15. Declan
DECLAN
Ispent most of Monday in Dublin putting out one fire after another at work. When Sinead called for her nightly call with Catie, I was still on the road, a good twenty minutes from home.
“I can send you Olivia’s number,” I told Sinead. “She’ll put you on with Catie, if you’re in a rush.”
“Why would I be in a rush? It’s rehab. There’s nothing to do,” Sinead complained.
I laughed. “You can put that on the comment card when you leave. ‘Sure, they helped me with the addiction thing, but at what cost?’”
Sinead snickered. “See, that’s why I missed you. All the Americans here are too fucking serious.”
Outside, the countryside flew past as I drove. At this time of the day, with the sun setting, everything looked lush and gorgeous. Like home. “You could move back, you know. No serious Americans here.”
Sinead made a noncommittal sound and deftly changed the subject. “Speaking of which. How’s your American working out for you?”
It took me a moment to realize she meant Olivia. “She’s good. Catie likes her. She knows things about taking care of kids I never would have thought of.” Honesty made me add, “We had a bit of a rough go at first, but I apologized, and now we’re all grand.”
Sinead gasped loudly and theatrically. “You apologized? Declan.” She lowered her voice to a mock-whisper. “Do you like her?”
I rolled my shoulders. “No. I… I mean, it wouldn’t be professional if I did. So. No.”
I could practically hear Sinead’s delighted smile through the phone. “Oh my God. You have the hots for the nanny,” she teased, full of bratty-little-sister glee. In spite of myself, I was actually glad to hear it. She sounded like herself again. “Could you be any more of a cliché?”
I groaned. “It’s not that. I mean, yes, she’s fit. But it’s more…” I searched for the right words. I didn’t know how to explain it. “It’s just her. She’s brave, and she’s stubborn, and she’s got this smile…”
“Oh,” Sinead said, and this time there was no laughter in her voice. “This is real.”
“I don’t do real,” I protested.
“Maybe you should,” Sinead said.
I made the same noncommittal sound she’d made when I suggested she move back to Ireland. We Byrnes were excellent at avoiding emotional conversations.
But it occurred to me this was an area of my sister’s life I didn’t know much about.
“Have you ever had something real?” I asked. “With, I don’t know, a bloke in the States?” Was a bad relationship the thing that had tipped her over into alcoholism?
“What, like falling in love and all that? No,” Sinead said. “It’s not exactly easy to date around as a single mum.”
I felt a twinge of guilt, for all the little ways her life was harder than mine.
Sinead’s voice softened, turning reflective. “I think the closest I’ve ever come to love was with Catie’s dad. But we were both so young. I knew he wasn’t ready to be a parent.”
I blinked, surprised. When she’d first gotten pregnant, Mum and I had pleaded with her to tell us who the father was, but she’d refused to answer.
Eventually, we’d come to the conclusion that he was a one-night stand, and she was embarrassed to admit it.
But if she’d had feelings for him, that mattered.
“Are you ever going to tell me who he was?” I asked.
“Wait, is that what this is about?” Sinead asked defensively. “Did you bring up relationships so you could pry into my past? I won’t have your judgment, Declan.”
“I’m not judging you,” I protested.
“You’re always judging me,” Sinead shot back.
“I just don’t understand you,” I said, frustrated.
“Maybe it would be better if you give me your nanny’s number,” Sinead said. “I should talk to my kid.”
I bit back my frustration, sent her the number, and ended the call.
Sinead and I had fought plenty as kids. We both had big emotions, and while we loved each other, the ways we picked to show it didn’t always mesh.
I tried to show my love by looking out for her, taking care of things for her—but it never seemed to work out the way that I hoped.
But she’d also known that I always had her back.
And there had been good days too, when a rare mood would strike her, and she’d decide we were going on some kind of adventure, whether that meant going down to the shop for crisps and candy bars or a day at Salthill.
I saw that side of her in Catie. That impulse to seize the day and do something marvelous.
So why couldn’t Sinead and I manage a proper adult relationship? I didn’t want to bicker like children. I wanted to help.
Why didn’t she trust me?
“Knock knock,” Olivia said cheerfully as she knocked on the door to my office. I didn’t particularly feel like working right now, but I had to catch up on emails, and it was better than thinking about my inability to have a functional relationship with my sister.
“Just wanted to say Catie’s down for the night,” Olivia continued. “I’m glad you thought to give Sinead my number, in case you have to work late again.”
I grunted in acknowledgment.
“Okay, then,” she said. “If you don’t want to talk about anything, I’ll just turn in for the night…”
“Grand,” I said, without taking my eyes off the screen.
Olivia turned and left.
Two minutes later she returned. “Nope, I can’t do it. I can’t leave you all grumpy and alone. You are in such a bad mood. Did something happen at work?”
“Work is fine,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” Olivia insisted, hands on her hips. “If it’s not work, is it your family? Is Sinead okay?”
“She’s fine,” I said. “She’s just Sinead. She’s got it in her head she can’t trust me, and if I ask an innocent question, I’m apparently trying to judge her past choices in men, which, let’s face it, were pretty atrocious. So if I was judging her, it would be absolutely warranted.”
Olivia raised an eyebrow.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m bloody fine. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay,” Olivia said. “We don’t have to talk about it. Is there something I can do to distract you instead?”
My mind flew to all sorts of dirty, delicious things Olivia could do to distract me.
I cleared my throat and looked away. “That’s kind of you, but it’s not your job to manage my emotions.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “I’m trying to do something nice for you, you idiot, because you were nice to me when I needed it. Why are you making it so hard?”
Because I’m not used to having someone who wants to make me feel better. Because you’re unpardonably lovely. Because I want to be at my best around you. The reasons immediately ran through my mind. I couldn’t say any of them out loud.
“I suppose I am,” I admitted grudgingly.
That earned a smile from Olivia. “Let’s make this simple. Want to watch a sappy movie with me and make fun of it?”
“You strike me as the type of woman who likes sappy movies.”
“I do, but we’re cheering you up, not me. And I know how much you like mocking sincere emotion.” She waved a hand at my face. “Especially when you’re all grumbly like that.”
I conceded her point.
“So,” Olivia said, leaning forward with an air of contagious mischief, “what’s the sappiest, corniest, most ridiculous movie you know?”
I thought about it.
And then I grinned.
Ten minutes later we were downstairs in front of the telly, watching The Deer and the Warrior.
Olivia frowned in concentration as she watched a man with flowing locks and an equally flowing medieval-style shirt stride down the stairs of a Victorian mansion covered in deeply old-fashioned woven tapestries. “What time period is this supposed to be in?”
“They were all set to film in a local castle, until the roof caved in and brained the original lead,” I explained. “After that, they prioritized functioning roofs over period accuracy.”
Oliva gaped at me. “You’re making that up.”
I grinned. Olivia had probably grown up on Hollywood movies that more or less made sense. She wasn’t prepared for the glorious camp classic she was about to witness.
Olivia fell silent as she watched. “I don’t get how this is a romance. He’s just going deer hunting.”
Onscreen, Fionn drew the string of his bow back, ready to slay the skittish doe onscreen, when his second-in-command stopped him and explained that obviously the doe was really a woman under a curse.
“Wait… That’s our heroine?” Olivia asked, outraged. “She’s not even human!”
“It’s a classic for a reason. Heroines are better when they can’t talk back to you,” I said.
Olivia hit me on the head with a pillow.
I laughed, catching her wrists before she could strike again.
Olivia’s eyes sparked and she bit back a smile as she tried to free herself from my grip so she could take another swing.
The effort made her face flush, and I found my eyes dropping down to her mouth, to the way her breasts heaved under her tank top with her panting breaths.
I had the sudden urge to press her back into the pillows and kiss her like I’d been wanting to, for longer than I wanted to admit.
Olivia’s lips parted.
She’s probably about to ask what the hell you’re thinking, my rational self-reminded me.
I released her abruptly and focused on the movie.
At least I tried to focus on the movie. But at the same time, I was aware of every movement Olivia made.
Every time she laughed or gasped or tucked her hair behind her ears.
When she repositioned herself and ended up scooting closer to me on the couch, I caught a whiff of that lavender scent she always smelled like.
Was it soap? Perfume?
I imagined her dabbing perfume on her wrists and neck, one tiny bit of femininity before she spent her days chasing after a rambunctious child.
I imagined her soaping herself off at the end of a long day, in a hot shower, using her own delicate scented soap instead of whatever my housekeeper stocked.
Fuck. I shifted, trying not to get hard. Trying to hide it if I failed.
“Wait, why is she turning into a human now?” Olivia asked.
“Because they’re on Fionn’s land now. Her curse breaks when he brings her into his home.”
Olivia tilted her head. “That’s kind of lovely.”