by L.J. Shen
“I’m Rory.”
“We know,” they say in unison.
“I didn’t think she’d be that pretty. Kath said she was just okay,” Maeve grumbles, then bites her lip, realizing she said that aloud.
“Do you live around here?” I look between them, trying to break the ice.
Heather nods. “Just down the street. On Christchurch Grove. Ours are the blue and red houses facing each other. We’re married to the O’Leary twins, you see. She’s married to Sean, and I’m married to Daniel.”
This is way more information than I asked for. I smile and step away, toward the street.
“What are you doing living with Mal if you two aren’t a thing?” Maeve narrows her eyes at me.
Everything in her face is squeezed in concentration, like her life depends on my next words.
“We work together. I thought he married Kath.”
“He did.” Heather sighs, as if everyone knows how that turned out.
Well, I don’t. I’d kill for an answer. Well, maybe not kill, but seriously injure someone. Preferably Mal himself.
“Did they get a divorce?” I’m starting to think I’ve gone mad. Either Mal and Kathleen have a super-open relationship or I’m missing something crucial here.
“Mal would never.” Maeve’s bitter tone does not escape me. “He’s loyal to a fault.”
Yeah. Loyal. So, so loyal.
“Kath left him, then?”
Their eyes grow so big, I’m afraid they’re going to roll out of their sockets. Realizing this is a dead-end conversation, I mutter a goodbye and start backing away, turning around and taking off.
I need to talk to someone, all right. Father Doherty. Yeah, he’ll be able to tell me what the hell this entire inheritance obsession is about, and maybe shed light on the Mal-and-Kathleen situation. God knows Mal is not helpful in this regard.
I know Father Doherty lives in this village. It’s just a matter of finding him. I’ll go door to door if I must.
I tromp my way back toward Mal’s cottage and take the long way up, the one between fields of barley and wheat. The air is fresh, and the wheat is brown and beaten by the cold, whooshing back and forth in the wind like silk. By the time I see the cottage, my heart rate is back to normal.
I push the door open and find Mal sitting in the backyard, which has been fully furnished with loungers, a dining table, two fire tables, and a fancy grill. The entire house looks different. Uncluttered, yet full of new, shiny things. I watch Mal sit back at one of the tables outside through the living room window. He’s flirting with two American girls from Richards’ staff. He is nice, Old Mal again. The one I fell for. I shake my head, roll my eyes, and head to my room, stepping over the threshold.
I blink.
Turn around.
Stalk back to the corridor.
Check it really is my room—it is—then re-enter, looking around.
What. In. The. Name. Of. Jesus. And. His. Holy. Crew?
Someone has removed the bed I’ve been sleeping on and replaced it with a gigantic, plush, king-sized mattress on an upholstered white bedframe with the initials AR. There are two nightstands, a central sound system, a TV, every game device under the sun, and a clothes rack with robes, fancy coats, and colorful blazers.
I shoot out to the backyard, feeling like my feet are hovering over the floor. I’m not mad. No. I’m raging. I can feel my pulse everywhere, including my eyelids and toes. A feral scream lodges in my throat.
I throw the back door open, and it slaps against the wall from impact.
“How dare you?” I fling my arms at Mal. He looks up from something one of the American girls is showing him on her phone—her ass is perched on the edge of the table his feet are on—and all three are staring at me now.
He watches me with quiet amusement. “Care to be more specific? I quit my mind-reading job last week.”
The girls snicker, exchanging looks.
“My room! My things! Everything is gone.”
I’m finding it hard not to stomp my foot and throw a fit, and Mal knows it, because the more flustered I am, the calmer he looks. He yawns provocatively, leaning back in his chair.
“About that. We had a bit of a space problem with Richards moving in, so I had to put your things in my room. Hey, roomie.” He winks, his eyes light and full of mischief.
The girls sigh audibly next to him. I’m about to throw up.
“I’m not rooming with you.” I fold my arms over my chest.
“Looks like you are from where I’m sitting. Then again, you’re awfully short. Sometimes you don’t see the whole picture.”
No, he didn’t.
“You sit on a throne of delusions if you think I’m sharing a bed with you.”
“No one said anything about sharing a bed, silly. I rolled you out a sleeping bag on the floor. Chivalry is not dead, Rory. I’m living proof of that.”
“You want me to sleep on the floor?”
He shrugs. “You can stay awake on the floor, if you like. What you do with your spare time—on the floor—is not my concern.”
More laughter.
He’d better be kidding me.
“Get up,” I grit out.
The women exchange bitch-is-crazy looks. They aren’t wrong. Not now, anyway.
Mal gives them a meaningful, see-what-I-have-to-deal-with? look. He gets up, swaggering over to me as lazily as he possibly can without standing still. When he’s within reach, I grab the collar of his shirt and jerk him indoors. Everyone other than the girls is gone, the house fully prepared for Richards, but I don’t take any chances we’ll be heard. Richards is probably touring the village, trying out the local beer, butter, and babes. I shove Mal into the bathroom and lock the door. He leans back on the vanity, smirking down at me like I’m adorable.
“Mal,” I start, taking a cleansing breath. “We can’t sleep in the same room. I have a boyfriend. You have a wife. You care about what she thinks. I know you do.”
I don’t know if I’m trying to convince him, or myself. “I heard you talking to that English lady yesterday…”
At the mention, Mal’s lips curl in satisfaction. Of course, I was meant to hear him nailing Maeve through the mattress, floor, and lower sections of hell, giving her four orgasms and three praises for Jesus, God, Mary, and every saint in the Bible.
“You said you want to take Kath somewhere sunny after this is all over. Maybe you two are going through a hard time—”
“We are,” he interjects. “Horrible, really.”
I nod, eager to make my point.
“Yes. All couples do. I get it. And maybe you’re on a break, and that’s why you were with someone else. I’m not judging. But if we share a room, Kathleen will never, ever forgive you, and we both know it. And I will never be able to mend my relationship with my sister.”
Not that I particularly want that…but still. It would be nice to have the choice.
He pokes his lower lip out and tugs at it, his purple eyes raking my face. He is so painfully, unfairly beautiful. I want to lash out at him for abusing the power of his looks by being so impossible. He licks his lips, his eyes dropping to my mouth. I know what he’s thinking, and the blood that’s buzzing with anger in my veins is now full-blown humming with something that feels deadly close to anticipation. The familiar chill turns hot again, and I know he is my lighter. Ready to set me on fire with a flick of his fingers.
I take a step back, clearing my throat.
“There’s also another option,” I say.
“You can’t go to a hotel. New Year’s is around the corner and everything’s booked.”
“No.” I lift my eyes to his. “There’s another room at the end of the hall.”
I don’t mention that I’m dying to know why the room is locked. I simply watch as his expression morphs from easy to very frighteningly dead. His thick eyebrows furrow, his eyes dim, and his jaw squares. I don’t need him to open his mouth to know it was a mistake to bring it up,
but to leave no doubt, he pushes off the vanity and crowds me, his limbs easy and long and forbidding.
I swallow, but don’t cower. I tilt my chin up, not even blinking—not even when he reaches to cup the side of my neck, tilting his head sideways as his gaze scorches a path into my soul and rummages through it like it’s a stack of secondhand clothes at a charity shop.
“Let’s get one thing straight: you are not to talk about, refer to, or think about that room. You are, in fact, the very reason why that room exists. You will sleep in the sleeping bag, or you will not sleep at all. Take the sofa if you’re really into pneumonia. There’s no central heating, though, and the only heaters working are in mine and Ashton’s rooms. After that little stunt in the living room earlier, I doubt he’d let you warm his bed. And just to make things perfectly clear, you’re not welcome in mine.”
I open my mouth, about to tell him to go screw himself, when there’s pounding on the door. I jump in surprise, and he takes a step back, running his hand through his inky hair. I drop my gaze and see that he is hard. Rock hard, fully tented, and turned on. I flush pink, reaching for the door handle, desperate to get out.
Mal puts his hand on mine to stop me. Our eyes lock.
Flick. And just like that, I’m burning.
“Mal! We’re off. Make sure to wake Ashton up in about thirty minutes, okay? He has a call with Ryner booked for six pm your time. See you tomorrow. Or earlier, if you want. You have my number.” One of the girls giggles. “Ciao, handsome!”
The front door slams. Mal is the first to move. He opens the door, and we both slip out and disappear into different rooms. I go into Mal’s room to take my stuff to the living room—lack of heating be damned—and Mal goes into my former room to wake up Ashton.
I’m tucking linens into the sides of the sofa pillow when Mal walks into the front room, his face ashen. I don’t ask him what’s wrong, because frankly, I don’t care anymore.
“Richards is gone,” he tells me. “He’s not in his room.”
Our gazes connect, and we both say in unison, “Fuck.”
A NOTE FROM MAEVE
Hullo! It’s me, Maeve.
Just one little thing before you go back to your daily schedule.
To be perfectly clear: when Mal called me out of the blue, after years of radio silence, I very much wanted to ignore him. I did. He’s been horrible to me the past few years, you see.
Left me heartbroken and shattered when he said goodbye out of nowhere, without giving me a sufficient reason.
Yet I couldn’t stay away. A part of me—a small, stupid part of me—thought he might’ve changed his mind, that perhaps he saw the light and realized I was more than just a shag. That we were soulmates or something.
He proved me wrong as soon as I got to his bedroom. I swear, he was busier making me scream and the bed creak than anything else. It was obviously a revenge shag, and lucky me, I was in the middle of it, while she was listening next door.
I know she was, because she was gasping and moaning, too.
Which only made him fuck me with more stamina and speed than ever.
I felt a lot like a condom—like I was the only thing separating them from one another. It wasn’t really me he was sleeping with. It was her. And she, she imagined him, too.
Which reminded me why I’d gone and cheated on my husband every single time Mal gave me a ring, even though I’m no silly girl. I knew—know—why Mal started sleeping with me: to hurt my husband.
And why he did it last night: to hurt Aurora.
’Tis the truth that sleeping with another man when you have a family of your own is a villainous thing to do. But what about me? What about my feelings? My existence?
Shall I live my entire life washing and cleaning and feeding and cooking?
Loveless and lonely and slaving to kids who don’t care and a husband who won’t even look at me?
I didn’t mean to hurt my family.
To put what I have in jeopardy.
I didn’t mean to fall for the unattainable.
To ruin so many things along the way.
Now my Sean knows, but we are not getting a divorce.
No. He is better than that. Better than me. He just told me if I ever see Mal again in private, he would take the kids away.
I know he wants to kill Mal.
I want to kill Mal, too.
But for a different reason. I just saw the girl he fell in love with and realize I don’t stand a chance.
There’s a reason why fairytales end right after the prince saves the princess. No one likes to see her nursing postpartum depression and a drunken husband, all whilst folding the laundry.
And Mal? He was the prince who blazed by on a horse, heading in a different direction.
Present
Mal
Rory’s shivering.
I told her not to come with. Did she listen? No, she didn’t. Does she ever? Also negatory. She just grabbed her camera and flew through the door, taking this as an opportunity to work.
Of course, the fact that I am now the host of a currently AWOL, coked-up rock star whose name is synonymous with recklessness is part of why I’m ready to smash my head against a rock. Ashton Richards is an all-right guy, in the sense that he is unaware of just how irritating he is. He is one of those born-a-cunt people who thinks the world owes them something, and that others should do the job for them. The coke addiction is a byproduct of being an insta-rock star. If Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler had decided to skip on one leg four days a week as some sort of a rebellious statement, he’d have overdeveloped quads and would be late everywhere.
My phone rings a thousand times a minute.
10 Missed Calls From Bigwig Cokehead.
That’s the nickname I gave Ryner.
We trudge past the fields by the cottage, and I omit the fact that we are technically trespassing. The fields are no longer mine. I sold every inch of my land except the cottage after The Night That Ruined Everything. I didn’t want the responsibility, and I needed the money to buy a new house for Mam, Father Doherty, and Kathleen’s mum, Elaine. Then there was that emergency surgery for which we had to fly in doctors from America. That cost me a pretty penny, too.
I stop in front of a shack-like bungalow, the only house remotely close to mine, curl my knuckles, and pound on the door. The place belongs to the Smiths (the family, not the band), and the Smiths know things Rory doesn’t, so of course, I’m wary of the exchange.
“Hullo.” Brenda, a sixty-something-year-old housewife, opens the door. A warm, yellowish glow and the scent of baked pies spill out from behind her.
She wipes her swollen, veined hands with the hem of the apron wrapped around her big frame. The minute she sees me, her face alters from relaxed to pitying.
“Dear God, Malachy. How have you been? I’ve been meaning to come check on y—”
“Have you seen a strange-looking man around by any chance?” I cut her off. I did not consider the fact that the entire village treats me like Moses left in the reeds of the Nile River—maybe to survive, probably to die a slow, lonely death.
Surely Rory’s going to pick up on my sob story soon, if she hasn’t already.
Brenda’s brows nosedive. “How do you mean? Dodgy looking? Suspicious?”
“More like crazy looking. Golden robe, long hair. Sort of like a Kardashian version of Jesus Christ.”
She tsks. “Sorry, dear.”
“All right.” I turn around. “Cheers.”
“Wait! Come in! Have some pie!”
Brenda is calling after me, eager to help the poor, lost boy, but I jerk at Rory’s hand before she listens to the questions, and the pleas, and the condolences.
“Must you always act like you’ve been raised by swamp creatures?” Rory breaks away from my touch, jamming her fists in her pockets.
Her teeth are chattering. The girl is going to die if she tries sleeping in the living room tonight. I don’t answer her.
“Ryner is blowing
up my phone.” She tries changing the subject. “Yours, too?”
“Yeah.”
“Should we answer?”
“We are not a thing. I do whatever I choose to do, and you are free to do the same.”
Today, when Rory and I had the argument in the bathroom that resulted in all the blood in my body rushing to my cock, I almost told her she could take my bed and I’d take the sleeping bag. Then she had to go and bring up the locked room, and all the dark memories poured in, washing away every good intention I may have had.
“Where could he go? He didn’t take the car.” She skips to warm up, unfazed by my behavior.
The car is still parked in front of my house. Besides, I highly doubt he can operate a light switch, let alone an actual vehicle. No, Richards must be somewhere nearby. My phone rings again. Ryner. I don’t particularly care that we missed the call. I give a shite about this job a little less than I give one about the wellbeing of endangered cockroaches in Madagascar. Richards is the one with the problem.
Rory, too.
“Ryner is pissed.” She ughs. “This project is going to kill my career.”
“We’ll find him,” I say.
“Yeah.” She does weird things in her body, twisting and skipping to keep warm. “Maybe. Other than this house, it’s all open fields. I’m surprised you even get mail here.”
You’d know.
You sent me one hell of a letter.
We make our way past the Smiths’ house and down a valley. It’s getting darker, and I know we’re going to have a problem if we don’t find him in the next half hour. I don’t want to call the police and report him missing. It’s one thing to lose your wallet, but how does one lose the biggest rock star in the world?
In other news, Rory is on a mission to talk until my ears fall off.
“I think I hear something coming from over there.” She points at the sheds out left, a five-minute walk from us. “Let’s go check. Anyway, I know how that is. For the first two years in college, the dorms were full, so I got a partly subsidized house off-campus. The place was huge, but it was on this farm that was really far away from civilization. People got their mail maybe once a week. We were constantly late on bill payments. So we ended up having to rent a P.O. box on campus, but those were broken in to all the time because parents were sending their kids money and lots of valuable things. It was a nightmare.”