“Yeah, so…Ireland? What gives, H?”
“Jill and Lily are sending me on a vacation to visit friends in Tyrone. Paddy and Aidan are going, but I’m not on the same flight. Want to come? I mean, I doubt we can get the same flight—”
“Are you kidding? I know people, H. I can make things happen. Though I suppose this means I have to pay my own way, then?” she fake sighed.
Pru’s family had money. As much money as the Bentleys, probably. Which meant Pru’s amazing brain, and her doctorate, were wasted. Of course, it also meant she could’ve bought her own ticket to Ireland any time it took her fancy.
“So, when are we leaving?”
“Uh…tomorrow.”
“What’s that? The twenty-third?”
“Yeah.”
“OK, cool. Oh, yeah—how are ya since…?”
“I’m fine.” He tried not to be short with her. It wasn’t Pru’s fault Paulo hadn’t shown up to the party.
“Good. Listen, gotta go. Email me the deets.”
“Sure. And thanks, Pru.”
“You know what, H? You invited me, not the other way around. Hey, let’s get lunch at that café and talk some more? OK. Bye.”
He knew he could count on Pru. She was the queen of impromptu vacationing and could have a case packed and be at the airport with an hour’s notice.
The call ended, and Harrison smiled despite himself. He could have traveled alone, met up later with Aidan and Patrick, but he had a feeling he wasn’t OK at all. And once he stopped holding back, once he really thought about Paulo, he was going to break.
<<< >>>
“Would you like another coffee, sir?” The barista eyed Harrison sympathetically.
She thinks I’ve been stood up. “Yes, thank you,” he replied, then, “My friend is running late.”
He offered the barista a confident smile. Pru was always late. He checked the time on his phone. Only fifteen minutes; he wouldn’t be too concerned until she hit thirty minutes. It might mean cutting lunch short to make his next session. He sent her a text—
The guy at the next table’s six two, muscles to die for, single, straight. He’s browsing a dating site as I type.
—and glanced at the two older women sitting at the next table over. One of them noticed him looking at them. He nodded an acknowledgement.
“Would you like to join us?” she asked.
Harrison raised his hands disarmingly. “Thanks, but no. I’m waiting for a friend. She’ll be here any second.” He pointed to the plate on the women’s table. “Those muffins look delicious, though.”
“Oh…” She rolled her eyes and laughed. “They’re the reason we come here.”
“Have you tried the chocolate truffle cheesecake?”
“I haven’t. Do you recommend it?”
“Definitely.” Harrison smiled again and shifted his attention away from the women. They didn’t know him, and he only recognized them from the times he’d sat alone at the back of the coffee bar, trying to read the Kindle in his hand and resisting the urge to look up each time someone else came through the door. This was his and Paulo’s café, and there was always this irrepressible hope that he would run into Paulo here.
“Jeez, H. You lied to me again?” Pru bustled over and dumped the bags—five of them—on the floor next to the table. Harrison was halfway to standing when she grabbed him and hugged him so hard he squeaked. She acted like she hadn’t seen him in days. “Sorry I’m late. I got ‘caught up at the office.’”
“Uh huh? Your office is located in Macy’s now?”
“Oh my God, you have gotta see this. I bought the cutest—you know what? I’m gonna get coffee first and then show you.”
Harrison raised his arm, and Pru stopped talking, although he hadn’t done it for that reason. The barista looked his way. “Another gingerbread latte over here, please.”
“Coming right up.”
“You were saying,” Harrison prompted Pru to continue. “And will you please sit down? You’re making me anxious.”
Pru sat and pulled one of her bags onto her lap.
“Are you all right?” Harrison asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“You seem on edge.”
“I’ve been running around all morning, buying stuff for our trip.”
Harrison groaned. “What did you buy?”
“Just a few knickknacks. This is what I wanted to show you.” One by one, Pru lifted the tissue-paper-wrapped items out of the bag and set them on the table. They were all different sizes, one no more than an inch cubed, another six inches tall.
“What are they?” Harrison picked up the tiniest one and carefully unwrapped the tissue paper, revealing a miniscule dog standing with tail held high.
“A Dickensian village,” Pru explained proudly. She set the last of the items down; there were around a dozen in all. “They like Christmas decorations in Ireland.”
“They do?” Harrison unwrapped another of the miniature models—a horse-drawn carriage—and another—a church—and another—a cobbler’s store. “This is very, um…”
“Harrison Miller, if the K-word dares pass your lips!”
Harrison laughed lightly. Pru was the walking-talking definition of kitsch. Intentionally so, he thought.
“All the little houses light up, and look at these sweet little streetlamps.”
Harrison was still laughing. Pru pouted at him.
“Fine. You don’t like ’em. I don’t care.” She put the tiny village away again. “I bought some little gifts, too.”
By “little,” she’d mean small in size, not price.
“How’d you know what to buy?”
“I called Jill after we talked.”
“You called—? Why didn’t you just ask me?”
“Because, my dearest H, I’d have asked you, and you’d have wanted to know why I wanted to know. And anyway, I didn’t wanna stress you out.”
“You mean you knew I would’ve told you not to buy them anything.”
“And I would’ve ignored you, like I always do. I figured it was easier to ask Jill.”
So Pru and Jill had arranged things behind his back again. It wouldn’t have surprised him if Jill had already reached out to Pru about the Ireland idea before Harrison even thought it up.
The barista arrived with their coffees.
“Two gingerbread lattes. Did you want anything else?”
“Not for me thanks,” she said to the barista, and to Harrison, “but you go ahead and get something. Maybe the chocolate truffle cake?” She eyed him up and down, her judgment obvious. She didn’t need to say it again. It was every other conversation when they were in Midday. He’d lost weight. He was aware of it himself—his pants were all too loose, and his shirt cuffs kept slipping down over his hands. But he was dealing with it. He was dealing with everything.
Pru held her tongue until the barista had returned with a slice of the cake, setting it in front of Harrison. Harrison picked up the fork and cut a huge chunk from the end of the slice. He put it in his mouth, which immediately filled with the sweet, buttery richness.
“Oh, man.” He slithered down in the chair a little.
“Good cake?”
“Mmm. You wanna try some?” He held out the loaded fork.
Pru accepted, chewing slowly and nodding in agreement. “Oh yeah. That is good cake. Eat it all up now.”
Harrison glowered at her. “You can say it, you know?”
“I did,” Pru replied, understanding him perfectly. “I said it all, but you may have been too wasted to remember.”
Probably. He couldn’t remember much from their two-man drinking party.
“I really thought I’d get to talk to him again, Pru.”
“I know, honey.”
“I still can’t figure it out. Why didn’t he show up? He told you he’d be there, right?”
“He did.” For a moment something flickered in Pru’s eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. “Loo
k, H, the thing is, I see you healing. Every day you’re getting a little bit stronger, laughing more, finding new reasons to get out. And the panic attacks? When you do have them—and you’re not having them near as often—it’s always about Paulo. So maybe this him-not-showing-up thing? Is good.”
The fork stilled midway to his mouth, and Harrison blinked at Pru. She couldn’t possibly be serious, could she?
They’d known each other a long time, and they’d always said the hard things. When Pru’s drug use got out of control, he and her mother helped her get into rehab. For a while after the rape, Pru was the only one he could really talk to, because Jill and Paulo had been so angry on his behalf. Pru never got angry, never fussed, or imposed her expectations of how he should feel and what he needed. (Except when it came to fashion.)
He’d asked her not to come to the trial, and she’d respected his wishes. All he’d needed that day was to feel like he was in control. Standing up to that woman in court—watching her squirm under cross-examination and tie herself in knots, while Harrison, Aidan, and the other young men from The Grand Heights who had been drugged and raped, stood strong—that’s exactly how he should have felt. Empowered. In control. Ready to move on. Instead, Jill had insisted on coming along, and Paulo… Well, Paulo was Paulo.
He’d been outwardly strong, but testifying had dredged up a mess of memories, and the flashbacks became so frequent it was like having the whole incident on continuous rerun in his head. Night after night, he awoke in a cold sweat with remnants of his nightmares waiting to claw at him in the dark. For all that his professional knowledge gave him an insight that the other victims didn’t have, it had been hell to get through.
But Pru was right, he was on the mend. For months she’d call, or text, or send him some kind of message, checking in on him. Whenever she asked “Can I stop by?” she’d interpreted his noncommittal “It’s up to you” as agreement. She only called to give him notice, a chance to prepare for company, to put on pants. She nagged him to eat. She filled his silent evenings with noise. She had stayed when everyone else had left, but she never judged.
“Get that look off your face. It’s just a thought,” she snuck another tiny bite of his cake. “Anyway, let’s talk about Ireland,” Pru suggested and instantly changed the subject. “So, I looked up Omagh on Google. There’s an American folk park. I have no idea what that is, but I’d sure love to go visit. And they have Christmas lights in the town.”
Harrison glanced out the window of the café to the illuminated street beyond. “We’ve got Christmas lights and American folks.” He was teasing, relieved that they’d moved on, but if there was one person he could be honest with, it was Pru. He reached over and took her hand in his. “You’re right. I am getting better. Maybe…it’s good.” He cleared his throat. “I might need to figure out what to do next. I don’t know if I want to date… Not because of Ashmore,” he emphasized heavily.
“I didn’t think it was because of her.”
“I’m not afraid of dating. Honest, Pru. I just—”
“Are still hung up on Paulo.” Pru squeezed his hand. “H, I only want you to be happy.”
He nodded his thanks and smiled.
“So I have the rehab clinic gala tonight. It’ll be boring as hell, but Mom insisted I attend with her, after all they’d done for me, blah, blah, blah.”
“You realize your rehab is the only one in the world that hosts a gala?”
“Well, it isn’t for the addicts.” She grinned. “Well, mostly not.”
“Jesus. Just try not to drink too much, OK? Because if you hurl on the plane…”
Pru put her hand on her chest and looked hurt. “Me? Drink too much? As if I would!”
“As if you wouldn’t!”
“All right. For you, I’ll stick to mineral water. How about that?”
“Yeah. That’s gonna happen.”
“I won’t throw up on the plane, H.”
“And I will grow wings and fly myself to Ireland.”
“I’ll show you, Harrison Miller.”
“I’m sure you will.”
Chapter Eight:
Facing the Twin
“Mind if I hold her?” Paulo asked uncertainly.
The baby—was she old enough to be a toddler? Paulo didn’t know much about baby ages—was blinking sleepily at him. Lily had been bouncing the child on her knee for a good fifteen minutes, which apparently had a very hypnotic effect.
“You can try,” Lily said. “She gets a little cranky around strangers.”
Strangers.
Well, that’s exactly what he was. He hadn’t even known Lily was pregnant, much less that she and Jill had a child together. He swallowed down on the lump in his throat. His flight from his mother aside, family was important to Paulo, always had been, and Jill and Lily…they’d become family.
Though, one of his “sisters” was now glaring at him from the doorway as if she might make him combust with the heat of her anger. It was a glare he knew well, and an anger, too. You hurt my loved one anger.
Except he didn’t know how he’d hurt Harrison. If someone could explain it to him. If she was pissed he’d left when Harrison told him to leave, well then so was he. At himself.
Lily passed the slack child to him, and Paulo cradled the young girl in his arms. She was warm, and she molded to his chest, laying her head against his shoulder. At least she wasn’t treating him like a stranger. So much time lost. So much regret.
Bella would have been his niece from birth in that way that all little kids call the family friend “Uncle.” He’d have fucking loved that. Cátia wasn’t going to be a mother any time soon—thank God—so being able to spoil a child? Heaven. He and Harrison could have taken her for the day, gone to the park, bought her whatever she wanted, plied her with ice cream, and then delivered her back to her parents.
“She’s heavier than she looks,” Paulo said, and the girl turned her head and looked at him curiously. She patted his stubbled chin and then grinned playfully. “Oh, you’re a flirt.”
“Why are you here, Paulo?” Jill asked shortly, cutting into the warmth of the moment.
He and Lily looked up at Harrison’s twin simultaneously. She had the same light-blonde hair, pale skin, and flushed red cheeks as Harrison. They were the same height too—she was tall for a woman, he was short for a man, and they even smiled the same smile, assuming they were smiling. Jill definitely wasn’t smiling now, and her famous hospitality was buried deep beneath her barely controlled emotions.
Jill Miller-Degas was usually the sort to lay out her best china and a veggie tray for any guest. She had a fully-stocked liquor cabinet, even though she rarely drank, and she always knew everyone’s food allergies, and cooked accordingly. After a surgery, when he and Harrison brought her flowers and sat with her, she apologized for not being a good host. Apologized. While wearing a hospital gown. But this evening she hadn’t even offered him a glass of water, and he’d still be standing if Lily hadn’t asked him to sit down.
“Can you please be quick?”
“Jill,” Lily hissed.
The baby was still patting his cheek, though she’d closed her eyes. Paulo looked down at her so he didn’t have to keep looking into that awful glare.
“I need Ari’s new address.”
“No,” she said coldly. “You don’t.”
Temper flared in Paulo. It was just a quick spark, like someone flicking a lighter but not quite catching flame. It was enough to make him taut; make his blood warm.
“Listen, Jill—” Not the way to start. She stiffened, which he hadn’t believed possible. Any more tense and he would have thought she’d break like so much plaster. “—Whatever the hell it is you think I’ve done to Ari—”
“I don’t have to think you’ve done anything, Paulo. You’re doing it right now. And don’t you dare curse in front of Bella.”
He shuddered on a controlling breath, feeling very much on the edge of uncontrolled.
�
��I’ve waited eighteen months to see him, Jill. Eighteen months. And now when we’re supposed to meet? I’m hitting roadblocks at every turn. Missed dates, new addresses, disconnected numbers, and a mutual friend—well, we were mutual friends two days ago—who won’t return my calls.”
Jill chuffed and stalked forward, her arms wrapped tight over her breasts. “I’ve never seen Harrison as drunk as he was last night.”
“He was here last night? And drunk?”
“Over you. Again! Over you.”
“What the fuck do you mean, again?” Paulo demanded.
“I think I should hold Bella.” Lily’s quiet interjection barely registered as his and Jill’s argument spiked.
“I mean he broke up with you, Paulo. But you put this…this…pressure on him. To stay connected!”
“He broke up with me for me. His words. I’m sorry if he felt pressured but imagine if Lily decided she was leaving because it was best for you.”
“Lily wouldn’t do that,” Jill snapped. “Because I don’t have a wicked temper, I respect Lily’s wishes, and I know how to keep it in my pants.”
Paulo was off the couch in a second, child in his arms, anger like bells clanging in his brain. Jill’s implication that he’d cheat on Harrison put him in a haze of red.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that my wife wouldn’t have pushed me to have sex when I clearly wasn’t ready to.”
“I didn’t ever push—”
“And it means my wife would have held me when I needed holding instead of seeking revenge.”
“I never—”
“And all those two a.m. trips out?”
“I wasn’t sleeping with anyone else,” he ground the words out through his teeth. He’d been driving around The Grand Heights. Around…and around…and around… Circling that accursed building. Night after night.
Had Harrison really thought Paulo had been cheating? And if he did, why did he stay? “I haven’t touched another man since my first night with Ari.”
“Two a.m.”
“I wasn’t with anyone.”
She spat her womanly illogicism at him. “Exactly! There’s that too! When Harrison needed you. You weren’t there!”
Seeds of Tyrone Box Set Page 52