15. Daire
15
DAIRE
Even though I’m living with Rosie, along with a whole host of complicated thoughts and emotions, it’s good to be home.
The trip to New York for Thanksgiving was nothing short of a shitshow I’d prefer to put behind me.
From the opposite end of the sectional couch in our living room, Rosie frowns at her phone.
I watch her, surveying her face. Guilt eats at me every time I see her black eye. I was so pissed at Cash that I had no idea she was even on the ice.
He’d been begging for a beating from the moment we got to the rink. By the end of the game, I’d reached my breaking point, and when he tried to claim I’d cheated, I snapped. He was only trying to get a rise out of me. Even then I knew that, but I couldn’t control my temper.
“Your face is going to freeze like that,” I tell Rosie when her frown deepens.
She looks up from her phone. “Huh?”
I turn the volume down on the TV. Neither of us is paying it much attention anyway.
“You look annoyed.”
“Oh.” She sets her phone face down beside her. “Just my dad.”
“Is he still not talking to you?”
She shakes her head. “He told me to stop texting him—that he doesn’t have anything to say to me.” Her shoulders sag. “Do you think now would be a good time to thank him for buying this house?” She jokes, her smile hollow.
“I really don’t know why I told Cree that.” I was panicked. In my brain, it made more sense to tell him that someone other than me had bought the house. My thoughts weren’t exactly logical, but I can’t recant the declaration now.
“It’s whatever.” She waves a dismissive hand. “I knew he’d be upset, but I didn’t think he’d be so mad he’d stop speaking to me.”
The sadness radiating from her is almost too much for me to bear. I so badly want to make her feel better, but I don’t have the first clue how.
I’m saved from possibly sticking my foot in my mouth in an attempt to cheer her up when the doorbell rings.
Arching a brow, I ask her, “Expecting someone?”
Brows pulled low, she shakes her head. “No. Did you order pizza?”
“No.”
When the bell rings a second time, she rolls her eyes. “It’s probably a delivery that needs a signature or something.”
“It’s after eight. Do they really deliver packages this late?”
She narrows her eyes at me and scowls. “I didn’t invite someone over, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
With a sigh, I stand. “I’ll get the door.”
“I’ll get the door,” she mimics in a sarcastic tone, following me.
As I approach, I make a mental note to have a peephole installed. If that’s a thing. If not, I’ll have a new door put in. Without a clue who’s waiting on the other side, I swing it open.
“Bertie!” Rosie shrieks before the identity of the girl in front of me registers. Rosie practically shoves me out of the way so she can hug her best friend. “I missed you.”
“You were going to see her tomorrow anyway,” I grumble at the intrusion.
“Hey, just because you stole her from me doesn’t mean you get to keep her all the time.” Bertie pokes me in the shoulder. When she turns back to Rosie, she gasps. “What happened to you?” She makes fists at me, like she’s ready to fight. “Did you hurt her?”
“What?” Rosie asks, closing the door. “Oh! My eye? It was an accident. I tried to break up a fight. I shouldn’t have stepped in.”
Bertie narrows her eyes on me. “I take it you were the one in the fight?”
Head tipped back, I plant my hands on my hips and sigh. “Perhaps.”
“It’s not a big deal.” Rosie grabs her friend’s wrist and tugs her over to the couch. “Look, we finally have furniture. I don’t have a proper bed yet, but it’s coming.”
“How’s this fake marriage of yours going?”
I stand awkwardly in the doorway of the living room, watching the two of them. I’m not exactly ready to go up to bed, but it feels weird interfering with their girl time.
Rosie settles on the couch, looking my way at Bertie’s question. “It’s going fine, I guess.”
“Hey.” Bertie snaps her fingers at me. “Make yourself useful and pop some popcorn.”
Rosie laughs, her dark hair swishing around her shoulders. I watch her for a moment too long before I shake myself out of my stupor.
With a grunt, I take a step back. “Any other requests?”
“Wine if you have it.” Bertie snaps her fingers. “Ooh, or champagne.”
“Why would we have champagne?” I mutter, turning for the kitchen. “I don’t even know if we have popcorn.”
I locate a bottle of wine in the fridge, but we don’t have wineglasses. The girls will have to make do with plain ole drinking glasses. I fill each halfway, then search the pantry for popcorn. There’s not much in there, so it doesn’t take me long to deduce that there is none.
Taking their glasses of wine to the living room, I tell Bertie, “No popcorn.”
“That’s okay,” she says with an unaffected shrug. “Order us pizza or something.”
Rosie giggles, flicking a brief glance my way. “She’s testing you,” she mouths.
Testing me? Am I passing? And why do I care?
“What kind of pizza?”
“Veggie.” Bertie tucks her legs under her and brings her glass to her lips.
“Anything else?” I arch a brow, waiting.
“Cheesy breadsticks would be great too.”
I sigh. “You got it.”
In the kitchen, I place the order. Then I pace. I’m full of restless energy without a good way to burn it off. A year ago, my life was vastly different. Now, I’m flailing around like a fish waiting for something. We’re at a standstill in the custody petition while we wait for the DNA test to come back and confirm what I already know.
I text Cree to see if he’s free but pocket my phone when he doesn’t immediately respond. I doubt I’ll hear from him. He’s so far up Ophelia’s butt it’s not even funny. All my friends are settling down. It’s fucking weird. Laughable, coming from me, since I’m the one who’s actually married.
The worst part is, I’m starting to think I might be a little jealous of their situations.
I haven’t had a girlfriend since high school. Sure, I’ve been out with several girls more than once, but I never stuck around long.
Rosie appears in the doorway, startling me from my wandering thoughts.
She shakes her head back and forth like I’m a mirage she can unsee. “Why are you sulking in the kitchen?” She grabs a glass from the cabinet and adds ice. When we came home after Thanksgiving, several large boxes full of dishes and glasses from Anthropologie were waiting on the porch. Rosie was like a kid on Christmas after I carried them in. She tore into each box, oohing and aahing over every piece. Literally every one. Even dishes identical to the previous one she’d opened.
“I’m not sulking.”
As she fills her glass with water, she gives me side-eyed look. “Sure looks it.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Well, I’m not.”
With a laugh, she sets the glass on the quartz counter. “Sure looks like it.” She nods at my crossed my arms. “You can hang out with us. You don’t have to hide away if Bertie is here.”
“I don’t want to intrude on your girl time or whatever.”
“All right.” She picks up the glass with a smile. “Suit yourself.”
After the pizza arrives, I snag a plate for myself, then take the boxes to the girls. Look at me, being all domestic and shit.
Rosie’s eyes follow me as I leave the room. I can practically feel her laughing at me.
Poor Daire. He doesn’t know what to do with himself.
No. I shake my head and push away the thought. I can’t imagine Rosie pitying me in any way.
Pizza in hand, I head to my room. I’m still sleeping on an air mattress and living out of a suitcase. Damn, it’ll feel good to sleep in a real bed once the rest of the furniture is delivered.
I plop onto the mattress, making a note to add air to it before going to sleep, and turn on the TV I’ve got propped against the wall. As I scroll through the channels in search of something to entertain me, I take a bite of greasy pizza. None of the shows or movies I come across grab my attention, and I’m not in the mood to play video games. I’m still too damn restless. Now’s the time I’d usually workout, but I no longer have access to an in-home gym like I did when I lived with my friends. I could use the one on campus, but I have no interest in driving all the way there.
“Maybe I should go for a run,” I mutter to myself. If I do, though, I should stop eating. Otherwise, I’ll get sick. I lower my head and inspect my slice of pizza. Nah. I’d rather eat.
A couple of hours later—after I’ve brushed my teeth and stripped down for sleep—my bedroom door eases open. Rosie pokes her head in.
“Bertie left. You can stop hiding now.”
I stifle a yawn. “It’s all good. I’m ready for bed, anyway.”
Guilt prickles at me as I take her in. Her eye really does look bad. I didn’t mean to hit her, but it doesn’t change the fact that I did. Worry worms its way in along with the guilt the longer she stands there. Could her injury be used against me in the custody battle that’s bound to ensue? I hate that my thoughts go there, that I’m so preoccupied with how her black eye could affect me, but I can’t help it.
“What’s going on in that brain of yours?”
I chuckle humorlessly, crossing my arms behind my head. I have to crane my neck to look up at her from the air mattress.
“You don’t want to know.”
She opens the door wider, crossing her arms over her chest. “Try me.”
“It was selfish.”
“You’re a selfish person. I’m not surprised you’d have selfish thoughts.”
The mouth on this girl.
I breathe through the guilt and the trepidation and the annoyance and force the words out. “I was thinking about how your black eye might be used against me.”
“Used against—oh. Please.” She rolls her eyes. “As if I wouldn’t be honest about how it happened. Besides, there were witnesses. You don’t think your dad would explain it? Or any of your brothers? You do realize you have to tell them about Junior eventually, right?”
“But they’re my family—people will think they’re lying to help me. Even if they do believe me, I still look shitty, since the truth is that it happened because I was fighting with my brother.”
I ignore her question about telling my family. Obviously, I should have broken the news while we were there, but after the declaration of our marriage gave my dad a literal heart attack? No way was I going to risk killing him by telling him about my son.
Rosie throws her hands up. “You’re borrowing trouble. Nothing has been said or done yet, so try not to worry until you have a reason to. Think you can manage that?”
“I’ll try.”
“Good.” With a wink, she adds, “Lighten up, buttercup. Night.”
“Buttercup?” I mutter to myself after she’s gone.
Shuddering at the nickname, I replay her words in my head, considering her advice. She’s right. Worrying about it now won’t do me any good.
But I keep fucking up at every turn.
And it feels like my chance of getting any sort of custody is slipping from my fingers.