Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SEAMUS
Chuck isn’t at the house, but he left a Post-it on the kitchen table, along with another cinnamon roll.
At a lawyer’s office for a consult. Wish me luck!
Goddamn, give him a taste of sugar, and he buys out the bakery. He also managed to find someone who’d see him on a Saturday, which is a feat.
Of course, I’m not one to talk. Give me a taste of sugar, and I’m addicted. Nicole made a good call when she sent me home. I’m not in my right head, and it has nothing to do with getting clocked with that paperweight on Monday.
I let myself get addicted to Emma, no different than I was with cigarettes. But I haven’t had a cigarette since the night I climbed the wall at Smith House, and that was only my second or third of the year. I can shake my Emma addiction too if I need to.
I shake my head as I crumple the note and help myself to the cinnamon roll.
On the car ride back, I did more research on domesticated rabbits. It’s probably a stupid thing to focus on given the shit storm I’m in, but it feels important to help Carrot. Ellie might remember him at some point, but he’s obviously an afterthought. A prop. I’m surprised by how not okay I am with that.
Most of a rabbit’s aggression comes from fear, which makes sense. If you’re a furry creature who weighs less than ten pounds, you’ve got a lot to be afraid of—and this little guy woke up in an apartment he’d never been in. The first people he saw were a six-foot-two man and a lady he’d never met. Of course he flipped out.
Rabbits also need way more space than his wire travel cage. Animals who are trapped are scared.
When I get upstairs, I head toward the bunny’s cage. I get down to his level, nearly falling from the way it jars my rib, and offer him my fingers to sniff, moving slowly so I don’t alarm him.
The vicious little shit goes at me with his teeth bared to bite.
I’m laughing as a knock lands on the door.
My mind goes straight to Emma.
But when I head over to the door and peer through the peephole, I see my brother, looking like he’d like to bust me open like a pinata.
Worse, Rosie is with him, messing with the dyed purple stripe in her hair. That means she’s nervous about whatever took them to my door today.
Well, shit. We held an intervention for Emma in this apartment a couple of weeks ago, and now it looks like it’s my turn.
There’s no avoiding them, though, so I open the door. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“You’ve been avoiding us,” Rosie chides. “And you didn’t tell us you were in the hospital again. We had to find out from Chuck.” Her gaze darts to my T-shirt, her eyes widening.
Damn it. She’ll understand the significance. So will my brother. They exchange a glance, then Rosie adds, “I told Declan about your streaming debut. I had to. You weren’t answering your messages.”
I hadn’t seen her messages. They must have been beneath Ellie’s stream-of-consciousness texts.
My brother doesn’t say anything. He just busts into the place like a bull and then stops when he sees the rabbit cage. Poor Carrot looks like he’s going to keel over from a coronary, because my brother’s a giant.
“You got a rabbit?” Declan asks in disbelief, peering through the bars at him.
“No, that’s Ellie Reed’s rabbit,” Rosie croons, stepping lightly over to the cage to peer down at him. “What a cutie.”
I shut the door behind them. “Yes, by all means, make yourselves at home.”
“You know why we’re here, dammit,” Declan says, rerouting to the kitchen table and running his hand through his hair as he takes a seat. “We have to figure out how to handle this.” He looks tortured, and I remember what Nicole said.
She told me it’s time to tell Emma everything. Maybe she was wrong about that, but my ability to keep the past a secret from my brother and sister just went up into thin air, thanks to Ellie Reed.
I find a bottle of whiskey and pour each of us a juice glass full. Serving my brother and sister, I say, “We don’t need to handle anything. I handled it two years ago.”
And then I tell them. The words feel like acid, but in releasing them, I feel…
Not free, but lighter.
Rosie starts crying, and Declan looks the same way he did after the first time we got into a fistfight as teenagers. Like he’d single-handedly failed both of us.
“I did what had to be done, and we’re fine, so now we don’t have to talk about it anymore,” I tell them.
Declan pushes back from the table to start pacing, which sets poor Carrot off.
“Stop that,” I say, feeling woozy, “you’re scaring Carrot.”
“You like rabbits now?” Declan asks, as if this is more of a betrayal of my personality than the story I just shared.
I shrug. “He’s an asshole, and I like him, and that’s the way it is.”
He shakes his head as if he’s through with my bullshit. “I’m worried about you. This is…this is fucking huge, and you’ve hidden it for years. Why?”
“I knew how you’d react.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Obviously,” I say, slumping back into my chair again and drinking from my glass.
“You shouldn’t be drinking with a mild concussion,” Rosie interjects as she finishes her drink.
“No, I really shouldn’t be,” I agree, then drain the rest of the glass.
Glancing at Rosie, Declan rubs his chin and then says, “Seamus quit smoking, and your sister-in-law has his lighter. He let her keep his flask, too.”
Rosie gasps, her face lighting up with excitement. I don’t have to look into her head to know it’s full of rainbows and butterflies and summer weddings.
“Oh, fucking low,” I say with a groan. “Why would you tell her that?”
“Because we’ve had enough secrets in this family,” Declan insists, Rosie partially speaking over him—“You have a thing for Emma?”
“No!” I lie, getting to my feet. “I quit smoking because I felt like it.”
I want to shove my brother, but I don’t. I want to leave, get in Ingrid, and drive at an inadvisable speed. But I’m not going to do that either. I did just drink whiskey on top of pain killers.
Even so, I have to do something.
“Look, you both have to leave. I’m going to get some rest.”
“No you’re not,” Rosie says, her bottom lip protruding slightly. “I know that look.”
“ We know that look,” our brother corrects.
“Please leave.”
“Only if you promise not to do anything self-destructive,” Rosie says.
“Define self-destructive.”
“Don’t drink.”
Sighing, I say, “Why do all the women I know tell me not to do anything fun?”
“This isn’t a joke, Shay,” Declan says, getting salty again.
“It’s easier if it is.”
“You’re not a joke,” he presses.
That makes me laugh. “I feel like one, but I’m still waiting for the punchline.” I lean back. “Look. I feel like shit. I need to be alone.”
“You hate being alone,” Rosie says, watching me with suspicion.
“I hate being alone, but right now I need it.”
She’s still watching me. “You told Declan you don’t believe it’s possible to be in love.”
I shoot him an accusatory look. “Jesus, when did you become a chatty Cathy? You’ve always been the most withdrawn of all of us.”
He shakes his head and takes a sip of his whiskey. “Love did it to me.”
“And he was worried about you,” Rosie says pointedly. “For good reason. You’re wearing that stupid shirt from Lia. You only do that when you’re depressed.”
I run my hands through my hair and squeeze it at the roots before letting go. “Look, I’m happy for you, Rosie. You seem happy. Declan seems happy, too, when he’s not running his mouth. That’s great. But it doesn’t mean I have to value the same things you two do, okay?”
“But you do,” Rosie says. “You care about people.”
“I care about you two.”
“You care about people,” she repeats. “You took Chuck shopping before his date and helped him pick out a shirt. And if you didn’t care about Emma, you wouldn’t have offered to be part of Operation Love Destroyers. I would have realized it sooner if you’d told me about the lighter and all that shit.”
“Which is exactly why I didn’t.”
“You know, I’ve told her you’re a real ladies’ man. If I’d known you were interested, I would have helped you. I would have been over the moon to help you.”
I groan, fighting the urge to cover my ears like a child. “Oh, come on. Emma’s not interested in dating me, for fuck’s sake, and Declan has already pointed out it’s a terrible idea. He’s right.”
She scowls and shoves his arm. “Why would you do that, you big lug?”
He shrugs. “It is a terrible idea, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t work out. Look at you and Anthony. I thought that was a terrible idea, too, and you’re still happy about it.”
She rolls her eyes at him. “Happy? I’m ecstatic, and so are you, and Seamus could be too if he’d get out of his own way.”
“Would you please leave,” I say with a groan. “Right now all I care about is lying down for twelve hours.”
“Don’t drink. Don’t drive. Don’t smoke,” she says.
I wave her off. “No sin or vice. No fun. Got it.”
She wraps her arms around me, only laying off when I point out that it hurts like hell. My brother nods to me.
Then they’re gone, and I’m left alone with my thoughts.
And what do you know? It fucking sucks.
I change my shirt, but I drink more, even though I shouldn’t. Hell, I probably do it because I shouldn’t. And I sit there feeling sorry for myself and this situation I’m in, which is my own fault for playing with fire.
Which is when I let the rabbit out of his cage. Because I feel trapped, too—by the past, by the situation I’m in—and I don’t want that for either of us.