Chapter Two
ADRIAN
Boston
While I stood at the bar window and watched the car pull away, I couldn’t help the smile on my face. I knew Isobel didn’t care for me. If the constant narrowed eyes and look of disdain painted across her face weren’t an indication, the heated conversations we had every time we were in the same room should probably clue me in.
I knew why she didn’t like me. It was my fault, but I couldn’t seem to turn it off around her. The professional persona was my armor. The protection from the real world that I’d strapped on at sixteen and never taken off. At least not around anyone but my family. I was pretty sure my Ma would beat the shit out of me if she knew half the things that came out of my mouth.
My twin brother and I may have grown up without a dad—we lost him right before we started kindergarten. And sometimes with holes in our shoes—thanks to being a single-parent household—but we’d been taught manners. Too bad being the nice guy didn’t get you shit in the world. It sure as fuck didn’t get you respect, and it didn’t remove the target from your back around the good ol’ boys’ club. But I was as good an actor as I was an editor.
I’d spent half of high school with my face buried in a book and the other half with a bat in my hands. Those were the only things that were gonna keep me outta the military, a construction site or a factory. My brother hadn’t been so lucky. He used to joke that I was the brains, and he was the brawn, but things had changed a lot since we were kids.
My phone started buzzing in my pocket, and I pulled it out, frowning as his face appeared on the screen. Where I was all flash and good looks, he was rugged and, well…hairy. Shaggy dark hair sprinkled with grays and a full beard covered up the scars I knew he still carried from his time in the Marines.
“How’s it going, Hutch?”
He huffed, probably ready to tear into me for how I could mask my accent. He’d never been able to master it, and despite leaving for almost two decades during his time in the service, I didn’t think he ever would. Not that he needed to; despite multiple tours of duty in two different branches of the military, he was still a townie. You could take the boy out of the neighborhood he’d grown up in, but it would always be a part of him.
“This fuckin guy, Jesus fuckin Christ, Ad. Where are yah?”
I’d told him this morning I had a thing after work, but something must have happened at home for him to call me.
“Where’s Pops? You need me to find him?”
A rough cough came through the line, and I winced, hating that every little thing seemed harder for him since he’d gotten home following his medical discharge. He’d come a long way, but his body had taken a lot of abuse at the hands of others in the last ten years.
“If you can pull yah self away from whateva cake eater shit you’ve been doin’. That old fuck told me he was goin’ to Dunkies and took off. I already called there, and the packie at the end of the block, and nobody’s seen ’im.”
“Does Ma know he’s missing again?”
“Are yah fuckin’ kidding me with this? I’m not tellin’ her shit,” he laughed, then lowered his voice. “She’s on an overnight. I don’t want her to worry when she can’t get home anyway.”
“There’s a Pats game on. I’m sure he’s down at the bar,” I sighed, grabbing my bag and heading toward the door. I knew if it weren’t raining, he’d go after our grandfather, but couldn’t use the cane safely with the sidewalks this wet. I also knew once he took his last dose of medicine, it meant he wasn’t functioning at full capacity. Some of those painkillers really packed a punch. It also made his Bostonisms a little more pronounced. There was no doubt which side of the bay he came from once his mouth opened past 8:00 p.m.
“You’re a fuckin’ gem, Ad. You know I wouldn’t call unless I was worried.”
“I know, Hutch,” I sighed, tucking my face down before I jogged toward the parking lot where I’d left my car earlier. “I’ll find ’im and get him home. Do you need anything? Did you eat?”
He growled, and I knew I’d hit a nerve. He didn’t like me babying or feeling sorry for him, but I knew he didn’t have the best track record of taking care of himself unless he had his daughter Penny for the weekend. “I’m fine. Just find Pops, and we’re square.”
“I…” the line disconnected, and I clenched my eyes shut as I pressed the button on the remote to my car, the chirp of the doors unlocking echoing despite the steady downpour.
I bet Isobel wouldn’t think I was quite the dick I acted like if she knew exactly how I spent most of my time. I may flirt inappropriately or say sexist things at work, but it was a sham. Half my time was spent babysitting my senile eighty-five-year-old grandfather while the other half was spent trying to figure out how to make my twin brother’s life easier because I felt guilty my life had turned out so vastly different from his.
Maybe things would be different if his last tour hadn’t gone so far off the rails, but I’d always felt this lingering sense of guilt that I’d gone to college and made something of myself while he spent his youth devoted to a country that’d cut him loose the second all his body parts weren’t intact.
He’d missed out on a lot in the twenty-plus years he’d been in the service, and I knew it ate at him that his sacrifices were essentially forgotten after his injury. His ex-wife had dropped the bomb while he was recovering from his injuries that she wanted a divorce, and that she was carrying his former best friend’s baby. Then he was told he’d never leave a desk again if he stayed in the military, and they’d offered to discharge him when he told them that’d never happen.
He’d kick me in the nuts if he knew I was still feeling so intensely guilty because he was proud and tough and didn’t want anyone to pity him for anything. But I still had a hard time seeing past the imagery of him lying in a hospital bed overseas with part of his leg missing and bright red scars littering his face. He’d always seemed invincible and larger than life, and we’d almost lost him.
“Hey.” The bartender, Jeanette, nodded as I pushed open the door to the neighborhood bar Pops had treated as a second home since he’d retired twenty years ago. “He’s in the back with the other old fucks. They’re playin’ cards. He’s behaved himself tonight.”
“Do I need to close out his tab?” I asked, bracing myself for how much it’d be. Based on how much he’d drank, I could usually tell what kind of mood the old man would be in.
“Nah,” she smiled, waving my hand away. “He paid for the two he had in cash and has been nursing a watta.”
Thank fuck. I wasn’t in the mood to wrestle him down the sidewalk in the rain if he was past the point of being belligerent. Pops was mostly good-natured, but sometimes things got ugly if he was deep into the whiskey.
I knew most of the people at work thought I worked out so much to look good and because I was vain—to be honest; I did like the appreciative looks I got because of my physique—but it was mostly because of Pops. The old man was the same height as me, although he appeared a few inches shorter because he stooped when he walked; but he was wiry. I’d also bulked up when Hutch was discharged because I knew Ma couldn’t afford to have someone else come in when she was working, and I needed to be able to lift him when he was still heavily reliant on the wheelchair.
He wouldn’t let me touch him now, but before the prosthetic and all the physical therapy he’d done in the past year, he’d needed the help. Now, he could get around fine on his own, unless it involved rainy weather or lots of stairs.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, lightly patting the bar, shooting her a wink before I wove through the tables toward the back, where the old man coughs and dry laughter rang out despite the late hour.
“Ad, my boy,” Pops laughed as he clapped his hands, clearly happy to see me. So, it’d been a good day. He didn’t recognize me some days, and those were the hardest. Those days, I fucking hated dementia and what it did to people. Telling elaborate lies to a man I’d spent my entire life admiring just to get him to walk home at night made me feel like shit.
“Alright, Pops, time for yah beauty sleep.”
His cronies chuckled; some patted my arm as I walked around the table to lend my hand to Pops. He’d never admit it, but he wasn’t as spry as he used to be, his boxing days squarely in the past. It was hard to watch him get older, but I was glad he was still around. I knew he’d been lonely since my grandma passed on, but there were still enough of his old neighborhood buddies alive that he kept himself busy .
“Yeah, I guess yah right, Ad. Us O’Neill’s have to keep these mugs lookin’ good for the ladies. Wouldn’t want them to miss out by having to look at all these ugly old fucks. Isn’t that right, my boy?”
“Yeah, Pops. It’s all for the ladies,” I laughed and shook my head. My grandfather hadn’t looked at another woman since the late nineteen fifties. Even dead, my grandmother was the love of his life. But our family had a reputation for being pretty boys, which made running around the neighborhood as a teenager fun. Especially when there were two of us. Hutch had been more the heartbreaker between us, but neither of us had ever had to work much for female company. Sometimes, it was the same female—something we stopped years ago.
“See youse assholes tomorrah.” Pops yawned as he patted the shoulders of a few of his buddies while I cupped his elbow and led him away from the table. I knew he’d stay here all night if I let him, but then Ma would be worried. And she hadn’t worked her ass off for decades for the men in her life to give her grief. She’d already had enough heartache to last a lifetime when my father was killed overseas.
“Bye, Jeannie,” he called out, winking as the pretty bartender waved in his direction. I knew she had a soft spot for Pops. Plus, we were almost family, with her cousin technically being my ex-sister-in-law. Many of the original families in the neighborhood were related by those five degrees of separation .
I led my grandfather to the covered front stoop of the bar, instructing him to stay put until I pulled the car up to the curb. We could have technically walked home, but I wasn’t making him do that in the rain.
As soon as I pulled up, I cursed and grabbed my umbrella, hurrying around the car to shield him as he rushed as fast as he could toward the passenger side. “Oh, I get car side service now?” he joked while I held the umbrella over his head and pulled open the door.
“Careful with the drop,” I cautioned, and he gripped the handle inside the door to lower himself into the seat with a shaking arm.
“I can handle gettin’ in a fuckin car, Adrian. I’m old as fuck, not a toddlah.”
Biting back a sarcastic retort, I let him get himself buckled and closed the door, rushing back to the driver’s side.
“So, who sent yah out after me this time?” he asked as I settled in my seat, turning the wipers back up and checking my mirrors before pulling away from the curb.
“Hutch,” I sighed, hating that this was where we were. Pops felt like the rest of his family was always trying to keep him on a leash, but we’d had enough late nights, calling around the neighborhood when he didn’t come home at night, to scare us all.
“Well, can’t say I blame ’em,” he sighed, folding his hands in his lap. “Last week was kinda bad. I know I scared your Ma. Thought she was my Aileen and acted like a shit toward her when she came home one morning.”
Ma was an ER nurse, often pulling overnight or double shifts, and took care of my brother and grandfather during the day when she wasn’t sleeping. I told her she should think about getting a placement in one of the doctor’s offices closer to the house, but she told me she’d be bored outta her mind without the grueling pace of working in trauma care. I didn’t see the appeal, but I also fainted at the sight of blood, so we clearly weren’t cut from the same cloth.
She excelled at fixing the messes of people’s bodies. I excelled at fixing the messes of people’s words.
Hutch was more like her, joined the Marines at eighteen, served his first four years, then reenlisted in the Navy to act as a medical corpsman in a Marine combat unit for years before he moved to the Special Warfare Combat Crewman. It was during a SEAL extraction that everything had gone to shit.
“You know she understands, Pops,” I sighed, pulling up to the curb at the modest row house I’d grown up in.
“Yeah, I get it, Ad. But sometimes, I feel like it’s not fair that I’m still here and she’s not. Your Ma is stuck with the three of us, and on my bad days, she doesn’t even have me.”
“Well, you’re stuck with us for the time being, old man, so quit your bitchin’.”
“If you’d quit acting like a prick, maybe she’d have another woman around.”
Fuck . Getting my balls busted by the elderly now.
“She has Pen around. I don’t think Ma cares if I settle down.”
“Hmm,” he hummed as he turned to face me. “You know that she always told me she wanted a house full of grandkids. If my Liam wasn’t gone all the time, before he… There probably would have been a herd of you hell-raising delinquents.” Pops still had trouble mentioning my dad, almost thirty-five years later. I couldn’t imagine the pain of losing a child.
“Then maybe she needs to ask Hutch for another one.”
“Or maybe you stop running from your problems and settle down already. Maybe I’d like to see one of your kids come into this world and put you in your place like Pen has done with your brother. And we both know your brother is too busy fuckin’ around to get tied down again.”
My twelve-year-old niece was a little ball-buster but was only around on the weekends. Still, I knew she had a special bond with Pops. It wasn’t that I didn’t want kids. I was a workaholic who had little time to meet women and, being dubbed the office Dickhead left little room in the office dating pool. Not that I hadn’t thought about a certain feisty blonde a lot over the last five years since we started working in the same office. She was in the same boat as me—worked crazy hours, traveled frequently, didn’t have a family, and didn’t date—at least not that I knew about.
“Just somethin’ tah think about. When yah grow a pair, yah let me know.”
He didn’t wait for me to leave the car, opening the door himself and stepping onto the sidewalk. The rain had settled into a gentle sprinkle, and I stared through the streaky raindrops on the window while he pulled himself up the front steps using the handrail. My brother swung the door open before he got to the top, his middle finger extended in my direction briefly before he helped Pops in the front door and pushed it closed.
I knew I should stick around and make sure everything was good, but I needed to catch up on a lot of work if I would be out of the office for a week. Part of me dreaded keeping up the act with Isobel the entire trip, but the other part wondered how she’d react if I didn’t bother anymore.