In the Unlikely Event

by L.J. Shen

  I tug him toward the elevators, frazzled, and punch the button five hundred times, turning back to him with a giant, fake, plastic smile.

  “Yay!” I wave my fist around. “Reunited. Again. Awesome.”

  Just shut up, you idiot. You’re making it worse.

  “Rory.” Callum’s voice is laced with worry, his eyebrows pulled together. “Are you drunk? You know I don’t take well to public lewdness.”

  “Totally sober.” I let out a nervous laugh.

  The elevator doors slide open, and, of course, Mal is standing on the other side, looking devilishly gorgeous—for a homewrecker, that is.

  “I was looking for you.” His expression softens until he notices Callum behind me.

  His whole face changes again. It’s painful to watch. He looks…disappointed. Not that he has any right to be.

  “Malachy,” Callum greets him from behind me, stepping into the elevator. I step in as well, swiping the electronic card over the screen and pushing the button for Callum’s floor.

  “Shiny Boyfriend,” Mal answers, his voice dripping ice.

  “How’s the writing going?” Callum asks.

  I jump into the conversation before Mal gets the chance to offend Callum.

  “Well, Richards is flying back to Ireland, so Mal can see to his arrival. You and I can stay here.”

  I just want to save face. Truth is, in approximately ten minutes, I am going to deliver some harsh truths to Callum, after which neither of us will have the ability to stomach my existence.

  Tonight is New Year’s Eve, and the party Ashton was planning with Mal back in Ireland has been canceled. It would have been a great opportunity to take pictures, but clearing the air with Cal is of higher importance.

  “That’s a wonderful idea.” Callum smiles down at me, and my heart breaks into a trillion pieces.

  You did this. You basked in Mal’s warmth, not even realizing he was burning everything around you.

  “It really is,” Mal agrees, shifting toward me. “There’s only one, tiny obstacle standing in the way.”

  “Which is?” I narrow my eyes.

  “Reality,” he deadpans. “Richards and I have decided to stay here until Monday, too. You know, change of scenery and all. Great way to get the creative juices flowing.” Mal grins down at me wolfishly.

  Must.

  Not.

  Kill.

  The.

  Gorgeous.

  Poet.

  My jaw locks so hard it’s about to snap, and it occurs to me that Mal is just crazy enough to tell Callum what happened before I get the chance to. Mal is probably reading my mind, because the way he looks at me says trouble.

  “Well, we’ll get out of your way, Malachy. Rory and I certainly have a lot of catching up to do.”

  Callum turns to me and drops a kiss on my head, no doubt thinly veiling his sexual intentions.

  “No truer statement has been spoken in this elevator.” Mal smirks, looking skyward, shaking his head.

  Bastard. Why can’t I like the sane one? Why?

  I turn my head to flash Mal a warning look, but he refuses eye contact with me, staring straight ahead.

  The elevator dings, and Mal gets out, walking right behind us, even taking Callum’s suitcase and rolling it along the corridor. “Before I forget, there’s been a change of plans,” he says. “Richards is throwing a party tonight in his penthouse after all. Stars are coming from all over Europe. I think Alex Winslow is cutting short his vacation with his wife and kids in the south of France just to say hi. It’s going to be wild, and therefore not a place for a sweet lady like our Rory.”

  He knows there’s no chance in hell I’m going to leave the hotel now. This is the stuff Ryner dreams about. The kind of crazy, old-school, rock-star party full of familiar faces, where people swing from chandeliers and write songs in the corner of the room and create plaster molds of penises and drive Rolls Royces into swimming pools.

  We stop at Callum’s door. I look up at him and play with my nose hoop. He shakes his head with a smile.

  “Let’s stay and go to the party. Who cares where we are, as long as I’m inside you?”

  Mal is standing in front of us, watching the entire exchange. I want to throw up. I don’t know why Callum said what he just did, but that makes me feel even worse than I did a second ago.

  I rise on my tiptoes, giving Callum a chaste peck on the cheek.

  “Let’s get inside,” I whisper brokenly.

  I slam the door in Mal’s face, leaving him out. Physically. Figuratively.

  Leaving him with the lies.

  With the secrets.

  With the weight of his affair with married Maeve.

  And the guilt of keeping Kath’s death from me.

  With our sins.

  When I turn from the door to face Callum, I drop the charade.

  “We need to talk.”

  Present

  Rory

  I never get to tell Callum about what happened with Mal. As soon as we shut the door behind us, he gets a call he has to take and locks himself outside on the balcony. He uses his hushed, I’ll-make-meatballs-out-of-you, hedge-fund-analyst tone that makes my skin crawl.

  The phone call lasts nearly two hours and reaches octaves better suited for the jungle. I feel sorry for him that he has to work on New Year’s Eve. But by the time he’s done, I’m getting ready to hop into the shower before the party.

  When he walks back in, his face flushed and pouty, he glances at my half-naked figure and perks up, plastering a lazy smile where a scowl rested seconds ago.

  “Me. You. Shower. Sex. Let’s go.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “I don’t reckon anything is more important than a quick shag, especially with your hipbones poking out Bella Hadid-style. Despair suits you.” He runs his tongue over his upper teeth. “Go on. You can’t tell me you haven’t been longing for my cock all this time.”

  I sit on the edge of the bed, hunched and defeated, racking my brain for how to deliver the news—how to rip us open like a mummified body and dump all the internal organs.

  I hate that Summer was right in her prediction.

  The napkin didn’t mean nothing.

  It meant everything.

  Mal warned me years ago that he was going to break whatever I had going with someone else if we met again.

  And he kept good on his promise.

  Callum tugs at my sleeve, and there’s something in his expression that makes my heart rattle my ribs like they’re metal bars.

  I burst out in tears, covering my face, feeling ashamed not only for what I did to him, to me, but also for being such a coward. For not coming clean like a grown-up. He stands there, the summer blush vanishing from his face, watching me.

  “All right then, no shagging. I didn’t think the idea would upset you quite so much…” He scratches his head, trying to make light of things. “I did give my willy curls a good trim, if that’s the reason you’re distraught.”

  I try to laugh to make him feel better, but the truth is, we don’t have time right now to have the conversation we obviously need to have. I slip into the shower and turn the water to sizzling hot, staring ahead at the powder blue tiles with their tiny cracks of old age, wondering when it all went so wrong.

  I know exactly when. The minute I took this job.

  Because being around Mal and not wanting him is impossible.

  I can deny myself of a lot of things, but he’s never been one of them.

  Mal makes me burn. Crackle. Melt. My love for him is thick and sturdy. Metallic and alive. A beating organ, co-existing with my heart.

  I get out of the shower and face Callum, who is choosing cufflinks from a little velvet box he takes with him everywhere.

  “When we get back, we really need to talk,” I mutter.

  He answers without turning to look at me, his voice surprisingly dead.

  “You’re the boss.”

  Spin the bottle.


  We are playing spin the bottle.

  This party is a total shitshow.

  And Alex Winslow never showed up.

  “Winslow?” Richards puffed on a suspicious-looking cigarette and laughed when I asked him about it. “His idea of partying is curry night in front of the telly with the wifey. A total straightedge, that fucker,” he said with the worst impression of a cockney accent to ever be recorded on planet Earth.

  Instead, the music is crappy (mostly Ashton’s stuff), the place is ninety-nine-percent semi-naked women in togas, and there’s a self-proclaimed tattoo artist taking spontaneous customers on Richards’ rotating bed while it’s rotating, which anyone with three brain cells can see is not the best idea of the century.

  There are servants walking around the suite offering platters of grapes, cheese, crackers, champagne, and schnapps. New Year’s Eve balloons adorn the room in gold, silver, and black.

  And as I mentioned, we are sitting in a circle, playing spin the bottle like the big, screwed-up, dysfunctional pile of random people we are.

  “Rules.” An English chick with fake boobs and highlighted hair twirls like a fairy around the room, batting her eyelashes in every direction. “Since we have a proper couple here, we need to make sure they’re both all right with seeing other people snogging their significant other.”

  She directs her big, hazel eyes at me and raises a daring eyebrow. I glance at Callum, fully expecting him to shut it down. That was one of the points I always brought up to Summer when I wanted to break up with him after we started seeing each other—his conservative, traditional streak that drives me nuts.

  “I’m always up for a bit of fun.” He smiles, much to my amazement.

  He slices his gaze toward me, narrow-eyed, like this is some kind of test.

  I glance at Mal across from me, briefly, so as not to raise any suspicion. His face is stoic, his eyes zeroed in on the empty champagne bottle between us. Maybe he’s finally getting it. That it’s not only because of Callum that I refuse to entertain the idea of us.

  It’s because he is Glen.

  I’m starting to see that my father wasn’t the lovable, village-drunk martyr I’d imagined him to be. The secrets and lies swarming around Tolka have a root, and that root might be his grave.

  Everyone is staring at me now, assessing my reaction. This could go south fast, and I’m too old to cave to peer pressure. On the other hand, I can’t pretend to be a prude. Not when Cal is game.

  “Go on. You’re the one who always tells me to lighten up.” Callum elbows me with a chuckle.

  There’s a threat laced in his voice for the first time since I’ve known him, and I don’t have time or the ability to crack it open and study its inside right now when I’m already tipsy.

  I shrug in acceptance, and all the girls in the circle woo-hoo and meow like cats in heat. Callum is prime meat in this testosterone-deprived environment. Plus, Ashton looks too tanked and Mal too unattainable to promise any type of real action. The English chick goes as far as shimmying her boobs in Callum’s direction and winking. Very understated.

  “Are you good with seeing Rory snog other lads?” she taunts.

  “No one can kiss her the way I do, love.” He flashes her a predatory smirk.

  Love. He calls everyone love. Mal is right. It’s not romantic. It’s kind of annoying.

  “And what about other birds?” she pokes.

  I choke on the beer I’m nursing, but say nothing,

  “Especially birds.” Callum laughs.

  “And what about you? Are you open to kissing a bloke?” She continues grilling Callum.

  She is flirting up a storm with my boyfriend. It occurs to me that I should be mad, but all I can muster is irritated apathy, like when you see someone being a bigot online, but all you can manage is Liking the comment that argues with them, not actually entering the exchange.

  Callum clears his throat. “Let’s keep it straight, yeah?”

  Of course. Me kissing girls is great, but him kissing guys is out of the question.

  “What about you?” British Bombshell turns to Ashton, who’s sitting next to Mal. “Are you okay with snogging a bloke?”

  Ashton gives a brief, nonchalant nod, sliding his gaze to Mal. Mal looks between British Bombshell and Ashton, his face blank. I realize I am holding my breath, waiting for his answer, when he opens his mouth.

  “I don’t discriminate when it comes to hating and fucking.”

  “Hallelujah!” Bombshell giggles.

  I cross my jeans-clad legs, feeling my panties lined with wetness. I don’t know why the idea of him kissing Ashton is so erotically pleasing to me. Maybe because they’re both so aesthetically beautiful. Maybe because I know Mal hates Ashton, and that Mal is the kind of guy who can hate-fuck anyone into a coma, despite his eccentric, contradictory nature. And suddenly, I’m imagining Mal dicking Ashton from behind, and the air gets hot and heavy and incredibly thick in my lungs.

  “Rory?” Callum turns to me.

  “Hmm?”

  “You’re fanning yourself. Is there an issue with the air conditioning?”

  Shit. I drop my hand and steal a glance at Mal again. His purple eyes shine as they laser their way into my pupils. Busted.

  Ashton is the first to spin the bottle. It lands on a Greek brunette. They both crawl on all fours, meeting halfway in the middle of the twelve-person circle. Knowing they’re about to set the bar for the rest of us, they grin at each other conspiratorially and plunge in with force.

  Callum and I exchange looks when we realize it’s much more than just kissing. Richards’ hand slides into her shirt, and she cups his erection through his jeans as they kiss deeply. She lifts one of her legs and straddles him in the middle of the circle.

  “All right,” Callum says in his cheerful tone. “Let’s break it off before someone gets pregnant.”

  Everyone laughs nervously, and the flushed brunette scurries back to her spot. British Bombshell spins the bottle, eyeing Callum like he’s pizza to someone in ketosis, and sure enough, karma decides to spit in my face, and the bottle lands on him.

  Maybe it’s because I don’t have the right to be angry, but I’m oddly okay with this outcome. It doesn’t even surprise me much. Mal says Kathleen has been messing with his life in a roundabout way since she died, and maybe he’s right. So many coincidences happen when we’re together. It’s like we’re sewn into one piece, entwined in the same pattern, on the same path, and every time someone else tries to get close to us, life rips it to shreds.

  Callum searches my face—for approval or jealousy, I have no clue. My pulse escalates. There’s a ball of guilt the size of my fist lodged in my throat.

  I give him a small nod. “Make the most of it, stud.”

  They both shoot to their feet and meet outside the circle, by the bed. He cups her cheek like he does to me when he wants sex. It is technical, familiar.

  “Hi.” He smiles down at her.

  “Hi,” she breathes.

  I realize I’m smiling, too, because they’re cute together. But I shouldn’t think that way. When his lips meet hers, half the girls in the circle turn their heads to watch me. I force myself to stare at Callum and the girl, willing myself to feel something—anything—but it’s pointless. It’s like watching a TV show, a half-engaging one at that. After ten seconds of a slow, sensual, French kiss with tongue and awkwardness and a healthy dose of anxiety, they break away, and something in the air crackles with tension. She’s still clinging to his body as he takes a step back, shaking his head like he can’t believe he did that.

  He glances at me. My heart breaks, but for all the wrong reasons.

  She can make him happy, and I’m standing in her way.

  Not for long, I tell myself. Callum deserves more, and it’s time he gets it.

  “Okay, thank you for the PG-13 exhibit of sloppy first base.” Ashton yawns. “I’ll make sure to recommend your asses next time Ed Sheeran needs to write a church-friendly song. B
randy, your turn.”

  Brandy is his assistant, I discover. The one who gave Mal her number back in Tolka. Yup, same one with the long, tan legs and flaming red hair that looks like fine cherry wine. She leans forward, her cleavage more generous than Oprah Winfrey’s charity work, and spins the bottle. I already know where it’s going to land. My heart feels like an iron fist trying to break the bony wall of my ribcage.

  Thud, thud, thud.

  And then…it happens.

  The bottle lands on Mal, and Brandy’s smile is so wide, I can comfortably fit a baseball bat into it. Horizontally. Not that I’m thinking about doing that.

  Maybe just a little.

  She crawls to the center of the circle, probably wanting a rehash of the way Ashton manhandled the Greek goddess, but Mal stands up, walks toward her, and yanks her up. By her ponytail. He does it so casually, so effortlessly, I hear a collective sigh from all the women in the room and realize I contributed to it with my own little moan.

  Mal looks down at her. She tilts her head, a seductive smile stamped on her lips.

  “What are the odd—” She can’t even pronounce the S before his lips smash into her mouth, and they kiss so deeply, so brutally, so cruelly, I want to cry. It feels like a tiger slashing my chest with its pointy claws, ribbons of blood spurting from my heart.

  I’m not okay.

  Actually, I feel like I can’t breathe.

  When his tongue slides past her lips and conquers her mouth, I inhale sharply and force myself not to squeeze my eyes shut. Her moans and groans of pleasure seep into me like poison.

  When they’re finally done sucking each other’s faces, Callum clears his throat. I turn and realize he’s been looking at me the entire time.

  “Enjoy the show?” His lips twitch in annoyance.

  “More than the company,” I mutter.

  I’m so fed up with his passive-aggressive BS. But I also acknowledge it is my fault for not spitting out what happened between Mal and me in Ireland. Though it wasn’t my fault he had to be holed up with a business call. I tried. I couldn’t do it twenty minutes before we left for the party.