by Claire Adams
“Yes,” I said, vaguely recalling a tall, chestnut-haired woman with a kind smile.
“I always thought of him more as one of those children’s toys that are weighted at the bottom, so no matter what you do to it, it always springs back up. Anyway, after this morose attitude continued for several more days, it finally came out: Billy had found a girl he was interested in.”
I took a deep breath and nodded, suddenly understanding exactly where this conversation was headed.
“And it would seem that at first she showed some interest. But you’re interfering with that.”
“I’d have to respectfully disagree with that,” I said. “While it might be true that Billy likes this girl, she’s also someone that I happen to feel strongly about. I’m not trying to interfere or ruin his life by any means. He really doesn’t factor into this equation.”
“You don’t have any regard for anyone else when it comes to this sort of thing, do you?” Seamus asked. “When it comes to women. I know as well as you do that you could have any woman you wanted. I know that you’ve used that to your advantage on more than one occasion.” He held his hands up. “And I’m not judging you. If I had your looks, I’d do the same thing. Hell, back in the day, I got with more than my fair share of women, and I’m only half as handsome as you are.”
“Stop,” I said. “You’re making me blush.” I did feel better though, now that I knew this was all that Seamus had wanted to talk to me about. The whole thing was actually a bit absurd—Billy complaining to his father and putting Seamus up to talking to me. What the hell did they think I’d do—tell them I’d just walk away, he could have her?
“Billy and I have always had a very close relationship,” Seamus said, as though he could read my mind. “Which, considering some of the relationships I’ve seen between other boys and their father—or step-fathers—I have come to truly appreciate. Though trust me Ian—I normally wouldn’t meddle in this sort of situation at all. Billy’s had girlfriends before, and he’s had relationships end—both by him and by the other party. It happens, it’s part of life. But I have never seen him so enamored with someone, who, according to him and some of the people who have seen them together at Failte, seems to get along with him quite well. And would probably continue to do so if you were not in the picture.”
“So what?” I said. “Are you going to order a hit on me or something if I don’t break up with Daisy?”
“Are you two together?”
“Yes, we are.”
“Would she agree with that statement?”
“I believe so.”
Seamus sighed. “Billy has never met a girl that he wanted to settle down with. He’s getting older, though. His mother would like grandchildren, because we are getting older as well.”
“Billy barely even knows Daisy.”
“And I’m not saying that I think she is necessarily the person that he’s going to end up with. But I’d like him to have the chance, and I don’t think that’s going to happen if you’re around. It’s his birthday soon, you know.”
“So what—this is your early birthday present to him? A new girlfriend?”
“Come on, Ian. Stop fooling yourself. We both know that she doesn’t really mean anything to you.”
I leaned back in the chair and rubbed my hand across the lower part of my face. It seemed beyond surreal that I was sitting here with Seamus McAllister, who was asking me to stop seeing Daisy so she could get together with his son instead. Was I dreaming? It wouldn’t seem to be so. This was really happening, but why the hell did Seamus think I’d ever agree to something like this?
The thing was, up until Daisy, I probably would have. If this conversation were happening, say, five months ago, and Seamus was asking me to stop fucking Annie because Billy was interested in her, I probably would have resisted a little—because who really wants to be told what to do?—but really, I would have had no problem in letting him have her. Because what we were doing was just for fun, it wasn’t serious, and it would eventually end. I knew this, even if she didn’t. With Daisy, though, it was different.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that,” I said.
“I heard something interesting about you,” Seamus said, completely ignoring what I just said. “I heard that every Wednesday, you go visit your step-father, Pete, at that god-awful nursing home he’s spending the rest of his days in since that second stroke did him in.”
“Correct,” I said, wondering who had told him that.
“A lot of people probably think that’s very kind, very compassionate of you to continue to see him.”
I shrugged. “I don’t really care what other people think.”
“You know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think you’re doing it to spite him. I don’t think there’s a single compassionate bone in your body, at least when it comes to that man.”
I held Seamus’s gaze, wondering what he was trying to get at. “You’re entitled to think whatever you want. I’m not going to change your mind. You’re not really the sort of person who can be swayed by what others want, anyway.”
“Most people probably don’t know how bad it was between the two of you,” he said. “Did you ever wonder why he suddenly started leaving you alone? That would be the summer of your sophomore year. Do you remember that?”
“Of course I do. It was because he finally realized I was big enough that I could fight back.” I was still kind of scrawny that summer, but I’d shot up in height, and I was doing what I could to build muscle. That summer—and every year after that—Pete had left me alone. Barely even looked at me. I had felt as though I’d achieved some sort of victory.
“You might’ve stood more of a chance with him than when you were in sixth grade,” Seamus said, “but I remember you at fifteen. You weren’t much. He still would’ve been able to lay you flat on your ass. But he didn’t.”
Seamus kept his eyes on me, watching, waiting. I tried to keep my face impassive; I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, as it slowly dawned on me what he was saying.
“So what did you do?” I asked. “Tell him you were going to kill him if he didn’t leave me alone?”
“Oh, we weren’t going to kill him,” Seamus said. “But we were at least going to match him up with someone so it would’ve been a more fair fight. And he backed down immediately. It probably didn’t seem that way to you at the time, but Pete wasn’t a hard guy, and he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of anything violent. One of those guys that could dish it out but couldn’t take it. And do you know how I knew this was going on? Billy.”
“I see.” I shifted in my seat and leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table. “So now you think I owe you some debt because you did something for me—when I didn’t even realize it—and now you’re calling it in. Is that what this is?”
“If that’s how you want to look at it. Come on, Ian. You know as well as I do that you could get any woman you wanted. Walk out of here and you probably wouldn’t even make it around the block without catching at least three ladies’ eyes. It’s a gift that you were born with. Unfortunately, good looks is one of those impermanent gifts, but no one would argue with the fact that you’ve been taking advantage of this gift while you still have it. So keep on doing what you’ve always done, give my son a chance at this girl he’s so interested in, and everyone will be happy.”
“I won’t be,” I said. “Because she’s not just some girl that I want to use and get rid of. And you do realize she works for me. You know, so I see her pretty much every day.”
“I trust that you’ll be able to find something else to occupy your attention. Or—fire her. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
How did he know all this shit? It was a little disconcerting. Then again, I knew that Seamus had people all over the city—all over the world, probably. He had connections. He had ways of finding things out.
“What if I refuse?” I asked.
“You won
’t,” he said, giving me a level look.
And he was right—I wouldn’t refuse him. I couldn’t. It would be one thing to lose Martin Harris as a client, but it would be another thing altogether to lose Seamus. To lose both would basically be the end of the company, and I had a sneaking feeling that Seamus would have the ability to get Martin to walk if he did. And if I refused, it wouldn’t surprise me if bad things started happening to people that I cared about.
“Billy isn’t going to find this at all shameful?” I said. “That his father has to go around setting things up for him?”
Seamus ignored the question. “Life has a funny way of working out,” he said. “Things that seem like a big deal at the time will often be looked back upon in the future, and you’ll realize that it wasn’t nearly as problematic as you felt like it was.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. “That’s very philosophical of you. Maybe that’s what I’ll tell Daisy when I have to break up with her.”
“Break-ups are never fun. But I have no doubt that you’ll be able to think of something to tell her that will be satisfactory. Now really, why don’t you help yourself to a few of these egg rolls? They’re delicious.”
“I’m all set,” I said. “If that’s all you wanted to talk about, then I better get going.”
“That’s it. Thank you for meeting with me. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. Though I do plan to make an appearance when our friend from Dubai is back in town, so maybe I’ll see you again. Take care, Ian.”
“Yeah, you too.”
I left him there to eat those fucking egg rolls and feel self-satisfied that he could now add professional matchmaker to his resume. Fuck him! I was seething as I walked back toward my car, but there was nothing I could do about it. And fuck him for only now telling me about that shit with Pete. I wanted to think that he was lying, but I knew he wasn’t.
Now all I had to do was figure out what the hell I was going to tell Daisy.
When I got back to the office, she was all smiles.
“Hey!” she said. She came over and wrapped her arms around me, and automatically, my own arms went around her waist, my head leaning down to kiss her. I closed my eyes and really felt that kiss, really allowed myself to just get lost in it because this was the last time that was going to happen. And it’s funny how much more attention you pay to something when you know it’s the last time you’re ever going to get to experience it.
When we pulled apart, my vision blurred a little; what the fuck was this? Was I about to start crying? I blinked and pretended like I’d gotten something in my eye.
“Hey yourself,” I said. “Sorry—I don’t know what the hell this is in my eye. Hold on.”
“Do you want to go out to dinner tonight?” she asked. “Caroline was telling me about this new restaurant that just opened near her office, and it’s supposed to be really good.”
“Uh . . .” This was going to suck. She looked so happy right now, and I was about to completely ruin that. But I couldn’t put it off. Prolonging it would only make it worse, even though Seamus probably wouldn’t begrudge me one last dinner date. “I can’t,” I said.
“Oh, okay. Maybe another time, then. I would like to check it out, though. Did you have something else that you wanted to do? And how’d it go with Seamus? What was so important that he had to see you in person to tell you?”
“Actually . . . Daisy . . . there’s something that I need to talk to you about.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Daisy
“Okay,” I said.
“Jonathan’s not here yet?”
“No, it’s just us. He called though; he said he’ll be in later. He had to go meet with someone in Revere.”
Ian nodded and took a deep breath. “This isn’t . . . this isn’t what I want . . . I mean, there’s no good way to put this, so I’m just going to come out with it. We’ve got to stop doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“This.” He gestured to me and then back to himself.
“But I don’t understand,” I said. “What do you mean that we can’t do this anymore?”
All of the sudden, he wouldn’t meet my eye. “We just can’t,” he said. “It’s not really anything that I feel like getting into further.”
“Hold on a second,” I said, certain that I had heard him wrong, or that his face was going to break out in a smile at any second and he was going to tell me that he was just joking, and of course he’d love to go check out that new restaurant with me tonight! I watched him, waiting. His expression remained the same though—mostly impassive, though there was definitely a discomfort in his eyes. “Ian.” I reached out to touch his arm, but he yanked it back.
“This is just how it’s got to be, okay? And it’d make things a whole hell of a lot easier if you didn’t ask any questions about it and just accepted it.”
“Um, no,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t accept it.”
He finally looked t me, his eyes angry now. “Well, you have to.”
“But I don’t. I don’t accept that because it completely contradicts everything that you’ve been saying to me. Is this about Annie? Has she been trying to get in touch with you? Has she been making you feel about the baby? Or trying to make you think that there’s no way that I would want to be with you once the baby’s here? Because that’s not true, Ian, okay? I know I don’t have a ton of experience with babies, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be willing to step up and help you out with it, even if it’s not my own. Don’t let her get into your head like that and make you start doubting things. I know it’s scary and overwhelming, but don’t let her make you think that I’m just going to abandon you. Because I’m not.”
I tried to reach out to him again, but he took a step back, looking like a cornered animal.
“Ian,” I said. “What is the matter?”
“You just can’t seem to take no for an answer,” he said. “And I don’t want to go in circles with you about this. We can’t continue to see each other. It’s just not going to work out. I can’t really think of another way to put it.”
For a moment, neither of said anything. I just stood there, still unable to believe that he was saying this and that he actually meant it. My mind was racing, bringing forth everything that he’d said to me recently, how he’d never felt this way toward anyone before, how we had a connection, how incredible it was when we were together. Was all that really bullshit? Was it just something he was saying to me because he wanted to get laid?
The work day was only halfway over, but there was no way in hell I was going to be able to stay there, in his vicinity. Not right now. I grabbed my purse and stormed out, half-expecting him to tell me not to go, that I shouldn’t. But he didn’t say anything. He just stood there, watching me, a pained expression on his face.
I texted Caroline and asked if there was any way that she could meet up with me, even if it was the middle of the day. She texted back and said she could take an extended lunch. We met up at a café right around the block from her work.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” I said to Caroline. I wished that we had met up at her place, or at mine, because I could feel the tears there, just behind my eyes, but I didn’t want to start crying in a public place, especially when there were so many people around. “I don’t understand why he would go from one extreme to the next.”
Caroline was looking at my sympathetically. I could tell she felt bad, but there was also some relief mixed in there. “He seems like an extreme person,” she said. “That just sort of seems like the way he is, so I guess it’s not really that surprising. I’m really sorry, Daisy, I am. Even though I wasn’t his biggest fan, I know you liked him a lot. But there are so many other guys out there. Don’t let yourself get caught up with him, because I know the right person is out there for you. He’s going to have a baby with someone else. That’s a whole can of worms you don’t even want to have to deal with. It might not sound like a big deal right now, but
that’s just because the baby isn’t here yet.”
“I know,” I said. I sniffed and took a sip of my ice water. “I know there are a thousand reasons why it would be better if I didn’t see him. It’s like, if I wrote a list of pros and cons, the cons side would be so much longer, but that doesn’t matter . . . I just know how I feel when I’m with him, and it’s different with him. I guess I just hate that I can’t even trust my own feelings about this!”
“He’s been giving you mixed signals this whole time. I don’t think it’s so much that you can’t trust how you feel about him—I think you can’t trust him. He hasn’t been upfront with you about a lot of stuff, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You’re a trusting person, and you’ve believed what he’s said so far, and that’s no fault of yours. It’s really not.”
“I still feel foolish.”
“I don’t think you should work there anymore, though.”
“So what, I’m just going to be unemployed?”
“Until you find another job. You’ve got a little money saved, don’t you?”
“Yeah. But I was hoping to move, maybe.”
“I’m not saying that you still can’t do that, but for right now, I think it’d be best if you got out of there. And by out of there, I mean your job. There’s no way that you’re going to be able to get over him if you keep seeing him all the time. And who knows—if you go in there for work tomorrow, he might be like, Oh, Daisy, I’ve changed my mind, let’s get back together, you’re the love of my life.”
“Which I know would be complete bullshit.”
“Right, but would you be able to say no to that?”
“I hope so.” But even as I said it, I knew there was a possibility that I wouldn’t be able to, that I’d just jump back into his arms, first chance I got.
Chapter Twenty-Nine