Chapter 14

“Clare, don’t you have a cellphone or something?” Cian barked as he wandered back into the empty pub to find her counting her tips at the counter.

“Yeah, why?”

“Stop using the bar’s number as your own personal line, then.” Cian scowled, pulling open the cash register and replacing the empty tray after having secured all the day’s earnings in the bank envelope.

“What are you talking about?”

“You have a call on line one. Hurry up—you still have side work to do.”

He waved her away as Clare pushed the bills on the counter together and pocketed her tips, heading to the back room that led to the office. She couldn’t imagine who would be calling her here, since only her new, local friends knew she worked here.

She picked up the receiver that was sitting on the desk, off the hook. “Hello?”

“I’ve missed that sound,” a scratchy voice rumbled, and Clare instantly felt her stomach drop.

“Clare?” the caller said when she didn’t respond.

“What do you want?” Her teeth were clenched together, her tone stern.

“That’s not a very nice way to talk to your boyfriend, Clare.”

“How did you find me, Travis?” She tried to stay stern, but her voice was faltering. She bit her lip furiously, angry at herself for showing fear and even more angry at him for causing it.

“You were never the brightest crayon in the box, baby. I’ve known where you are for a while. I’ve let you have your fun, your little bout of independence, but my patience is running thin. You have something that is mine, and I want it back. So, either you come home or I come to you. And you know that if you make me come get you, you’re not going to be the only one to pay for your mistake.” He went from nonchalant to forceful and threatening in a flash.

“I’m not coming back, and that money is mine; it was my parents’. You stole it, and I stole it back. You’re not touching it, or me, again. We are over. I’m not your girlfriend.” She clasped the phone receiver in her hand tightly, her body shaking.

“You know I’ve always liked it when you pick the hard way. A lot more fun for me. See you soon, baby.”

The line went dead.

Trembling, Clare placed the phone on the receiver, closing her eyes. She felt nauseated and realized she was about to vomit. Jumping up out of the office chair, she rushed down the hall to the employee bathroom and instantly emptied the contents of her stomach.

“Well, that’s just disgusting. You could have at least closed the door,” Cian said from behind her, as he leaned against the doorframe.

“Sorry,” she whimpered, kneeling over the toilet, waiting for the next round of sickness to hit her.

“You better not be pregnant. I can’t afford to hire and train a new bartender right now.”

“I’m not pregnant, Cian. I just need to go home.” She stood up and washed out her mouth in the sink, then wiped her face with some paper towels.

“Fine, I’ll finish up tonight. But only because I’m afraid you might puke on me. You have a couple days off anyway, but you better be good to go by Saturday.” He marched back to the office, not showing any further interest in her or concern for her well-being.

She unsteadily trailed over to her locker and collected her belongings, then called a cab from her cellphone to meet her out front. She knew Rory would be mad at her for leaving early, but she didn’t want to explain to him. Things were still so new between them. She didn’t even know how to define what they were to each other.

Once thing was certain: She wasn’t about to burden him with her problems.

Especially when it now seemed like she was going to have to run again.

Rory checked his cellphone for the time. Clare was normally done by now, but she had yet to leave O’Leary’s and meet him and Ace out front. Circling around the alley to the back of the building, he knocked on the metal door.

“Fuck, what do you want?” Cian greeted him after pushing open the heavy door. Rory ignored the man’s unpleasant attitude, staring past him into the back of the restaurant.

“Is Clare done yet?”

“No, she left like ninety minutes ago.” He crossed his arms, staring Rory down defiantly.

“She left early?”

“Yeah, she was really fucking things up tonight, so I sent her home.”

Rory tightened his jaw at the comment, narrowing his eyes at Cian and seriously contemplating breaking his nose again. Ace snarled quietly next to him, feeling the animosity between the men. Rory put his hand out flat, a signal for Ace to calm down. Nervousness flashed over Cian’s weaselly face as he glanced at the dog and gulped.

“What are you talking about?” Rory tried to keep his voice calm and slow, when really he just wanted to smash a fist through Cian’s arrogant face.

“First, giving out the bar number like it’s her own personal line. I don’t tolerate employees using up our phone bill like that. Then puking everywhere the moment she finishes her call. Disgusting. That girl has been nothing but a headache since I hired her. Big mistake.”

“Cian, I’m trying really hard here to control my temper, but if you say one more bad thing about Clare, I will make you regret it.” Rory clenched his fists at his sides.

“Fuck, calm down, Irish Hulk.” Cian was getting bolder, and for a moment Rory considered helping him relearn his lesson. Not tonight, he decided, Clare needed him.

“Did she say where she was going?” Rory asked Cian.

“Don’t know, don’t care.”

“Thanks for all your help,” Rory said sarcastically, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he left. Ace dutifully followed him.

He dialed Clare’s number, waiting as the phone rang. But it didn’t ring, it went straight to voicemail. Rory hung up and tried again once he reached the sidewalk, wondering if his reception was faulty.

Voicemail again.

Cursing, he texted her, asking her where she was. He knew the route to her home like the back of his hand, so he began walking that direction, checking his phone every few minutes to see if she had responded. His mind was racing as a flurry of different thoughts bombarded him. He had just seen her a few hours ago, yet here he was, glued to his phone waiting for her name to pop up. He had never been that way with a girl before; it was frustrating as hell.

At his brisk pace, it wasn’t long until he and Ace were in front of her apartment building pressing on the buzzer for 3B. After multiple attempts with no answer, Rory began pressing her neighbors’ buzzers, hoping that one of them would let him in.

Luckily, someone did, and he heard the door beep. He grabbed the handle and swung it open, taking the stairs two at a time. He paused in front of her door, pacing for a moment as he thought.

Running his fingers through his wavy brown hair, he began second-guessing himself. Maybe she had just gone home early. Showing up on her doorstep might make her regard him as a crazy stalker.

Or maybe she was hurt. Or ill. What if she needed help?

He exhaled loudly, looking up at the ceiling and hating his indecision. Back in his fighting days, this never would have happened. He never would have let a woman get under his skin like this, let alone hesitate about what to do. Standing in Clare’s hallway, he found himself questioning all of it. Questioning who he had become, who he was before Clare, and who he was now that she had come into his life.

“Buddy, you ring my buzzer?” An older man poked his head out from the door down the hall.

“Oh, yeah, I’m sorry, sir,” Rory responded.

“Whatcha doin’ over by Ms. Ivers, then?” he asked, suspiciously.

Rory stepped toward the man, trying not to be as intimidating as his size made him appear. He hoped that the giant, scar-covered dog trotting beside him wouldn’t intimidate him, either.

“I’m trying to find Clare. Have you seen her?”

“What’s it to you? She your girlfriend or something?”

“No, I, uh—she just left early from work. I was just checking on her is all.” Rory found himself blushing, then mentally criticized himself for it. The man had asked him a simple question, and he hadn’t known the answer. Is she my girlfriend?

“Uh-huh.” The old man was clearly not buying it. “Well, you ain’t goin’ to find her here, son. She left a while ago. Had a couple suitcases with her. Doubt she’ll be back anytime soon.”

The old man shuffled back into his apartment, closed the door. Rory’s mouth opened, shocked. He couldn’t believe that Clare would just leave. He stepped back over to her door and knocked. He had to find out for himself. After a minute of knocking with no answer, he pulled his wallet out of his pocket. Finding a pick he kept in there, he fiddled with the doorknob, listening carefully for the click.

A few failed attempts later, Clare’s door popped open, and Rory quickly let himself and Ace inside, then closed the door behind them.

“Clare?” he called out, his gaze roaming around her apartment.

The very first thing he saw was her cellphone on a table by the front door. He picked it up and powered it on, seeing all his missed calls appear on the screen. She had left it behind.

She didn’t want to be found.

He had been inside her place only once before, but it had been late at night and they had made a beeline for the bedroom. Even when he had left the next morning, he had been distracted and hadn’t taken the time to really see where she lived.

He wasn’t sure what he had pictured, but this certainly wasn’t it. The entire place was empty, barely a shell of a home. But not empty as though someone had left in a hurry, empty as though it never had anything in it to begin with. The kitchen had one chair up against a windowsill that was clearly used as a table.

There was a small table by the front door that held a bowl with a few keys in it, plus a random magazine. The living room had one small box television in the corner on top of a milk crate facing a futon that doubled as a couch. Farther back, only partitioned off by some folding screens he hadn’t noticed before, was the bedroom.

The bed was the one thing he remembered; it had definitely seen better days. It was flanked by a small nightstand and a dresser to one side. There was nothing on the walls, no photos or frames, no decorations of any kind.

How had I not noticed this?

He had been here before, but completely failed to pay attention to how she had been living. As he and Ace roamed the tiny place, the one thing he found that was remotely reminiscent of someone living there was a clay pot holding a small ivy plant on the bedroom windowsill. It was dark green, well fed, and the soil was moist when Rory reached in to feel it.

Guilt racked him as he sat down on her futon, feeling as if he had failed to take care of her, to give her what she needed. He had more money than he knew what to do with, and she ate her breakfast on a window ledge. Rory dropped his head, leaning his elbows on his knees as he thought about the signs he had missed.

Ace came over and sat in front of him, dropping down to the ground and making a sad, whimpering sound as he laid his head down. Rory reached down and scratched behind Ace’s ears, hoping that the small comfort would make both of them feel better.

The showers at the gym because there was only a half bath in here. The coffee and lunches she had with Casey that he always saw show up on Casey’s credit card bill, which he paid for her. He had always been one to take care of the women in his life, yet he had been completely oblivious to Clare’s needs.

And now she was gone.

Rory stood and picked up the ivy plant, taking it with him as he and Ace left the depressing apartment and walked slowly to his place on the other side of Woodlawn. He put her plant on the windowsill in his kitchen, unsure of why he had taken it. He just knew that if it had meant enough to her to care for it, he didn’t want that to be for nothing.

He had liked being with Clare; he still did. Now that she was gone, he realized that it was more than that. Sighing, he had no choice but to admit to himself that he had loved her.

He had been in love with her.

It was clear now, and he wished he had figured it out sooner. Then maybe he could have told her, instead of missing her. Now he wondered if he had ever really known her. Either way, she had left not only him, but her entire life in the Bronx. She had made sure there was no way to trace her.

She didn’t want him to find her.

She didn’t want him.

The thought was agonizing, and Rory was already in enough pain. His leg hurt him every day, but with all the new tension plaguing his body right now, the pain seemed to have doubled. It made him wonder why he had bothered going through everything he had to try to get off the prescription pills.

Rory stood in his kitchen, suddenly realizing that he didn’t have to go through that anymore. If Clare had given up on him, why shouldn’t he? He had gotten clean for her, but she had still left him.

He searched through his apartment, looking anywhere for leftover medications. Ace watched him in confusion as he tore open drawers and cabinets, hoping to find a forgotten bottle somewhere.

He had thrown everything away to be clean for her, but he was hoping that maybe he had missed something. Almost an hour later, he still came up empty. Making a mental note, he decided to ask one of the doctors who had given him prescriptions before at Legends. Or maybe ransack one of their lockers to find a prescription pad to tide him over.

He was desperate.

Melancholy overtook him as he changed his clothes and crawled into bed. Ace lay on the floor by the foot of the bed as Rory, tossing and turning for hours, let sleep find him slowly.