Chapter 31 I told myself I wouldn’t do this.
I told myself I wouldn’t do this.
Sean
I COME HOME after work to find Seamus sitting at the kitchen bar, eating supper.
“How is it?” I ask my brother.
He forks up a mouthful of asparagus. “Grand, for a carbless wasteland.”
I exchange a look with my chef, D’Andre, who is about twice my size. My face says, It’s okay, just ignore him. His says, I’ll chop him into small bits and put him in a soup.
“Mam would be happy you’re eating, at least,” I say.
“She doesn’t care one way or the other. Neither does Da.”
“That’s not true.” I accept a plate of food from D’Andre. “They just need a little time. Your homecoming was unexpected.”
“Too unexpected to invite me to Da’s party, huh? Not enough caviar for one more partygoer?”
Ouch. “How’d you find out?”
He holds his phone out to me, chewing loudly. “It’s a video of your latest arm candy singing with Bono. How long have you been dating her?”
I force myself to bite into a piece of asparagus. “Couple of weeks.”
“What? And you’re already whipped?”
“I’m not whipped.”
“Right.” He sniggers. “Have you looked her up? Done a background check?”
I go cold inside. “That’s not a normal thing people do.”
“It’s a normal thing for people like you. I looked her up for you, actually,” Seamus says.
Shit. Josie would hate this. This is exactly why she didn’t want to date me. “I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“Naw, brother. It’s fine. There’s hardly anything on her. But that’s what makes it even stranger, because most people have a past. Josie Days doesn’t.”
The tone of his voice has gone dangerous. I don’t like it one bit.
“D’Andre, you can go home. I’ll finish up here.” I turn on my stool toward Seamus, match his tone, and throw a little acid on it. “I don’t need you spying on my girlfriend.” When he starts to interrupt, I point a ringed finger at his face. “I don’t want you anywhere near her, do you understand me?”
I know I shouldn’t be confrontational like this. The family therapist we met with years ago called it “unhelpful.” It’s not that I think Seamus would hurt Josie, but even the tiniest crumb of an idea that he might boils my blood.
Seamus turns back to his food. “Oh, I see how it is.”
I’m not sure what it is, but I do know that Seamus would never do something for me before doing something for himself. I narrow my eyes. “Josie wasn’t the only person you researched, was it?”
He doesn’t reply. Seamus’s tell for lying has always been silence.
“Tell me you didn’t look up Kokoro.”
“So what if I did?”
“So, she’s got a restraining order on you.”
“I’m not gonna do anything. I just looked at her social media.”
“She blocked you!”
“I used your computer.”
Now I’m implicated. That’s just effing great. Note to self to change my passwords. “Aren’t you supposed to be focusing on your own life?”
A tumbler of whiskey appears in Seamus’s hand, and I realize it’s been present all along, just pushed to the side while he ate. “I will, yeah, Mr. High and Mighty. Why don’t you keep on reminding me?” He takes a swig. “You and everybody else.”
I pretend to look around the kitchen. “Who’s everybody else, Seamus? I’m the only one here. Trying to help you.”
He points the tumbler at me. “I don’t need your help.”
“You’re literally living in my house. My staff is cooking your meals.”
“It’s the least you could do after stealing my role… Captain.” His lip curls on the word, and his gaze flicks to my dyed-yellow lock of hair.
“I didn’t steal anything from you,” I say, but my voice cracks.
“But you took advantage of it, didn’t you? Best thing that ever happened to you. Shy little Seanny Boy’s now a fecking superhero.”
His accent’s gotten thick. It’s even thicker now that he’s angry.
“Yeah, well, if I were a real superhero, I would’ve stopped you from ruining Uncle’s business!”
He doesn’t take my bait. “You could’ve said no! Turned it down! I’m your brother for Christsakes!” The whiskey bottle clinks against the rim of his glass as he pours himself another.
“What, so if you can’t have the opportunity of a lifetime, it means I can’t, either?” This is the argument I tell myself over and over.
He mimes a dagger in his chest, and someone—me, apparently—twisting it.
But I’m not going to apologize for taking the role.
It’s what launched me. And I’m a better Captain Footwork than Seamus could ever be.
Strong, firm, able to make the tough decisions but gentlemanly and likable—that’s what the showrunners said.
Besides, this isn’t about me.
“You could’ve done great things with Uncle’s business, you know. Instead, you trashed it. Is that my fault, too?”
“Ach, I was never cut out for business. I was a performer. You know that.” His narrowed eyes flick to my yellow lock again—the red cape to his bull.
“Well, why don’t you take this move as an opportunity to make a positive change in your life? Reinvent yourself. Find some meaningful work.”
He gulps another shot. “Who’s gonna hire me? The guy down at the 7-Eleven?”
I groan internally. I told myself I wouldn’t do this, but… “I can ask around. See if there’s anything at the studios. Backstage stuff. Extras. A foot in the door.”
Not at my studio—I don’t want Seamus there—but other studios, maybe.
Seamus reads my face. “But you’re not gonna do that, Seanny Boy. Are you?”
“I said I would, didn’t I? There’s a party tonight.
A lot of people will be there.” I straighten up and make sure I’m eye to eye with him—the captain, the guy who’s tasked with delivering the bad news as well as the good.
“But there are no guarantees. Face it, Seamus. You blew up your life. I can’t fix that for you.
You’re gonna have to figure this out for yourself. And yes, it may involve the 7-Eleven.”
His face distorts into a look I recognize from, oh, my entire life: Seamus disgusted. “We’re not all that different, Seanny Boy.” He points the tumbler at me again. This time it feels like a weapon. “You and I both know that.”
My stomach flip-flops.
“It’s all a smokescreen, isn’t it? The outfits you wear.
” He swipes at the sailor collar on my Givenchy jacquard overshirt.
“The larger-than-life bullshit. You’re over-the-top in public about the things that don’t really matter.
But the things that do matter, the things you’re really over-the-top with…
” He grins a slithery smile. “Those you keep hidden. Like your obsession with this woman. Deep down, you’re still weird, shy little Seanny Boy playing dress-up backstage—”
“I’m not obsessed with her,” I cut him off, but my brain is scrabbling for purchase on a slick wall. Did he manage to get into my cosplay room? I told Rory to keep it locked! Did he see the George Washington hat? Did he recognize it?
God, he was on my computer! He could’ve found the auction site. The purchase order. And what about Josie? If Seamus can see right through me, maybe everyone else can, too.
“Oh, you’re not obsessed, right, of course not!” Seamus is loving this. I guess he’s been waiting four years for a chance to come at me. “Like you weren’t obsessed with Melody Winkman back in high school.”
Of course he’d bring her up. “I was seventeen. I wrote some poems. I drew some pictures.”
“They called it a shrine when I did it for Kokoro.”
I start to feel sweaty. Clammy. Is my blood sugar low? My meal sits untouched on my plate. “I’m nothing like you.” I stand up, shove my stool into its place under the bar, and ball my fists. “I’m normal.”
“You’re normal, huh?”
His laugh is ugly as he stands and kicks his own stool back into place.
These are the results of childhoods lived with an Irishwoman who knew how to wield a broom.
But I’m not afraid of Seamus. I could have an alien bursting out of my chest, and I’d still be able to take this rabbit turd down in a fight.
When I take a step toward him, he backs up.
“Yeah, I’m normal! For one thing, if Josie told me to leave her alone, I’d leave her alone! I wouldn’t hide in her car, for crying out loud. Follow her home. Destroy my career and embarrass my family. Over somebody who didn’t even want me!”
The flicker of his upper lip is a small victory. That’s it, brother, get mad. Lose control. Let’s duke it out right here because at least I know that’s a fight I’ll win.
But instead of engaging, Seamus leans against the counter, a languid, self-serving piece of shit who learned how to play me a long time ago. “Sometimes you have to fight for the people you love, brother. You don’t just give up.”
“Yes, you do!” I bark into his shit-eating smirk. “When someone says piss off, you piss off!”
“And that’s what you’d do if this Josie chick dumped you? You’d piss off?”
“Right into the sunset.”
“Would you now, brother?” He lifts his tumbler between us and takes a sip, glaring at me over the rim. My face is so close to his that he has to lean back to do it. “And never look back?”
“And never look back. It’s called respecting someone’s wishes.”
“Right. Okay.” He slides out sideways from where I’ve got him pinned against the counter, grabs his bottle, and heads for the patio. “We’ll see about that.”