Chapter Three
Soggy Calculations
Ziggy
That Irishman was a mad bastard. There wasn’t no two ways about it. He was mad as the day was long! He had some good furniture in his study, though. I was sunk into that leather, high-backed piece with one leg cocked over the armrest.
I’d been there for a while, long enough to put an impressive dent on that whiskey container of his. I was currently balancing it on my propped knee while I tried to drown in my misery.
The chair was comfortable enough to sleep in. I scoffed, imagining how much he must have paid for it, only to laugh in the next tipsy breath when I realized money didn’t mean shit to him. Hell, he couldn’t count past eighteen anyhow. I was convinced of it when I saw that sassy piece he hauled up the stairs.
That was not a twenty-two-year-old college student. A twenty-two-year-old college student was four years past high-school. Such a creature should be refined, ready to graduate by my calculations.
Then again, my calculations were getting soggier by the sip, so there was that; they also might have been a little hypocritical since I was a man who never made it a day past the twelfth grade.
What the fuck did I know of college women?
“Not a goddamn thing,” I huffed at myself.
The door to the study swung open and I awkwardly hailed an arm to the side of the chair, as if anyone could miss me in such a state.
“Wyatt, Father McDaniels is here.” Sean announced, rounding my chair with a figure in a long, black robe.
I raised the whiskey canister at the priest, and his jaw dropped.
I thought for sure he was going to call the whole thing off. I hoped for such mercy, anyhow. It was probably the closest I’d come to praying in a long damn time.
The good father laughed, taking the canister from my hand. He drank deeply from it before passing it to Sean with an appreciative murmur.
“Go on, then. Get him sobered up, Sean. Saints alive, you’ll give the girl cause to call the whole thing to annulment.” He laughed again and moved around the desk to what I assumed was typically Sean’s seat.
The priest scribbled for a few moments, held the marriage license up and stared down the length of his nose at it with a skewed expression before nodding and setting it aside.
“All is in order then,” He stood and started back toward the door with Sean on his heels.
“Wait– uh,” My brain scrambled for something, anything…
Sean paused while the priest continued along.
“What is it?”
“Uh– it’s just that– I went to my grandmother’s funeral as a boy. She was Catholic, as I recall. I didn’t understand the majority of that sh– that stuff the priest was singing, chanting, and saying. I don’t think this is gonna work.”
Sean’s brow spiked.
“I mean–” I tried to reach through the whiskey fog for the word I wanted, “I don’t know Latin. I don’t want to cause a scene or hesitate at the wrong time.”
Sean laughed and clapped my shoulder, tugging me along, “Don’t worry. I’ll tell McDaniels to keep it short and to stick to English as much as possible, eh?”
“Are you serious right now?” an indignant voice piped up from behind us as we turned onto the hall. “He isn’t even Catholic? You want me to marry someone who isn’t Catholic?”
I couldn’t have kept the distaste off my features if I was sober, with all that whiskey? I know damn good and well she read the silence and my expression for exactly what it was. I hadn’t been a religious man when I enlisted. Seeing what I did shook and shattered my faith in humanity. Losing my daughter, Ruby, shattered more than that. Before Sean dragged me along to fetch the priest, I hadn’t been inside a church since Ruby’s funeral.
I turned, shaking my head as I stormed across the back lawn, grateful at least that we were outdoors and not stuck in a church where I’d be haunted the whole ceremony.
I froze half-way up the aisle when I spotted my son in the crowd. Sean had taken him captive earlier this week, and I hadn’t seen him since. He looked healthy enough, save for the bruising beneath his left eye. Talon, my informally adopted son, was sitting on one side of him. Cane, one of my club’s enforcers, was on the opposite side.
Sean caught up with me finally and placed a hand on my shoulder while beaming like we were old friends.
“You okay?” Sauce mouthed.
I grunted, nodded, and kept it moving.
A wedding tune was struck in the distance, and I realized that was what all the clowns were working on when we arrived. I sighed, but didn’t bother turning to watch her. I didn’t need to see her face to know she was as thrilled about this shit as I was.
The breeze blew and my mind churned.
Sean said he was still controlling Sammy’s pace and Sauce was here.
The thought that I might have inadvertently sentenced two biological children and Talon to death if this all went wrong was enough to sober me a little.
Warm, timid fingers slid across my palm. They along with the subtle sound of her nervous breath stirred me from my thoughts.
I blinked, and a hot tear clung to the corner of my left eye while my lungs greedily sucked in air. I didn’t mean to, but I clung to her hand like the world might stop spinning if I let go.