by Megyn Ward
“Is it me or has Conner seen one too many episodes of Law & Order?” I say, and Tess cracks a smile. Behind me, Patrick makes a sound that might be a laugh. “What am I missing?” I say because I seem to be missing a lot lately when it comes to the Gilroys.
“Con went to law school,” Patrick says. “And he hates that show.”
“He went to law school?” I look down at Tess who’s still taking pictures.
“Harvard Law, actually,” Tess says, an unmistakable prideful tone in her voice. “It was a while ago—before MIT. Take off your clothes.”
Harvard law? MIT? I start stripping, making sure my clothes land on the towel. “He’s twenty-five,” I say, feeling like the dumbest person on earth.
“Tell that to his law degree and two doctorates,” Tess smirks at me. “Our loveable man-whore is chock-full of surprises.” She keeps taking pictures while I try to process what I can only describe as a massive information overload.
Conner went to Harvard and MIT. Patrick is some sort of secret millionaire. “What about Declan?” I say, dividing a look between the two of them. “Does he perform brain surgery on the weekends or maybe rule a small country in his spare time?”
Tess straightens herself and drops her phone. “Rule a small country?” she laughs. “He would love that, but no—Declan is just Declan. A total dickface.” She looks at Patrick over my shoulder before guiding me to the toilet. “Sit,” she says, lowering the lid before nudging me onto it. Patrick hands her the tongs, and she uses them to fold the towel I was standing on around my clothes.
“Is this really necessary?” I say because it all feels so ridiculous, like a bad episode of even worse television.
“If Con says it’s necessary, it’s necessary,” Patrick says while Tess scoops the bundle of clothes and towels into the paper bag before folding the top down and stapling it closed. Still being filmed, Tess writes my name and today’s date on the face of the bag. As soon as the bag is secured, Patrick stops filming and hands Tess his phone.
“I’m going to get these uploaded to the cloud,” she says, shooting me a quick look before bolting out the door.
Leaving me to deal with Patrick on my own.
Five
Patrick
As soon as Tess leaves, I make my way to the tub. Cranking the taps, I adjust the water temp before turning on the shower. “Come on,” I say, looking down at her while I slip the buttons on my shirt free of their loops. “Get in the shower.”
She watches me while I unlace my work boots and take off my jeans. “I don’t need you to bathe me, Patrick,” she says, glaring up at me.
“I never said you did,” I counter, pulling back the shower curtain. When I look at her, she’s still sitting on the toilet, glaring at me. “Did it ever occur to you that I might want to take care of you?” I sigh, running a hand through my hair while fighting the urge to pull it out. “That I might need to take care of you, right now.”
I can tell by the look on her face that the thought never even crossed her mind. Knowing that makes me feel like shit.
I lean over to turn off the shower before lowering myself to sit on the edge of the tub. “When Tess told me what James did—that you went to see him on your own...” I swipe a hand over my face, focusing my gaze on the place where our knees touch because I can’t look at what James did to her face and keep my shit together at the same time. “I lost it. I don’t even really remember how I got there or taking the bat from behind the bar. All I remember is that I had to get to you. I had to... and then you were there, and you were bleeding...” I stop because remembering her like that is making it very hard for me to think. “If you hadn’t stopped me, I would’ve killed him. I would’ve killed him, and anyone else who tried to stop me and that scares the shit out of me. I feel like I’m on fire and it’s taking every bit of control I have to not make things worse by hunting James down and finishing what you started so, can you please just let me take care of you? Not because you need it. Because I need it.”
I can feel her looking at me, so I force myself to look back and hold my breath. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to telling her how I feel about her and I have no idea how she’s going to respond. I expect her to laugh at me or tell me to get out. That what I want and need don’t matter right now. Instead, she stands up and gets in the shower, making room for me to follow.
When I step into the shower and close the curtain, she’s got her back to me, shoulders stiff. “Hand me my shampoo, please?” she says, turning her face to give me a quick look over her shoulder. Because I don’t know what else to do, I pick it up and squirt some into the palm of my hand.
“Let me,” I tell her, gathering her hair in my hands to rub my shampoo covered hands over the length of it as gently as I can. Despite my being careful, she lets out a hiss when my hands reach her scalp. “Sorry,” I mutter, dropping my hands to her shoulders. “I—”
I have no idea what I’m going to say but she doesn’t give me the chance. She turns, dropping her head onto my shoulder, her own shaking under my hands.
“I’m still mad,” she says between watery sobs, her arms tucked against her body, hands under her chin.
“I know,” I tell her, wrapping my arms around her, so I can hold her while she cries.
While Cari dries off, I duck across the hall and grab the box my mom sent me a couple of Christmases ago off the top shelf of my closet. Tearing it open, I snatch what’s inside, along with a change of clothes and take them back across the hall. “Here,” I say, holding it out to her. “Put this on.”
“Since when do you own a robe?” she says, noticing the price tag still stuck to the sleeve. Her eyes are red-rimmed and swollen, one more so than the other, ringed in a light bluish bruise.
“Since my mother sent it to me for Christmas,” I say, jerking the price tag off and tossing it in the trash. “I tried it on—it makes me feel like Hugh Hefner.”
She laughs, and it’s the first genuine laugh I’ve heard from her in days. Since the day we made love in her bed while it rained outside. “Besides,” I tell her while shoving it into her hand. “I owe you a robe.”
She stops laughing, looking at the robe I handed her. I think she’s going to try to explain it to me again. Why she did what she did. Why she turned me inside out for months and months. But she doesn’t. “Thanks.” She unties the belt and pulls it on.
“You did good today,” I say, pulling the robe together while she re-ties the belt. “You took care of yourself.”
“I can, you know.” She looks up at me. Black-eye. Busted lip. “I can take care of myself. And I don’t need you or James or anyone’s money to do it.”
“I know that.” Seeing her like this makes me want to kill James. Trevor. Anyone who’s ever hurt her. Including myself. Before she can stop me, I lean down, pressing my lips to her mouth in a quick, soft kiss. When I pull back, she’s looking at me. “I’ve always known that—but that doesn’t change the fact that I want to take care of you. It just means that it’s going to take some time for me to figure out when I should and when I shouldn’t.”
“James knows about us.” She’s saying it all in a rush like she’s ripping off one long, grotesque band aide. “That’s why he screwed with the time stamp on the video. So you’d think Chase and me—”
“I believe you.”
She looks at me like I’m the one who’s lying. “You believe me. Just like that?”
“Yup,” I smile at her and kiss her again. “Just like that.”
She laughs, but it sounds likes it hurts. “It’s not that simple.”
“Sure it is,” I tell her, rubbing my hair dry with my towel.
“You’re being sued for sexual assault by a psychotic cocktail waitress, and I’m being blackmailed with a sex tape by my slimy ex-boyfriend—both of which are my fault—”
“Let’s get something out of the way, right now,” I say, stopping her cold. “None of this is your fault, Cari. You didn’t do anything wrong. I don�
�t blame you. I’m not angry with you. Not for any of it—okay?”
“I appreciate the sentiment but...” She shakes her head, leaning past me to open the bathroom door. “Let’s just leave it alone, okay? I’m worn out, and I don’t want to fight anymore.”
I reach for her before she can make her getaway. Cupping her face, I tip her head back so I can look her in the eye. “So, let’s not fight.” It’s not what I want to say to her. I want to say that I love her and that I’m sorry but I know she’s not ready to hear it, so I just focus on getting us through the next 24-hours because that’s all that matters right now.
She doesn’t smile. She just nods her head and says, “Okay.”
Six
Cari
As soon as Patrick and I are dressed, we head back down the bar. It’s empty, a handwritten sign stuck to the door that says:
CLOSED
RE-OPEN @ 6 PM.
“Where is everyone?” I ask, looking around for Conner and Tess.
“In the office,” Patrick says, stopping abruptly. “I have to tell you something before you go in there,” he says, reaching out to grab my wrist, stopping me beside him. I can tell by the tone of his voice that whatever he has to say, I’m not going to like it.
He’s right. When he tells me that Declan had security cameras installed in Gilroys without telling anyone, I don’t have to ask him if Declan saw us together, the look on his face says it all. “I didn’t know,” he says again, his fingers tightening around my wrist for a moment before letting me go completely. “If I’d known, I never would’ve—”
“I believe you,” I say the same thing he said to me, and it’s true. Patrick has done and said a lot of things that have made me question who he really is, but no version of him that I’ve met over the past week would do something like that. Not to me and not to anyone else. “Has anyone else...” I swallow hard, shame and regret thick and heavy in my throat. Not for what we did. For the way, I behaved that day. The way I goaded Patrick into behaving.
“No,” he shakes his head. “I made him wipe the last three days from the hard drive. As far as anyone’s concerned, the feed went down when the storm hit.” He looks over at the pool table, brow furrowed like he doesn’t like what he’s seeing. “The good news is that with the cameras, we might be able to prove Lisa is lying about—” he stops abruptly like he can’t even bring himself to say what she’s accusing him of out loud. “Come on,” he says, cocking his head toward the hallway. “Let’s go see what else Declan caught on camera.”
The door to the office is open. I see Conner behind the desk, staring at the computer screen. He clicks the mouse now and then, scribbling notes without looking. Tess is hovering over his shoulder, pointing at the screen and muttering to herself. Declan is standing in the corner, thick arms crossed over his massive chest, looking like someone took his favorite toy. When we walk in, his gaze flickers over me, and I have to force myself not to look away. He looks miserable. I can’t say I feel all that bad for him.
“I went all the way back to the night you broke-up with Templeton,” Conner says without looking up from the screen, still clicking and scribbling. “Got him grabbing you—Cap’n coming to the rescue.” He gives the mouse in his hand a final click before sitting back in his chair to look at us. “I also have Templeton talking to Lisa.”
“She’s a waitress,” I say, not understanding why he was so excited. “Maybe he was ordering a drink.”
“Nope,” he says, shaking his head. “She was a patron, sitting three stools away from the action. I’ve got them chatting each other up for almost an hour before you even show up. When Templeton leaves, she slips out less than a minute later.”
“She didn’t apply for a job until a week later,” Tess says, picking up the thread. “And you’re right. She totally spit in your food when we had lunch on Saturday.”
“Told you so,” I mutter under my breath, skirting around the desk to get a look at the screen they’re both watching. Conner has the feed sped up, and I watch Lisa zip back and forth across the screen for a few seconds before it dawns on me. “She was there today. They all seemed pretty chummy. It wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t know each other somehow.”
“I’ve got a guy —”
“He means a nerd friend from MIT,” Tess says, and Conner glares at her for a second before continuing.
“—who can find her easy enough. If she knows James, he’ll be able to prove it. Combine that with the cam footage from the bar and eye-witness testimony of that night, I think we’ve got a slam dunk. As far as the vid—” He starts to say something but is cut off when his phone rings. Looking at the screen, he frowns before standing up. “I have to take this,” he says, stepping out into the hall. As soon as he’s gone, Tess slips into his seat.
“I still think Sara’s involved somehow,” she says, pushing the toe of her boot against the desk to give herself a slow spin in the chair.
Before I can disagree with her, Patrick beats me to it. “Sara doesn’t have anything to do with this,” he says, his tone so absolute that it set my teeth on edge. “Why would you even think that?”
“I don’t know... maybe because it makes total sense,” Tess says. “And because she’s still all exploding ovaries over you?”
“Exploding what?” He looks at me like he needs an interpreter. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means she wants to marry you and make little baby Cap’ns,” Tess says. “And don’t deny it. You know it’s true.”
“Sara’s a good person,” Patrick says. The fact that he doesn’t deny what Tess just said makes it hard to look at him. He knows how Sara feels about him and he’s still defending her.
“You’d be surprised what a girl is capable of when she sees the guy she wants to—”
“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” I divide a look between them before focusing on Tess. The last thing I want to listen to is Patrick defending his ex-girlfriend. “If she is involved, we’ll know soon enough.” Before any of us can say anything else, Conner ends his phone call in the hallway.
“That was Ryan,” he says, looking at Tess like he just swallowed a bug.
“Ryan? Ryan O’Connell?” Patrick says, looked as confused at Conner. “He’s still overseas, isn’t he?”
“Yeah—Henley is coming to Boston to see their dad.” He looks down at his phone like it just betrayed him. “He wants me to go with her.”
I look at Tess, hoping she’d offer some sort of explanation. She’s as stunned and confused as everyone else. “When?” she finally manages. “And why you?”
“He didn’t say. Just that it was his last time to call for a while and he wanted to make sure he talked to me about it in case....” Conner shoves his phone into his back pocket and clears his throat. “Anyway, like I was saying, your video hasn’t been uploaded to the internet yet,” he tells me, like the last thirty seconds never happened. “Hospital emergency rooms have notoriously shitty Wi-Fi,” Conner says, motioning for Tess to get out of his seat. She laughs and gives the chair another slow spin.
“James is in the hospital?” I don’t know if putting James in the hospital scares me or makes me proud. “How do you—”
“He hacked the hospital’s server,” Tess says, giving herself another slow spin. “Probably blocked their guest internet connection too.”
“He’s been admitted to the Boston General ER about twenty minutes ago,” Conner says, ignoring Tess’s explanation. “He’ll be there for a while, but he’ll get around to releasing that video eventually.”
“Okay,” I say, feeling hopeful for the first time since I turned on my phone this morning. “I can call the police. Show them the video.”
“We can call the cops, accuse him of blackmail,” he says, shaking his head dismissively. “But he’ll deny it. He manipulated the time stamp. At first glance, it looks like it was made months after the two of you broke up. He used a pre-paid cell to send you the link so, even if you coul
d prove it was the two of you in that video, there’s no way to prove he’s the one who sent it—he’d play the victim. On top of that, you went to his place of business and assaulted him in front of witnesses after which, you fled the scene. The fact that you haven’t been arrested yet tells me James doesn’t want the cops involved any more than we do. We want to keep it that way. For now.”
“He assaulted her,” Patrick says, his tone dead calm.
“I know that,” Conner says patiently. “I’m telling you how he’s going to spin this if we get the cops involved.” He laughs and shakes his head. “But trust me, this shit did not go down the way he thought it would.”
He’s right. James expected me to roll over and play doormat like I always do.
“So, I go to the hospital and take the phone he used to send it to her,” Tess says like burglary was the simplest thing in the world.
“That won’t stop him.” Conner shakes his head. “He’s got the original file on a computer somewhere.” Finally giving up on reclaiming his seat, he pushes the chair away from the desk, and Tess rolls away with it.
“He’ll be busy for a few hours. We can break into his house, no problem,” Patrick says. I look at him over my shoulder, but he’s looking at Conner, trying to work it out in his head. “The issue is his work computer. I can get into the building but—”
“Stop,” I say loudly, holding up a hand. “No one is breaking into anywhere. No one is stealing anything. Not for me.” I press a hand to my forehead, shaking my head when Tess opens her mouth to protest. “It’s not worth the risk.” I’m not worth the risk.
“Fuck that,” Tess says, finally abandoning Conner’s chair. “Tell her,” she says, looking at Patrick who’s standing behind me. When he doesn’t say anything, she throws up her hands. “Somebody tell her.”
Before anyone can say anything, I turn around and face Patrick. “If you’re caught breaking into James’s office, it won’t matter what kind of evidence Conner’s friend can dig up—he’s Lisa’s lawyer. You’ll lose that lawsuit before you even get a court date.” I can tell from the hard set of his jaw that he doesn’t care.