THREE
I wait at Joe’s for Autumn as she hustles to the rugby pitch to fetch Declan and Donovan since both their vehicles are out for repairs. That happens when you race your souped-up rides down Cushman’s Crossing like bored teenagers and come off the other side of the track with a trip to the auto body shop in your future. The wait, I don’t mind. Not on mornings like this when the wind is cool and the sidewalk and pavement is thick with the smell of rain. It reminds me of mornings I’d sit underneath the front awning of the library before I opened it to the public. Those mornings Cavanagh was quiet, the slumber which would give way to hustle and bustle; the easy breath of a vivid, living community that would rise with a burst of energy and not stop until well after the sun set. Most of my days were full of requests from professors or students complaining about their coursework. Before all that started, I’d take a second, brimming hot cup of coffee in hand and sit out on the benches, watching my hometown as it came to life. It calmed me, prepared me for what would come next.
Two squirrels move across Joe’s front yard, scampering toward the large pine tree near his driveway. I smile at the way they chase each other as I stretch my legs out over the front wooden swing, my back against the armrest. The storm that passed through is dying and the steady thump of rain against the roof has me shutting my eyes, breathing in the sweet scent of wet grass and honeysuckle from Joe’s back yard. Cavanagh is beautiful, that much I know without opening my eyes. Beyond the cityscape, past the tall buildings and the stadium on campus, there are the lush, imposing mountains that seem to stretch and curl around the town. Cavanagh sits in the center with those mountains acting as sentry—black rock that touches a purple and yellow sky, protecting us.
The university library was my sanctuary—a comforting, imposing structure filled with histories, with the knowledge of a thousand lifetimes, and I was its keeper. I miss it. Rhea’s illness, my need to be with her, keeps me from my office and the large oak desk that fills my office. It keeps me from the rows of Funko Pop! figurines of every conceivable fandom I cherish lining the shelves and window seals. It keeps me from the looming size of that Grecian building, the long row of galley windows, even the cobblestone entranceway that spreads out at the front entrance, and leads to the brightly blooming mums and wild flowers in the planters along the steps.
Sometimes I think I’ll go back. Sometimes I think I need to, but as the Chancellor told me, family is essential. Family is first. Ava would say that. She’s just as much family to me as Autumn, Mollie and Layla are. Still, I tried not to take advantage of our relationship when I asked her for a leave of absence. She understood, but I still felt guilty about it.
The creak of the screen door opening pulls me out of my thoughts; Joe comes out to the porch, his hands full of two steaming mugs. “Still pissing rain?” he asks, offering me a mug of coffee.
“It’s slacked off a bit. Thanks,” I say, tipping my cup for a quick toast.
He leans against the porch column and sits on the railing, gazing at the thick rainclouds that are moving at a snail’s pace away from town. “It’ll be gone in half an hour.” Joe motions with his mug to the sky. “I hope Autumn will be wary of the slick roads.”
“She’s been driving for ten years, Joe.” He shrugs, dismissing me with a smile. I lower my foot, moving the swing when it slows. “You’ve been back two years and you still don’t quite get that your little girl isn’t a kid anymore.”
Joe doesn’t look offended, doesn’t glare at me at least and when he shifts his gaze in my direction, I offer him a smile of my own, loving the way one dimple dents in his cheeks. “Ah, I know that well, love. Too well.” He takes a breath, rubbing his neck. “Before too long Declan will finally convince her to accept his barmy arse and she’ll be married and likely off to Bridgett knows where.”
“You could go with them, you know.” The thought comes to me from nowhere and as soon as I mention Joe leaving, I frown. I don’t want anyone to leave Cavanagh, least of all my best friend, but I’m no fool. None of them will stay here forever.
“Aye, but I’d only be in the way.”
“Joe, you’ve spent most of her life not involved.” I pull my feet up and pat the empty spot on the swing for the old man to sit down. He does, reluctantly but keeps silent. “Don’t you think she’d want you around when she starts having babies?”
“Babies?” I had no idea his eyes could get that round and the amazed, loud laughter is out of my mouth when that wild fear and worry hardens the muscles around his mouth.
“That’s generally what happens when people get married. Especially people like those two.”
“What do you… oh aye.” Some distasteful image must jump into Joe’s mind when I paint that picture and he wrinkles his nose, then rubs the palm of his free hand against his eyelids as though that would take away the image. “Well. What’s that got to do with anything?” He watches the trees move in the breeze, ignoring his coffee as it rests on his thigh.
“You’re the only parent she has left.” I grab his hand to make him look back at me. “And she loves you. Declan loves you, too. You’re the only father either of them has ever known. Of course they’d want you around when they start a family.”
That soft smile, the ease of tension in his features makes Joe look younger, calmer and I get some small glimmer of pleasure that I’d somehow comforted him. Still, Joe seems distracted by the thought of leaving Cavanagh again.
We both watch the rain slide against the railing and down the steps, and Joe seems a little lost. “I couldn’t just… leave…” he glances up at the house.
“It’ll be here for you when you get back. I’ll keep an eye on it.”
“You, love,” Joe says, tapping my leg, “should be out seeing the world.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Joe. Not any time soon.”
Joe’s gaze is hard, I feel the weight of it on the side of my face as I stare out beyond the porch, to the neighboring house and the small Yorkie that runs through several puddles on the lawn. But Joe is not one to let anyone he cares for bear a burden on their own. For all his past mistakes, he is a good man and I take the comfort he offers when he slips his hand, still warm from his mug, over mine.
“Thanks,” I whisper, squeezing back against his fingers.
The Yorkie vanishes beneath the covered carport attached to the neighbor’s house and Joe and I stay silent, keeping to ourselves as the weather and traffic around us turns into a quiet hum, until the warmth of his touch grows cooler the harder the wind blows.
Then Joe’s cell phone chirps, breaking our reverie. He excuses himself with a quick, “Give me just a moment…” and then I am alone again with the stillness around me and the lulling melody of the storm.
At least until I hear the low mutter of an accented curse and the whip of the door flying open. Quinn. He must not see me at first as he stretches, bare-chested, with his shirt hanging in his hand and low-hanging black rugby shorts revealing a thick trail of hair below his navel. It’s not until he has taken a few steps out onto the porch, throwing his shirt around his neck and pulling a cigarette from the pack in his pocket, that he notices me sitting on the swing watching him.
“Bollocks.” The curse is whispered, but I don’t care enough to pretend I hadn’t heard him. By the casual glare he offers me, I get the impression that Quinn doesn’t care either.
Another low grunt, another stretch and he glares at the sky and the dark clouds that loom above us. “Fecking rain.”
“Well, good morning to you too, sunshine.” It seems the only sound he’ll make is that annoying grunt. Quinn holds the cigarette loosely between two fingers, moving his knuckles to twist it side to side as though he needs the distraction. As though the scent of rain and maybe my presence gives him something to consider, maybe something to glare at before he attempts smoking.
Feeling the smallest bit smug that my irritation at his smoking might be what keeps that cigarette unlit, I grin, stretching my legs out again. The small gesture moves the swing, makes the chains creak and moan and Quinn glances back at me. When I return his stare, he gives up, returning his attention to the black clouds.
A smart aleck part of me that hasn’t had a lot of exercise of late gets ahold of me, and I casually say, “Isn’t it a little early for you to be up?” Another glare, this one with a hint of offense and I shrug, harboring a hidden grin. “Don’t you trust fund, party animal types sleep in until just before the midnight hour beckons?”
That doesn’t even warrant a smirk. “Bit hard to get any sleep around here,” he says, stretching his neck, “with all the yammering about and laughter.”
Joe and I hadn’t been that loud; he was just yanking my chain. I decide to yank back. “That must be horrible.” He glances at me, eyebrows drawing together. “All that God-awful laughing.”
“It does wear me down a bit, if I’m being honest.”
Quinn slips his gray t-shirt on and I try not to look, reminding myself that those beautiful eyes, that lithe, athletic frame doesn’t excuse the attitude or his bothered, entitled manner. But I’m human. I’m a single woman in her twenties who hasn’t had regular sex since the falling out with my ex Sam, a couple of years ago.
Quinn is beautiful and he damn well knows it so the small effort I make at not staring while he pulls on that shirt, is weak. And he catches me.
I don’t need a mirror to know the look I’m giving him and I don’t think I care much that subtlety is off the table at the moment.
He pauses just long enough for me to notice the lift of his eyebrows before he steps in front of me, kneeling next to the swing so that we are eye level.
“See something you like?” I do. I like that shape of his face, the soft contours of his eyes, how gentle they make him look, how they contrast to the angular cut of his jaw and the wide stretch of his mouth. Quinn stops the swing from moving by holding his leg against the underside of the seat and then he leans forward, his arm resting just inches from mine. “Do you then?”
How many seconds, I wonder, would it take him to have me in his room? How quickly, how thoroughly would he perform knowing that Joe is just a few feet away, that Declan and Autumn would be back soon? Quinn doesn’t strike me as the sort to rush anything, least of all fucking. Certainly not fucking a girl he sees as a challenge. And that’s what I am. I see that plainly in the way he stares at me, how he tries to appear so unaffected by my presence. Do I like what I see? Of course I do. Will I tell him that? Not ever in life.
It would be fun to play with him, to pass the time while I wait for Autumn. I even consider it—flirting a little, trying to remember what it is to laugh, to forget worry, but then Quinn shifts his legs, moving his weight from one foot to another and the pack of smokes in his pocket falls to the floor.
“No,” I say glancing away from his pack to glare at him. “Not even remotely.”
“What have I done now?” he says, with feigned injury, while swiping the cigarettes off the floor and replacing them into his pocket. I didn’t even light the fecking fag.”
“As if that makes one whit of difference.”
He stands when I place my feet on the floor, readjusting on the swing, but Quinn doesn’t keep clear of me. I can smell the masculine scent of his hair and the mint from his toothpaste. “Aren’t you just in a grand mood this morning?”
I sip my coffee ignoring him. “How would you know? This is literally the second time you’ve seen me. And in case you’re desperate, there’s a back yard to this place, you know. You can go out there to slowly kill yourself with those things for all I care.”
“You really are a fussy bit of stuff, aren’t you?” He follows me away from the swing, right behind me as I lean against the brick column and will Autumn to drive up the street. “You really that put off by me smoking? Care that much, do you?” He stands directly behind me, as though he expects me to be affected by how close he is, by how his chest is at my shoulders. All Quinn has to do is take a step and I’d feel the firm outline of his body against my back. But he doesn’t move. He only keeps a few inches between us as though waiting. As though he’s certain I’ll lean back just to press myself against him.
“What?” There is laughter in his voice that I’ve never heard from him before. It’s casual and annoying. “Afraid I’ll get cancer and die?” When I wince, straighten my shoulders, all the humor leaves his tone and I catch how quickly his smile fades from the corner of my eye. “What is it?” he asks, voice softer, but not sweet. When he gets nothing more, he steps in front of me, leaning his hand on the brick right next to my hip. I don’t move back.
“Who is it?” And just like that, he knows, as though he can sense where my attitude, my anger comes from. There is a look in his eyes, that quick frustration and anger that I’ve seen a dozen times in my own mirror. I have no idea why it’s there in Quinn’s eyes, as well. “Who?” he says again, this time he sounds almost concerned.
I can’t trust him. I’m aware of that. There is nothing remotely logical about telling Quinn O’Malley about Rhea. There is nothing that he can say or do that would give me even the remotest comfort. Yet, I tell him anyway. “My little cousin.”
“She’s ill?”
I stare at him, then down at the cigarette in his hand, reminding myself how cavalier he is about his own life. Wondering why he wants to know anything about mine. But I can’t stop myself from speaking, from offering up information that is not mine to share.
“She’s dying. Cancer. Bilateral optic glioma. She’s had it for four years.”
The news doesn’t surprise him. Quinn, in fact, doesn’t really react at all. Instead, he merely nods before looking out over my head, as though he needs to work out something for himself. Maybe there’s some memory that he takes stock of, something that keeps him from shifting focus back to me and what I just revealed. After a moment, he clears his throat, staring back at me again. “In and out of hospital?” I nod. “How old?”
“Eight.” Again, he looks away from me and I catch the small effort of his fingers, how he seems to subconsciously move the cigarette between his fingers.
“It’s a rotten thing to have to be stuck in hospital, especially when you’re a kid.” He steps back, then up onto the porch, making for the front door. He seems to be trying to keep his expressions neutral and his tone light, but there is that look again—the same one I know from my own eyes. Quinn crumbles the cigarette into his fist before tossing it out onto the front lawn. “And you…” he says, staring at me.
But whatever about me that made him pause, he doesn’t finish explaining as Declan and Autumn pull into the drive with their brakes squeaking in the damp. They are out of the car and racing through the weather and onto the porch before Quinn can disappear into Joe’s house. One look at Quinn, his stare still fixed on my face, and Autumn moves next to me, as if to protect me from whatever is happening on the porch.
Declan watches his brother, then glances between us. “Alright then?”
“Fine,” I say, watching Declan’s frown as Quinn shoots him a fierce glare.
It’s a tense moment, one that is too full of testosterone, but before I can call either of them out, Quinn rolls his eyes, opening the porch door. “Grand,” he says, before he disappearing into the house without a backward glance, letting the screen door bang behind him.
Three rings at two a.m.
I’d gone through months waiting for this call.
“Hello?”
“Sweetie, it’s Carol.” There is a breath. I count the seconds. “Rhea’s back in the hospital. That fever didn’t lower. Her platelets have dipped.”
“For how long?”
“Depends.” Her voice is raspy, a deep sound that reminds me of mornings my mother just returned from her double shift at the hospital. She’d worked the ICU for decades and could never keep the tiredness from her voice when she woke us for school. “The doctors… hell, Sayo, they’re saying it might be indefinitely. It might be until…” but Carol can’t finish speaking. Her tone has become too weighted, the emotion, the desperation too heavy.
My room is pitch dark. The only light glows from my phone and even that bothers my eyes. I want darkness. I want silence. I want the nightmare to end. “Aunt Carol, what can I do?”
“Nothing.” She doesn’t hesitate and there is a second when her resolve falters. She is strong. She’s had to be. She is Teflon and remarkable, trying like hell to pretend she can take on these monsters, fight this battle for her daughter and yet, with that one word, I hear how weary she is. “She’s finally sleeping and I wanted you to know. I… oh God, honey, is that the time?” The rustle from the earpiece is dull, as though Carol has moved the phone. “I didn’t realize.”
“It’s fine,” I say, hoping she can’t hear that half-asleep, exhausted tone in my voice. “It’s fine… I’ll… I can come right now.”
“No, no get your rest. It’s not like you’ll be able to see her, anyway. Come tomorrow. After ten o’clock. She’ll be awake then and she’ll want more comics.” It is a halfhearted joke, one that is forced and even that humorless laugh sounds weak.
“I’ll pick some up,” I tell her falling back against my pillow in the dark. “Anything else? Anything at all?”
“Sayo—I didn’t want to say anything,” she pauses, then seems to gain a bit of strength. “There’s… there’s nothing to be done really, but Doctor Simmons brought up that new experimental treatment again. The one that targets the mutation in the tumor.” I knew what she was talking about; I’d done my research when the doctor first talked about it. But it was expensive, and insurance refused to cover it. It was a last resort. “Clay and I, we were talking to some of the nurses and they mentioned fundraising because… well.”
“Where can we get it? Locally?”
“We can’t. Not yet, Sayo. It’s… without the insurance it’ll cost eighty grand.”
“I have thirty.” I don’t hesitate to offer up my savings. My job is decent. Our 401(k) is paltry but I’m a single woman with a rent controlled apartment and no bad habits other than Netflix binges. The money I have stored away has no purpose and retirement is a long ways away. This could help. This was almost half way to what they needed. “You can have all that I have, Aunt Carol.”
“Sayo. No. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. We’ll do a fundraiser.”
“I want to help. I have to.”
“Oh, sweetheart…” I hear the defeat in her voice; she is utterly spent. I desperately want to help, but my offer is just one more weight around her neck. My heartbeat increases because I imagine my aunt there, in that damn hospital room again, the same one Rhea has lived in for four years. One step forward, ten back. It never seems to end and the good, the good is so fucking fleeting. But she rallies. She always rallies. “You help, honey. So much. You are such… Rhea loves you so much. You’re everything she wants to be and I can’t tell you how proud I am of you, how much we appreciate everything you do for her. We can’t ask this of you, too. We won’t allow it.”
“It’s selfish,” I admit, frowning when my voice cracks. The moment is unguarded and Carol knows it.
“What, love?”
“Everything. I do it because I want… I don’t want to miss anything, Aunt Carol.” I should hang up. I should try to sleep and let her do the same, and my aunt already knows what I’m trying to say. She has to. Rhea is her child. I am only the cousin. Still, I can’t help myself. “Oh, Carol, I don’t want time to… to…”
“To run out.”
“It will, though. It’s coming.”
“Sweetie, don’t.” She takes another breath, her resolve weakening. “Please don’t.”
I suddenly realize what I’m saying. I can’t do that to her. Not Carol. Not that determined, strong woman battling for her child. My palms over my face, drying away the tears, I channel her, hope that I can absorb some of her strength.
“I’m sorry.” I take another moment, clear my throat. Carol doesn’t need this. It’s late, she’s worried, she needed an ear and I gave her nothing. “We’ll talk about it, later.” Another breath and I sit up, stretch out my shoulders so my voice will be clear, firm. “I’m fine and I’ll be there in the morning. Give Rhea a kiss for me, okay, and try to sleep. You’re… you’re exhausted.” We all were. We had been for years and as I disconnect the call and lay back on my bed, watching the darkness around me grow dimmer, I realize that we had only just begun to be exhausted.
We’d only just started.