Chapter 18
eighteen
JONATHAN
Jonathan opened the heavy wooden door to Triskelion Territory Design that sat next door to the O’Faolain’s four-story family home.
He was out of breath from jogging the three blocks from the restaurant where he’d been eating lunch with one of his colleagues from the architecture firm where he worked.
His mom had texted him that his dad was in an important meeting and she hated to interrupt him, and that she had an emergency with the office’s kitchen plumbing.
However, Jonathan would have sworn that his dad and uncle Bran met Ciaran and Cormac Murphy for lunch at their pub.
He decided not to mention that she had interrupted his lunch meeting.
The moment his body crossed the threshold, his forward momentum came to a grinding halt. His mother and her two lookalike sisters were at their desks, watching the door with wide eyes.
Triskelion was the Byrne sisters’ interior design business, with the office's stunning interior paying homage to their Irish and Native American heritage. His eyes darted around the space, seeing nothing out of place. No river of water flowing over the office’s hardwood floors.
He glanced at his phone’s screen, where he’d pulled up how to shut off the water supply, and shook his head.
Obviously, the YouTube tutorial wasn’t needed.
The three women held pens in their hands like they’d been interrupted making lists, pretending a casualness that they were far from pulling off. Clearly, they’d been waiting for him to arrive.
“Oh, Jonathan,” his mom started, “I’m so glad you had time to stop by.”
“You said it was a plumbing emergency,” Jonathan replied dryly, a dawning realization that his mother had lied.
“Sorry about that, she replied, shrugging her shoulders and grimacing, “I overstated things.”
Right.
“Have a seat,” his aunt Rowan said sweetly, indicating the lone chair set in the middle of their three desks.
Whatever this was, he, Daniel, and Bébhinn had learned as kids that it was easier to let the three women have their way.
He loosened his tie and unbuttoned his suit coat and the top button of his shirt before sighing and sitting before the tribunal as it were.
He didn’t speak a word, only found his mother’s eyes and held them. The slight flush to her cheeks was concerning. She was nervous.
“Jonathan, I know I asked you here under false pretenses, so I won’t beat about the bush on why I called you. You’re in love.”
“You’ve been in love, you’re just now accepting it,” Aunt Raven corrected.
“And from what we’ve gathered, your courting skills might need some tweaking. A lot of tweaking,” Aunt Rowan said gently.
“I wouldn’t normally dream of interfering, son, but you’ve been so unhappy lately that it’s killing me.”
Jonathan forced himself not to touch his scorching cheeks. His body temperature felt high enough to boil him from the inside out. He could feel sweat prickling his skin, creating an uncomfortable friction beneath his clothes.
He was stunned speechless.
And completely and utterly horrified.
He sent a silent prayer to the Heavens, promising every higher power listening that he would attend Mass regularly if only his cousin, Daniel, did not find out about…whatever this was.
He cleared his throat and, with joints stiff with embarrassment, stood. “I appreciate the concern, Mom, but I have everything handled. I have to get back to the office.”
He nodded to his aunts and was about ready to turn and flee when his mother said, “Sit.” He could have left regardless of her wishes, but he wasn’t prepared for the fallout with his father if he hurt his mother’s feelings, inadvertently or not.
He sat as gingerly as a man would with a raging case of hemorrhoids, chanting in his head that this humiliation had an expiration date.
“Your father hurt me once. Gravely. Deeply,” his mother began.
That, he hadn’t expected. Date ideas, maybe, flowers, dinner, jewelry, declarations of love. He should have known his mother wasn’t some airheaded woman to make such suggestions. He frowned, thinking about his father ever hurting his mother.
“What are you talking about?” He felt his hands clench on the chair’s armrests.
“We were new. Patrick was scared of loving me.” She sighed and looked at her sisters, who both nodded encouragement. “He kissed another woman on the night we made it official.”
Jonathan shot straight out of his chair. “The fuck he did that to you!”
“Sit, sweetheart, please,” she encouraged. “The pictures were leaked to all the social media pages and newspapers in Tulsa, in all of Oklahoma, really. I was crushed. I left for Ireland. I left him.”
His mother got up from her desk and came around the front to lean against the edge in front of him. “He fucked up. But do you know what he didn’t do?”
“What?”
“He didn’t give up. He made amends one hundred times over.
He worked on himself. He faced his fears, but most importantly, he didn’t take no for an answer.
I don’t know what happened between you and Mags, but I suggest you figure your shit out, and then you make sure she knows what she means to you. ”