After he packed himself into the van, Erik cried out, “This thing was great! Fantastic idea, George.”
“We got our asses kicked.” Dan, at shotgun, sneered into the windshield. He took a sip from a flask and stashed it back into his bag. Byrne cringed.
Erik ignored Dan, as usual. “Why aren’t we staying and drinking every keg they have?”
Being the last one into the van, Byrne got squeezed into the crappiest, tightest spot in the very back. Though the air-conditioning was on full blast, the odor of sweat and mud and general man pretty much ensured they wouldn’t be getting back their security deposit.
“Gotta get home for dinner tonight,” George said. Several other guys muttered their similar situations. Byrne and Erik and Dan were the only single guys on the team.
Byrne pulled shut the doors, George threw the van into gear, and the Manhattan Rugby Club rolled out of the Hamptons, heading back to the city.
“So you guys played a Highland Games last year?” Erik turned around in his seat to face Byrne.
“George suggested it,” Byrne said. “He’s from this small town up in New Hampshire that was trying to revive their games or something. One of his high school buddies called and begged that we come up and play. So we made a guys’ weekend out of it.”
“That was fucking fun,” George said.
Byrne nodded, remembering playing with a hangover. “Winning that case of whisky in the tug-of-war was worth it.”
“And that bartender was fucking hot,” George added, making Byrne shift and the rest of the players nod like bobbleheads.
A string of German spewed out of Erik. He was practically bouncing in his seat. “Why don’t we do that again? Find some more Highland Games, play some tourneys, make a couple of weekends out of it. Shit, it’s not like we’re in it for the competition or anything.”
“Speak for yourself.” Byrne lightly smacked the back of Erik’s head.
“Well, you’re the only one who can actually play,” Erik added, to a chorus of loud indignation and the tossing of various dirty, rank articles of clothing.
“Anyone else up for that?” George asked from the front, eyeing the van through the rearview mirror. “I’ll see what other games are going on, find out which ones have rugby tourneys, throw out some locations and dates? We can get out of town for a day or two, pound some dirt and then some beers?”
As every other player clapped or voiced their hearty approval, Byrne let his head drop back and gave it a good couple of bangs on the headrest. This was it. This was how he was going to die. Death by terrible musical instruments.
“Byrne?” A punch to his chest. “You in?”
“Ow.” Byrne straightened, laughing and wincing at the same time. The whole van was looking at him. It really was true; the team didn’t have any shot at competition without him. It was as much about not letting them down as needing to be out on the pitch, toes to the dirt, fingers around the ball, shoulders to another guy’s body. If he wanted stiffer competition—and oftentimes he did—he could always try out for the bigger traveling teams, but it was the guys involved in this van who made it a day worth living.
“Yeah.” He sighed. “Yeah, I’m in. But if you make me wear a fucking kilt I’m out of there.”
Rousing shouts went up, mixed with some extrafine cursing, so it wasn’t until he felt the vibration in his shorts pocket that he realized his phone was sending him a notification.
Pulling it out, his heart stopped at seeing the colored bubble on-screen. Then the organ stumbled back into beating, racing, as he swiped the screen and opened the email app.
This could be it. What he’d been waiting for, trying for, for years.
The sounds in the van descended into ball-busting and general bullshit, rehashing the match from play to play. It all faded into nothing as the private email account came to life on-screen. The inbox showed a blue 1. Byrne held his breath.
Spam.
Spam coming in on an email account he used for only one very specific purpose, to send messages to only one other very specific email address.
Expanding his cheeks, he blew out all the air he’d been holding inside. No other emails in the inbox. Not that he’d been expecting one. He hadn’t gotten a response in nearly five years.
Didn’t mean he was going to stop trying. The most important people in his life needed this, depended on this. So did he.
Only one person in the Contacts folder. He tapped the address and started a brand-new email. It had been a couple of days since he’d sent one.
Elbows crunched awkwardly into his sides, he typed a short and to-the-point message, careful not to use the same subject or text so as not to get shuffled into their spam folders.
He closed the email the same as always: “Please let me know if and when the property becomes available.”
He hit Send.
No one had ever accused him of giving up easily.
* * *
The delightful people Byrne had sent into her tent finally left, a little buzzed, a lot happy, and with napkins scrawled with the names of several price-friendly whiskies stuffed into their pockets. Now that the entertaining hour was over—and since no other tasters seemed to be wandering in—Shea was left to wonder again about her muddy, rugby-playing benefactor.
As she wiped off the bar, her phone chimed with a text.
Still in bed. Willa.
Still? It’s 3, Shea thumbed back.
Dying for a kilted man to bring me Gatorade and ibuprofen.
A big laugh bubbled out of Shea’s mouth. There was one hot guy, but no kilt.
That’ll do. Send him over.
Hmm, Shea did not know how she felt about that. About just handing over Byrne to her man-eating best friend.
Still working, Shea replied.
Still hungover.
A figure appeared at the tent entrance, fuzzy and indistinct in Shea’s peripheral vision. Funny—and horrible—how she recognized the shape and stance and general oily presence of the man she deliberately hadn’t seen in four years. Not wanting to, but knowing she had to, she looked up to confirm what the shiver down her spine had foretold.
Oh fuckity fuck, she furiously typed to Willa. It’s Marco. He’s here. FUVCKKKK.
Quickly she shoved the phone back into her pocket like she was in high school and not thirty-two years old.
Marco said something to the old man checking wristbands at the entrance, clapped the elderly volunteer on the back with an expansive grin, and then stepped over the velvet rope to come inside. Because such rules had never applied to Marco Todaro, oh no.
He took his time crossing the empty tent. Shea didn’t move, refusing to come out from behind the bar for him. Though she was standing in her place of work, where it was easy to become who she needed to be, her ex-husband’s unexpected presence threw everything out of whack, and she hated it.
“Hi, Shea.” Marco’s smile was blindingly, falsely white.
“Hello.” She would be civil, cordial. “You look”—orange—“tan.”
He seemed so pleased she noticed. Gross.
“Greece,” he said. “Remember that yacht off Santorini?”
Yes, she did remember. And no, she didn’t want to. She crossed her arms. “What’re you doing here?”
He did that thing she’d grown to hate: cocking his head and making a face like she’d been the one to do the confusing thing, that her emotions and actions were wrong, and how dare she not realize this?
He spread his arms, and in one hand he held the program for the games. “Saw your name in here. Came to do the gentlemanly thing and say hello.”
“No, I meant what are you doing here, at the Highland Games? You never used to let me be involved in stuff like this, and now here you are.”
He made an indignant sound. “That’s not true.”
It was very true. She’d always wanted to get involved with the New York City Scottish Society, but every time an event had come up and she’d expressed interest in going, he’d book something else for them to do. Something obnoxious and lavish on the opposite side of the globe. Santorini, for example. Then there were the many, many times he’d taken it upon himself to make or cancel her other private social events based on whether or not he approved, or whether or not they would advance him in the New York scene.
And she’d always gone along without argument. Stupid girl. Stupid, spineless, clueless little girl.
But she wasn’t that person anymore and, she supposed, when it came down to it, she had Marco to thank for that.
“You know,” he said, using that syrupy, direct eye contact that had swept her off her feet as a twenty-two-year-old bartender, “I really did just come in here to say hello, see what you’re up to.” He swept a gaze around the tent. “Surprised to see you here. You don’t belong behind the bar anymore. Don’t you have employees?”
He would never understand her, what she truly wanted, why she’d left him. She sighed and let her arms drop to her sides. “Why did you really come in here, Marco?”
“Uh.” He actually had the acting chops to look sheepish. “I miss you?”
“No, you don’t.”
“It’s been a few years. Maybe I came at things between us the wrong way. Maybe things have changed.”
“Nothing’s changed. Believe me.” At least not with him. The man had sprung from an average childhood, but his sprint up the world’s real estate development ladder had wrung out his humanity.
“Shea.” As he shook his head at the ground, she noticed he had a hell of a lot more silver in his hair. He would be in his early fifties now. “Listen. When you’re done here this evening, why don’t you come over to my place? We could have a quiet drink as old friends. I built a new house over in Sagaponack.”
“Ah, I get it now. You got dumped.”
“No. That’s not it.”
But the slack of his mouth told the truth.
“She’s coming back,” he added hastily.
“Of course she is.” Shea laughed and turned to her precious bottles, the lovely things that had given her courage and purpose, and had finally allowed her to ask for the divorce. “New houses on the beach. Yachts in Greece. Those things don’t impress me, Marco.”
“They used to.”
She whipped around. Stared him down. “I was young and dumb.”
The sheepishness and humble pie died. Just vanished from his face. His posture straightened and tightened. “You know,” he said, “Shea Montgomery served on ice doesn’t taste very good.”
“That’s because you don’t like strong drinks. You like them all watered down.”
He considered her with the flat stare she’d done such a great job of forgetting. “I’ll never get why you changed.”
“I know, Marco. And that’s the sad part. Enjoy your new house.”
His nostrils flared. “I will. Enjoy your . . . bar.”
Bar said, of course, like she owned a whorehouse.
“I will. Because it is mine. And it’s more than you ever let me have.”
He opened his mouth to defend himself, to say something awful like I let you have everything. I gave you everything, but she held up a hand to inform him of its pointlessness. Because when she’d left him, she’d made it a point not to take a dime from him. He had nothing to throw in her face.
“Have fun at the rest of the games,” she said as pleasantly as possible, knowing full well he wasn’t going to stick around now that she’d shut him down. He’d come here specifically for the hunt. To him, she’d only ever been a conquest, a trophy.
Never again.
As expected, Marco turned and left.
* * *
Byrne toggled his keys, duffel bag, and laced-together cleats in one arm as he let himself into his apartment on East 84th. The door swung shut hard behind him, and he let everything drop in a heap. Little chunks of dried mud skittered across the slate tile in the foyer. He got out the broom and dustpan from the closet and swept everything up, so that Frances, his housekeeper, wouldn’t shake her finger in his face. She probably still would, but then she’d make him cookies and all would be well.
The adrenaline from the rugby had worn off on the long ride back into the city, and now the dizzy tiredness and sore muscles started to settle in. Not for the first time, he wondered how in the world professional athletes in their midthirties survived doing this to their bodies every day. Aging sucked.
In the bathroom, he stripped off the stiff, stinking rugby clothes—sorry, Frances—and tossed them in the hamper, then turned on the various knobs to start the overhead rain nozzle in his walk-in shower. He stood under the soothing spray and thought about the day. By the time he’d scrubbed off the dried sweat and mud and stepped out, pulling a towel around his waist, he had a pretty good hankering for some more whisky.
After reaching into the glass-front cabinet for his razor and shaving cream, he decided against shaving. He wasn’t planning on going out that night anyway. A rare, blissful Saturday night, free of having to entertain one client or another. As he pulled his hand out of the cabinet, he caught sight of the little yellow toy caboose sitting on top. A pang of warm wistfulness shot through him, and then he closed the glass door.
Going into his closet, he flipped on the switch, and rows of lights illuminated the cherrywood nooks that stored all his clothes. Frances had gone to the dry cleaners, he noted, the section with all his suits looking fuller than usual. With supreme satisfaction, he walked past the suits and the carefully pressed shirts and hanging ties. Not for another thirty-six hours would he have to think about which tie went best with which shirt, and for what client or meeting, and what that particular combo said about him. And thank fuck for that.
Instead he went for the splintering, crooked dresser stashed way in the back. The top drawer stuck as he wrestled it out, but he’d been opening it so many years that he knew its secrets. He removed his favorite pair of shorts and a Wharton T-shirt and pulled them on.
After a brief stop in the second bedroom, which served as an office—no crises had popped up on the computer he used for work, just a reminder of a late Sunday night conference call to Hong Kong—he padded out to the kitchen and found the only bottle of whisky he had. An intensely peaty one that he’d been sipping from on the rare occasions he drank at home.
Tonight seemed to call for it, however.
He brought the whisky and his phone over to where his laptop sat on the glass-topped coffee table. The sun was lowering, cradled in the tops of the buildings on the Upper East Side. No matter how much his job tended to drain him, he’d never tire of the view it had afforded him.
He stretched across the large coffee table and straightened the little green toy train engine resting in its center, then he flopped backward onto the couch.
His phone jumped, buzzed, lit up. George. A mass text to all of Manhattan Rugby.
OK. Rhode Island has a games with a rugby tourney next weekend. Competition looks loose. Who’s in?
Byrne cracked his neck, then took a good earthy mouthful of the whisky, thinking too late about what Shea had said about nosing the glass first.
His phone danced with immediate positive replies going around the group, and then one text sent directly to him. From Dan.
When are we going to get real competition? We’re better than this.
Byrne scrubbed his face. Leave the team if you want. I didn’t force you to join. He’d said it to Dan a million times.
No response. Then Dan’s affirmation came through, sent to the whole club. They had enough to field a team, and Byrne was already planning to bring along earplugs. Thinking about his workweek to come, he’d need a good day on the pitch, a good weekend away from the city.
>
Curiosity got the better of him. He opened his laptop and searched for “Rhode Island Highland Games.” Next weekend’s event popped up with a list of all the attractions.
His phone rang, Erik’s name flashing on the screen.
“What’s up?” Byrne said.
“Need your help to get into Portrait this week. Last-minute visit from a big fish and I gotta make it count. Can you call in a favor?”
“Sure.” Byrne made a note to call the head of the restaurant group that owned Portrait, one of his clients. “You out for Rhode Island? Didn’t see your name pop up.”
“Yeah. Sorry. Looks like you’re stuck with Dan.”
“I’ll survive.” Byrne tapped his laptop screen. “There’ll be whisky there again. Might give it another taste.”
Erik chuckled. “Really? You didn’t mention how the drink went today.”
Byrne hissed through his teeth, remembering Shea’s open demeanor until he’d tried to flirt. “Not so good, I’m afraid. Kind of got knocked to the dirt.”
A pause. “Let me tell you a little story.”
Byrne smiled, in spite of himself. “Here we go.”
“There once was this German guy who believed everything his American roommate told him. This was back when the German first came to the States in college, when he was young and naive and not nearly as dashing as he is now. Anyway, the American told the German, who had a girlfriend he was crazy about, that American girls loved beef jerky. And that they loved men who made their own beef jerky.”
Byrne was already laughing.
“So the German researched online how to make beef jerky, and he ended up with a bedroom strung with drying meat and no more girlfriend.”
“The moral of the story?” Byrne could barely get the words out, he was laughing so hard.
“To not try too hard, or else it looks desperate.”
“Or maybe not to listen to your friends.”
“I don’t know about that. That was damn fine jerky. I miss it.”
“Not the girl?”
“Just telling you to read the signs.”
The Good Chase Page 3
