In Like Flynn

by Dorien Kelly

  It had been months since she’d seen Garth—no mean feat considering they shared common walls. And not very thick ones, at that. While dating him, she’d discovered what a loser he was when his new roomie—brought in to cut costs—made it gasp-howl-and-pantingly clear that she and Garth had begun to share more than space. Annie didn’t hold it against Screamer Mei as much as she did Garth. At least Mei had been right out there with her activities. Garth had played the moron card, claiming he had no clue why Mei would be screaming his name.

  Annie’s Garthless streak might be broken, but she planned to make this encounter mercifully brief. She danced a little sidestep to her right. He followed.

  “Wanna let me by?” she asked.

  The fact that he didn’t move from the center of the sidewalk made it pretty clear he didn’t.

  “How are you?” His words oozed pity, the creep.

  “Great.” She tried a quick dodge in the opposite direction, but Garth was on to her.

  “And your family?”

  “Great, too. Anyone else you care to ask about or are you going to let me by?”

  He reached out, and she knew that he was going to trace the freckles across her cheekbones, just as he used to.

  “No touching,” she warned, raising a hand to fend him off.

  Garth frowned. “I thought maybe you were past the hard feelings.”

  Annie didn’t believe in violence and was even less fond of impulse, which was why what she did next totally shocked her. She stamped square in the middle of the bastard’s Birkenstock-clad foot. Garth’s answering yowl brought immediate, bloodthirsty satisfaction.

  “Think again, weasel boy,” she said, then cruised to her own front door.

  Of course, by the time she was alone in her kitchen, Mother Guilt had settled in for a return visit. She wasn’t sure which packed the bigger punch—the justifiable Daniel Flynn guilt, or remorse for not feeling bad about Garth’s flattened toes.

  Annie wanted to crawl into bed, pull the covers up to her eyebrows and wait for a better day. However, hibernation required more food than the bag of pretzels and doughnut guts she’d eaten. Praying for starch and sugar, she opened her fridge.

  “Crap.” It was empty, of course. The freezer was equally pathetic—only a couple of ice trays and what was either a frost-encrusted boneless chicken breast or some kind of exotic fish fillet her parents had foisted on her.

  Since she was doomed to return to the outside world, Annie decided she might as well have company. Sasha had already suffered enough this morning. It was Elizabeth’s turn. She grabbed the phone and dialed her sister’s number.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” she asked when Elizabeth picked up. The question was a formality, since the answer seldom varied.

  “Working,” replied her sister.

  Ah, the comfort of a constant in a sadly screwy world. “Want to take a break?”

  “I really don’t have the time.”

  “Aw, come on… You can meet me at Zingerman’s.” Annie had pulled out the big guns. Even a food snob like Elizabeth couldn’t pass up Zingerman’s Deli, with its endless array of imported everything.

  “All right,” her sister said after only the briefest of pauses. “We need to talk about what you’re bringing for tomorrow’s dinner, anyway.”

  “Dinner?”

  “Mom…Dad…their anniversary?”

  Double-shit-anchovy pizza. Annie screwed her eyes shut. “Uh…”

  “Don’t you read your e-mail or check your phone messages? We scheduled this weeks ago, Annie. I left you reminders.” She gave an exasperated big-sister sigh that hurt like hell as it echoed in Annie’s aching head. “I suppose you don’t even have a gift, do you?”

  Like she’d admit it. “Just meet me at Zingerman’s, okay?”

  Annie hung up. She brushed her teeth and swallowed a couple of aspirin, but still didn’t feel right. She shucked her dress-nice-for-the-visitor white cotton sweater and khakis, then slipped into comfort clothes—her roomiest jeans and a soft and worn tee. Definitely an improvement.

  The deli wasn’t much more than a half mile from home, but she remained in no condition to consider walking. Actually, even on a good day, that was a no-go. She did make it to her car, allowing herself only a brief glance at the Irishman’s place. He was probably asleep somewhere behind those bare windows, dreaming of an America free of hostile females.

  A quick drive across the river brought Annie within deli distance. In the first certifiable miracle of the day, a parking space opened on the brick-paved street just as she approached. Annie was inside the tight confines of Zingerman’s and had filled a basket with gourmet anniversary gift stuff from the selection stacked ceiling-high by the time Elizabeth arrived.

  Her sister sighed when she spotted the basket. “Let me guess…”

  “So it’s not a personalized scrapbook or whatever, but who has time for that?”

  Elizabeth’s mouth took a superior tilt.

  Back in the day, Annie should have chopped off the whole damn Barbie’s head. “It was a rhetorical question, okay?”

  She herded her sister to the deli side of the store, where they placed their orders. Elizabeth chose a calorie-friendly salad, while Annie felt proud that she’d managed not to ask for extra meat to go with her sandwich’s double cheese. Elizabeth went outside to wait at a table for their order while Annie paid for her anniversary offering.

  Once on the patio, Annie had to admire the perfect Ann Arbor afternoon. A soft breeze carried guitar music from someplace just out of sight, and customers from the nearby farmers’ market wandered past, bags packed with organic spinach and honey and other healthy things never found in her home.

  Their food arrived. Elizabeth toyed with her salad while Annie tried to open her mouth wide enough to encompass a half pound of fresh mozzarella and rosemary-edged ham.

  “Any reason in particular that you chose to order something made for two?” Elizabeth asked after a sip of mineral water.

  “Trust me, I could have ordered for four.” She gave her sister a condensed version of last night’s cocktail party, Hal’s Mad Plan and the Irishman’s arrival. Stomping on Garth seemed like a bush-league annoyance compared to all that.

  Elizabeth set down her fork. “Your franchise proposal couldn’t have been any tighter. I’m sorry, Annie. Really, I am.”

  Annie’s eyes began to water. Damn sunshine.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry, too.” She peeled back the top of her sandwich and picked at the tomato. “All I need to do is hang on for three months. I’ll give Hal his pub, then float my idea again.” But just now, three months sounded like a life sentence.

  “You know, you might not even need implementation of the franchise program on your résumé. If you’re set on this New York move, I know some people who’d be worth talking to. We’ll do some networking, okay?” Elizabeth offered.

  While she wiped the tears from her lower lashes, Annie rethought the death-to-Lizzie’s-Barbies concept.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I really do love you, you know?”

  Elizabeth nearly winced, then quickly glanced around. She was probably scared that someone might have heard Annie’s utterly un-Rutherford-like public admission of sisterly affection.

  “Launching a pub might not be all bad,” Elizabeth said after an uncomfortable pause.

  Annie knew that was as close to an “I love you, too” as she’d be receiving. Even though she wasn’t feeling especially rah-rah, she decided to pick up on her sister’s cheerleading attempt.

  “Sure, I figure there’s no job you can’t learn something from, even opening a bar. In fact, I…”

  She trailed off as lesson number one made itself apparent—Irishmen never sleep.

  Yes, that was definitely poor, exhausted Daniel Flynn strolling down the sidewalk. And as before, he seemed to have attracted a following. The man was definitely smooth.

  Frowning, she reassembled her sandwich, focusing on proper alignment of the thic
k, hearth-baked bread. Maybe she should call to him or somehow acknowledge his presence. She knew it was the polite thing to do. Unfortunately, something about the Irishman left her short-wired on both speech and patience.

  “What’s wrong with your food?” her sister asked. “You stopped talking to snarl at it.”

  “It’s not the food.”

  “Then what?”

  He neared. Annie needed to do something. Or not. Still ambivalent, she waggled her fingers in a tentative greeting as she decided what to call him. Nothing other than “the Irishman” fit comfortably in her mind.

  “Mister Flynn…”

  No response from the subject, who was otherwise occupied.

  “Uh…Danny…”

  Smiling, he chatted with his companions.

  “Uh…Dan…uh…” God, she sounded like she’d swallowed the village idiot. She gave one more iteration of his name a try. “Daniel.”

  Score one for the village idiot. The Irishman was looking her way.

  SO ANNIE RUTHERFORD had lost another battle with her conscience, and Daniel’s day was to be a casualty. Again. He had seen her, and would have been pleased to keep walking past her crazed brand of moodiness. While he hadn’t been quite tired enough to find his carpet appealing, he was too bloody tired to handle bared fangs. Now, though, there was no escape.

  “If you don’t mind stopping…” he said to his trio of silver-haired new friends. At their cheerful assents, he stepped inside the patio enclosure.

  “Hello again, Ms. Rutherford. And just so we get the formalities out of the way, my name’s always Daniel, sometimes Dan, but never, on pain of death, Danny.”

  She frowned at him as if he were a bug ripe for squashing. “We’ll compromise. I’ll stick with Flynn.”

  “Ladies,” he said after broadening his smile to fend off her ill-humor, “this is Annie Rutherford, with whom I’ll be working. Annie, this is Mrs. Rush, whose father was born in Belfast, and Mrs. Porter, whose granddaughter is studying in Dublin just now. Beside Mrs. Porter, there, is Mrs. Keane, who’s visited my family’s pub. They’ve been showing me around the market. Sharp bargainers, they are, too,” he added with a satisfied nod at the bagfuls of fruits and granolas and whatnot he held.

  Annie’s greeting smile for his companions was warm, genuine and beautiful. In fact, Daniel was very nearly jealous. When she looked back at him, that smile flattened about the edges.

  He glanced at her dining partner and raised his brows in enquiry.

  “This is my sister, Elizabeth,” she said with obvious unwillingness. “Elizabeth, this is Daniel Flynn.”

  He shifted the packages in his arms and offered her a hand in greeting. “It’s grand to meet you.”

  “Annie was just telling me about you,” she said with a calm he found surprising given her volatile sister.

  “Then I’ll count myself lucky I couldn’t hear her.”

  His comment earned a surprised burst of laughter from Elizabeth. As Daniel took in the siblings, their similarities became apparent. Elizabeth was a finely polished version of Annie—no freckles, no appealing ripeness to her features. Many, he was sure, would find her the more beautiful of the two sisters. He was finding himself of another opinion. At least when Ms. Annie wasn’t shooting darts his way.

  “Annie says you’ll be here until August,” Elizabeth prompted.

  “It seems a grand place,” he said by way of an answer.

  “She also said you have no furniture or kitchen supplies.”

  “True, but how much does a man need?” he teased, giving a nod to his tide-me-over food. “My friends, here, have been taking good care of me.”

  “Well, how about dinner tomorrow at least?”

  “Elizabeth…” Ms. Annie’s voice rang a warning note.

  Her sister forged on. “We’re having an anniversary dinner for our parents at my house. Would you like to join us? I’m sure Annie would have no problem giving you a ride.”

  Daniel bit back a laugh. He was sure Annie would have a problem, indeed, and in more ways than her sister could imagine. Back home that particular turn of phrase carried a more active—and naked—meaning. But here he was in America, and he’d do well not to grin like a jackass every time someone used it.

  “It’s a family event. I’d be intruding,” he protested.

  “No, really you wouldn’t. It’s going to be a totally mixed bag. You’ll enjoy it and fit in perfectly, I promise. Please come.”

  He should be saying no. In fact, he could see the word shaped on Annie’s full lips and telegraphed in her glare. And for that reason and no other, he said, “Thank you, Elizabeth, for the offer. I believe I will.”

  4

  “UNH…AH…AHHHHH!”

  “Subtle, guys.” Annie knew revenge sex when she heard it. Not once in the time they’d been together had Garth gone for a wild night, a morning quickie, a nooner and whatever one called yet another round at nearly five-damn-o’clock on a Sunday evening, up against the living room wall.

  Brain fried from endless Internet research, she finished shutting down her computer, pushed away from the desk in the corner of her living room and cranked up the music. An improvement, but it didn’t quite cover Garth and Mei. The rhythm was just…off.

  The shrill ring of the phone competed against both Coldplay on the radio and her jerkwad neighbors. She cruised back to her desk and picked up the call, harboring the irrational hope that it was the Irishman, canceling.

  “Hello?”

  No such luck. Elizabeth was on the other end, hot to give one of her “reminder calls.”

  While her sister provided a run-through of the menu, Annie moved to the kitchen in an effort to escape the Garth ’n Mei show. Phone clamped between her ear and shoulder, she ran cool water into a colander containing the skinny and absurdly expensive beans that Elizabeth had asked her to bring this evening.

  “So you needed an Irishman at dinner to be sure you’ve got the members of the European Union covered, right?” Annie asked in reply to a recitation of the guest list.

  Apparently, sarcasm wasn’t being served tonight because her sister revved into high gear. “Be charitable. Think of all the people who opened their doors to us when we were traveling with Mom and Dad…all the life-enriching experiences, the wonderful people we’ve met…”

  Annie took the phone away from her ear and held it out, letting Elizabeth’s sermonizing embrace the universe. Yeah, so she was endangering her karma by not wanting Daniel Flynn at dinner, but she’d rather gamble with her karma than her sanity.

  She brought the phone back within listening distance. Lizzie was still going strong.

  “What’s going on over there?” her sister demanded. “What’s with the music? Are you even listening to me?”

  Annie spoke into the mouthpiece of the phone as if it were a microphone, leaving her sister’s voice streaming sideways over her shoulder. “Of course I am.”

  “So what did I tell you to do with the haricots verts?”

  Annie sighed. “They’re green beans.”

  “French green beans.”

  “Roger that. French green beans.”

  “It does make a difference, you know.”

  “Right-o.” She would have been more appreciative of the nuances if they were discussing the difference between fake, waxy chocolate and Godiva.

  “You’re not going to be this moody at dinner, are you?”

  “Of course not. Rutherfords are terminally polite.”

  “Annie…”

  Another lecture was simmering, and she had done her best not to swallow the last. She lodged the phone back between ear and shoulder, turned off the water and left the kitchen.

  “Look, I’m bringing Flynn and your beans,” she said over the music and thumps. “And I’m also trying not to go off on you for inviting him without discussing it with me in the first place.”

  “I still don’t see the problem,” her sister said.

  “Really? How about if tha
t jerk in your office you’re always complaining about got to come watch while you had a bikini wax? Or better yet, tag along to the doctor for your annual exam? Just slip your feet in the stirrups, Lizzie… See the problem now?”

  “Disgusting, and you’re overreacting. It’s a simple dinner gathering…a little wine, a little conversation. I was hoping you’d be more positive after a night’s sleep.”

  “If I’d had one, maybe.” She’d worked late on a task flowchart for the pub launch, then fallen into bed just in time for the first aria from next door. The latest seemed to be reaching its peak.

  Annie refused to react, though what she really wished for was a battering ram to punch through the drywall. She turned her back to the banging wall and tried to focus on Elizabeth’s cut-back-on-caffeine spiel.

  “G-a-a-r-r-r-thhh!”

  The only facet of Annie’s life that wasn’t particularly screwed up was her attitude toward sex…until maybe now. Either Annie was an underachiever or Mei was top of her class. That last howl had to have hit the D above high C. Not that Mei had been carrying a tune…

  At least they were finished. Finally. Annie waited a few seconds, inserting uh-huhs as appropriate into Lizzie’s speech, then turned the stereo closer to a nonsex-blocking volume.

  As she sent a plea for just a few minutes of peace and solitude to the heavens, Annie’s front bell sounded. She glanced at her 1960s clock collection on the fireplace mantel. All agreed that she was out of time.

  “Flynn’s at the door,” she said to her sister. “Gotta go.”

  She rid herself of her lecturing sister, then made her way to her front door. As expected, the Irishman stood on the other side. All in all, it wasn’t much of a trade-off.

  “Come on in,” she said. He wore a dark shirt with light-colored chinos that fit annoyingly well. In one hand he held a bunch of flowers and in the other a paper grocery bag.

  Up close he looked more well muscled than she recalled, and not in a vein-popping steroid-case bad way, either. Words began to escape her again, so she focused on the mechanics of getting through the evening.