Ringer: A New Year's Romance: The Doyles, a Boston Irish Mafia Romance

by Sophie Austin

  One too prone to asking questions until even the most patient tour guide was at their breaking point; the other a high-energy, athletic boy that might accidentally break things.

  My parents loved historic places. Bryan, too.

  It’s one of the things we share.

  Shared.

  Past tense.

  “How many do you have?” Jack asks.

  There’s so little left to Jack that I remember. Gone are the edges of the roughneck fisherman’s son. No trace of a Boston accent. No dirty, torn clothes or no fading bruises he’d brush off.

  No shyness.

  He’s polished. Sounds like an officer.

  Moves like a lethal military man.

  Every facet and rough spot filed away until what’s left is hard, compelling, self-assured, and completely unrecognizable.

  “Thirty seven,” I say automatically.

  Brian and I drove to Nova Scotia last summer, packed into a long weekend, and got three. My fingers tighten around the booklet.

  “What’s the most beautiful one you’ve seen?” Jack asks.

  He’s distracting me. I know it. I’m grateful for it, desperate for it, hate that I need it and that he sees it.

  “Quoddy Light,” I say, trying not to choke on a rising sob. “It’s a little lighthouse where my dad was born in northern Maine. It’s candy striper red-and-white, and it’s what I always think of as perfectly nautical, you know?”

  He’s so close I can smell his cologne.

  It’s the same cologne he’d worn a few years before – after my graduation, and then again, a few years later during a date. At least that much is familiar.

  A few years before, he had been home on leave and asked if I wanted to go out. Some friends had a boat, and he’d be up on Cape Ann for the weekend. I’d wanted to go.

  Everyone has “the one that got away.”

  He’s the guy you think about after a bad date or at a poignant moment at a wedding, and you wonder, “What if.”

  I’d wanted to know.

  We’d had one perfect date.

  He’d been a perfect gentleman, although I got a second kiss. An unforgettable, world-spinning on its axis and angels singing kind of kiss.

  The next day, he texted and asked if we could talk.

  Minutes later, he called.

  What guy does that?

  Tersely, he told me that a woman he’d slept with a few months before had called that morning to say she was pregnant.

  Our date had been the best night of his life, he said.

  But he was doing the right thing.

  Of course, he was.

  Jack always did the right thing.

  And that was that.

  Until it wasn’t.

  Until Bryan’s call, saying he was serving under Jack.

  Over the next year, Bryan made video calls from common areas of the base, and Jack said hi once or twice. Once, when Bryan had to step away for a second, Jack sat down and we chatted.

  Or rather, he’d asked me endless questions like he was memorizing details of a life he couldn’t be part of, probing for weaknesses or issues that he’d try to fix three thousand miles away.

  I’d mostly stared at that rugged jaw.

  Then, one day the next summer, I’d bumped into him, his adorable young son, and his very unhappy wife at a Marine Corps family picnic. We spoke for maybe five minutes. The little boy was just a baby, but it was clear Jack’s a great father.

  Bryan asked me to go since our parents were out of town, and he didn’t have a girlfriend at the time.

  I stopped going to the Marine Corps events after that.

  And now, I’d never have the chance to go again.

  I could never explain to Bryan why I’d ducked them.

  I know it was because I had feelings for Jack and seeing him with another woman just killed me. He’d seemed deeply uncomfortable around me, yet his eyes had stayed locked on me the whole day.

  It didn’t seem like it was worth torturing myself – or him.

  “I should have gone,” I say, my voice breaking.

  Jack takes a step toward me and envelops me with those massive arms.

  I’m too far gone in the grief then to feel shame, although much like missing my brother, I’ll have years to wish I hadn’t broken down like that.

  Not in front of Jack.

  Not in his arms.

  Not saying the things I did, begging God to take it back, to just give me one more chance to say goodbye.

  To please, please, please not let it be true.

  I needed something solid to hold onto when a riptide of grief threatened to wash me away, and he’d stood there holding me until it subsided. Eventually I sagged, my emotions totally spent, against him.

  Jack’s not a man that cries, but his breathing was hard, and when he whispered against my hair, his voice was ragged.

  “I should have been there, Alexandra. I’m so, so sorry.”

  4

  Jack

  She drives like a bat out of hell to up to the pet shelter.

  I pull my SUV beside her car and exit my vehicle with my duffle in hand.

  I’m scanning the tree line, establishing a mental perimeter of the property as she unlocks the door and steps into the warm, bright kitchen.

  The first thing I hear is screaming.

  “What is that?” I demand.

  Every muscle in my body tenses, including the one that’s been iron rigid since I laid eyes on her.

  Alix sighs.

  “It sounds like screaming, doesn’t it? It’s joy,” she says.

  “I think,” she quickly adds.

  Alix had inherited the farm and turned it into a pet shelter.

  Vaguely, I remember the place from when we were kids, and I’d come here around the holidays with her brothers once. My dad was spending a couple of weeks in the slammer for something or other. The Winthrops tried to help, letting me spend weekends and parts of summer breaks with them.

  But it wasn’t until much later, when they knew the full extent of the situation and how my father had devolved to his lowest, that they stepped in.

  Their support - along with a few well-placed threats and summer jobs from Murphy Doyle – got my father off my case and paved the way to a better future.

  Being here’s stirring up ghosts.

  I shake off the past, needing to stay in the present.

  The farm’s situated along one of the winding rivers in Ipswich. When Alexandra’s grandmother lived here, it’d been in disrepair.

  Big place, a lot to manage for an elderly widow living on her own.

  But even this time of night, I can see Alix restored it.

  Of course, she did.

  Still, it’s a big place for only one person to manage.

  She crosses to a crate where a strange little dog is emitting that screaming sound. I walk over to stand next to her and drop down to peer at the dog.

  “That a Jack Russell?” I ask.

  My son JJ talks about how much he loves the breed. I’d thought about adopting one.

  The dog turns enormous, soulful eyes on me and lets out another yelp.

  “That’s a very - particular - sound,” I say neutrally.

  “Yeah, potential adopters have compared it to everything from a banshee to that comedian that was in the Police Academy movies,” she laughs.

  Her laugh is one of the few sounds in my life that still give me pleasure. It’s been years since I heard it, but I’ve never forgotten it.

  “As to the breed? Unknown. Maybe a JRT or some sort of corgi mix,” she adds.

  She swings open the door, and the dog charges out, headfirst into my calf. He shakes his head, rolls over, and shows me his belly.

  I pet him quickly and then stand up fast.

  She looks at me.

  “He likes you.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Cookie, meet Jack. Jack, this angelic creature is Cookie,” Alix introduces us, as formally as i
f we were royalty.

  I watch her as she moves efficiently around the room. The place was built in the 1700s, so it has those weird lines particular to old New England farmhouses.

  How many times had I shut my eyes and imagined this?

  This fantasy, of being in the same space as Alix?

  It was the kind of place you might live a healthy happy life, build a family.

  I would be a million miles from anywhere I wanted to be, with no solace in sight and I would picture almost exactly this.

  My mind always came back to her.

  Alexandra had been younger than me.

  Too young.

  But she’d been smart as hell, determined, and resolute in a way that intimidated me even as a teenager.

  I couldn’t process the feelings I had for her when I was young, but I had had time to go over them since.

  A lot.

  “Give me one second,” she calls.

  I stand awkwardly next to where I dropped my duffle.

  Cookie still begs me to rub his stomach, so I indulge him.

  He gets a boner.

  Swell.

  She’d been maybe a freshman.

  Found me out on Wingershaek Beach after I’d gotten into it with my old man.

  No matter how big I got, he still liked to hit.

  I couldn’t bring myself to hit him back. For whatever reason…

  My mother died when I was three, and he just didn’t know what to do with himself, never mind a kid.

  For a while, he did his best and then he didn’t. A lot of guys tell that story about how they finally got big enough to hit their abuser and that it felt empowering. I did get big enough, but I never hit him while he was drunk. I knew why he was in that pain. I knew what drove him to be like that.

  I always hoped he’d crawl out of the bottle and back into my life.

  You get one of two reactions growing up in that situation: pity or pretended ignorance. That’s doubly true when you’re a big guy that people assume should be taking care of himself by a certain point.

  One night he’d gone after me, and I’d gotten out with a split lip and the start of a black eye. I finally decided I had had enough.

  I grabbed what I could and started walking.

  It was a crisp fall night, but not winter yet. I could sleep on the beach, if I felt like it. I had done it enough times before. It’s private enough that the cops usually don’t bother you.

  It was almost sunset when the rattle of a bike chain pulled my head up.

  Alix Winthrop.

  Tanner Winthrop’s little sister.

  A complicated set of feelings hit me. She’s a pretty girl, a couple of years younger than me, but too young. And she’s from a good family and doesn’t need to get tangled up with a mess like me.

  We’re not in school together, but every time I hung out with her brother, I noticed her.

  Smart. Always saying something funny. Always playing with a dog or saving a dying bird or something. She looked at me like she had my number.

  I’d always watched when she brought home the latest box turtle she rescued or an orphaned kitten she’d need to feed twelve times a night. That desire to help others – and not to hurt them – was so foreign from what I had at home.

  It drew me in, her kindness.

  I spent some time with her.

  Talked to her a little.

  I got to trust her.

  “Hey Jack,” she says, sitting down next to me like I’d asked her to meet me here.

  I wait.

  She doesn’t say anything, just starts rifling around in a satchel.

  At the sound of crinkling plastic, my stomach growls.

  It’s Saturday, and the last meal I’d eaten was Friday’s free lunch. The next one would be the free school breakfast on Monday.

  Some library book I’d read said fasting makes you stronger – makes you tough.

  I tell my rumbling stomach that, repeating it over and over. It doesn’t listen. I tell myself it’s just a pussy, but mostly I’m just hungry.

  I can’t seem to stop growing, and I’m always so damned hungry.

  She tosses me a granola bar.

  For a second, I start to protest, but she cuts me a look that dares me to argue.

  Fine.

  When I finish that one, she wordlessly hands me two more.

  She looks at me.

  “You’re a good person, Jack, you know,” she says, quietly.

  She’s completely sincere.

  Whatever I’d expected her to say, it wasn’t that.

  And it’s the kind of day when a bit of kindness hurts a thousand times worse than the fiercest beating.

  I stare hard out at the ocean, not looking at her.

  She waits.

  A patient one, that girl.

  Deep like the waters in front of us.

  “Doesn’t seem like anyone agrees with you, kid,” I say, my voice rough.

  She flinches when I call her kid, and I didn’t mean it like that.

  Her cheeks are pink, and I feel like an asshole.

  If things were different…but they’re not.

  And she is a kid, and I’ll be out of this shithole next year, one way or another. Better not to get confused about the facts.

  “You deserve better than his shit.”

  There’s such a fierce fury in her voice.

  I look at her then.

  How the hell did she know?

  By looking at my face, yeah.

  Plus, everyone knows. Trash kid of a trash drunk who uses him as a punching bag. Just another generation of Mulvaneys being Mulvaneys. I’d heard that a time or ten from the old-timers.

  Her parents were kind to me and had tried to help. Eventually, they’d take me in.

  But I didn’t know that then and was still hung up on trying to hide it. Partially to protect my old man, partly to hide my shame, and partly just as a survival mechanism.

  My options were staying with my dad and taking my chances on what I knew or going into the foster care system and getting fucked completely. The way I saw it, my options were substituting one shitty situation for another.

  Since my mom died years before, it was just dad and me.

  I had to try to take care of him, or he was going to end up dead. Mostly, I just kept hoping he’d get his shit together. And as bad as my situation was, I was almost a grown man, and there were more significant problems in this town.

  That’s what the social worker said last year, anyways.

  “I drove by on my way home from volunteering at the horse farm,” Alix finally says, looking a little embarrassed. “Saw you were walking.”

  Hell of a long walk.

  I look at the bike.

  Even longer bike ride, all the way down from Rockport.

  Jesus.

  “So, what, you hopped on your bike and came after me?” I growl.

  She looks at me almost defiantly, blue eyes flashing.

  “Yup.”

  Well then.

  I can’t help it; I laugh.

  This girl has a lot of guts and a lot of heart.

  I don’t know why a girl like her notices a guy like me, but for one second, it makes me feel better.

  “Well, thanks,” I tell her, and mean it.

  She shrugs.

  She continues looking at me, and finally, I meet her eyes.

  Gotta be careful here.

  “Jack?”

  “What?”

  “I have no doubt someday everyone will know you’re a good guy. But most of all, I hope you get the message yourself,” she whispers.

  She leans forward and wraps her arms around me.

  It’s gentle and timid, and she seems unsure about it.

  Even half-starved, I’m a big guy, and I’m not used to being touched.

  Not at all.

  There’s no heat in it, at least not consciously, but there’s a kindness that has my throat closing.

  I hardly remember anyone ever touc
hing me out of kindness.

  Men don’t cry – my father’s been clear about that – but I can’t hold back one shake.

  Just a full-bodied shiver.

  She just pulls me closer, and then, unthinkingly, I hug her back for just a second before pulling away.

  Hard. Fast.

  She stands up.

  I join her. “I’ll walk you home.”

  She considers me for a second and nods. It’s a long walk home, and we make it in silence. But when I go to turn around at the foot of her drive, she looks at the bike and then up at me.

  “Can you push it up the hill? I’m tired.”

  Her mother’s on the porch.

  “Alexandra Jane Winthrop! I was so worried. Oh, hello, Jack. Thank you so much. I needn’t have worried if I’d known she was with you,” she smiles.

  Alix grabs her mother’s arm and whispers something.

  Mrs. Winthrop focuses on my face.

  I duck my head, kicking the stand on the bike and backing away.

  “Jack, won’t you stay for supper? I’ve got enough lasagna for ten, and it’s just Alix and me tonight?” she says invitingly.

  When supper was over, I’d eaten half a lasagna all by myself. And, almost a loaf of bread. And dessert. And I think I drank a gallon of milk.

  That night was the turning point when I realized that I couldn’t protect my dad.

  Later, I’d talk to the Winthrops and even later the Doyles about the full extent of my situation, and they made sure I got through my last year of high school without too much grief from my father.

  After that, it was the Marines.

  After that, I had to really grow up.

  So I did.

  But I didn’t forget that it was partially – maybe more than partially – Alix’s kindness that helped get me out in one piece.

  She’s bundled up again in a heavy coat.

  “Jack, I appreciate you coming here,” she begins.

  I grin.

  “But?” I ask.

  She looks annoyed.

  I don’t know what she would have said next because that’s when I hear the explosion.

  There is a boom and a giant sucking sound, and I can see the horrible flames reflected on the windows of the house.

  Improvised explosive devices have a specific sound. This is similar, but there is something off about it.

  But at the first bang, I’m in full Marine mode. I take cover and protect what’s most precious.