Chapter 11
Eleven
Ciaran was glad to have a few blocks’ walk to get back to the office. He was also glad for the loose coat that, when buttoned securely, did a lot to cover the fact that his tailored dress pants had become unconscionably tight.
He was half-hard, and it had only taken the barest brush of his lips over hers. And now that he had a taste of her, he found that it wasn’t nearly enough. He’d expected as much, but the force with which it had hit him in the—well, it was a surprise even so.
While waiting with the crowd for the light to change, he resisted the urge to adjust his pants, though it took almost all his restraint not to. He hadn’t looked back as he walked away from her, but now he did, only to find that the trees obscured his view.
Yet somehow, he knew that she was still somewhere in the park, perhaps still looking this way. Was he really selfish enough to hope that she was?
He hadn’t been following her, not exactly.
But if volunteering to do the morning coffee run meant he crossed the park to his favorite place not once, but twice each day, possibly putting her in his path, then so be it.
The fact that he had gotten to Thursday, with her not yet having made an appearance, hadn’t exactly been concerning, but it had been disappointing.
But then, there she was, leaning against the arch in that baggy coat, and his heart had beat faster than any drum at the summer tattoo in Edinburgh.
He still couldn’t put a finger on what it was that drew him in. She was a feisty wee thing to be sure, but much as he enjoyed their verbal sparring, it was more than that.
She challenged him, and the fire that came into her eyes when she tossed his teasing right back hinted at a passion she might have in other activities.
His cock twitched at the images that thought conjured and he suppressed a groan. Unsuccessfully, if the look, and the cautious step to the side the woman next to him took, said anything.
He rolled his eyes, and finally gave in, using the cover afforded by the press of bodies around him to adjust the situation. Christ, it was going to be a long day.
The light changed and Ciaran was swept out into the crosswalk, leaving the park, and Jal behind. For now.
By the time he walked through the glass doors of Doherty, Jameson & Russo, Ciaran had done his best to put the encounter behind him until he was away from prying eyes. Starting with the pair belonging to his boss slash friend, who was making a beeline from his office.
“It’s about time,” Cliff groused.
Ciaran turned the tray so Cliff could wiggle his drink free. He remained bent over the tray, turning the other two cups to study the labels, noting the slot that hadn’t been empty before today. “Did you get the green tea today? Julia asked me to grab it for her.”
Ciaran fought the urge to wince. He’d guessed at Jal’s favorite drink going by the tight cluster of mostly-empty ingredients in her kitchen cabinet and until today, it had apparently made its way onto his other boss’s desk. “Em, no, sorry. I forgot today.”
But Cliff only shrugged and followed Ciaran to his desk. He perched a hip on the corner as Ciaran placed the remaining coffee on a far corner of his neighbor’s desk.
Catherine thanked him with a wave of her hand, her attention focused on the building plan she was carefully stenciling with a fine-tipped pen and a complicated-looking sliding contraption.
Ciaran shrugged off his coat and threw it over the back of his desk chair, sending it spinning. He wrangled it into position, before dropping down heavily, while telling the chair to do something highly improbable with itself in Gaelic.
“What did you just say?” Cliff took a sip of his coffee and scrunched up his face. “Damn it, Ciaran, it’s cold.”
Ciaran took a sip of his own Americano. It was colder than he’d like, but still drinkable. Worth it.
“You don’t want me to translate.” he replied, tapping keys to wake his computer up for the day. “My Nan, God rest her soul, is probably spinning in her grave just because I thought that. She’d say that she didn’t teach me the Gaelic just so I could curse like a sailor on the Minch.”
“Was that even English?”
Ciaran scowled, not in the mood for their usual back and forth.
Cliff, to his credit, paid attention to the look on his face for once. “Say, what happened that’s got you so upset? Could it be the reason that green tea went missing?”
Or maybe not… The way he waggled his eyebrows set Ciaran’s teeth on edge and he gave his boss a look that would have melted glass, or gotten him fired if he’d turned it on anyone other than Cliff.
Cliff got to his feet and held up his hands. “Sorry I asked.”
Ciaran didn’t respond as he opened his email app and picked up a pencil, idly spinning it between his fingers as he waited.
“She shoot you down again?”
The pencil snapped and Ciaran dropped the pieces onto the desk. There was no use denying it. “What would you have me do, Cliff? Cosh her over the head and drag her back to my cave?”
“Whatever works,” Cliff said with an exaggerated wink.
“Honestly, I don’t understand how Tricia puts up with you.” Ciaran replied. He fell silent while he ordered his thoughts, but before he could speak, Cliff’s voice barged in.
“I wouldn’t make the effort if I were you.” He sipped his coffee, winced, and dropped the cup in the trash at the side of Ciaran’s desk.
It was Ciaran’s turn to grimace, thanking whatever gods there were that the lid hadn’t come loose and ruined hours of Catherine’s hard work.
Still, she’d jumped, looked at the trash, and then accusingly up at Cliff. But their boss was oblivious as he continued leering at Ciaran. “I saw you guys in the park the other day, remember? She left you hanging and sashayed away.”
He rose to his feet and did what Ciaran supposed was his best impression of Jal’s “stroll down the catwalk,” as he’d called it. Behind him, Catherine almost managed to suppress a snort of laughter.
“I repeat again, how are you still married?” He asked with a wry smile and turned to his computer. “Was there any other reason you came over here other than to bust my b—“ he glanced at Catherine’s profile and the smirk she had going around the pencil clamped between her teeth. “Uh, chops.”
“What?”
“You didn’t just come over here for fun.”
Cliff thought for a moment, it looked like it hurt.
“Oh yeah, now I remember. We ran your sketches for the country club upstate by the board this morning.” He leaned in closer.
“Good job, you’re two for two with Old Man Dougherty.
He likes all the glass looking out over the course.
Though you didn’t hear that from me, if you know that I mean. ”
“Aye Cliff, I know what ye mean.” He said with a smile. “Cheers.”
Cliff left without another word, and Ciaran tucked in to his desk and started organizing his emails.
There was a clatter over by Catherine’s desk and he looked up to see that she had tossed down her pen and was looking right at him. He lifted an eyebrow.
“Cliff is an idiot.” She leaned forward and braced her forearms on her knees. Her almond eyes blinked soulfully at him. “All the best women are the ones you have to work hard for. If you think she’s worth the effort, don’t give up. She’ll come around.”
“Aye, Cath, you’re right.” Ciaran said with a smile. “The best ones are.”
Saturday came and Ciaran met his co-workers at the pitch.
They were facing an accounting firm called Morrison, Inc.
in the final. There had been several weeks of preliminary matches leading up to today, and despite it not truly being a proper match on a proper pitch, just a bunch of corporate execs thinking themselves football players, Ciaran was just happy to be playing.
Cliche as it was, he had lived and breathed football when he was younger, an interest that his father greatly encouraged. At fourteen, he had been assistant captain on a traveling team that went to international tournaments and won repeatedly.
At fifteen, he was scouted by one of the largest teams in Glasgow and would have played for them as soon as he left school.
Unfortunately for Ciaran, they wore the wrong colors for his father’s liking.
His son would wear green and white and call Paradise his home, or he wouldn’t play.
The day Ciaran played for the enemy was the day Adrian Gray saluted the cross of St. George and called himself English.
Ciaran himself didn’t much care who he played for as long as he got to play, but his father made enough of a fuss that the scouts moved on, and when the ones from Ibrox his father swore would come calling next never did, Ciaran ignored his mother’s pleas to go to university and left home after graduation.
It was then that he had turned to stealing to keep a shabby apartment in one of Glasgow’s worst neighborhoods, though he hadn’t really been a stranger to it before.
As his skills, and by extension, his reputation grew, he started to get bigger jobs stealing important documents from offices, personal possessions from private residences, and antiques from low-security museums like the coins that he had told Jal about.
Annie went away to Edinburgh University, but Ciaran would hop a train and visit her, never the other way around.
He should have seen the signs by the end of her second year that they wouldn’t last. As long as his “work” stayed in Glasgow, she was happy, but he couldn’t bring it to Edinburgh with him, or even talk about it.
Then there was that last job, where he’d gotten careless and tripped a silent alarm in an antique store and the police had been outside waiting for him. It was then, while sitting in a holding cell, that he sat down and really considered his life and its direction, or lack thereof.