Chapter 14
Fourteen
“Tell me more about your family,” Juliana said. They had folded the laundry she’d done earlier and were finishing the bottle of wine from dinner.
Michael stretched and rested his head against the back of the sofa. He had changed into a Red Sox T-shirt and sweats. “I told you I have three sisters, right?”
“Uh huh. Where are they now?”
“They all still live within blocks of my parents’ house in Newport, and they married guys we grew up with. Let’s see, Mary Frances is the oldest. She married John Doncaster. They have five kids—Connor, Colm, Cormac, Catherine, and Clara,” he said, ticking off the names on five fingers.
“I love the Irish names.”
“There’re more coming. Maggie married Luke O’Shea, and they have three kids, Patrick, Sean, and Emma. Then my sister Shannon married Hughie Sullivan, but we’re not supposed to call him Hughie anymore. They have Lauren, Ailish, Hannah, and Grace.”
“Wow, four girls!”
Michael laughed. “I know. Hughie—I mean Hugh—is totally overwhelmed by them. He was the roughest kid. It’s so funny to see him with all those women.”
“What are your parents like?”
“My mother, Maureen, loves being a grandmother. She has at least three kids trailing behind her whenever she’s not working as a housekeeper for the Preservation Society. They take care of Newport’s famous mansions. My dad, Sean, is the city’s deputy fire chief.”
“They must be so proud of you.”
He shrugged. “They are, but I think they wish I’d married a girl from the neighborhood and stayed close by like the others did.”
“And had six Irish kids?” Juliana asked with a teasing smile.
Michael cringed. “I’m more than happy to let my sisters produce the grandchildren. My dad was disappointed that I didn’t follow him into the fire department. His father, his brothers, and their sons are all firefighters, but it just wasn’t for me. I wanted to go to school.”
“Where did you go?”
“Boston College. Then I worked in Boston for a few years to save some money before I went to law school.”
“Did you always want to be a lawyer?”
“For as long as I can remember. And I always wanted to go to Georgetown. A recruiter came to my high school when I was a junior, and from then on I was just hooked on Georgetown and the idea of living in the District. I didn’t get in as an undergraduate, which was bitterly disappointing.
But I kicked ass on the LSATs—the test you have to take for law school—and got in. ”
“Did it live up to your expectations?”
“Totally. I loved every minute of it. Well, except for the nonstop studying. That got old fast, especially since I’d had a few years off from school by then and had lost all my discipline.”
“I always wanted to go to college,” she said wistfully.
“Why didn’t you?”
“No money,” she said with a shrug. “My dad was a bus driver for the city, so we barely had enough to make ends meet. It also didn’t help that my brother Vincent flunked out of Towson, which made my father crazy.
He would go on and on about the money he wasted.
After that, I knew he’d never pay for me to go. ”
“You can still go, you know. It’s never too late.”
“There’s still no money,” she said with a sad smile.
“There’re lots of options—financial aid, scholarships. You could do it.”
“I think that ship has sailed for me. Besides, I like my job, and I feel lucky to have it. Panache is one of the best salons in the city. I’ve built up a pretty decent following and hardly ever have an open appointment anymore.”
“You’re good at it. I’ve seen your work, remember?” He ran a hand through his hair to make his point.
She winced. “I’d hate to think of you as one of my few unsatisfied customers.”
“I’m a very satisfied customer. The women in my office went crazy over it today.”
Juliana raised an eyebrow. “Did they?”
He grinned. “Uh huh. And Paige hated it, so good job.”
Juliana threw a sofa pillow at him. “Glad I could help.” She reached for her wineglass. “You’re lucky, you know?”
He covered her free hand with both of his. “Because I’m here with you?”
She gave him a withering look. “No. Because you have such a nice family. Mine’s a disaster area. Yours sounds so normal.”
His handsome face grew somber. “We’ve had our challenges.” After a long pause, he said, “I had a brother.”
“You did?”
“Patrick. He died when he was twelve and I was seven.”
Juliana squeezed his hand. “Oh, Michael. I’m sorry.”
“He had leukemia. He got sick in the middle of the summer and was dead by October.”
“It must’ve been so shocking.”
“Yeah, my parents were never quite the same after.”
“Of course they weren’t.”
“The worst part was after he died, we never talked about him. It was like we were all afraid to mention his name because we didn’t want to upset my mother, so we just stopped talking about him.”
Juliana’s eyes filled with tears.
“He was the most important person in the world to me and then, in the blink of an eye, he was gone, and I had to act like he never existed.”
Juliana rested her head on Michael’s shoulder and held his hand. “What was he like?”
“He was a great athlete—an all-star baseball and football player. The coaches used to tell my dad he was going to be a pro. It was just a matter of which sport. But I think he would’ve been a firefighter.
He used to take me with him everywhere he went, and he never complained about having me around. He called me Mikey.”
“That’s cute.”
“I’ve never let anyone else call me that. He’s been gone twenty-five years, and I still miss him.” Michael raised his arm and put it around her. “Can I be self-serving again for a minute?”
She smiled up at him. “If you must.”
“In all the years I was with Paige, I never told her about Pat. There was just never a time when I felt comfortable telling her.”
“Thank you for telling me,” Juliana said, touched by his confession.
“It’s not just me, is it?”
“What?”
He held her eyes with his. “You feel it, too, don’t you? Even just a little bit?”
She couldn’t look away. After a long moment of silence, she bit her lip and nodded.
He leaned in to kiss her.
Under the hand she had on his chest she felt his heart begin to pound and told herself she should stop, that kissing him like this was wrong because she was still involved with Jeremy.
But then she remembered that she wasn’t with Jeremy now, so technically this wasn’t wrong.
And, damn, it felt so good to be in Michael’s arms, to feel the weight of him resting against her as he kissed her with wild abandon.
“Juliana,” he whispered against her ear. “God, you smell so good. I can’t get enough of you.” He kissed her again and groaned when her arms closed tight around him. As his tongue teased hers, he caressed her back under the black T-shirt she had worn to work.
“Michael, wait,” she said, tearing her lips free of his. “This is happening too fast for me.”
He took her hand and put it over his pounding heart. “Feel that? You did that.”
“Please.” Her own heart skipped an unsteady beat. “I can’t do this. I can’t jump from one guy to another. It’s just not who I am.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” He helped her sit up next to him and dropped his head into his hands. “I’m sorry. I said I wouldn’t push you.”
“You haven’t.” She rested her arm on his back. “It’s just that things are so complicated right now—for both of us. If we let this get out of hand, someone’s going to get hurt.”
“You’re right.”
“I’m not going to deny there’s something between us,” she said, smiling when he brightened at her admission. “But we need some time. You’ve just ended an engagement, and I’m still involved with Jeremy. We’re having some problems right now, but it’s far from over between us.”
“I know. We’ll take it slow, and see what happens.”
“Promise?”
He kissed her hand. “I promise.”
Juliana had to work at noon the next day, so she slept until nine thirty.
She lay in bed for a long time wishing there was someone she could talk to about everything that had happened in the last week.
Most of her girlfriends were part of couples she and Jeremy were friends with, so there was no way she could share this with them.
She could talk to Carol at work, but with the trial starting she hated to burden Carol with her problems. Her sister Dona would take far too much pleasure in hearing there was trouble between her and “Mr. Wonderful”—the sarcastic nickname she and Vincent bestowed upon Jeremy years ago.
Juliana was almost startled to realize there was no one else.
She had turned to Jeremy for everything she needed for so long that she had isolated herself from other relationships.
Interesting, she thought as she got up to shower.
When she was drying her hair, it occurred to her that there was one person she could talk to who wouldn’t pass judgment on her—or Jeremy.
The last thing she wanted was anyone treating him differently if they managed to work things out.
She got dressed for work and walked the short distance to Collington Street. Mrs. Romanello’s door was never locked, and Juliana went in calling out, “Hello? It’s just me.”
“Come on in!” Mrs. R called from upstairs. “I’ll be right down. There’s coffee on if you want some.”
The television blared on the counter as Juliana poured herself a cup of coffee.
Jeremy always said Mrs. R’s coffee was better than any coffee shop.
When he was home he went next door on many a morning to fill his mug—and his stomach—before work.
The memory made Juliana sad. Suddenly, it felt like a hundred years ago since they had lived happily next door.
“This is a nice surprise,” Mrs. R said with a kiss to Juliana’s cheek. She wore one of the stylish sweat suits Juliana gave her for Christmas the year before.
“Coffee?” When the older woman nodded, Juliana filled a second mug.
“You’re all in funeral colors, so you must be working today,” Mrs. R said, turning the television down to a normal decibel.