Though it’s the exact same question I had at the beginning of my time with Jules, and many times after that, I’m offended that Shay has the same thought.
“What, am I not attractive? I thought I was pulling off a better look these days.”
“Don’t try to be cute about this, Danny Boy. I’m asking because I need to know if she’s a threat to my band.”
Of course, that would be his priority. Shay has always made it clear his band is the most important thing to him, giving me short shrift in the process.
“How’s about caring about your dear brother first off?” I ask, unable to resist falling back on my tried and true method of guilt-tripping my baby brother. It’s a tactic I used often over the years, mostly when I needed money or his time to help me when I bottomed out. I haven’t felt the need to do this in a long time, however, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It feels cheap, like it’s . . . beneath me.
“You should be thinking in the same terms,” Shay continues, ignoring my attempt at manipulating him, “now that you have a real interest in Rogue.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means, you’re part of the crew, aren’t you? We rely on you. I should think you’d want to be sure we’re solid—if only for your own sake.”
“Well, yeah, I do want that. I’d never do anything to threaten the band, Shay. Don’t you know that?”
He gives me a look of disbelief that I don’t quite track.
“You think I would?” I ask.
“I think you have, that’s the thing. Like when you stole Conor’s guitar?”
Thinking back on that escapade makes me laugh. It was one of those things I did on impulse. I just grabbed the guitar right out of the storage unit that was being packed up at the end of the tour. At first, I just wanted to have a closer look at it. Then, I realized no one was around, so I walked it right out of the Dublin 3Arena. Once I had it in hand, I knew I couldn’t really keep it. But giving it back seemed more dangerous than what I ended up doing, which was trying to sell it. That turned into quite the cockup. Mr. Perfect nearly lost his legendary cool, he was so angry with me.
“That’s ancient history,” I say. It does feel like forever ago. I recognize that behavior, but I don’t identify with it anymore, if that makes any sense.
“Then there’s the time when you came crashing into me and broke my fucking wrist.”
The vision of slipping off the ladder and swinging wildly down onto Shay at his kit flashes in my mind. Again, I can’t help but laugh. I did know how to make things interesting.
“Always a laugh, yeah?” Shay asks wearily. He’s tired. Exhausted, actually. He came in from the States and never properly rested to rid himself of jet lag. Now this to further burden him.
“Listen, you have nothing to worry about. I know you can’t help yourself, but I’m not after hurting the band. I won’t hurt the band.”
Shay watches me silently, dubiously.
“Honestly. For the first time in I don’t know how long, I feel invested in something. That’s you lot. And I will do everything I can not to fuck it up.”
It takes a moment, but finally the expression on his face morphs into relief. I’m sure mine does, too.
44
A sharp rapping noise startles me awake. I’m completely disoriented as I wipe drool from my mouth. I see Shay asleep in the chair across from me. Dead to the world, he sits with head lolled to the side, arms slack on the armrests and legs spread wide. I slowly realize that we’re at Gavin’s. The full reason for this escapes me, however, as I stretch out on the sofa, closing my eyes to return to sleep.
The noise starts up again, though, and my eyes fly open, landing on the video monitor.
“Mama. Mama. Mama.”
Daisy is standing in her crib, calling for her mama and slapping her hands rhythmically on the crib railing. Looking at my phone, I see that it’s only eleven thirty. Shay and I must have dozed off not long ago and dropped right into deep sleep.
I rouse myself and head toward Daisy’s room. No sense in waking Shay up, too.
When she sees me, the kid starts jumping up and down, gripping the crib railing to steady herself. I’ve spent some time around her, so we’re not complete strangers, but I’m clearly not the one she wants. She looks past me to the door and again calls for her mama.
“It’s time to sleep, Daze,” I tell her. “Back to bed for you.”
“Daddy?” she says softly, still looking beyond me to the door.
The sound of her breathy voice makes me smile. She’s a sweet kid, and I can clearly see why she’s universally adored in the Rogue world. Whenever she’s around the band, she’s doted on and rarely touches foot to floor with so many people vying to hold her. But at just over a year old, she’s getting big for that now.
“It’s night-night,” I tell her. “Time for sleep.” When she doesn’t automatically settle back into bed, I reach for her to ease her down. “Oh, you feel warm. Is that normal?”
“Mock?”
I have no idea what that means, and her temperature is starting to worry me. “Come on, you,” I tell her, lifting her up out of her crib and holding her against my hip as I go back to the living room.
“Shay, wake up,” I say. Shay doesn’t budge, so I kick his foot. That only gets me a snuffling snore. I look at Daisy. “Can you believe this guy?”
“Mock.” It’s a demand from her now, but I still don’t know what she wants.
This time when I go to kick Shay, I aim for his ankle.
“Fuck’s sake,” he yelps as he wakes. He reaches down to rub his ankle. “What’s going on?”
“Daisy’s up.”
“What time is it?”
“Close to midnight.”
“Put her back to bed, then.” Shay leans back again and closes his eyes.
“Mock. Mock. Mock.”
“She keeps saying that,” I explain when Shay cracks an eye open to look at us. “What does she want?”
“Milk, you idiot.”
“Oh.”
I figure that’s a good thing to help her cool down, and I take her to the kitchen. Placing her on the floor, I pour a cold cup of milk and then hand it to her.
“There you go, Daze. Have at it.”
She contemplates the cup as if she’s never seen milk in her life. Then she toddles over to the trash bin pull-out drawer and drops the cup into it.
“Bye bye!” she says with a wave.
“What was that for?” I ask her with a laugh.
“Mock?”
“You make no sense, kid. You know that? I just gave you your mock, didn’t I?’
“Ba ba.”
Now I get it. She just showed me what she thought of drinking out of a cup. It’s still all about the bottle for her. I laugh, and she looks at me curiously.
“Bottle, got it.”
After more trial and error, she lets me know in her own way that the milk needs to be warmed, then placed in a bottle, before she’ll drink it. I sit her up on the counter, and we hang out together in the dim light while she drinks. I make conversation, but she has very little to say in return, most of her replies are giggles or stares. Once she’s done with the bottle, I place it in the sink and hold her against my hip again. She still seems warm to me, so I return to Shay.
“Hey, wake up,” I tell him. Before I can gear up for another precisely aimed kick, he opens his eyes. “Does she feel warm to you?”
That gives him pause. “Warm? Like sick?” He stands and touches Daisy’s little forearm.
“Well, I don’t think you can tell if she’s got a fever by touching her arm,” I say, suddenly feeling like I know what I’m doing with this babysitting thing.
“Right.” He touches Daisy’s forehead and cheek. “Yeah, she might be.”
“That nanny said it was food poisoning. Do you get a fever from that?”
“I don’t know.”
“So, I guess we should take her temperature?”
Sh
ay eyes me for a moment. “How do we do that with a kid this young?”
I shrug. My brief moment of confidence is gone. “Should we call Sophie?”
“Is it that big of a deal? Like interrupt their one night away, kind of big deal?”
“There’s no way we would know. Couple of newbies at this.”
“Yeah,” Shay agrees. But it isn’t an answer.
“How about you call Jessica. See if she knows what we should do?”
Shaking his head, Shay says, “She’s great with older kids because of the school. But she knows as much about babies as we do.”
“Great.”
“How about Celia? We could check with her—”
“That would be pretty fucking awkward, right about now, don’t you think? She and Marty are on the outs.”
“Well, fuck, what do you suggest we do?”
This is just the nudge I didn’t realize I was hoping for. “I’ve got an idea,” I say.
45
When Ms. Patterson arrives, she looks like a fantasy come to life from my childhood fascination with Jennifer Beals of Flashdance fame. Ms. Patterson had obviously dressed hastily in body hugging jeans and an inside-out, off the shoulder gray sweatshirt. Her dark hair is down in loose curls and I’ve never seen her look lovelier.
“Shay, meet Ms. Patterson,” I say when I’ve led her to the living room.
Shay had been entertaining Daisy by building block towers on the floor with her and now he stands to greet us.
“You can call me Amelia,” she says.
“Amelia,” both Shay and I say.
Hearing her first name is a novelty. I knew it, of course, back when I first started seeing her. But she had been so insistent on the formality of me using her surname, that this feels like I’ve been let in on a treasured secret.
She and Shay shake hands.
“It’s good to meet the woman who has done so much to help my brother,” he says.
“Oh, well—” she starts but is interrupted when Shay speaks again.
“Even going above and beyond to come to our aid here.”
“Daniel said young Daisy was suffering and he was at a loss,” she says carefully. “I couldn’t say no.”
All three of us look at Daisy who now appears to be the picture of health.
“You said she was burning up?” Ms. Patterson asks pointedly.
“So it seemed, Amelia.” I try on her name again and it feels odd. I might have exaggerated Daisy’s symptoms on the phone to Ms. Patterson in order to get her here. I had called her cell direct, using the number I saved from our Tulum call. My worry about the kid was real, but it seemed the only way to get Ms. Patterson’s help was to play it up.
Ms. Patterson gives me one of her dubious looks before crouching down before Daisy.
“Hi Daisy,” she says. “I’m Amelia. What do you say we get your temperature taken?”
“Take bath?” Daisy asks.
Amelia smiles and takes Daisy’s hand. “Maybe, if you’re running a little too hot. How about you show me your room first?”
Shay and I watch as Daisy leads Amelia toward her room. I realize I’ve got an ear-to-ear grin on my face.
“What’s going on with her, then?” Shay asks.
“What? She’s a lifesaver, is all.”
“Does this fit within the boundaries of the whole doctor-patient thing?”
“She’s not a doctor. She’s a therapist.”
Shay sighs. “Whatever.” He falls in a heap onto the chair and rubs the back of his head roughly, closing his eyes. “You said she was working with you on making better decisions, yeah?”
“Yeah, that’s part of it.”
Leveling his eyes on me now, he says, “Maybe she can help you decide not to fall in love with her.”
My brother’s ability to read people is particularly uncomfortable in this instance. I have no idea how to respond, so I tell him, “You worry too much, kid. You always have.”
“If you say so, Danny Boy,” he says resignedly. “If you say so.”
When Ms. Patterson reappears ten minutes later, she reports that Daisy’s temperature was normal. She gave her a diaper change and has placed her back in bed.
“She might just be off since her parents aren’t here,” she says.
“Yeah, I could see that,” I say.
As if on cue, we hear Daisy calling for her mama again.
“Thanks very much for coming over—in the dead of night, no less—Amelia,” Shay says. He stands and nods to the monitor. “I’ll go sit with her for a bit. See if that helps.”
Once he’s disappeared toward Daisy’s room, Ms. Patterson and I stand and stare at each other awkwardly.
“Well—”
“So—” I start at the same time.
We both stop short and smile.
“Have a drink with me, Ms. Patterson,” I tell her. “It’s the least I can offer you after your kindness of coming here to help a couple of clueless bachelors.”
She hesitates, and I can see her mind at work. This episode has already crossed lines of what’s proper between us. Should she put an end to it, or is there really no more harm that can come from staying a bit longer?
“Okay, sure,” she says.
I feel my heart swell in silent response.
* * *
After rummaging through Gavin’s kitchen like I own it, I find an unopened bottle of thirty-year-aged Paul Beau Cognac, along with a couple of appropriate glasses for tasting the expensive brandy. Ms. Patterson has alternated between looking out of the window at the inky sea and watching me, and now she sits up straighter in her spot at the breakfast nook when I join her.
“Sláinte,” she tells me and gently knocks her glass with mine.
“Sláinte agad-sa,” I reply. It’s the equivalent to “good health to you.”
“Your Irish is well remembered.”
I laugh. “A very low bar, if we’re calling a common toast reply an accomplishment.”
She eyes me before enjoying a sip from her glass, closing her eyes briefly with the pleasure of it. Leave it to McManus to have the good stuff.
“Were you a good student?” she asks.
“I was, actually. Made high marks. Not that I ever did anything with it.”
“What would you have studied if you’d stuck with it?”
I think about this and take a drink of the smoky, spicy brandy. I didn’t have the kind of childhood that allowed the freedom of imagining what I’d make of my life. I was too concerned with getting me and Shay through the day to have fantasies of adulthood.
“I dunno.”
“Maybe psychologist?” she suggests.
“What makes you say that?”
“You’re good at understanding how people work.”
“Am I?”
“You knew I’d come tonight. You knew pretty early on that Jules was no good. You called upon Gavin, and Conor, and Martin for advice and got what you needed at the time.”
“One, I knew you’d come because you have a baby nephew you adore—”
“How do you know that?”
“Remember, when we were on the phone when I was in Tulum? You kept getting those notifications because your sister was sending through photos of his first haircut?”
Her eyes widen for a split second.
“Two, I knew Jules was up to no good because it was like looking in a mirror. And three, I don’t know what you mean about those guys.”
She’s still flustered but regroups. “I, em, I meant that your meetings with them weren’t accidental. You needed something specific from each one of them. You walked away from those visits having either reinforced your suspicions or learning something.”
I think about that before shrugging. “Could be you’re right. Or could be I’ve just had a lot of years’ practice at conning people to get what I need.”
She’s visibly taken aback by this suggestion. It isn’t what she wants to believe. She’s had a soft spot for me sinc
e the beginning, assigning me virtues and good intentions that were often overly generous. I have no illusions over the ways in which I’ve manipulated and hurt others just to get by. But it almost breaks my heart to see her considering this side of me at the moment, especially because I don’t believe I’ve been conning anyone. I started to let that go when I hooked up with Shay again before they went back on tour and did an even better job of it when Roscoe found me. That dog kept me from hunting down a fix that very day. And he’s been the thing that makes me think twice every time I try to convince myself I can control just a little hit of smack. I think of him being alone in Shay’s house now and yearn to go get him.
“I suppose that’s honest,” Ms. Patterson says, pulling me from my distracted thoughts.
She still looks troubled by my comment. I’ve made her think that I could’ve been conning her all this time. But that’s not the case and I need her to know that.
“Listen,” I say urgently, leaning across the table and looking her in the eye, “you and I met at the exact right time. It was when I was ready to be a different person. I’ve never conned you. Honest to god, I’ve been brutally, utterly honest and myself with you. That includes the good, the bad, and the ugly. What you’ve seen with me is truly how it is. I wasn’t trying to suggest anything else.”
There’s a stubborn set to her face as she watches me warily.
“I only said that because I’m not one to accept a compliment or believe I’ve got any special skills. You know I’m still completely lacking in self-worth. That that’s what all the negativity is in my head, telling me I’m nothing and will always be nothing.”
She softens, her frame loosening. Maybe it’s the brandy. Or maybe it’s that she actually believes me.
“Still, Daniel?” she asks softly. “It’s still that way for you?”
If I say yes, then she will think she hasn’t made a difference with our sessions. But that’s not true. She’s made a world of difference. More than she can ever really know.
“No, not exactly. I don’t know how to really describe what it’s like, what it’s been like all my life. But that overwhelming sense that I have no value, that’s faded. It’s not gone. I don’t know that it will ever be gone. But it’s now something I feel like I can get my arms around. If I can’t exactly control it, I feel like I have a fighting chance now. And you’re a big reason why. You, my dear Ms. Patterson, have made a huge difference in my life.”
Looking For Trouble (Rogue Series Book 5) Page 18