36 | The Dinner Party
The Dinner Party
Niall
FIRST OF ALL, I condone none of this; from the fancy sausage pasta Ma insisted on making to the good silverware she has Claire laying out on the dining table.
Why oh why can’t they just give me a detention.
Comet is sitting faithfully by my side, his tail thumping hopefully against the floor and waiting to see if any stray noodles might fall his way.
I’m stirring a massive pot of pasta for my mother, who’s wiping down the already spotless surfaces of our kitchen.
She’s acting as though we’re expecting the pope.
“I’m so excited. Aren’t you excited?” Claire asks, over by the table.
Normally, our table only has six chairs (one on each end and two on each side), but Mam has JJ bringing his ma’s chairs over so we have enough for eight nine people (since JJ has invited himself to dinner while his ma takes over the bakery for the rest of the night).
“Niall, this is so exciting!”
I sigh, not exactly sharing my little sister’s over enthusiasm. I’m just about spent for the day.
I’d redone mine and Claire’s roots this morning, and then I had to take Comet down to the groomer to get his nails trimmed and coat washed. And when I got home, Claire forced me to give Atticus a bath too, and now my arms are covered in tiny red scratches and Ma made me put on a long shirt.
The entire house smells like bleach and lemon Pledge, since we spent the whole rest of the day scrubbing the place top to bottom. She’d even borrowed Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s fancy floral plates for the night, since apparently our normal ones just weren’t fancy enough.
“No,” I tell Comet sternly, as he lets out a low whine from the floor.
I check over my shoulder to make sure Ma isn’t paying attention and then quickly get a noodle out and toss it on the floor. Comet skids, his newly trimmed nails making a large racket on the wood.
“Niall Patrick Blue, did you just feed that dog pasta?” Ma snaps, turning to glare at me.
“No,” I lie, stirring the pot again.
She sighs, shaking her head. Claire suddenly appears beside me, nudging me away from the stove so she can taste the sauce bubbling in the other pot.
“You’re supposed to be setting the table,” I remind her.
She shrugs, trying to grab another spoonful but I stop her by the wrist. “I finished, and I wanted to try the sauce.”
“Claire-Bear, you’re worse than Comet.”
She sticks her tongue out at me, grabbing another spoonful and running away before I can retaliate.
Ma has us all dressed up nicely—Claire’s in a blue floral sundress, and my button down is a matching shade. She sent JJ home a few minutes ago to change, since he stays in his pajamas all day whenever it’s the weekend and we don’t have games.
He returns soon enough, and once Ma has approved his outfit she’s having us set the food on the table in these fancy serving bowls.
We usually just make our plates at the counter and sit down at the table—but apparently dinner parties call for different etiquette.
Mam is still trying to decide if there’s a certain order she wants to switch the bowls around in when the doorbell rings.
The dining room and kitchen are a connected room at the back of the house, so Claire practically sprints down the hallway to be the one to open the front door. Mam quickly smoothes down her apron, takes a deep breath, and follows her out.
I stand frozen behind one of the wooden chairs at the table, which is set for nine people, gripping the curved back of the wood so tightly my knuckles turn white. JJ notices, of course. He steps up beside me and claps a heavy hand on my shoulder.
“Sheesh, Nialler, relax, will ya?” JJ laughs quietly. “It’s not like they’re gonna take one look at ya and decide ya ain’t good enough for their daughter. Though, to be fair, you are punching well above your weight.”
I shove his hand off me. “Shut up, Jonathan.”
He grins, unbothered. “You’re so easy to wind up.”
Before I can retaliate, Claire comes running back into the dining room, grinning from ear to ear like she’s just won the lottery. “They’re here!” she stage-whispers.
“No? Really? I thought the birds were ringing the bell.”
Mam walks in just a second later, with Molly’s mother right beside her. Molly and her older sister follow, and right behind them is a man who must be her father (who she told me yesterday was coming, making my anxiety worse than it already was), carrying Lorraine.
“This is my eldest, my son, Niall,” Mam says, introducing me. Molly’s dad gives me a swift once over, and I fight the overwhelming urge to fidget under his scrutiny.
“And this,” Ma continues, gesturing to JJ. “is my godson. He doesn’t live here but he might as well.”
JJ beams, offering a cheeky wave. “Hiya Mr—I forgot the last name you told me, Mols, sorry—lovely to meet ya.”
Her dad chuckles, charmed by the parasite right away. “Just Luca is fine, JJ.”
Mam then gestures to Claire, who is practically bouncing on her toes with excitement. “And this is my daughter, Claire.”
“Hi! I’ve heard tons about you!”
“Likewise, Claire,” her dad says with a big smile, his dark eyes flicking back to me for a second. He sets Lorraine down, and Mam directs everyone to their chairs. I’m able to hang back for just a second, stepping closer to Molly.
“Hey,” she says quietly.
I let my eyes wash over her. “Hey.”
She’s in an oversized dark green knit jumper, paired with dark jeans. Her caramel hair is pulled back into a loose braid that rests over her shoulder, a few stray pieces framing her face. She looks gorgeous. Unbelievably, unfairly pretty. Beautiful.
“You look...” I start, my brain short-circuiting and I force myself to look at her eyes. “Uh, nice. You look really nice.”
A small smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. “Thanks. You too. Nice hair. Did it take you long to glue it up like that?”
“Funny,” I say dryly, pretending like my heart isn’t doing somersaults.
I’m about to fire a retort about the worn out red Converse she’s worn since the first day I saw her, when my mother clears her throat at the table. She gestures to two empty chairs on very, very opposite sides of the table.
“Have a seat, loves,” she says innocently. “Food’s getting cold.”
??ˋ ?? ?ˊ?
“SO, NIALL, MOLLY tells me you’re the captain of the Morrigal team, yeah?”
I glance at Molly—who’s talking to Claire and avoiding my gaze—then back at her father. Dinner has been warm, but mostly I’ve just been letting Mam talk Molly’s parents’ ears off and flying under the radar.
“Uh, yeah. Yes, sir. I am.”
I’m trying to remember the crash course Molly’d given me about her father yesterday on the car ride home. I know that he’s a doctor of a team in New York, she told me his last name was Adami (her and her sisters’ have her mom’s last name), and some other stuff I’m kinda blanking on at the moment.
“Molly’s told me lots about you,” he says, and I can’t really tell if his smile is genuine or if it’s some sort of trap.
I wonder wildly what exactly “a lot” constitutes. The good? The bad? The tension, the ignoring, the fighting, the drinking problem, the shifting?
Best not to mention any of it.
Dinner drags on, the conversation flowing in fits and starts.
I spend the vast majority of my time covertly glancing at Molly.
I can’t help myself, it’s like a magnetic pull.
Every time she reaches for her drink or pushes those little strands of loose hair behind her ear, my eyes track the movement.
And the maddening part is, I keep catching her doing the exact same thing.
She looks up from under her eyelashes, her gaze snapping to my hands, or my face, and the second our eyes meet, she looks away.
It’s a mutual silent game of chicken, and it’s driving me mental.
I swear if we were closer, we’d be kicking feet under the table.
Eventually, dinner is reduced to greasy remnants, and Mam is announcing it’s time for dessert—a massive, triple-chocolate cake Claire had insisted she had to bake this morning, which she did while I was with Comet at the groomers.
Molly’s parents follow her over to the kitchen side of the room to get the cake from the fridge. Lorraine asks for at least three pieces, and eventually her parents cut her off sweets and Claire takes her upstairs to make bracelets or something.
“Right,” Luca announces, dropping his crumpled napkin onto his empty dessert plate and scraping back his chair—one of the ones from the Biggs’ house. “That was phenomenal, but if I eat another bite, I’ll need to be rolled out to the car. Let’s get these dishes cleared.”
“Oh, nonsense, Luca,” Ma protests immediately. “Sit, sit, relax. You’re our guest. Niall and JJ can do the cleaning up—”
“I insist,” Luca says smoothly, already gathering plates. He shoots me a look from across the table. “In fact, Niall, why don’t you give me a hand in the kitchen? Let the ladies relax. It’s what us men are for, right?”
My stomach drops straight through the floorboards and into the foundation of the house. “Uh. Yeah. Right.”
“What am I gonna do?” I hear JJ ask. “Sit here?”
I hear Molly and my mother both snap, “Yes!”
I stand up so fast my chair squeaks violently against the hardwood.
I quickly grab my plate, JJ’s and Molly’s, pointedly refusing to look at her as I follow her father’s back over to the sink while Mam leads everyone else to the sitting room for tea.
For plausible deniability, I suppose, when Luca Adami murders me for shifting his daughter.
Luca sets his tower of plates on the counter with a heavy clatter, and then turns on the tap. He rolls up the sleeves of his expensive looking navy jumper up his thick foreheads. “You dry, I’ll wash.”
“Yes, sir,” I mutter, quickly grabbing a striped tea towel off the oven handle and stepping up beside him.
“So,” Luca finally says, after a few dishes worth of silence. “You seem like a good kid. Molly says you take her to school every morning, that you keep all the other boys’ in line at practice and such. All that good stuff, right?”
“I try to, yeah,” I say, my voice sounding painfully thin and reedy to my own ears. I aggressively dry the plate he hands me, nearly rubbing the floral pattern off the porcelain.
“Good,” Luca nods slowly. “I like that. Nice to hear... Had a very interesting Thursday afternoon then, I heard?”
He holds onto the handle of the fork he’s handing me for just a second too long before letting it go so I can dry it. “Right. That. Sir.”
“Yeah. That.” He goes back to scrubbing. “Look, Niall, I’m a realist. You’re a teenage boy and you seem to like my daughter. Things happen. I’m no idiot.”
He shuts off the tap with a sharp twist, plunging the small kitchen into silence. He leans back against the counter, crossing his damp arms over his chest, staring down at me. He’s got a couple inches on me height wise.
“But here's the reality,” Luca continues, his voice hardening into stone. “Molly has been through a massive amount of transition lately. She's in a new country, a new school, trying to build a new life from the ground up. She’s incredibly focused on her soccer. She has scouts looking at her. She has a real future here, and she’s trying to keep her head on straight despite everything else. So, I'm going to make this very simple for you. If you’re going to be a distraction in her life... you need to be a good distraction. You understand what I’m saying to you, son? ”
I meet his gaze, forcing my spine straight, refusing to look away or cower. “I care about her, Mr. Lockhart. Adami.”
“Luca.”
“Right,” I take a breath. “I mean it, I really do. I’m not—I’m not trying to mess her about. I wouldn’t do that to her.”
He studies my face, like he’s searching for a lie, a tell, a crack in the armor. But I know he won’t find anything—because I’m being truthful. Finally, the hard line of his mouth softens into a slight smile.
“Alright, Niall,” he says, reaching out and clapping his hand on my shoulder. His damp palm leaves a wet spot on my nice shirt, but I don’t dare complain. “Just making sure we’re operating on the same page.”
He turns the water back on, turning back to the dishes.
??ˋ ?? ?ˊ?
THE HEAVY OAK front door is propped wide open, letting in the icy wind of the November night.
“Thank you again for having us,” Molly’s mother is saying to mine in the hall, pulling her coat on. Her dad went out to warm up the car. “We’ll have to return the favor soon.”
“Anytime, anytime at all!” Ma beams. She says goodbye to Jamie and Molly’s mother, and then to Lorraine—who’s arms are covered in colourful bracelets Claire had gifted to her, and she gives Ma a big hug.
Molly doesn’t say her goodbyes, since she’s staying over with Claire again tonight, and Molly’s dad is supposed to be picking them up and taking them both to some concert tomorrow.
Once the door shuts, Ma announces she’s going to be taking a bath with a glass of wine, and not to bother her for the rest of the night (in the sweetest way possible) and gives Claire and I each a kiss on the cheek goodnight.
Claire and JJ are already watching a movie in the sitting room, and Molly and I are technically supposed to join them. But the two of us stand frozen in the front hall, the tension between us thick enough to choke on.
“What’d my dad say to you? While you were washing dishes?” she asks quietly, tracing a ridge on the hardwood floor with her socked foot.
“Nothing much, just interrogating me.”
Her head snaps up, her blue eyes wide and panic-filled. “Oh my god. He did? What did he say? Did he threaten you? I told him to be cool, I swear—”
“No, no, he didn’t threaten to kill me,” I assure her. “Just sized me up a little. Told me if I was gonna be a distraction, I had to be a good one.”
A flush creeps up her neck, and I can see her biting the corners of her bottom lip—a beautiful nervous habit I could quickly become obsessed with. “I’m sorry. He’s... I don’t know.”
“It was fine,” I say softly, truly meaning it. I take a slow step closer, the space between us feeling magnetic and I can’t help but be pulled in. “I don’t mind being good for you, Molly.”
She doesn’t step back, just lets her eyes meet mine and smiles. “You don’t?”
“Course not,” I say. “Do you maybe wanna... talk?”
“Talk?”
I nod. “Sneak away for a bit.”
Molly holds my gaze for a suspended second, before reaching for my hand. “Of course, I do.”