Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SEAMUS
It’s Friday morning, Leap Day, about ten o’clock, and in half an hour, I’ll be road-tripping with Nicole to Charlotte.
But right now I’m sitting at the kitchen table in my brother’s cabin, drinking the only cup of coffee I’m allowed to have today. I’m in much better shape than I was on Monday, after sleeping most of the last few days away, but I have a low-grade headache.
An Emma headache.
I wanted to go see her again last night. I wanted it as bad as I wanted a cigarette.
I had one the night before last, when I was wrestling with whether I should go over to her place.
What can I say? I’ve never been good at self-denial. Not like Declan. But yesterday I was the king of it. Because I didn’t have another smoke, and I didn’t give into the compulsion to climb walls to get to her, even after she placed her palm over my tattoo on Wednesday night and talked about her needs . That takes strength, doesn’t it?
I’ve also tried to follow the guidelines she sent me about taking care of my brain—way more thorough than anything the hospital saw fit to tell me. Most of the time, it feels smothering when someone tells me what to do, but I like that she wants to look out for me, same as I’m trying to do for her.
Truthfully, I’ve been thinking about her nonstop, remembering the way she felt the one time I had the pleasure of kissing her against that wall, a memory that’s been burned so deeply into the grooves of my brain that it seems to chase every other thought away.
“That battle-axe packs a mean right hook, huh?” my brother says, sitting down across from me. He’s a landscaper, with an unpredictable schedule, and his first job is in an hour.
“Yeah, man,” I say. “And if she heard you say that, you’d be the next one with a lump on your head.”
He laughs and sits back in his chair, waiting on me to explain my presence. Declan’s always doing shit like that. He’s probably the most patient man alive, when it comes to anything but Claire. He’d marry her tomorrow if she didn’t want a real-deal wedding. Not a big wedding, but she wants the dress and the cake and all those things most women deem essential.
Sighing, I say, “I’m gonna need you to do something for me, brother.”
“Oh?” he says, leaning back. He watches me with a speculative expression, so much like our father it hurts to look at him. They say loss gets easier with time, and in some ways it does. Memory is an imperfect thing, and we’re programmed to survive. But grief is the jump scare of emotions. It steps out of hiding when you expect it the least. At the same time, thinking of the resemblance between them makes this easier.
I take a deep breath, then jump in before I can chicken out. “I’m trying to quit smoking. Cold turkey. It started at the beginning of the year, but I’ve had a few relapses. I figured it might be good to have someone…you know…hold me accountable.”
He looks surprised, but he nods. “Of course. I’m glad you’re doing it. But what brought this on?”
I shrug, trying to look disaffected. “Who knows. Maybe the years of nagging you and Rosie have been doing finally worked. You know I’ve got a hard head.”
He watches me with that stare I know as well as my own. “Doubtful.” He waits another few seconds before speaking, the better to increase my anticipation, I guess, then says, “Did you meet a woman?”
My first thought is oh fuck, he’s a wizard .
But before the second thought can come through, he continues, “Rosie said you and Chuck went to lunch with some women earlier this week.”
Relief gushes through me, because he doesn't know about Emma. But I’m not as relieved as I thought I’d be. Maybe part of me came over here with the intention of talking directly about Emma, but I chickened out when confronted with my brother’s ten-mile stare.
“Yeah, that was nothing,” I say. “We brought flowers to the hospital, and we met this woman who’d had rotten luck. I felt bad for her, so we grabbed some sandwiches for her and her family.”
He blinks at me. “Flowers?”
“Yeah, the old lady sent me the contents of a flower shop on Tuesday morning. Maybe she was worried Rosie would get pissed at her for conking me on the head. The ladies didn’t want them, but we found some guys outside who’d forgotten about Valentine’s Day and were willing to take them off our hands.”
He laughs and shakes his head, studying me with bemusement. “Who are you and what the fuck did you do with my brother?”
“Killed him and took his place. How am I doing?”
“That was nice of you,” he says. “Really nice. Getting lunch for them. The flowers. All of it. Is Chuck rubbing off on you, or is someone else behind your pay-it-forward streak?”
I think about Emma. The situation she’s in, plus a few of the cases she’s told me about, have made me more sensitive to the shit women put up with on a daily basis. Truthfully, it’s made me look at my own past behavior differently.
Lia was bad to me, sure, but I’ve been a dick to other women. I’ve never promised anyone anything I wasn’t willing to give, but I’ve still upset women.
It’s made me want to step up and be better.
But if I tell him that, then he’ll know exactly what’s going on. My brother’s no idiot, and he’s spent so long trying to take care of my sister and me, he knows exactly how we tick.
“It’s working with Nicole that’s made a difference,” I quip. “She’s so sweet, I can’t help but catch some sugar.”
“I’d rather you weren’t wrapped up in all of this,” he says, rocking a little on the legs of his chair. “I don’t like that that Reed woman is so visible. We can’t risk having eyes on us. But Emma is family. We have to stand up for family.”
Sure. Family.
“Soooo….” he says, and my pulse picks up. Does he know? Is he going to ask? Do I want him to?
“You gonna give me your lighter?”
It’s Dad’s old lighter. He didn’t smoke, but he did like the occasional cigar, and our asshole uncle had given him the silver one as a gift. I’d laid claim to it after he’d died, back when I was a new adult and full of shit. Wanting to make my mark on the world and prove to everyone how tough I was.
Turns out I don’t want to be that kind of tough, but I still love the lighter.
Declan’s going to make something of it if I tell him the truth.
Maybe I do want him to know what’s going on in my head, because I hear myself saying, “Emma has it.”
“ Emma? ”
“You know, she might be a kleptomaniac. She stole my flask too.”
“And you let her?” Now, he’s studying me like I’m one of his plants, struck down by a spotting sicknesses.
I shrug. “What can I say? She’s a convincing woman.”
My heart is thumping faster yet. How’s he going to respond?
He rubs the bridge of his nose, then takes a big gulp of coffee that probably scalds his mouth before saying, “You like her. I should have known when you agreed to help Nicole, but I figured this was exactly the kind of game you’d like to play.”
“It is.”
He studies me for a bit longer, then says, “It’s nice to see you get serious about someone—”
“Whoa,” I say, lifting my hands. “You’re getting way ahead of yourself. I like her, sure. But I like a lot of women. You know that. And she’s definitely not looking for anything.”
That first part is only partially true. Yes. I like women. I’m a heterosexual man, so this is news to no one. But the connection I have with Emma is stronger than what I’m used to. It’s electric . It’s unsettling, in all honesty.
“Yeah, I know,” he says, because no doubt Rosie has told him that I kept company with a lot of different women in the couple of years we lived together in New York City. It was a distraction. A way to avoid the loneliness that comes from being by myself.
“It’s just…” He heaves a sigh. “You’ll want to be careful there, Shay. The Rosings are nice and all, but they’re not like us. Money does something to people.”
“Tell that to Rosie.”
He smiles. “I tried. You can see how far I got. But this is different than with Rosie.”
I’m pretty sure I know what he’s not saying. It’s different for a rich man to get with a girl from nothing than it is for a rich woman to take up with someone like me. Princesses don’t take up with mechanics in the real world. That would be the ultimate statistically unlikely event.
No doubt Sophie’s aunt would encourage me to go for it on the full moon Leap Day, but I’m guessing it wouldn’t turn out so good. Because my brother’s right. Rosie would claim that’s sexist as shit, and she’d have a point, but even so…
I nod, trying to play it cool. “Yeah. I got you. There’s only one thing she’d want with a man like me.”
I give him a look the devil would be proud of. “But what makes you think either of us would be interested in something more?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Declan says, sitting up straighter. “Not at all. She just went through a big breakup, though, and I don’t want either of you to get hurt. I’m not telling you to stand off, but…be careful. That’s all.”
It’s probably the five millionth time he’s said those very words to me, starting when I was no more than a couple of years old, trying to climb the stairs before anyone was ready.
I laugh and shake my aching head. “I’m trying, man. I’m really trying this time.”
Someone pokes me, none too gently.
I glance up, groggy as hell. For a second, I think it’s Wednesday night and I fell asleep on Emma’s couch. But the woman sitting next to me is not Emma, more’s the pity.
Nicole’s wearing a blond wig and a bad attitude, and I’m slumped over in the passenger seat of her non-descript black Range Rover. She usually drives a shitty Subaru that looks like it’s been backed into more than a bumper car, but this is a more fitting look for a car service provided to a contest winner. There are trees outside the windows, which suggests she’s pulled off the highway.
“You’ve been snoring for an hour and a half,” she says pointedly.
“I don’t snore.”
She snort-laughs. “So, you can lie to a person’s face. That’s a good quality in a PA. Infamous people don’t value honesty. Ellie’s going to love you.”
She pushes a pack of gum at me one-handed, and the whole car swerves.
“Jesus Christ,” I say, the last remnants of sleep giving way to the old reliable flight-or-fight response.
“Good, now you’re awake. Chew some gum and fix your hair. You want to look good for our girl.”
Not particularly. I don’t want the gum either, but my mouth tastes terrible, and I don’t want her to make the car swerve again. So I grab it from her, take a piece, and chew it for five seconds before disposing of it in the car trash.
“We’re five minutes away,” she says, giving me a sidelong glance. “You don’t look so good, buckaroo.”
I flip down the passenger mirror. The bump on my head is still bandaged, but black and blue can be seen webbing out from under it, and there are dark circles under my eyes. My hair looks like I’ve been sleeping on it in the car. I sigh, fixing it.
The adrenaline from the swerve surges again as Nicole turns down a residential street I recognize from Google Earth searches and Ellie’s tell-it-all Instagram Account.
I’m about to meet him. I’m about to be in the same room, and then the same car, as Jeffrey Fucking Nichols.
The more I’ve gotten to know Emma, the more I’ve wanted to do that man physical harm.
“No,” Nicole says, pulling over so abruptly, my body strains against the seatbelt. She waves a finger in my face. “No. I see where your mind is going—and you will not fuck this up for us. If you go in there swinging your dick, our plan will be dead on arrival.”
“I wasn’t going to swing my dick,” I mutter. “I’d rather swing my fists.”
She gives me a look that clearly communicates what she thinks of my intelligence and general worth as a human being. “What, so you can get arrested? What happens then? They can tie you to Emma, and suddenly she’s Tonya Harding. Have some sense.”
Damn it, I don’t like that she’s right.
I take a deep breath, bracing my hand against the glove compartment, and when I look back at Nicole, she pokes a stick in my face.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I ask, seconds before the liquid hits my skin.
“Cover-up.” She spreads it with a sponge from her bag. “So you don’t look like a bruiser on a bender.”
I submit. I promised Emma we’d help her fix this—and I mean to make good on that—even if it entails wearing makeup.
“Beautiful,” she says, patting my cheek. “A fine specimen. She’ll be making inappropriate passes at you in no time.”
“In front of her boyfriend?” I ask with a snort.
“Let’s hope,” she says as she stuffs the makeup back into her purse. “Can you imagine how embarrassing that would be?”
I laugh in spite of myself. “Well, let’s do this, I suppose.”
She nearly runs over a big, musclebound guy wheeling his trashcan in—and gives him the finger for his trouble. He gives her the finger back, and she honks her horn.
“Aren’t you supposed to be keeping a low profile?” I ask.
“This is me keeping a low profile. We’re in Charlotte. Most of the people here are assholes, so we need to speak their language.”
I look out the window, watching as we approach the familiar purple house. It’s a single story ranch, with yellow shutters covered in vines that look real on camera but are obviously fake as shit now that we’re here in person. Ellie made a thirty-minute video in which she picked out the color of the yellow paint—lemon buttercream—which I can only assume had fifty thousand likes because she was wearing a low-cut shirt and constantly kept panning the camera down.
Nicole parks at the curb and gives me a nod. “You’re on. Remember. There’ll be no punching of any kind. Not yet. Oh, by the way, I have a different outfit for when I’m Nicky, the contest supervisor. Damien goes by Dan. This is my cool driver look, but I have another wig for when I need to switch roles.”
“Very cool. You don’t think she’ll notice?”
“No,” she says with a snort. “I’m very good at disguising myself. Besides, I doubt she’ll care, with you around. Your name is Alfonso.”
“Seriously? You guys get to basically keep your names, but I’m Alfonso?”
She lifts a shoulder. “Damien and I came up with the names when we were drunk. You can ask her to call you Al if you want. Now, get out there, slugger!”
So I take a deep breath, put on a fake-as-shit smile, and then leave the car and head for the door. I knock twice.
“Leave me alone, you asshole!” shouts someone from inside the house. “Stop knocking on my door. I never want to see you again.”
Huh. I’ve been called an asshole before, sometimes not without reason, but usually I have to show my face first.
I knock again.
“I said leave me alone!” she screams, and then the door flies open, revealing a blonde woman wearing a barely-there silk robe. She’s pretty—and practically naked—but although I’m aware of both things, they’re facts that hold no interest for me. I’d prefer not to consider why. “ Oooh .”
“Am I the asshole?” I ask with a broad grin, because, hell, I know how to charm women, and I’ve been informed that’s my job.
“No,” she says, glancing out the door, her gaze panning either way and taking in the car at the curb. She sucks in her lower lip. “I can’t believe he just left like that.”
“Neither can I.” I give her an appreciative glance, because this is part of the game. Because it’s for Emma.
She blushes, registering that she’s wearing a robe in front of a complete stranger who hasn’t introduced himself. The way she’s looking at me shifts into a different kind of awareness. That’s good. People are more likely to be indiscreet if they find you attractive, but it feels distasteful—probably because Ellie played a role in hurting Emma too.
“I’m Al—” I can’t call myself Alfonso with a straight face, so I cut myself off. “The lucky guy who gets to be your assistant. From the contest. I’m here to take you to Asheville.”
“Yeah,” she says, then bites her bottom lip as she studies me. “I figured when I saw the car. That’s good.” She glances me up and down. “Wow. Yeah. I had no idea you’d be… Well. You . Why don’t you come inside for a minute while I make myself decent?”
“Please,” I say with a grin. “I’d love to see how you can improve on perfect.”
I imagine Emma rolling her eyes at me, and it makes my grin widen.
Ellie opens the door wider, motioning me inside. I take a second to modulate my reaction, because the cream and gold-footed couch and the rabbit retreat next to it are immaculate, and the rest of the house is a complete disaster. I’m not saying that to be a dick—there are boxes everywhere, in various states of being collapsed, toiletries litter most of the surfaces, and I can see at least two containers of half-empty takeout. Three suitcases are sitting by the door, so she was preparing for the trip before the “asshole,” presumably Jeffrey, pulled something.
“Is this where the magic happens?” I ask as I step inside.
She shuts the door behind me, and I can tell she’s wrestling with some sort of internal dilemma. Her next action clarifies which decision she made…
She backs me into the door.
“You know,” she says, her voice sultry. “I’ve been seeing all of these videos about the full moon Leap Day. They say it’s a time to take chances, and I’m going to embrace that.”
“You should,” I encourage her, mentally rolling my eyes at this sign that the full moon Leap Day nonsense has gained traction.
She eyes me up. “I’m glad we’re on the same page. What do you say we make some magic happen right now?”
And then she launches herself at my mouth.