat. I didn't know how I'd missed this before but I was seeing it now. "We can't replicate the original flooring on the first floor, and I'd rather repurpose the wood upstairs and replace it with a near-match, unless you see an alternative."

  We traipsed all over the property, examining the floors, debating solutions, and eventually prying a plank from the fourth floor to confirm that it matched. Magnolia was always nearby, her fingers brushing mine as we climbed the stairs, her hand on my shoulder for balance when she studied a delicate sconce, her body crowded against mine to inspect a section of wood.

  "I have some appointments on the North Shore this afternoon, but I'm going to be back in town around seven." Magnolia lifted her brows, the question obvious in her eyes. "Up for dinner? Drinks?"

  Oh, holy fuck.

  Riley was right. She might not be planning the wedding, but at the minimum, she was under the impression we were flirting. And I did like her—not in the "I'm tearing your panties off now" way, but as a friend and colleague, the "let me pick your brain about some design challenges" way.

  "Not tonight," I said. I should have mentioned that I was seeing someone but I was more concerned with finishing this visit. Soon enough, she'd notice I wasn't reciprocating, and there was no sense making it awkward for her.

  Magnolia accepted this without discussion, and departed after another hug and cheek-kiss. When I glanced up from shuffling the bluelines into their proper order of disciplines, Riley was leaning against the kitchen sink, a smug grin stretched across his face.

  "Believe me now?" he asked. "About Gigi?"

  He played the part of the barely-reformed stoner man-child, but the kid was insightful. He understood people and situations, and he knew how to boil it all down to its most essential pieces. He didn't put much of this wisdom to good use, of course.

  "Don't we have other properties to see today? If you have time to be pompous, I'm not giving you enough work."

  "In other words," he said under his breath. "Yes, you are aware that she's already named your children and decided where you'll live out your golden years."

  "And what?" I asked, my arm flailing in his direction. "It would have killed you to jump in and help me out?"

  "Sure, I could have done that." He shrugged and reshuffled the bluelines. "But ask yourself this—why didn't you? Not ready to let Gigi off the hook?"

  "She was never on the hook," I yelled.

  I wasn't doing that. No, that was like having my finger on the self-destruct button, and pressing it just to see what happened. I'd been finding creative ways to destroy myself for years, but I wasn't there anymore. Well, not in the past eleven days. Longer if we excused the momentary lapse in judgment at Alibi.

  "You're blind if you think the girl who wants to handle some pipe isn't on your hook," he said.

  "She's a nice girl and I don't want to embarrass her." I grabbed the designs from him, again placing them in the correct order. I didn't know what the hell he was thinking, putting the civil page above hazmat, or mechanical behind electrical. "Do me a favor next time and intercept," I said.

  My day couldn't end fast enough. I needed to go to Tiel and get lost in her, and fuck away every shadow that d
eveloped around the edges.

  Nothing I did made the time move more quickly. I raced through my late afternoon meetings and delegated some walk-throughs to Riley with the hope he wouldn't fuck things up, and worked myself into a good fit of fury while I inched through traffic on the Longfellow Bridge.

  The only benefit to this misery was I had plenty of time to plan what I intended to do when I reached Tiel's apartment.

  Unfortunately, I forgot all of it when she opened the door.

  "Hey," she said. Grinning, she looked me up and down as she leaned against the door. I knew my hair was a fucking disaster from dragging my hands through it in traffic, my tie and collar were wrenched open, my glasses were off kilter, and I probably looked a little wild.

  I felt a little wild.

  I stepped toward her and said, "I have been thinking about you. All. Day."

  "Sounds unproductive." She gave me a displeased look but moved closer. Her fingers walked down my tie, stopping to study the tiny blue shells against the pink background. She played at being unhurried but her wide, eager eyes gave it all away.

  "Get over here," I said. Her hands were in my hair and my lips were on her before the words were out of my mouth, and somehow I managed to kick the door shut behind us in the process. "Bedroom."

  "Sofa," she murmured against my lips. Her hand wrapped around my tie, she yanked me into the living room. She was a little fireball, all rowdy and starved for this brand of affection.

  "Bedroom," I growled, steering her toward the hallway.

  "It's like nine feet away," she said. "Sofa's right here."

  "I will be fucking you in the bedroom," I said. "I will also be spanking the shit out of you in there, so unless you'd like to sit on the sofa alone, I recommend you take your sweet ass down that hallway."

  Tiel released my tie and broke out of my hold. I was certain this was the moment she'd be punching me in the face for being a prick, but she bit her bottom lip, gave me a wicked grin, and scampered down the hall while tossing her clothes off behind her.

  Then I realized she wanted me like this, raw and demanding and prowling for her, and in that place I knew I wasn't keeping anyone on the hook. I was all in for this girl, and every time her body bowed under my hands, I started to believe she was all in for me, too.

  15

  Tiel

  Some orgasms were like fender benders. Quick, generally harmless, forgettable.

  Others were more like backing into a bus. More damage, more memories.

  And a select few were like a fucking train wreck. Blacked out, body-splitting. They turned you inside out and back again.

  As I lay face down on my bed, Sam's hand caressing my tender backside, I knew I'd never been so still before. There were tunes in my head—always—but I wasn't fidgeting, nodding, tapping, fiddling, swaying. Just my breath, in and out, and the occasional shuddering aftershock from that train-wreck orgasm.

  "What are you doing next week?" he asked.

  Chewing my lip, I tried to remember my schedule. It wasn't as easy as it sounded. Without calling up the calendar on my phone, I wasn't sure where I was supposed to be at any point in time. Too many details.

  "Oh, next week is the holiday. Yeah. The college closes at one on Wednesday, but of course I'm teaching at noon. I've been going back and forth on whether I let those poor souls off easy and cancel class."

  "And then?" he asked. "The rest of the week?"

  "Um, I don't know." I wanted to melt into the mattress and sleep for at least four hundred years.

  Ellie and I used to host a big Thanksgiving dinner and invite stray students from Berklee. We both knew how much it sucked to be too poor—or, in my case, too disowned—to get home for the holidays, and we didn't want anyone feeling that way.

  It wasn't anything elaborate, given that neither of us grew up in homes where we celebrated the Norman Rockwell version of Thanksgiving. My family thought turkey was best accompanied by pastitsio, souvlaki with tzatziki, and rice-stuffed grape leaves, and on more than a few occasions, substituted lamb for turkey altogether. Nonetheless, Ellie and I DVR'd every holiday episode on the Food Network, watched them repeatedly, and cobbled together some semblance of dinner for our guests.

  This year, we passed the torch to a married couple who joined the faculty before Ellie went on tour. That was a big improvement over wrangling a raw turkey into submission.

  "Studio time. Grading papers. Nothing special," I yawned.

  "My brother and his wife—"

  He paused, glancing at me purposefully, and I swore he did it to let the word 'wife' simmer between us. Either he wanted me to know he hadn't touched this lady, or he really liked that terminology. Couldn't be sure.

  "They're having a thing at their place. You could come with me, if you wanted." Sam grabbed the satiny duvet from where it was bunched on the edge of the mattress, and pulled it over us. "Shannon won't be there, though. Apparently she's going to a spa in the Southwest which seems really fucking strange, even for her."

  Snuggling closer to Sam, I ran my fingers through his chest hair, and pressed my ear against his heart. "I probably should have said something a long time ago," I sighed. "But I don't do families."

  "That's good to know," he said. "I'm only interested in you doing me, and the more I think about it, I would actually break my brothers' arms if they got anywhere near you."

  "Charming, perv. Real charming."

  "Don't even pretend you don't love me," he said, slapping my backside.

  It was a playful snap, but exactly what I needed. There was some relief associated with his hand cracking across my skin, a calm pleasure I'd never tapped into before. I didn't understand why I liked half the things he did to me, but I didn't care.

  "So what do you mean, you don't do families?"

  "I can't—" Edgy impatience started swirling in my stomach, and I dragged my hands through my hair. I pushed away from Sam and grabbed his tank, pulling it over my head. "I'm not good with it all. I'm not the girl you bring home to meet the parents."

  I knew my mistake the second those words slipped off my tongue but before I could backtrack, Sam said, "You don't have to worry about that with me."

  He'd shared details of his mother's death over the past months, and it was obvious it left a huge, gaping, ugly scar on him, but he'd never talked about his father. Anytime I asked, Sam responded with, "He's dead" and wouldn't elaborate.

  "I'm sorry. It's just…" I folded my legs beneath me, staring at Sam from the other end of the bed. He looked so cozy and precious against my pillows, like he belonged there. "I'm terrible with families. A walking disaster."

  "That's ridiculous. You're the person who seduces random people in elevators," he said, pointing to himself. "You can convince otherwise polite, chaste men to get drunk and dance with you." Another exaggerated gesture toward himself. "You know the life story of every barista in town. You persuade non-verbal children to play the piano, and play it well. You have more followers on your YouTube channel than the population of Wyoming. You aren't terrible with anyone."

  "You wanted to be seduced," I whispered. "It just took you two months to realize it."

  "You can bet your ass I wanted you seducing me," he said. "Now get over here and tell me the real reason you don't want to meet my deranged family."

  Sam tended toward slim, with long, lean muscles, but it never escaped my notice that he was strong, especially when he was dragging me across the bed like I was a doll. I kind of loved it.

  Trapped beneath him with my hands pinned over my head, there was no easy out, and at this point, there was no reason to avoid his questions. "I'm not like you, Sam. I don't understand big, involved families. I can't even begin to explain my own."

  "Sunshine, I don't understand them either. It's more like love and tolerate," he laughed.

  "Well, that's kind of the problem," I said. "They've never tolerated me. Everything I do—moving away from home, going to Juilliard, getting married, getting divorced, being
a 'lowlife' as my mother likes to put it—mortifies them. I'm a giant embarrassment, and unless I'm moving back to Jersey and waiting tables, they don't want anything to do with me. I see them maybe once a year, and it's only for funerals or weddings. I just don't fit in with families."

  With my wrists locked in Sam's grip, I couldn't wipe the tears off my cheeks. I hadn't cried about this in ages, but being there—vulnerable and exposed and completely safe—brought it all back to the surface.

  "And what happens when you call them on that shit?" he asked, his thumb brushing my tears away.

  An incredulous laugh burst from my throat. "That's not how my family operates," I said. "There's plenty of the big, fat Greek family stereotype to go around, but we don't have thoughtful conversations about feelings. They tell me they don't approve, they make a lot of pained, pinched faces at me, and I do my own thing. That's how it goes."

  His brows furrowed and he gave me a confused grimace. "You've never said 'Mom, Dad, I'm really fucking talented and successful, and if you have a problem, that's tough shit'?"

  It was strange how he seemed much more comfortable vocalizing himself with his family than with me, and somehow the reverse was true for me. "No, Sam, not really." I shrugged, my attention turning to the beautiful definition in his shoulders and biceps. "We sort of had that conversation when I decided to go to Juilliard and they weren't digging that plan. They said it wouldn't work out, that I wasn't good enough for that level of study, that I was on my own. They didn't see why I couldn't go to the local college like everyone else. In their eyes, leaving was disrespectful to my family."

  "Oh that's nothing," Sam said, and my eyes flashed to him, stunned. "My father hated me until his final breath. I probably deserved some of that because the last thing I said to him was that the rapey demons in the eternal fires of hell were going to have a blast with him."

  "You're too pretty to hate," I said, aiming for some levity.

  "While that is true," he said, "it didn't stop him from kicking me out of the house when I was seventeen because—according to him—I was a disgusting homosexual who shouldn't have been born. If society was still roasting witches at the stake, I'm confident he would have put a dress on me, claimed I cast a spell on our dog, and moved me to the front of the line. He also found great pleasure in blaming me and my siblings for my mother's death which is absolutely fucking illogical but he never trafficked in reality."