by L.J. Shen
“Kathleen’s,” I say to her back. “I’m spending Christmas at Kathleen’s.”
She stops, but she doesn’t say anything. I get a good view of her little, round bum.
“And you?” I can’t help myself. “Christmas with the future in-laws in England?”
She turns and gives me a serene smile.
“I, too, have no interest in being pleasant with you, Malachy Doherty. The difference between us? Unlike you, I stay true to my word.”
I lean back on the bannister and smile, watching her go.
All is fair in love and war, and I’m certainly prepared for battle.
A NOTE FROM JEFF RYNER
History and hysteria have more than a few letters in common.
These two? They definitely share a history, and what I saw on the balcony was nothing short of hysterical.
I’ve watched it happen time after time in this industry.
Exes working together, thinking they are mature, and moved on, and capable of being friends.
B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T.
I could’ve told them it would only get uglier from here on out. Warn them not to bother. That the money isn’t worth it, and babysitting an asshole like Ashton Richards is only going to put them under more pressure, break more rules, and push them over the edge.
I could…
But let’s be real. I’m a forty-something cokehead with a sex addiction, and I have absolutely zero doubt that’s how they view me and what they think of me. Seeing other people screwing up their lives is not painful at this point. It is even—dare I say it?—therapeutic. Like knitting.
Knitting a disaster.
That’s why people gossip, right? To get a kick out of other people’s problems. And when other people don’t have problems they can see or taste or judge, they create problems for them. Analyze their every move to try to make themselves feel better. Well, this has catastrophe written all over it. How could I prevent it from happening?
Plus, I’m genuinely interested to see how it pans out. Knowing Malachy Doherty’s story, I don’t know how he can bang up his miserable life more than he already has. Guy is so deep in shit, anything else thrown at him, even a scandal, would frankly be an upgrade.
I pop two pills of whatever my dealer gave me and make my way back to the party, knowing I look like a Eurovision set and not giving a fuck.
Because I don’t.
I really don’t.
Let people judge. They’re not much better. The only difference between us is that I know what Malachy and Rory think about me. They don’t know what I think about them.
Rory
“You’re home early.” Summer pokes her head up from behind the fluffy cushions of the couch before turning back to the TV and shoving another spoonful of Chunky Monkey into her mouth. Pretty Woman is playing.
She waggles the spoon at the TV, yelling at the screen, “I freaking loathe rom-coms. Falling in love with a billionaire and ending up marrying him is bullshit with a capital B, especially when you’re a working girl. You’re more likely to get murdered by him. You know, since working girls are often without relatives. This should have been Pretty Dead Woman: A Cautionary Tale.”
“Don’t wait for a call from Hollywood.”
I hang my coat by the door and kick my Toms off as I make a stop at the kitchen counter, which is actually inside our tiny living room, pouring both of us large glasses of cheap wine.
Callum wanted me to stay over, but I have an early morning tomorrow, and privately, I can admit that seeing Mal shook me to the core.
“Why the ice cream?” I place the empty wine bottle in the sink, my back to her. I’m trying to act nonchalant, mainly so I can convince myself I’m not having a mental breakdown of epic proportions. Which I’m not. Feeling my pulse pounding against my eyelids is totally normal, I’m sure.
“I was just thinking about the love of my life.” Summer lets out an exasperated sigh.
“Shouldn’t that be a good thing?” I quirk an eyebrow, turning around and plopping next to her. I hand her a glass of white wine.
“No, considering the fact I haven’t met him yet, and it’s very likely he’s sleeping with someone else as we speak, Rory. It’s Saturday evening, and the whole world is drunk and stumbling out of office Christmas parties. How could he do this to me?” Summer sniffs. “He’s probably screwing another girl right now. The hot girl from HR. Dirty bastard.”
I bite down on a smile, working out a way to explain her backward logic in my head. Summer’s sunshine blonde hair is tied up in a huge, messy bun, and she’s still wearing yesterday’s eyeliner. She’s clad in gray sweatpants and a black hoodie, a far cry from her usual glamorous, off-Broadway actress persona. Summer is in between projects now, rehearsing for her next show, which is due to start running mid-February. This was supposed to be our time together, but now I have to go to freaking Ireland and work alongside Mal, who had a personality transplant sometime in the last decade and died on the operating table, only to resurrect himself as Satan.
Summer turns the volume down, swiveling on the couch to face me. “What’s up, Ror? You look like you sucked off Lucifer and he filled your mouth with ashes and lava.”
“No, but close.” I put my glass down.
Summer has been my best friend since we were toddlers. We went to grade school and college together. We share an apartment. She knows everything about me.
“I saw Mal at the ball tonight.”
She blinks at me. “Mal…?”
“Irish Mal.”
Her eyes widen, and she slaps the back of her hand over her forehead dramatically. Summer can be scandalized more easily than a seventeenth century duchess in a brothel.
“Say it ain’t so.”
I nod. “It’s so, and it’s worse than anything you might imagine.”
“I don’t know how it possibly could be, unless he’s Callum’s lover and is after his ass, not yours. You finally have your shit together, Rory. You’ve been hung up on him for years.”
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about this life, it’s that you should find friends who love seeing you win and will support you when you lose. Summer is both.
“He’s married,” I say.
“Ouch.”
“To my sister, Kathleen.”
“The bastard!” She jumps up on the couch, quilt dropping to the floor, and shakes her fist in the air. “I’m going to kill him.”
“The worst part is not even that everything Kathleen said turns out to be true. It’s the fact that Mal can’t stand the sight of me for some reason. He’s mad at me, and he won’t tell me why.” I grab a throw pillow, hugging it to my chest.
“Who cares why he’s an asshole? Just be glad you dodged that bullet. Look how he treated your half-sister. The jerk played her around when you were there. I’m going to go out on a limb and bet their marriage is a clusterfuck of massive proportions.”
Summer plops down, grabs my wine glass, and puts it to my lips, urging me to take a sip like it’s medicine.
“Besides, you have Callum now, and he is uber hot and doesn’t hate money or standing or…you know, life in general.”
“Mal doesn’t hate life. He loves it.”
That’s the entire reason he is who he is. Because he loves life so passionately. But I’m thinking about Young Mal. The current version seems about as jolly as a KKK meeting.
Summer huffs. “What was he doing there, anyway?”
“He’s working with Jeff Ryner now.” I put the pillow behind my head and throw myself over it. “We’re about to work together. In Ireland. For two months. I’m going to live with him.” I swallow hard. “And his wife.”
Summer looks at me like I’ve just announced my intention to join the circus, where I will be performing a one-hour show doing gymnastics on the back of an elephant in nothing but leopard thongs. Blindfolded.
“What in the fuck went through your head when you said yes?”
“The job opportunity. Plus, the M
al thing happened eight years ago and clearly means nothing.”
“Means nothing?” Summer shoots to her feet, pacing back and forth in our tiny living room, arms linked behind her back. “Means nothing?! You obsessed over his ass like he was the only male with a functioning dick in the entire universe. It took you years—not weeks, not months, years!—to finally move on with Callum. You dreamed about him. You woke me up crying. You thought you saw him on street corners and in festivals and at airports. Remember that time you ran after that poor Asian lady because you thought she was him?”
Do I ever. She hit me with her bag trying to shoo me away.
“She was tall and had the same blue-black hair,” I mumble into my drink.
“Point is, he haunted you. We had to take turns in college watching you so you didn’t break your stupid napkin contract and look for him on the internet. That’s not nothing, Rory. That’s everything.”
I rub my eyes, taking a gulp of air. She’s right. Stupid Mal and stupid Kathleen ended up together and somehow reached the convenient (and also stupid) conclusion that I’m the reason for their problems, but I never stopped pining for him.
“You can’t go.” Summer stops pacing, stomping her foot. “I won’t allow it.”
“I’ve made up my mind.”
I stare at the TV to avoid her glare. Julia Roberts and Richard Gere are bickering. I think about Callum’s reaction when I came back from the balcony and explained everything. He shook Whitney off immediately, then stood up and ushered me to a little bar. There, he told me I should do it. That I daren’t pass up a blazing, new opportunity because of an old flame.
He said who knew how long I would keep this job anyway. Once he proposes, he will need me at his disposal, helping with the wedding arrangements, managing our social calendar.
I kind of blocked everything out past the “go for it” part, though. I have no plans of becoming a housewife, but that wasn’t the time to broach the subject.
“You’re going to screw your brother-in-law.” Summer crosses her arms in my periphery. “Let that sink for a second, Lewdy McGrosson. Still wanna go?”
“I’m not going to screw anyone there. Well, maybe Callum.” Definitely Callum. And unquestionably extra-loud. “Mal’s happily married and made that very clear. Here’s another thing he made clear: he hates my guts.”
“There’s a fine line between hate and love, and you two are about to dry-hump on top of it before rolling over to the love side and shitting all over your partners. Mark my words.” Summer shakes her finger in my face, collapsing next to me on the couch.
“What does Callum say about all this, anyway?”
Summer was #TeamCallum before I even agreed to go on a date with him—something about him being wholesome, with a well-paying job, and sane. I decide to omit the snow falling on us the minute Mal came out to the balcony. She would laugh at me.
“He’s great with it, actually.” I perk up.
Well, kind of. His exact words were, “Look at it as a last hurrah. You’ll be needing to make some tough decisions about working at a bar and running around with your camera all day. This could be a great time to clear your head and think about our future together.”
“Is he?”
I swear, she eyes me like I’m a cat about to hiccup a feather.
“England is a short flight away, and he’ll be visiting his family for Christmas and the new year. He’s excited. Besides, two months is nothing.”
“Two months is one month and twenty-nine days more than you had last time with Mal, and if I recall correctly, you promised to drop your boyfriend, panties, and hypothetical family to be with him at any point.”
“If I recall correctly…” I finish my glass of wine and slam it on the coffee table. “I was also eighteen, grieving, and believed in orgasms just a little less than I believed in the Tooth Fairy. I grew up.”
Summer throws me a skeptical glance.
“Look, I want the promotion,” I say, trying another tactic. “Things are going really well. This project could open so many doors for me. Callum is skeptical about my career, and this could prove to him that I make my own money. I need you to support this.”
She takes a deep breath, narrowing her eyes. “Do you really want the promotion, or do you think you should want it?”
“What’s the difference?”
“Your happiness is the difference.”
“I want the promotion,” I snap.
“Don’t ruin it with Callum, Rory.”
“I won’t. If anything, I’ll probably have Callum over all the time to get rid of the weirdness. I want to see Kathleen again just a little less than I want to have dinner with Hitler, Stalin, and Vlad the Impaler.”
“Hey, don’t bunch Vlad in with those assholes. He was just misconstrued and loyal to his country.” Summer sniffs.
I bump her shoulder with mine. “Point is, I’m dreading every moment of being there. Nothing will happen between married Mal and me.”
“Call me every day.”
“Scout’s honor.”
“And whenever you want to pork him—remember he also screws your sister, and that’s just too Jerry Springer for me to ever be associated with you again.”
“I wouldn’t risk our friendship like that,” I agree.
“Letting him double-dip his wiener into the family sauce again is…gut-wrenching.”
“Thanks for the culinary analogy,” I mutter. “You really made your point now.”
Her eyes on me don’t waver. “Promise me, Rory.”
“Jeez, Louise. Promise.”
She watches me for a long beat, moving her jaw back and forth. On TV, Richard and Julia are wrapping it up. Something about how love conquers all, yada yada. I never much enjoyed Pretty Woman.
Then I remember my conversation with Mal all those years ago—about women having to drive men somewhere for it to be a classic romance flick. Julia Roberts did that. I bet Mal likes this movie.
Don’t think about Mal. Mal is a bastard.
Summer shoves the spoon into the ice cream and scoops out half the tub, waving it in my face. “Carb up, girl. If that’s not a good excuse, I don’t know what is.”
One week later
Rory
The cab driver deposits Callum and me in front of Mal’s cottage and U-turns away, leaving mud splashes in his wake.
It’s surreal to see the cottage again after eight years of fixating on what happened between its walls. It looks like the place has been neglected beyond belief. The exterior has turned from charmingly old to decayed ancient. The roof is tattered, falling apart, and the grass is still overgrown, with patches of mud everywhere. I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe a woman’s touch from Kathleen, the cardigan-loving, proper-talking demoness? Alas, the place looks like it needs a good scrub, a lawnmower, and a hug. At least from the outside.
“Bloody hell,” Callum mutters behind me.
We were supposed to go to England to see his family—the first time I would have met his parents—and instead, he decided to accompany me here for a day to help me settle. He’ll have to catch a flight tomorrow morning to England, and I’m already dreading his departure.
“I could get us a room at an inn on the main street,” he suggests, his nice way of saying this place is unlivable for anyone who isn’t a ghostbuster.
“Ryner said I needed to stay here,” I say soothingly, walking up the cobbled path to the chipped, wooden door.
My heart is beating so fast I want to throw up. I’m going to come face to face with Malachy and Kathleen as a couple. They’re going to be all loved-up in my face, and I will be working under their roof.
I knock on the door.
“Do they know we’re coming?” Callum asks behind me.
“Yeah. Whitney said she sent Mal an email with our flight schedule.”
Not that Mal cares, I assume. A knot is forming in my stomach. Is he going to make my life hell here?
“You should text your mum,�
�� Callum points out.
I don’t turn around to face him. “Uh-huh.”
“She’s heartbroken over the fact you didn’t stop to say goodbye.”
“We celebrated Christmas with her,” I grumble.
I wasn’t in the mood to listen to more of her begging me to cover my birthmark with more makeup, pleading with me not to go to Ireland—her most loathed country in the universe—and generally making me listen to her gossip about people I don’t know.
There’s no answer, so I knock again, this time harder. It’s freezing outside. Callum is shifting from foot to foot next to me. He’s wearing a pea coat and a powder blue dress shirt.
He snakes his arm around me, rubbing my shoulder. “Relax, love. It’s going to be fine. It’s been eight years, he’s married, and then there’s the matter of you being madly in love.”
He says that as a joke, but I can hear the question in his voice. Before I officially signed the contract for this project, I told Callum about what happened with Mal eight years ago, hoping to hell he’d make the decision easy for me and express how uncomfortable he felt about it. I’m not much of a Mary Sue who likes to be told what to do, but it would’ve been a much-needed nudge in the right direction if Callum wasn’t so smugly confident he’s the shit.
Okay, so also, maybe I wasn’t one-hundred-percent honest.
I left one thing out. A teeny-tiny thing. So tiny, in fact, you could fit it in your back pocket. More specifically, the napkin. The contract. But for a good reason: it doesn’t matter. Mal clearly hasn’t kept it. He’s happily married. Plus, it’s just flat-out embarrassing.
I knock on the door a few more times, but it’s clear no one is home. How fitting of Mal not to be here just to spite me. Of course, Kathleen played along. I decide two (or rather, three) can play this game. I will not be standing outside getting pneumonia just because he has some illogical vendetta against me. The main street is far enough that we’ll have to call a cab to take us there if we want to warm up in a pub or an inn, waiting for his highness to arrive, and by the time a taxi gets here, we’ll be freezing.