Chapter 18

FLYNN

‘You’re quiet today.’

‘What?’ Monday afternoon, Keir stands at the end of my desk wearing an expression I’ve seen plenty times before, though never directed at me.

‘You look like you’ve lost a fiver and found a pound.’

‘Sorry, I was miles away.’ I take my glasses off and pinch the ache at the top of my nose, considering how my thoughts are really only figurative miles away as my mind slips to yesterday and The Drunken Duck. I’d always turned Keir down in the past when he’d invited me to lunch after a game. Both our teams play out of the same sports complex, and yesterday, we were down for a friendly game, a preseason warm-up. A friendly game that left me with this amazing black eye. In the past, I’ve always favoured winding down with a few beers with the lads over a meal with my boss and his mates, their wives, and families. Until yesterday.

Chastity. She’s on my mind more than is healthy, and I think I’m kidding myself when I say it’s because she’s got titty in her name. My interest in her was always genuine—I love the way she doesn’t take any shit, pushing right back at me, meeting my nonsense toe to toe. If I’m honest, there was also that initial fantasy thing. Like my dad’s joke that his dream woman was a nymphomaniac with her own pub, mine turned out to be this sweet-looking pornographer. And now she’s pretty much all I can think about.

She looked less than impressed that I’d turned up yesterday which, at least initially, dialled my enjoyment up to a nine. Then she’d refused to look at me, and I’ll admit, that left me feeling uncomfortable. As if I’d encroached on her turf. As if she didn’t want me there. I felt about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit, and the experience was about as pleasant. I began to question my read on her when faced with the waves of her almost visceral dislike. I needed to get out of there, and I needed to do it quick and began formulating a way to get myself out of a full meal situation where the woman I wanted wouldn’t even look at me. Fuck if that didn’t hurt—the longer she ignored me, the larger the twisting feeling her disregard created in my chest. Then she seemed to decide ignoring me wasn’t enough. She had to take the piss out of my sunglasses, so I took the fuckers off.

Never in a million years—a hundred million years—would I have anticipated her reaction. Man, I thought she was going to cry for a minute, and she strikes me as the kind of woman who’d rather poke pins in her eyes to explain the flow rather than admit to crying in public. I mean, it wasn’t that bad. It looks a bit funky today, and all the fucking colours of the bruise rainbow, but yesterday, it was just a bit swollen. Red and angry looking. Okay, I looked a bit like Shrek. She raised her hand as though to touch it or maybe touch me. I like to think she was going to hug me, hug away the ache. But then she’d caught herself, her hand retracting before anyone else at the table realised. But I saw. Saw the intention behind the movement. Saw the meaning behind her words. She fucking cares. Cares for more than the thing I have in my pants, constantly hard for her. And that twisting ache in my chest? Fuck my life, it grew tenfold. What would it be like to have her? I mean, really have her? Not just for a roll around her bed or a call now and again.

And then later, at the playground, I caught her looking at me when she thought I was preoccupied, and I got an honest look at her. For a moment, she wasn’t hiding behind a façade of ambivalence or scorn. What I saw was stripped down and true. She’s interested. And she sees me.

‘Have those stupid glasses started to give you headaches?’

I glance down at the black-framed eye glasses lying on my desk next to Keir’s Mont Blanc pen. ‘Glasses stop headaches, not create them.’

‘Not if you’re wearing them only as a fashion statement. Also, they don’t make you Superman.’

‘What the fuck are you on?’ I sit back in my chair, letting him enjoy his little rant. ‘Because whatever it is, keep taking the pills, mate.’

‘Can you strip to your skivvies in a telephone box?’

‘Why? Do you wanna watch?’

‘Vain fuckin’ baw bag.’

‘I’ve got a prescription,’ I drawl.

‘Aye, a prescription from the pretty optometrist who said they made your eyes look even bluer.’ The latter he delivers several octaves higher than his usual range with a comical fluttering of his lashes.

‘Doctors don’t lie. Even the pretty eye doctor ones.’

‘Get tae’fuck.’ He half laughs, throwing up his arms. ‘She was lying, anyway. You’re so ugly the dog closes his eyes when he humps your leg.’

‘Who the fuck pays three hundred quid for glasses they don’t need?’

‘The same kind of arse who paid six hundred quid for a coat. Aye, you can’nae defend yourself from that, can you?’

‘It is a very nice coat,’ Paisley says, appearing at the now open door. ‘Dolce and Gabbana, isn’t it?’

‘Nah. Their stuff is made for little Italian blokes. Not for shoulders like these.’

‘I’m sure David Gandy would disagree.’

Sorcha follows Paisley into the office, swinging her little blue homework bag. She gives Keir a quick hug before throwing herself on the sofa, patting the leather cushion next to her.

‘How’s my wee girl?’ Keir asks, sliding in next to her.

‘Fine,’ she replies, now patting the seat cushion at her other side. ‘Paisley, I want to be the ham in the sandwich.’

Chuckling softly, Paisley makes her way over to the pair, and Sorcha does indeed become the ham in a squeezing, cuddling, giggling sandwich.

Perfect. Just what I need when I want to wallow in my own misery. But they’re so stinkin’ fuckin’ cute. So I tell them so.

‘You lot are as cute as.’

‘Cute as what?’ pipes up the ham in the middle.

‘Just what I said, Sorch; as cute as.’

‘That’s silly,’ Sorcha replies. ‘If I wrote a sentence like that, my teacher would say it was unfinished. ‘As cute as . . . Paisley. That’s a sentence.’

‘She is pretty cute,’ Kier agrees.

‘Aw, right back at you,’ Paisley replies, cupping his face with her hand.

‘Or as cute as Princess Kitty,’ Sorcha continues, but Keir doesn’t look so convinced. He’s not a fan of Sorcha’s cat.

‘As cute as you,’ he says instead, kissing his daughter on the head.

‘What about Chastity?’ It sounds like a throwaway line, but Paisley’s fishing.

‘Flynn thinks she’s cute,’ Sorcha agrees, nodding vigorously. ‘Don’t you, scumbag?’

‘She is pretty cute.’

‘Oh, he lurves her.’ Sorcha wraps her hands around her arms and begins making kissy faces.

‘Enough of that,’ Keir says, though not in reprimand. ‘But now I see why he’s in such a shite mood.’

‘Daddy said a swear.’ Sorcha glances up at Paisley with a look of heavy resignation and a heavy sigh.

‘I heard,’ Paisley answers. ‘You know what that means.’

The little girl nods, then slides off the couch and makes her way to her school bag, pulling out a clear, plastic container full of pound coins, five and ten pound notes.

‘Who put the twenty in, Sorch?’

‘Uncle Will,’ she says, pulling up her navy school socks. ‘Agnes threatened to bash him with her rolling pin when all he did was say a—’

‘Watch it.’ Though Keir’s voice is even, his brows are low.

‘Psyched!’ his daughter replies. ‘Daddy,’ she says, putting her hand on one cocked hip. ‘Do you really think I would use bad words?’

‘If you do, you’ve got enough money in there to pay for a good year’s worth.’ I rub my hand across my jaw, trying not to laugh as Keir’s displeasure is turned my way.

‘You didn’t take the swear jar to school, did you?’ he asks his daughter even though he’s still staring at me.

‘Oh my goodness,’ Paisley says, chuckling. ‘Imagine having to explain all that.’

‘They’d probably call child services, or whatever the equivalent is here.’

‘I didn’t take it to school. I just asked Paisley to bring it when she picked me up. There’s always someone in daddy’s office using bad words.’

‘She’s a chip off the old block, mate.’

‘That jar isn’t capitalism,’ he replies. ‘Tell Flynn what you’re going to do with the money, hen.’

‘Build a school in Lesotho. That’s in Africa. Well, I don’t think I’ll get enough to build a whole school,’ she says, tipping her jar to examine it. ‘But I think I’ll have enough for a library.’

‘A library built on bad words. Does that mean we’re cursing for a good cause?’

‘Come on, you,’ Keir says, standing. He holds his hand out for his daughter. ‘Come help me pack up my things.’

I watch the pair walk away holding hands. Keir had a tough ride starting with parenthood. Building a business and being a single father is tough. But now he has Paisley, and those days are behind him. The pair are so in love. I never thought I’d say it, but I envy him for what he has.

I wonder if Chastity will ever have kids? I reckon she will. She’ll probably marry an investment banker in a few years and shoot out a couple of kids because “that’s what couples do”. They’ll probably be raised by a nanny and later, attend boarding school.

What the fuck am I thinking? I rub my hand through my hair, fucking angry with myself. What difference does it make what she does with her life? She’d made it quite clear I’m just a temporary player in it. I can’t even do that properly—be a player. Not where she’s concerned.

‘You look like you’ve just had a full conversation with yourself in your head.’

I look up, a little embarrassed. I’d forgotten Paisley was still here.

‘Mate, it’s been one of those days.’

‘This isn’t like you, Flynn.’ She stands and walks over to my desk, perching her arse on the very edge. ‘You’re always happy.’

‘No one’s ever always happy.’ I pull my tie loose from my collar and lean back in my chair.

‘Must to something in the air, then.’ She picks up Keir’s posh pen, then puts it down again. ‘Because Chastity was in a funky mood, too.’

Now I see where this is going. ‘You’ve been to work?’

‘I had another gig elsewhere, but I popped into the studio to chat. She’s not herself lately. Seems she’s got a problem. Actually, she has a few, but at least one of her issues she refuses to admit to herself.’

‘Yeah?’ I watch her carefully as she rearranges things on my desk without once looking at me. ‘You make her sound like a handful.’

‘The kind you like, you mean.’

‘What’s the deal, then?’ I ask. I’m not touching her assumption. That’s between me and Chastity.

‘I can’t tell you about it.’ Eyes lowered, she shakes her head. ‘She told me in confidence.’

‘Then why are you telling me, P?’

Her brow furrows for the briefest moment before she seems to push the thought away. ‘I suppose because I think you’re the only one to solve it. Them?’

‘What kind of problems are we talking about here?’

‘The kind you’ll probably have to worm out of her.’

‘Sounds like a lot of effort,’ I respond mildly, rubbing a finger along my eyebrow. ‘A problem she doesn’t want to share. A problem I’m gonna have to work for. I dunno, you’re not selling it to me.’

‘Well,’ she begins. ‘I think it’s like this; sometimes, you just need someone to give you a hug. For them to pat your back and tell you everything will be okay. And sometimes you need that hug to turn into dirty sex.’

‘Am I interrupting something?’ My head whips around to the sound of Keir’s voice. Standing in the doorway, he looks far from impressed. In fact, he looks pretty pissed.

‘Keep your kilt on,’ his wife says. ‘I was just talking to Flynn here about Chas.’

‘Fuck’s sake,’ he grumbles under his breath. ‘You’ll gi’ the man a mangina!’

‘A man-what?’

‘We’re blokes. We don’t talk about problems—about that kind of stuff.’

‘Really?’ she says, sliding off the edge of my desk. ‘So you didn’t need a little push when it came to me?’

‘Aye, but not from the likes of him,’ he says, pointing in my direction.

‘Thanks, fucker,’ I say on a chuckle. Coinage chinks on glass next to my ear.

‘You said a bad word,’ Sorcha sings. ‘Pay up.’

‘Sorry, Sorch.’ I slide my wallet from my back pocket. ‘I forgot you were around. Sorry for starting that, too.’ With a five-pound note, I point in the direction of the bickering pair.

‘Don’t worry, Flynn,’ she replies in an air of long suffering. ‘They never argue long. Besides,’ she adds, watching the pair with ease. ‘When they’re friends again, they go upstairs to apologise in private, and I get to eat a big bowl of ice cream while watching whatever I want on TV.’

‘Cool.’ My reply sounds sort of strangled, but what the fuck else is there to say?

‘Do you know what they’re doing up there when they become friends again?’

Oh shit. I shake my head quickly because this is a job way above my paygrade. ‘No idea,’ I answer quickly.

‘Hmm,’ she says still studying the pair. ‘I’m pretty sure that’s when they have s-e-x.’