Chapter 7
JULES
Rowan looks so innocent when she’s sleeping, like she’s never committed even a venial sin. But I’ve heard the stories. And I see her scars. She’s taken blows and doled them out twice as hard. She’s never killed anyone, though. Tough as she’s been forced to be, she doesn’t have that in her. She’s had to steel herself to live the life her father chose for her, but I see who she is in her heart. I don’t think she wants any of this any more than I do. Still, she’s a better daughter than I am—defiant in her own way, yet dutiful; she does the jobs she’s given without complaint, but also without joy.
I push her dark, messy bangs out of her face. She stirs, slowly opens her eyes. Those green irises focus on me and the thought that pops into my head is frightening. I’d like to be the first thing she sees every morning for eternity.
“Good morning,” I say with a smile.
“Morning.” She yawns. “What time is it?”
I check the clock on the nightstand behind her. “Eight o’clock.”
“Hmm. We slept in.”
I snort. “This is sleeping in to you?”
“I’m up with the sun most days.” And then she does something unexpected: Leans into me and kisses my forehead. I try to curb the warmth from coloring my cheeks, but I’m sure it’s pointless. “Sleep well?”
Very. “Yes. You completely exhausted me, Rowan Monaghan.”
“I’ve been told many times that I’m exhausting,” she smirks.
“Want some coffee?” I throw the sheets off me and move to get up, but she grabs my wrist.
“No, Juliet. Not yet. I want to hold you a while longer. If that’s okay?”
“Of course it’s okay.”
She opens her arms for me. I crash into them, turn toward her, rest my head in the crook of her shoulder. She folds herself around me and it’s startling how nice it feels, our bodies pressed together, all skin on skin. It’s comfortable. Familiar, even though this is new territory for us. “Can we stay like this all day?” I ask without overthinking it.
“I wish.”
As if on cue, her phone buzzes. Once, twice, three times. She doesn’t move to pick it up. The caller takes the hint and hangs up. Thirty seconds later, it starts again. “Jesus fucking Christ,” she grumbles, fumbling to grab it from the nightstand. “Sorry, I have to—” she says to me before answering the call. “Hey, Dad.”
I hear her father, garbled, on the other end of the line, “Did you come home last night?”
I’m still resting my head on her shoulder. She grins down at me. “Nope.”
“Should I take that to mean you had a nice evening with Elisa?”
Her grin vanishes. “No.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d try harder with her.”
“Okay.”
“Good. I need you back at the house by ten thirty. Can you make it here by then?”
“Yes.”
“Alright. See you then.” He hangs up. Rowan tosses the phone onto the mattress and sighs. I can feel the frustration stiffen her muscles.
I kiss her cheek. “How about that coffee?”
She lets out a breath and squeezes me around my middle. “Five more minutes of this.”
“I wouldn’t have figured you for a cuddlebug.”
“I’m not. You just fit.”
More buzzing. This time it’s my phone. Rowan’s closer to it.
“Can you…”
She scrunches her lips to the side as she feels for my phone, then hands it to me. I sit up and hate doing it.
“Morning. No, I’m fi—Mom, you know me better than that, I only had two drinks. Tell him you raised a very intelligent daughter who is now a fully grown woman and—Oh my God, Mother, I can take the T. Alright, send Teague then, whatever makes Dad happy. Yes. Love you, too. Bye.”
Rowan’s looking at me, amused. “Is your mom always so wound up?”
“She’s married to a paranoid mobster who treats me like I’m a genuine Fabergé egg, so, yes. She’s not as frantic when I’m at school, though.”
“Because nobody knows who you are on the West Coast. Juliet Calloway is your name, not your legacy.”
She understands my position all too well; she might be the only other person on the planet who does. Is it any wonder that our connection is so singular and so intense? It isn’t just sex. It was never going to be. The universe made sure of that. “Teague’s coming to pick me up.” I slip out of bed, over to the chair where the mixed pile of our clothes rests. Her eyes are on me as I dress, so I make a show of it for her.
“It’s un-fucking-fair how gorgeous you are,” she says.
“Look who’s talking.” I toss her panties to her. She hops out of bed, shimmies into them, and comes over to the chair.
Once she’s fully dressed, she looks at me again. The corners of her mouth downturn in a scowl. “Well, it was fun while it lasted.”
“Hey.” I grab her arm and pull her close to me, then run my fingers through her dark hair. “You forgot about our Maine trip already?”
“Hell no. If you can make it happen, I’m in.”
“It’s happening. You’d better buy us a tent.”
“I’ll get right on it. One of those big, luxurious glamping ones for the Calloway Princess.”
I chuckle at that. “I think Gucci makes one.”
“Oh, you simply must have it. Nothing but the best for my love.” Her eyes go wide and her mouth slack—panic combined with fear. Rowan had no intention of saying it, perhaps ever to anyone. It was a misstep, a slip of the tongue in a moment of humor. I want to make this easier for her, but I’m not sure if she’s going to lean into it or try to take it back.
Her face turns stony. I suppose there’s my answer.
“Shit. There’s no point trying to run from it; it’ll catch me.” Rowan takes my face into her hands, rubs my cheekbones with her thumbs. “I love you, Jules. I didn’t even know what that word meant before I met you.”
The sincerity in her voice hits me harder than the words. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard someone say it and really mean it, as though they’ve never been so certain of anything. “I love you, too.”
I think she’s going to kiss me. Instead, she envelops me in the tightest, warmest embrace, and it feels like I’ve found home.
Rowan sends me into the lounge to “sit down and enjoy a coffee” while she checks out with the concierge. I do as I’m told, mostly because I need caffeine, but also because, well, Yes, ma’am. I’m savoring the rich dark roast and the split view of the harbor and the street just as Teague’s electric blue Mercedes comes to a screeching halt outside the hotel’s main entrance. It’s so ostentatious, I couldn’t miss it, even if the grand foyer weren’t made entirely of floor-to-ceiling windows. The problem with windows is they offer no cover; all it would take for the whole world to catch fire is Rowan turning around and my cousin catching sight of her. I send a hurried text.
Teague’s here. Gotta go. Stay there.
I watch her retrieve her phone from her back pocket. Her posture changes as she reads the screen, spine straight and taut as a violin string. She texts back.
Good looking out. See you soon.
She leans against the high counter, and I head for the exit.
The doorman nods at me, grabs the long gold handle, and opens the door. I hit the pavement before Teague is out of the driver’s seat. He usually opens the passenger side door for me like he’s a chauffeur. It’s kind of gross how hard he licks my dad’s boots. “You got here fast. Just happened to be waiting for my father’s beck and call?”
He slips his sunglasses up his forehead and nails me with a glare. “Are you hungover, little cousin, or did someone piss in your cornflakes this morning?”
I can’t suppress my snickering. He’s not good for much, but his comebacks are spectacular. “Neither. I’m not looking forward to going home, is all.”
“I know. Hang in, you’ll be back at school soon.”
Don’t remind me. “Yeah.”
He guns the car onto Atlantic Ave toward Beacon Hill and my parents’ house.
I manage to cling to the remnants of my good mood by my fingertips as Teague and I ascend the steps of the wide front porch, past the white marble Roman columns, and through the frosted glass front door. But I lose my grip on it the second I set sights on my dad. He didn’t shave this morning and he wastes no time wagging his stubbly chin at me. “There she is! My daughter, the slippery eel, staying out all hours, no appreciation for the lengths I go through to keep her safe.”
I close my eyes, take a breath, open them. “Dad.”
“Don’t you Dad me. You told me you were going to go out and have a nice time with your friends, then come home. But what did you do? You didn’t come home and you conned Gino into leaving you alone, as if I wouldn’t find out. I have half a mind to shoot him!”
“Dad!”
“And you.” He looks past me and points a rigid finger at my cousin.
“Come on, Uncle Pat. She gave me the eyes!”
“I know all about those eyes, you little shit! And you should, too. You were damn-near raised in this house; you should be immune to them by now.”
“Now, now, Patrick.” My mother’s soft voice streams into the foyer from atop the winding double staircase. She seems to glide down it. Effortless. Effervescent. Now and again, I can see the woman she must have been before she married a gangster. She wasn’t always a nervous wreck; my father made her that way.
She rests a gentle hand on Dad’s shoulder. “How could Teague be immune to her when you’re not?” She smiles at him, and it is magic. I see his anger melt away like ice cream in August. He’s a bigger sucker for her than he is for me.
“Try to talk some sense into your daughter, please. Teague and I have business to discuss.” He motions at my cousin to follow him into his office. I couldn’t be more relieved they’re both gone.
“Jules,” my mother says. I know what’s coming next. “Have you eaten yet?” It’s the Italian in her. Food equals comfort, and her cooking always does.
“No.”
“I’ll make you some breakfast. Come sit with me in the kitchen.”
That’s an Italian thing, too. And even though my father is annoyingly proud to be Irish, that’s one of my mom’s customs he adopted; all the most important conversations in Italian households happen around the kitchen table. It’s where I told my parents I wanted to go away to college. And where I told them I was gay. Now I have something I can’t tell them. Someone I can’t tell them about. The thought hits me like a sledgehammer wielded by a mugger I didn’t see coming. “I’m not hungry.”
“I didn’t ask if you were hungry, topolina, I asked if you’d eaten.”
Topolina. Little mouse. She hasn’t called me that in a long time. There is no escape, so I shouldn’t bother trying. I follow her through the dining room—the clicking of my heels against the tile floor grates my nerves more and more with every step—and into the kitchen.
“Frittata?” she asks, already in the fridge.
“Whatever you want. You’re the chef.” I take my usual seat at the glass table.
“With spinach and mushrooms. They’re already cooked from dinner last night,” she says, more to herself than to me, but I give her a nod anyway.
She makes quick work of mixing the ingredients in a bowl and heating a deep skillet on the stovetop. This is the quiet part. Well, the part where I’m quiet. She hums to herself when she cooks. I’ve always thought it was adorable. I use the silence to think up answers to the questions I know are soon to follow, but all my brain can conjure are lies.
I’m good at lying. Or telling half-truths, at least. All the most convincing lies have a hint of truth to them. My dad usually bites because he doesn’t want to believe that I could be dishonest with him. I can never seem to get one past my mother, though. She can sniff out bullshit like a bloodhound. Sometimes she lets me slide, other times she pries. Today she’s going to pry. I’ve given her good cause to.
She slides a plate full of egg concoction in front of me, along with a knife and fork, then joins me at the table. “So…”
And “so” it begins. “So?”
“How are Rose and Shannon?”
She’s fishing. “They’re okay. Shannon’s going back to New York next week.” Truth.
“Oh, Columbia’s semester starts early.”
Perfect set-up. “Yeah. She mentioned taking a girls’ trip this weekend; her parents bought that house on the Vineyard last year.” Half-truth. “Think you could convince Dad to let me go without the Garda following me?”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“On if you tell me what’s been going on with you. You’re not normally such a ‘slippery eel.’ You used to like spending time with Teague and Gino, but now you seem bothered by them.”
“I liked hanging out with Teague before he decided to work for Dad. Gino has a kid sister of his own to look after; it isn’t right that he’s stuck looking after me so often.” Whole truth. Surprising.
“Alright. That’s fair. But there’s more to it.”
“There isn’t.” I sigh. I can tell by the way she’s looking at me that she’s not buying it.
“Mangia prima che faccia freddo!”
“Okay, okay!” I slice into the omelet with my fork, take a bite.
“You’ve been disappearing without telling us you’re going out,” she continues, “and I’ve had to hear your father complain about it.”
Another bite. Masticate. Swallow. Rinse and repeat.
“And when you come home from these secret outings, you’re in a very good mood.”
Because I’ve had multiple orgasms. “Is that a bad thing?”
“No, it’s a fantastic thing.” She gives me the Mom Look, that expression of clairvoyance, like she’s an all-knowing oracle. “In fact, I’d quite like to meet the woman who’s been making my daughter so happy.”
I almost laugh. Almost. Because that’s impossible. The more I think about the idea, the more impossible it seems. “Okay, fine. I am seeing someone. But you meeting her is not going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“Because Dad would have a conniption,” I let slip before I have time to take another bite of my food.
She smiles at me. “Do you remember how nervous you were to tell us you were gay? You got yourself into a fluster, tears and all. And after you did, your dad laughed and said, ‘Of course you like women, who wouldn’t?’ He might surprise you again.”
“No, Mom. This isn’t the same. He wouldn’t be so accepting.” I drop my fork, listen to it ting against the plate. Then, without warning, the dam breaks and I can’t keep the surge at bay. I don’t want to keep Rowan a secret. I shouldn’t have to, she’s the person I love. “It really pisses me off because she’s… She looks at me like I’m the only woman in the world. And she makes me feel that way, too—like I’m the only person she’s ever felt safe enough with to let her guard down around. And she more than sees me, she gets me. In a way no one else ever has.”
“That sounds a lot like love to me.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”
“Then I’m not sure there’s much your father could do about it.”
I look at her like she’s dense, as though she’s forgotten who she’s married to. “He’s Patrick Calloway. He could do a lot about it.” He’s done plenty to put a stop to things and people he doesn’t “appreciate,” like holding a .38 special to my prom date’s head, cocking the hammer, and threatening to blow his face off if he touched me “inappropriately” or got me home a minute past midnight. “I love Dad, but sometimes he can be one fry short of a Happy Meal.”
My mother lets a small laugh escape her lips. “Good thing I’m not him, then.” She places her hand over mine. “You can talk to me about anything, you know that, right? I don’t tell your father everything.”
“Can we just drop it? You called it, there’s someone who makes me happy, and I have real feelings for her. Can’t that be enough?”
“It can be. For now. I’ll work on your father about your girls’ weekend.” She singsongs the last two words.
Technically, girls’ weekend isn’t a lie. “Thanks, Mom.”
She pats my cheek.