by Sienna Blake
“A secret romance then,” Michael said. “Perhaps it’s a little taboo as well? I didn’t think you had it in you, little brother.”
“Maybe she’s famous?” Eoin offered. “A celebrity?”
“Or rich?” Michael asked.
Noah snapped his fingers. “Is it someone we all know?” he prodded. “Is that why you’re not telling us?”
“No!”
Ah, shite. Judging by my brothers’ wide eyes fixed on me, I said that way too damn quickly. I forced my shoulders to relax as I brushed my fingers through my hair.
“I mean, no, she’s not famous or a celebrity or rich,” I said as casually as possible. “And no, you don’t know her. Because there is no ‘her’.”
Noah eased a rather healthy glass of whiskey into my fingers and nudged it toward my mouth. “Here you go.” He nodded at the glass as he spoke. “This might help loosen those lips. Drink, drink.”
“Look, guys, I hate to disappoint, but there really is no one.” I set the glass aside next to the keyboard.
Michael immediately shook his head in disbelief. “No, no, no,” he said, pointing at me with his glass of sherry. “All the signs are there. You didn’t say a word during lunch. You barely looked up.”
I tried to laugh this off. “I never say much.”
“But you usually try,” Noah argued. “You didn’t even try today. And that’s because you were thinking about someone, I’m sure of it.”
I prayed that the light in the study was dim enough that none of my brothers could see the warmth that flooded my cheeks. Because I was thinking about someone. But revealing her name would be like lighting a stick of dynamite and tossing it to our feet.
“Daz, you offered to do the dishes,” Eoin mumbled around the neck of his beer bottle.
“Excellent point, Eoin,” Noah nodded before returning to his interrogation of me. “You’d have to be drunk or high to offer to do the dishes after Sunday lunch. So do you have a hidden alcohol problem or were you drunk in love?”
Eoin made obnoxious kissy noises, and I groaned.
“I was just trying to be a good son,” I tried, only to be showered with a volley of bollocks, bullshites and an in-me-hoop-you-were.
“We all have our lovers,” Noah said. “I have Aubrey, Eoin has Kayleigh, and Michael has his Blackberry.”
“Hey,” Michael warned.
Noah ignored him and grabbed my chin. “We don’t keep secrets, brother.”
If he knew the real answer to all these nosy questions, Noah would think differently. If he heard the name that was on the tip of my tongue, he would tell me to swallow it and never speak it aloud. If he knew the face behind my lids every time I closed my eyes, he would tell me that some secrets should be kept, even from brothers. Some secrets, if revealed, wouldn’t strengthen a brotherhood, but destroy it.
I let Noah’s eyes search my face and clung to the only truth I could: this was for the best. He’d see if I was lying if I tried to convince myself I wasn’t falling for Kayleigh. He’d see something off if I told myself there was nothing going on between me and Eoin’s girlfriend. He’d call my bluff if I lied and said again there was no one.
But as his eyes darted between mine, I repeated the only truths I clung to: it would hurt Eoin to find out, it was better if I kept it secret, this was for the best.
Grinning, I shrugged my shoulders and looked innocently up at my older brother. “Satisfied?” I asked.
Noah tried for a few more silent moments to unlock the truth behind my steady smile. But what he didn’t know was that that key was long gone; I tossed it over my shoulder and it sank down, down, down into the depths of the sea one night almost ten years ago. With a sigh, Noah sagged back against the edge of the desk and asked one last time. “There’s no one?”
I held back a laugh, because he had no clue just how accurate that was, how accurate it had been for nearly as long as I could remember. For this answer I was able to look Noah straight in the eye and say without any deceit in my heart, “No one.”
My brothers were all disappointed that I had no “bra sizes” or “favourite positions” to share, but in the end they all believed me. The conversation in Ma’s little study turned to the upcoming holidays, Eoin’s rugby team, parties at The Jar, ways Michael found to reinvest our savings, plans to fix up Ma’s porch in the spring. I was thankful as always that none of it had to do with me.
I’d been reckless.
I’d let myself go too far with Kayleigh. Stolen glances weren’t free, and it was Eoin who was going to pay. Fingers just brushing against each other in the shop were like brushing against fire: it didn’t take the whole hand to get burned. It hadn’t gone past thoughts in my mind, but that didn’t mean that my thoughts were innocent. Not by a fecking long shot.
In my mind, I was stealing Kayleigh’s breath. My lips on hers. Hers, sweet and soft, on mine. I was stealing her kisses, her time, her love. In my mind, the only thing “just brushing” against us and our naked bodies were bed sheets. Our legs were intertwined, our fingers locked with one another’s, my chest pressed against hers as the bed frame ruined the dry wall in my apartment. In my mind, I didn’t want to be guilt-free. I didn’t want to do the “right thing”. I didn’t want to be innocent.
I hadn’t touched Kayleigh in real life, but I had in my mind and that was too far. I had to be more careful. I had to watch myself. I had to remember those green eyes were not mine.
I would talk more with the family, with Kayleigh, even. Avoiding her would be suspicious, after all. I would smile more; I’d practice again in the mirror if I had to. I would pretend better.
The old grandfather clock in the hallway outside the study chimed out midnight and Michael squinted at his bottle of sherry as he held it up to the light of the lamp.
“Well, boys, I’m out,” he said. “So I think I’m out.” He stood up from the footrest, wobbling just a little, and patted me on the shoulder before saying goodnight to Noah and Eoin.
“Who’s up for the bar, eh?” Eoin asked, fingers already on his phone to order an Uber before Michael’s footsteps disappeared up the stairs.
“Oh, to be twenty-two again,” Noah lamented.
Eoin paused in the doorway and glanced back at me, his lifted eyebrows the unspoken question. I just shook my head. Eoin pouted for a moment, but then hurried out to pile on his coat and gloves and scarf and pat his back pocket to see if his wallet was still there and call up his rugby buddies and check his breath against his own palm and maybe say goodnight to Kayleigh. Maybe not.
I pushed back the office chair to head off to bed myself but paused when I noticed Noah lingering in his spot next to me against the desk, scratching at the back of his neck.
“What?” I asked, knowing it was definitely something when Noah kept his gaze averted from mine, focusing instead on the old rug.
“Look, Darren,” he said, still not looking at me in the dim light of the study. “I just want to say that if you want to ta—”
“Talk about what?”
I hadn’t even let him finish his sentence; I hadn’t needed to. You didn’t need to see the head of a rattlesnake to hear it hidden in the tall grasses. My tone was suddenly dark, threatening.
Noah glanced over at me, shifting uncomfortably where he sat. “Daz, it’s just that I know this time of year is hard on you and—”
“Talk about what?”
I could already sense Noah moving away from me at the sharp whip of my voice.
Good.
Noah ran a hand through his hair. His head fell back and he stared up at the ceiling. “Eoin and Michael said it had to be a girl, the reason you’ve been withdrawn...different,” he said, each word seemingly harder to get out than the last as if each were a tooth he was pulling from his own mouth. “But I thought that maybe you were struggling with—”
“Talk about what, Noah?”
Noah’s head fell to his chest in defeat.
My own chest beat so violently, I wa
sn’t sure I was the only one who could hear my pulse loud and erratic in my ears. I glared at Noah, who stared at his fingers in his lap. “Talk about what?” I asked once more, struggling to keep my voice from quivering in anger.
“Nothing,” Noah finally sighed, his voice nothing more than a whisper. “Never mind.”
His words were a pardon. But they were also another turn of the key in the prison of my heart, locked good and tight.
“I’m going to bed.” I stood and left without another word, without a glance back at Noah alone in the study.
As I was hurrying up the stairs, I ran into Kayleigh on her way down. I sensed her eyes searching for mine; I focused on the steps, one after the other.
“Goodnight, Darren,” she whispered after I’d shouldered past her.
My name on her lips sent goose bumps up and down my arms. I cursed my ears as I pulled my bedroom door closed behind me. The Darren who used to live here would have said, “Goodnight, Kayleigh.” He would have lain awake thinking about her, seeing her eyes out his bedroom window instead of the Little Dipper. He would have finally rolled out of bed, slipped into the hallway, and knocked at her door as silently as tiny pebbles thrown at Juliet’s window.
“Good morning, Kayleigh,” he would have said.
But the Darren who used to live here did not live here any longer, so I tugged the covers up over my head and prayed for the small mercy that I’d at least fall asleep quickly.
It had been a long time since my prayers had been answered.
It was no different that long, cold night.
Kayleigh
Perhaps Darren assumed that I was hard at work Monday morning in the little office at the back of the shop because of the constant click-clack of the keyboard at the ancient computer. The truth was I was only typing two letters in caps lock again and again.
“Y” and “N”.
“Y” I go out there.
“N” I stay in here.
“Y” I go ask Darren if I can help him again on the vehicles.
“N” I do my job, focus on the task of finding tax software compatible with a dinosaur, and making sure the thing doesn’t catch on fire while trying to install it.
I stopped typing for only long enough to stretch out my fingers, roll my wrists, and plant my palms firmly over my mouth so Darren wouldn’t hear me screaming as I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Y” I wanted to go out there because I found the work interesting and wanted to learn more about engine mechanics from an engine mechanics expert.
“N” I wanted to go out there because I found Darren interesting and wanted to learn more about Darren from a Darren expert.
I wasn’t exactly sure what my plan was. Type as fast and furiously as I could till the computer started to smoke and freeze and the last letter would be my choice? Type as fast and furiously as I could till my hand cramped and I had to take workers’ comp and go home and therefore avoid any choice at all? Either way I was pretty sure I was going insane in that office.
“Y” I push down my emotions, keep things professional here at work, and stick it out with Eoin, because it was obviously the path of least resistance.
“N” Fuck it all to hell, because I wanted him.
When I heard Darren mutter an irritated “bollocks” out in the shop, I took it as an excuse to finally push myself back from the desk. Although I wasn’t entirely sure that I needed it.
“Need any help?” I asked, leaning my head out the door.
Darren was hidden beneath the hood of a car and he remained hidden when he responded as usual with a gruff, “I’m grand.”
Shite.
With my “excuse” having just flown straight out the window, I was left searching for another one, fingers now drumming against the door frame instead of the yellowed “Y” and “N” keys.
After coming up empty while Darren cursed away under the hood, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t have an excuse, despite how terribly I wanted one. If I stepped out from behind the safety and security of the office door, it was because I wanted to do so. If I crossed the stretch of grey concrete to stand by his side, it would be because I alone told my feet to move. And if I asked if I could help, there was no way of escaping the words that weren’t spoken aloud: “I want to help.”
Knowing full well it was probably a mistake I would surely regret, I sucked in a deep breath, tugged open the door, and marched straight over to Darren.
“Show me what you’re doing.”
Darren started and banged his head on the hood. Well, things were off to a smashingly good start, weren’t they?
I almost turned and ran back to the little office as his expletives echoed around the garage. With a scowl and an incoming knot on the back of his head, Darren pulled himself from beneath the hood and glared at me. “What?”
I released the lip I had been biting nervously to smile nervously. “Umm, I’d like to learn.” I rocked back and forth on my heels.
Darren stared at me in confusion. He rubbed the spot he’d hit on the hood like it was the reason for not understanding the words coming from my lips. “What?” he repeated.
I pointed vaguely at the engine he had been working on and shrugged. “I could help you,” I tried, “if you, you know, show me…and stuff.”
I was suddenly a schoolgirl again on the playground with my crush—just as nervous, just as awkward.
Darren wiped his hands on the towel he had tucked in the waistband of his jeans. “You want to work on the cars?”
I nodded and then added a totally nonchalant, “I mean, sure. Why not.”
Darren’s stormy blue eyes narrowed. “I can’t afford to pay you more for it.”
“It’s not about the money,” I said.
“Then what?” Darren asked. He didn’t bother waiting for my answer. “I mean it’s hard work, Kayleigh. It’s dirty manual labour. My hands are always greasy and usually bleeding. At the end of the day your back will ache, your knees will be bruised and you’ll still have no idea what that funny noise coming from the engine is. At its very best it’s frustrating, at its very worst it’s deadly.”
With those eyes of his fixed intently on mine, I couldn’t help but be honest. “It’s just that I’ve bounced around from…job to job and, well, I haven’t found one that I’m passionate about. A job, I mean.”
Darren flinched so slightly that I wasn’t sure if I had just imagined it. I wanted him to hear me. I wanted him to know what I was really saying. I wanted him to understand because the unspoken words of my heart were the unspoken words of his own.
“And, well,” I continued, “I was thinking that maybe this could be the job I’ve been searching for.”
Darren stepped back and crossed his arms over his toned chest. “You already have a job.”
I tried to read the tone of his voice. Tried to read the expression on his blank face. Tried to read the pace of his chest rising and falling, the steadiness of his blinking, the colour of his cheeks. But it was all a foreign language. Or worse, I could read him just fine and just didn’t want to accept what was right there in front of me.
Darren was going to tell me to go back to my office. He was going to ask about the tax software. Or say, “We can’t do this. You know we can’t do this. Ever.”
But after moments of tense silence, he asked, “Are you sure?”
Are you sure?
“Y” I know what I’m getting into.
“N” I have no fucking clue what I’m getting into.
“Y” I don’t care.
My eyes remained locked on Darren’s as I slowly, oh so slowly, nodded my chin. “I’m sure,” I whispered.
Darren hesitated, still searching my eyes. Then he extended his hand to me slowly, oh so slowly. My eyes drifted down to see it hanging in the open space between us. I blinked and saw the deep lines etched across his palm, black rivers of grease and oil. I blinked again and saw a half-healed cut along his thumb. I blinked once more and this time I saw nothing of D
arren’s hand, because mine was covering it as I laid it gently in his.
I was surprised to find the concrete beneath me after taking that first step toward Darren, because to me it felt like stepping off the ledge of a cliff.
Darren’s voice—as he explained the various components of the engine, the different processes for it to run, and the common issues he has to deal with—made me feel drunk. Bending under the hood, my neck ached and I’d quickly lost all hope of ever having clean nails again, but I wanted to keep listening to him forever in that dim, intimate light.
“Do you understand?” he asked, voice thick as honey, smooth as a forty-year barrel-aged Scotch.
“Y”
“Does that make sense?”
“Y”
“Do you want me to show you how this works next?”
“Y”
“Y”
“Y”
When my cell phone beeped in the office, dusk was already casting long shadows across the shop.
I wiped at the sweat on my brow with the back of my hand after tightening a lug nut on the intake pipe and gave Darren a buzzed smile. “Just a minute.”
If Darren was my alcohol, the text I received from Eoin was a cold shower, a hot cup of coffee, and a slap in the face.
Can’t wait for our date tonight, Kayleigh Bear. You’ve made my life complete. Be at your place at 8 to pick you up.
My pulse spiked. I tossed my phone back into my purse because I couldn’t bear to look at it.
“N” I’d have to face Eoin. I’d have to break his heart. I’d have to see the pain right there on his face.
“N” I’d have to destroy Eoin and Darren’s relationship. Who knew if they could ever recover from a betrayal like that?
“N” I’d have to ruin the perfect O’Sullivan family.
I could maybe handle the other two. Maybe. But the last thing? Never.
The tips of my fingers felt numb as I went back out into the shop. Darren smiled as I took my place next to him. I couldn’t manage the same.
“Alright, so you remember the cylinder head here?” he asked, jumping back into my lessons.
I shook my head. “No.”