Chapter 27 Declan
DECLAN
“What the hell was that?” I scrubbed both hands down my face. How was I supposed to fix this?
Ronan tossed the car keys Bree had pressed into his hand right before she ran away.
His brows slanted, his anger matching mine.
“That was a ridiculous, shitty judgment that I’m refusing to listen to.
” He jerked his head toward the car. “I’ll take the car around back.
” He slid behind the wheel and took off down the road, turning right at the end of the block and circling into the lot where Bree always parked.
Fuck. Ronan would take his time coming back. He’d sit in the car, or in the shade with the plants, and he’d assess the entire situation. He’d contemplate and decide if he needed to act. By the time he came up with an answer, he wouldn’t second-guess himself.
Sometimes I envied that side of him. Finn would’ve reacted immediately, telling Tammy where to put her condemnation.
I didn’t envy him that, but I could understand why he’d say it.
Rising voices from inside the pub encouraged me to go in and finish the day.
Bree wanted space. Was that the right thing to do?
I took her word for it and entered the pub, going straight for the bar and the group of regulars nursing their pints and pushing food around their plates in hopes of delaying their return to work.
Yeah, I’d avoid it too. The only thing I wanted was upstairs, and I had zero reasons to track her down. Finn would’ve made one up already.
I picked up a cloth and started on the taps. The knot in my gut had nothing to do with the work, and work did nothing to loosen it.
We’d been so careful…until today.
Bree throwing her arms around each of us shouldn’t have brought out that reaction in Tammy unless she’d seen more than we thought.
Bree had warned us a week ago when she gathered us in her apartment. She’d needed us to listen and make sure the town didn’t find out. We needed to be more careful, so we had been.
I moved from the taps to the glasses. My stomach churned worse than the time I’d eaten bad sushi.
Bree deserved better than this town gave her.
She deserved the world. I wished I could give her that.
My life was here. So was Finn’s and Ronan’s.
If we could rip ourselves up by our roots and take off to wherever the hell she wanted to go, we probably would.
Did she even want that? We’d face scrutiny anywhere.
Why did our hometown have to be so close-minded?
“You scrub that glass any more, you’ll wear a hole right through it.” Tom’s loud laughter roared across the pub.
I put the glass away. Six weeks ago, Tammy had sat in this very bar, winked at Bree, and told her age was just a number. She’d told Bree that Finn was a good man. And now, what? Just because Bree spent time with all three of them, there was a problem?
My jaw locked.
A second, louder burst of laughter from the corner table broke through my thoughts.
Tom and his buddies, Gerald and Roger, lifted their mugs in a toast, clinking them together and drinking deep.
The almost empty mugs meant they’d be asking for another round soon, so I reached for the tap and shoved a mug underneath.
I tried to tune out the conversations swirling around the pub, but the distraction kept me from thinking too much about Bree and how good it would feel to stomp down to Tammy’s house and give her a piece of my mind.
Gerald pushed back in his chair and downed the rest of his drink.
“That Sullivan girl is something else.” He hunched forward with a gleeful snort.
“Apple fell pretty far from the tree with that one.” This man, who came in three times a week, sat in the same chair, and tipped like a miserly Scrooge, had opinions about Bree?
Hell. No.
Tom rocked his glass on the table. “Shayla had her moments, but she was discrete.”
Gerald glanced around, and his voice dropped but not low enough to keep his words from me. “This one doesn’t seem to know the meaning of the word. Tarnishing the Sullivan name in record time. Maeve would be turning over in her grave.” He thumped the table three times to ward off bad luck.
The third man made a sound of agreement and reached for his pint.
I slammed three fresh ones on the table and dropped into the remaining chair at their table. Thirty years. Thirty fucking years I’d worked behind that bar and called these people friends.
There was a line most of them knew better than to cross. Tom did it a couple times a year. He’d get drunk off his ass at Christmas and the Fourth of July and mouth off.
But this?
I stared each one of them down. “Afternoon, gentlemen.” I waited for their greetings.
Tom swallowed hard and muttered into his fresh pint.
“You want to tell me what the fuck you think you’re doing talking about Miss Sullivan that way?
” I emphasized her name, cocking my head to the side so I came off at least a little bit approachable.
Tom had the decency to avert his gaze and hunch his shoulders. He’d known me long enough to recognize my tone and understand what it meant. “We was just talking, Declan.”
“Mm-hm.” I shifted my attention to Gerald. “I heard what you were saying. I heard every word, and I want to know what in the hell gives you the right to think you’re qualified to sit in this pub and talk about someone else’s life.”
Gerald set his elbows on the table, and I’d never wanted to punch anyone as much as I did this man in this moment. My hand balled into a fist.
Gerald picked up his full drink and took a healthy swallow. “People are just saying what they’re seeing?”
“And what are they seeing?”
Gerald’s lips puckered. “She’s friendly with a lot of the men. Friendly in ways people notice.”
“She runs a pub.” For fucks sake, I should punch the shit out of him and get it over with.
“Maeve ran this pub for forty years and was friendly with every man who walked through the door. Nobody ever tried to say she was tarnishing the Sullivan name by being good at her job. Hell, Shayla worked this bar for years too. You want to explain to me why the standard is different now?”
Tom studied his glass.
Gerald drank his beer and rolled his eyes like we were teenagers fussing over who had the best shot at the senior prom hangout spot.
“Bree came back to this town when she didn’t have tao.
” The lull in customers gave strength to my voice and carried my words to every corner.
“Maeve asked her to come home, and she did. She spent months renovating this place, working herself into the ground and pouring drinks for men like you who look at her and see what’s lacking.
You want to talk about people saying what they’re seeing?
” I shoved away from the table, sending my chair flying back.
“I look at this table, and I see a bunch of drunk old men who have nothing better to do than to talk shit about someone because don’t have a life of their own. ”
“Declan.” Tom raised both hands.
“I’m not done.” I stared down at every one of them.
Men I’d respected for years, and the only thing inside me was anger at their disrespect.
“The way this town has repaid her by whispering her name and spreading rumors about her honor is downright despicable. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Every. Last. Fucking. One. Of. You.” I stabbed my finger into the table with every word.
Finn would’ve turned the whole table over by now. Even Ronan might’ve thrown a punch or two. But they were older, weaker, and I had more power in my words than in my fists.
“We didn’t mean any disrespect to Maeve.” Gerald sounded petulant, not repentant. He set his mug down with the last inch of beer left.
I turned my back on them. “Then show some respect to the woman Maeve loved more than anything in this world aside from her own daughter.” I looked back long enough to stare him down.
“That’s how respect for Maeve works. You can’t claim to have cared about her, been her friend, then sit and talk about her granddaughter like she’s the town entertainment.
Maeve would’ve been ashamed of this conversation, not of Bree. Do better.”
The room had gone quiet enough that the scuff of my boots on the wood floor echoed. I slid behind the bar and picked up another glass, going back to cleaning like my entire body didn’t burn.
Gerald put money on the bar two minutes later and left with Roger. Neither of them finished their drinks. Tom stayed, nursing what remained in the bottom of his pint.
Conversations picked up again, first in whispers, then louder.
I’d meant every word. Maeve would’ve cheered for what I said. Hell, she’d have beat me over there and probably dumped their drinks over their heads to boot.
Years in this town meant I understood how it operated. Which meant it took less than five minutes for a rush of ice to flood my veins.
Yes, I’d done what needed to be done to defend Bree, but I hadn’t sounded like a bar manager defending his boss.
The conversations drifted, and so did the looks being sent my way.
I’d gone all in defending Bree, and in their eyes, I’d probably just hammered home the idea that she had me wrapped around her finger.