Ciaran
“This is where you’ve been spending your time?” Uncle Cormac’s lip curls as he takes in my flat.
“Don’t sound too impressed.” I’m aware it’s a fucking shithole, but I’m the one paying the bills. Something that means even more since last night. Since Boris implied otherwise.
I keep my tone light, knowing my uncle isn’t being rude. He doesn’t know it, though, but minutes before he’d arrived, I’d dug through my credit card statements. When I didn’t find a charge to the restaurant we went to last week, I hacked into Adeline’s accounts.
She paid for fucking lunch. I’d seen the waiter float back to the table, but he’d handed me my card back.
Would I like to pay four hundred dollars for lunch every week?
No. But I should have been able to afford the charge.
Except America isn’t cheap. I’m not cash-strapped, and I’m glad I’ve got my own flat, but Boris’s barb rubs me raw in a way I don’t like.
The poor little Dublin boy whose grubby hands shouldn’t be anywhere near his daughter.
“Just you and the cockroaches then?” Uncle Cormac jokes.
“Mind you, you’re the one who wanted to come over.”
“I was wondering if I should be worried about you.” His gaze sweeps around the tiny living room. The upholstery clinging to the corners of the sofa is worn but clean.
“You’re the one who wanted to come to America,” I remind.
“And here you are building a life.” Cormac stands, not bothering to sit in the one armchair I’ve got. “This thing with Henson. It’s good work.”
“Why are you looking worried?”
He places a hand over his heart. “You’re living up to the O’Connell name. Making moves. Establishing yourself. I’d be remiss, though, if I didn’t do my due diligence and wonder how the hell you got so close to Henson. The man is introverted, and, well, I’m not sure if he’d be so fond of the place.”
“You think he won’t come around and watch the football? Crack open a Guiness.”
Uncle Cormac levels me with a look. It’s the same one I’ve seen since I was a toddler, when I’d acted too much like a hellion.
“I made sure I was at the right place at the right time,” I say, sinking into my sofa. The truth is, other than sleeping, I’m not here often. This is the first Saturday that hasn’t been completely booked.
Normally, I’d follow my cousins to the pub. Relaxing and watching football, and I’m not referring to the NFL. But if I haven’t been mapping out paths or working on solutions that will help us build up business back home, then my time has been spent on my other pursuit—Adeline.
It was Uncle Cormac who taught me to dedicate my time to important things. I’m not sure why he’s nervous that I’ve got my head to the ground.
“What else have you got going?” he asks.
“Seamus not tell you I’ve started dating?” I stretch my arms on the back of the sofa.
Cormac glances around the apartment again. “I’m sure the women are flocking to you.”
My jaw clenches. I’m glad Uncle Cormac is busy categorizing all the ways my flat is a piece of shit.
I bite back the response I want to make. The one where I tell him Adeline’s been here. The childish, petulant remark would only make Uncle Cormac narrow his eyes.
“Is it not becoming of a man to pay his own way through life?” I say instead.
Cormac softens. “Yeah, it is. I’m proud of you, son.”
My muscles relax, the air around us lighter.
“We have another meeting with Walsh,” he says. “Monday, noon. You’re going to be there.”
I nod.
“Walsh likes your father,” he adds, keeping his face blank. “And he likes you.”
“I’ll be there.” In my pressed suit, ready to talk business.
Uncle Cormac’s shoulders soften. “I’m hard on you because I know what you can achieve.”
“You’re hard on me because you’re an arsehole,” I reply, smiling.
“Aye. But I’m also the man who raised you, and I know what you’re capable of. You’ve done well, son. People are starting to notice. You make the name O’Connell proud.”
There’s a lingering subtext that’s going on unsaid, though. Cormac is straight with his words; he always has been.
“No distractions,” he says.
“I’m not Seamus.” Or Dermot, or Bryan, or any of my other boneheaded cousins.
“I know you’re not.” His eyes roam again. “One day you’ll be standing, lecturing a young idiot, telling him not to lose sight of things.”
What things have I lost sight of? I’ve done more work than any of my cousins since we got here. Uncle Cormac pushes tirelessly, and I’m following his lead.
“One day you’ll be telling him of the shitty flat you lived in and the hard work you put into creating something bigger. Something better.” My uncle’s Rolex glints, a stray afternoon ray filtering through the window. “This will all just be a story.”
“Right, except, by then we’ll have given up the pub. Be sitting in a gentleman’s club with other rich fuckers.”
Cormac’s gruff laugh reminds me of nights spent over a pint. “Hardly, Ciaran. Hardly. But we will at the very least own said pub that we’re sitting in.”
Too long Dublin’s been owned by those who don’t even care for her. Piece by piece we’re prepared to gain more territory from our rivals until we have it all. And then we’ll continue to grow.
“I’ve got dinner with Byron,” Cormac says, checking his watch. “If you can grace us with your face tomorrow, we’re all getting a roast.”
“What, you mean like a hot dog from one of those carts?”
“When you’re in America,” he jokes back and then reminds, “Monday. Noon.”
“I’ll be there.”
I lock the door behind Cormac. The room is still, the afternoon light shading it in a peacefulness. I don’t have time to give it much thought, though, when my phone rings.
“Nora,” I greet. It’s been almost a week since I’ve talked to Ian’s mam. She called to complain about a leaky faucet in the kitchen. When I began to tell her what to do, she snapped at me.
“Do you think I don’t know how to fix a fecking leaky faucet?”
I’d laughed, because of course I fucking knew that. Nora knows everything, like most single mothers raising not just her own son but another that was frequently dropped off at her place.
Ian is only two months older than I am, meaning my father stuck his cock into my mother after knocking Nora up. She has never, not once, held that against me.
One day my mother dropped me off, telling me I should get to know my brother. Later she picked me up, her blonde hair freshly dyed and her nails a bright pink.
I’d liked Ian’s room, though, and I liked how we’d chased each other down the stairs in Nora’s terrace house. So the next weekend I came over again, hanging out with my brother while my mam treated Nora like a fucking babysitter.
She’s never said shit about it, not even to this day. Saturday afternoons turned into weekend sleepovers. I went to school with Ian, walking back to Nora’s afterward, except for a few years when Cormac moved me to a nicer school.
Not that that mattered though, because by that point I’d moved into the spare room. Nora found herself with not just one teenage son, but two.
My mam’s attraction to Cain Murray should’ve been more indicative of her personality. Flighty. Unattached even to her child.
Nora and Uncle Cormac kept me rooted.
“What in the fuck are you on about?”
Her stern voice echoes over the phone, traffic in the background indicating she’s walking outside.
“I didn’t do anything,” I reply, her tone sending me right back to my schoolboy days.
“Oh piss off.” Her words are sharp. Acerbic. But this is Nora Hayes. I’d be shitting myself if she complimented me in some flowery way. “Why have I just gotten off the phone with your da, then? Talking about you dating Adeline bloody Akatov.”
My head falls back onto the sofa. “You never talk to Da.”
“He never fecking calls!”
Why is my father even concerned? Matters of the heart mean nothing to him. Nora should know that better than anyone else.
If Cain is getting nervous that I’m getting cozy with the Akatovs, then he has only himself to blame. He never fucking wanted me in his life, so I’ve had to go and build my own. If he can’t stand the idea that I’m going to take every advantage I can think of, then he’ll just have to get used to it.
“I don’t know what his deal is.” I rub my tired eyes. “It’s none of his concern.”
“She’s a fucking Akatov!” There’s a slam of the door, and it sounds like groceries are being dropped onto the kitchen table.
“All right.”
Nora’s never cared much about my girlfriends. I got a strong lecture about no teen pregnancies, but her irritation crackles down the line.
She’s honestly making Boris’s treatment of me last night seem tame.
“All right?” Nora laughs, the edges hard. “All right?”
“All right.” She can’t see it, but I shrug. “Jesus, what the fuck did he say that’s got you riled up so badly?”
“Ciaran, don’t fucking bullshit me.”
“Bullshit—”
“An Akatov.”
“Oh, right, sorry, I’m not meant to pull one of those, am I? Too stupid. Too poor.”
“Yes.”
My mouth snaps shut. Nora’s voice has dropped to a bleak octave that I’ve only experienced a few times in my life. It’s the point blank we are not bullshitting anymore tone. The one that comes out when Ian and I have seriously fucked up.
“Ciaran, you are kind and funny, and I love you to bits like my own son.”
I lean my elbows on my knees, my head bowed as I listen.
“I am not saying you couldn’t charm the pants off this girl. If she’d look at you in the first place.”
Silence rings down the line.
“Ciaran, I have never cared about your love life so long as you are happy and healthy. Perhaps you think I’m some middle aged, old dried up woman. But I’ve played this game. I have seen the boogeyman in the shadows. All of them. If you did something to this girl. . .”
Different moments of Adeline pop into my head. When I found her in the alleyway, I drove her back here in the SUV. My cock tearing into her pussy. The awkward, tired conversation this morning when we got coffee.
“I didn’t.”