Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
R onan
I know what Ava’s up to. She thinks she’s being clever or sly, but I see right through her plan. She thinks inviting my ex-girlfriend over here is going to make me want to leave my room more often. She’s probably hoping I’ll want to talk to her. I can see her actually telling Kate how good it would be for me to see her.
Well, she’s wrong. It’s not fucking good. It’s torture. There she is looking as beautiful as ever sitting downstairs, just like she did when we were together. Even seeing her brings back a million memories of all the good times we had. I’ve never loved anyone like I loved her.
Except those days are long gone.
Then I was a high school kid with big dreams and a belief I could have anything I wanted. She was completely out of my league, but I didn’t think twice about asking her out. Kate Abbott got great grades, was gorgeous, and was as sweet as any guy could ask for. I was just a jock who came from a family with a lot of money. Still, I never doubted myself when I asked her out that first time.
Why would I? I had the world by the tail.
I push away the half of my turkey sandwich left, disgusted by how dry it tastes without mayonnaise. But I couldn’t hang out down there even long enough for Eleanor to slap some on the sandwich because then Kate would see once again how fucking broken I am. It’s only a matter of time before she realizes the truth and doesn’t want to be anywhere near me.
Better for me to save us both the time and stay away.
My mind drifts back to seeing her downstairs, no matter how much I try not to think about that. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. I wonder if she’s still single. If so, then the entire population of males in this area have lost their minds.
I look down at my own left hand and think about how I imagined I’d marry her. She was my first girlfriend, but I didn’t want anyone else. I’d found the one for me. My brothers could do all the comparison shopping for women they wanted. I didn’t need to do that once Kate and I were together.
All that went away that New Year’s Eve. Even if I wanted to try again with her, I can’t think about that. She’s the whole package. Smart, sexy, beautiful, and kind. And what am I? A guy with no right hand and no future because the only thing I ever wanted to do is now an impossibility.
She deserves better than a life with someone like me. All I can offer her is money, and why would she give a damn about that when she has so much more to offer a man?
I walk into the bathroom and catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror. I’ve definitely let myself go. Fuck, I look like some goddamned mountain man. Not that I can do anything about that. I haven’t gone looking for a razor, but I doubt my brother, Ava, or Eleanor left one in here.
What’s it matter anyway? Who the fuck am I shaving for?
Just as I suspected, when I open the medicine cabinet, I see nothing sharp. There’s not much at all, other than those pills they gave me that I won’t take. The doctor claims they’ll make me feel better. All they ever did was make me feel like my damn head was three feet above my body.
Frustrated, I slam the cabinet door and storm out into my room. I’m not a fucking child. It’s not like I’m planning to slice myself up right here in my childhood bedroom with my brother, Ava, and my nephews in the same house. It would probably be Eleanor who found me anyway, and I wouldn’t do that to her. She’s been like a mother to me, for fuck’s sake.
Maybe there’s one in Marius or Kellen’s rooms. They made Theo’s room into the nursery, but I overheard Matthias say to Ava that they won’t be changing my other brothers’ bedrooms to the boys’ rooms until they’re older.
I look out into the hallway and don’t see anyone, so I hurry over to Kellen’s room to look for a razor. You’d swear these things are made of gold the way they’ve hidden them from me.
Even as I think that, I know that isn’t the reason. I get it. I tried to off myself. That was a rough period for me. I swore to Matthias I wouldn’t try it again, especially here. You’d think they’d believe me.
Kellen’s bathroom is so spotless you could eat off the floor. Eleanor probably had one of her people scrub the place down after he stayed here for a couple days when Ava had Theo. Nothing but towels in the linen closet, and when I look in the medicine cabinet, it’s empty. Not even a damn Q-Tip.
If I’ve ever needed Eleanor and her staff to be slackers, it would be now.
I make my way down the hall to Marius’s room, but it’s the same story. Nothing but a perfectly clean floor and surfaces with nothing left behind anywhere.
My last chance is Matthias’s old room. Actually, there are probably a few razors in the room he and Ava share that used to be our parents’ bedroom, but I’d rather not try there and have to answer for what I’m doing if Ava walks in.
Matthias left nothing in his bedroom when he moved down the hall. Damn. You’d think in a house that once had five young men living here that I’d be able to find a single razor.
So much for trying to shave. Not that I know if I can even do it since I’ve never shaved with my left hand. Ava helped me with that right after I came here, but since then, I’ve let it grow until now I look like I’ve been lost in the outback for weeks.
Feeling defeated, I start back to my room but run into Sabrina. She intentionally avoids making eye contact with me, probably because of what I said yesterday out on the patio. She might know where I can find a razor, though.
“Hey.”
Not exactly my best conversation starter, but I’m a little out of practice.
She stops and looks at me like I’ve grown another head next to mine but doesn’t say anything. Terrific. One day, she’s all about giving me her opinion, and the next she’s acting like someone’s cut out her tongue.
“So what is your job here exactly?” I ask, not really knowing why I said that but trying to get a conversation going.
Sabrina takes a moment to respond, but finally says, “I’m here to help Ava with the boys. That’s all. By the way, I’m sorry for yesterday. She talked to me, and I get it now. No bothering the guy who never leaves his room.”
Right after she says that, she looks down the hallway toward my bedroom and then back at me. “Except for today, it seems.”
“I’m looking for a razor, but I can’t find one. Any chance you’ve seen one in your travels around here?”
She narrows her eyes as if to let me know she thinks I’m an idiot. “I work with babies. There’s not really much of a call for razors with them.”
Super.
I don’t bother continuing talking to her since there’s no point, so I walk back to my room and shut the door behind me. So much for shaving today. Or any other day, for that matter, it seems.
Then again, I could ask Ava to help me, but that will only encourage her to think she should bring Kate around more. I want to see her, but why bother? Even with a decent shave, I’ll still be the guy I am with this mess of a beard.
On that happy thought, I climb into bed and wish I had room darkening curtains so I wouldn’t have to struggle to fall asleep.
I skipped breakfast today to see if Eleanor would bring it up to me, but she seems to be made of stronger stuff than I gave her credit for. I guess I could explain to everyone when I said I didn’t want to be bothered by people that I wasn’t saying I didn’t want to eat.
It’s nearly one, which I’m thinking means I’m on my own for lunch, so I walk out of my room and nearly run into the babysitter. Why she’s standing in front of my door I have no idea, but she’s lucky I didn’t flatten her.
Before I can ask just what the hell she thinks she’s doing, she holds up her hand to show me a blue disposable razor like the kind I started on when I first learned to shave. I haven’t used one of those since I was fifteen, but beggars can’t be choosers, I guess.
“You said you needed a razor, so ta-da!” she announces proudly with a huge smile.
When I reach for it, she snatches it away. Is she playing some game? If so, I’m not in the mood.
“One rule. You don’t give me a hard time ever again when I appear in the same place you do. Deal?”
“You didn’t just appear in the same place I was. You walked into my room uninvited.”
That gets me a disinterested shrug. “Same difference. So do you agree to my deal?”
“Fine. Give me the razor.”
Shaking her head, she smiles again. “Nope. That’s not the way people get what they want. What’s the magic word?”
“Give it to me or else?” I say, already tired of whatever this thing is she’s doing.
A look of disgust comes over her, and she juts out her right hip completing the vibe. “Why don’t you try please? Weren’t you ever taught manners? Sheesh.”
“Please give me the razor,” I say through gritted teeth.
That satisfies her, and she hands it to me with a huge grin. “Very nice. I hope you aren’t planning to shave your head. You have nice hair, so it would be a shame to see it go. Plus, you might have one of those lumpy skulls that never look good bald.”
Seriously, who the hell is this person, and what gives her the idea she should talk to me or anyone like this?
“What’s it matter what I’m shaving?” I say before walking back into my room, happy to be away from her.
I honestly think Ava must have advertised for the most annoying person to help her with my nephews. No matter. She did bring me a razor, so maybe she’s not all bad.
Just aggravating. And rude.
Since there are no razors in my bathroom, there’s no shaving cream either, so I’m stuck with soap. Not exactly the best way to shave off all this hair, but it’ll have to do.
A bigger problem presents itself as soon as I lather up my beard and start to use the razor. The hair’s too long to just shave. It needs to be trimmed first, and there’s no way in hell Matthias, Ava, or Eleanor left me a pair of scissors.
Why is nothing fucking easy?
I slam my fist into the mirror, but it doesn’t break probably because my left arm and hand are much weaker than my right. All that outburst does is hurt my knuckles. Christ, I can’t win today.
From outside the bathroom, I hear Sabrina say, “Everything okay in there? You aren’t really shaving your entire head, are you?”
Walking out to my bedroom, I see her standing in the doorway to the hall. “I’m fine, and what is your obsession with my hair? As you can see by the soap in my beard, I’m trying to shave my face. I just didn’t think about how I’d have to trim it first, so I’m shit out of luck.”
She stands there staring at me for a few moments before holding up her hand. “Wait here! I think I can help.”
And then she disappears, helping more than she could possibly know.
I don’t bother waiting since I doubt she can actually do anything for me now, but a minute later, she walks into my room, uninvited as usual, and holds up a pair of small scissors. They look like they might be to cut something on babies, although I can’t imagine what they need trimmed since they have next to no hair anywhere.
“You can say thank you right now,” she says as she walks toward where I stand.
“Maybe after I use them for my beard you can go trim the hedges with them. You might be done by Thanksgiving.”
My attempt at a joke misses entirely, and she points toward the bathroom. “Let’s go. The babies are only going to be napping for a little while longer.”
“Go where?” I ask, confused where she means or what she’s doing right now.
Like yesterday when I asked about a razor, she gives me a look like I’m the world’s biggest moron. Her eyes squinted and a disgusted expression on her face, she says, “Into the bathroom. You’re going to need help with this, I’m assuming.”
“Well, you assumed wrong. You can leave now,” I say as I push past her to walk into the bathroom, grabbing the scissors from her hold as I walk by.
Why the hell would I need her help? I’ve been shaving since I was in tenth grade, for God’s sake.
Not twenty seconds later, it becomes obvious that not using my left hand since I lost my right one hasn’t been smart. I can’t grip the tiny scissors properly, and each time I try to cut the hair short enough so I can shave, the damn things fall out of my hand and into the sink.
“Fuck!”
“Ready for my help yet?” she calls from outside the bathroom.
I’m ready for her to get the hell away from me. That I’d be on board with. Helping me shave is another story entirely.
“I don’t need your help.”
She appears in the doorway and shakes her head. “Yeah, you’re doing a hell of a job there. You might be done by Thanksgiving.”
Smartass.
Without waiting for me to invite her in, she marches into the bathroom and takes the scissors from my hand. Pointing at the toilet, she says, “Sit. You’re too tall for me to do this with you standing up.”
“It’ll get all over the floor.”
“Then you can clean it up.”
Damn, she’s bossy, but since I want to shave and I can’t seem to handle it by myself, what choice do I have but to let her help? Reluctantly, I do as she orders and sit on the toilet seat lid.
“Good! Now sit still or I’ll stab you, and you don’t want that, I’m sure,” she says as she takes a step toward me and stops.
Just before she starts cutting my beard, I mumble, “Nothing like a threat to go with a shave.”
Sabrina gets to work with the scissors, trimming the course hair as I sit watching her. I’ve had fantasies that involved this kind of thing. They just all involved Kate and not some pushy babysitter who’s done little more than get on my last nerve since the moment I met her.
“So what made you want to shave? Not that I think you’re making a mistake or anything. I mean, beards are hot, but yours looked like birds might be nesting in it.”
When she moves the scissors away from the area around my mouth, I look up at her and ask, “Have you ever had a thought that didn’t drop straight from your brain to your mouth like a slot machine?”
Stopping for a moment, she smiles and answers, “No, I haven’t. By the way, what’s going on with that hand of yours? Not the one you don’t have but the area right above that.”
I lift my right arm and see the scar from what I did in April. “I tried to kill myself.”
She makes a huffing noise. “Well, that’s stupid.”
Stunned and a little hurt by her answer, although I don’t know why since she’s nobody to me, I snap, “Nice. Just leave. I don’t need your help.”
I reach for the scissors, but she backs away, refusing to give them to me. “Okay, that might have been a touch rude, but seriously? Someone like you wanting to kill yourself is so wrong. I can’t imagine why you’d even think of that.”
Without saying a word, I give her my answer by raising my right arm. She stares at it for a long moment and then points at my left hand.
“What about that one?”
“I’m right-handed. Or at least I was,” I answer.
Without missing a beat, she chops off more of my beard and casually says, “And now you’re left-handed.”
Jesus, I think I might hate this person. If I didn’t need her help to get this beard gone, I’d tell her to get the fuck away from me in a heartbeat.
“Nice bedside manner you have,” I grumble, disgusted that yet another person is acting like it’s just fine that I lost my right hand because I have another.
Sabrina returns to trimming my beard and says, “I’m not a nurse. I’m here to help Ava with chores and the babies, and I think she mentioned something about driving you to doctor’s appointments, although I don’t see how that’s going to work since you basically never leave this house. But no matter. You don’t need a nurse. You look as healthy as a horse, and once we get all this awful hair gone, you’ll be back to new.”
The conversation, or what there is of it, falls away, leaving us in silence. All the better. She has a way of making me feel like I want to lash out at something every time she opens her mouth.
As she continues to prune away at my very shaggy beard, she asks, “Have you gotten a pair of left-handed scissors yet? I bet that’s cool having special scissors.”
For a moment, I can’t tell if she’s serious, but since she stares down at me waiting for an answer, I say, “I think those are only for little kids.”
“Too bad. I bet that would be cool to have some for adults. Okay, the first part is done. Now it’s time to shave. Hand me the razor.”
I consider telling her I can shave my own face, but I don’t feel like failing at that too, so I point to the blue plastic razor sitting on the vanity. She grabs it but then puts it down again.
“Need some soap. This would work better with shaving cream, but soap can work too.”
She seems to have the need to talk, but I’m not interested, so I close my eyes. She lathers my face and then starts shaving along my jaw. As she takes care of one side and then the other before moving to around my mouth, I let myself enjoy this. It’s not as good as that time I went to that barber with Kellen in high school, but this comes in a nice second place.
When she finally finishes, she wipes off my face with a warm washcloth sort of like that barber did and says, “There you go! Good as new. You know, you have a really nice face.”
I open my eyes and stand up to look in the mirror to check out how she did. Running my hand over my newly smooth skin, I have to admit she did a decent job.
Smiling at how good I look, I turn toward her and say, “Not bad. I’m guessing this isn’t your first time doing that.”
That makes her chuckle, and as she rinses out the razor, she says, “I’m twenty-one, Ronan. My first time for most things is long gone.”
Surprisingly, she leaves without another word, and as I sit alone on my bed, I realize I’m smiling. I haven’t been like this for so long I forgot how it felt.
I think I sort of like feeling happy again.
Then I look down at my right am, and I feel my smile fade. Nothing’s changed.