Chapter Eight
SHANNON
Fifteen months ago
It wasn’t easy leaving Montauk.
We stayed in bed until Monday morning turned into afternoon and then evening, and though we’d planned to catch an early ferry, we agreed a later one was equally good.
I never revisited Will’s mention of November, and now, standing on the ferry with his chest against my back and his arms locked around my waist, I found myself in the awkward position of wanting to talk.
But also, I didn’t.
“Stop it,” Will growled against my hair. “You’re stressing. It happens when you think. Just chill the fuck out.”
“How does the government trust you with top secret information when your answer to is everything is ‘chill the fuck out’? Is there anything you take seriously?”
“Mmhmm. And I can take a mission seriously but find a way to be relaxed when I’m on the water with a pretty girl who happens to be rubbing her ass against my cock. Worrying doesn’t solve anything. Look at the ocean. Be calm.” He bent and pressed his lips below my ear. “And I didn’t tell you to stop rubbing all over me.”
I wanted it to be that easy—be calm—but it was never that easy for me.
We were quiet when the ferry docked in New London, but our embraces were tighter, our touches were firmer, as if we were trying to leave marks on each other. Proof this happened.
Traffic was heavy following the holiday weekend, and it only clogged my thoughts with reminders of all the work I hadn’t accomplish these past few days.
“I see you’re busy freaking the fuck out despite my direct orders to the contrary,” Will said when the city came into view. “Still worried about getting those trousers dry cleaned?”
I yanked his hand away from its resting place on my knee. “Why are you such an asshole?”
“Mostly because it annoys you,” he said. His hand moved back to my knee, and it stayed firm there.
“Can’t believe I wasted an entire weekend with you,” I said to myself, crossing my arms.
“You did, but I’m sure you forgot some of it,” he said. “You blacked out a couple of times. My cock is talented like that.”
“Right, if you call coming within fourteen seconds a talent.”
“I do, Shannon. I really do,” he said. “Those fourteen seconds are why you’re walking with a limp today, right? And why you groan every time you sit down?”
“Don’t you have some guns to polish or a tomahawk to sharpen?”
“Yes to both, but first,” he said, pulling into my garage. “The second weekend in November. I’ll figure out where.”
I started to argue but Will pressed his fingers to my mouth and cupped his hand on the back of my neck. “Yeah, I know, I’m gonna choke on your dick, and I’ll enjoy it, too. And you…you will be seeing me in November.” He met my eyes, pausing, and slipped his thumb between my lips. “Now let’s go upstairs and get you on your knees where you belong.”
*
“It is bizarre to be doing this on a Tuesday,” I said, settling into my seat at the attic conference room table.
Neutral. I was aiming for neutral this morning. No one was going to notice me wincing as I sat—Will’s parting gift was fucking me hard enough to leave my ladybits throbbing his name—and no one was going to notice that I was slowly coming down from the wild rollercoaster of this weekend if I kept it locked on neutral.
“It would be less bizarre if you were on time,” Patrick muttered.
“I’m five minutes late. Does that warrant a debate?” I asked. “Or are we going to start the meeting?”
“All right, people. Shannon’s here, so we can start.”
“Thank you, Patrick,” I said, rolling my eyes. Bickering was expected; for this crew, it was the definition of neutral. I glanced at Matt, Sam, Andy, and Riley, ready to turn the attention away from me and onto them. “How was everyone’s long weekends?”
“We went to a seafood festival in New Hampshire,” Andy said, nodding toward Patrick.
I loved them together. It shocked the shit out of me when I realized they didn’t hate each other, and now, whenever they talked about all their foodie endeavors or weekends spent geeking out over Harry Potter, I wanted to coo all over their dorky cuteness. I wanted them to have a cute, dorky wedding, and loads of cute, dorky babies, too.
“You went to a seafood festival?” Riley asked.
“He ate the fish,” Andy said, jerking her thumb at Patrick. “I drank the beer.”
They exchanged a quick high-five before he said, “I was bartending down in Rhody. Newport kicks ass on long weekends.”
“Are we not paying you enough?” Patrick asked.
“I was filling in for a buddy, and I just like it,” Riley shrugged. “But if you’re looking to unload some cash, I won’t stop you.”
An instant messenger window opened on my screen.
Patrick: Are we paying him enough
Shannon: Yes
Patrick: You’re sure? His shirt has a hole in the armpit and he’s not wearing socks.
Shannon: I’m sure.
Shannon: That’s his look. It’s RISD chic.
Patrick: In other news – Sam has a black eye.
Shannon: Either a chick decked him (probably deserved) or he got it stumbling around drunk.
Shannon: Or, a chick decked him because he was waving his dick around while drunk
Patrick: That’s more like it
Patrick: This kid is going to send me to an early grave
Shannon: Have you seen my white hairs?
We’d started messaging in meetings over the summer. It started with me pinging him a link to a property auction, and snowballed from there. Finding time to discuss all the business matters that Patrick and I handled without the involvement of the group was challenging, and it was nearly impossible to get time to plan agendas and collaborate on our approach to strategic issues. This was the best alternative, even if it meant we were essentially carrying on a side conversation through the entire meeting.
“And what about you, Sammy?” I asked.
I glanced at him over the lid of my laptop, and sipped my coffee. I sent Tom an instant message to get me another because I knew one hit of espresso wasn’t going to get me through. All told, I probably caught less than three hours of sleep last night. I woke up alone—I expected that part; Will was supposed to be in Virginia by noon—and totally fucking overwhelmed.
I didn’t want to have feelings for this guy. Desire and attraction were fine, but that was where it ended. I wasn’t interested in the pang of sadness that came with an empty bed, or the urge to snap a snarky comment in his direction because he never hesitated to fire back. I wasn’t interested in any of that.
We’d had sex, it was good, and it was over.
Maybe we’d have more sex, but…we weren’t a thing. We were an arrangement of sorts, and feelings weren’t coming along for the ride.
But they were.
“My weekend was sensational, Shannon,” Sam said. He was glaring at me, and any hope of him forgetting about the appointment I missed with him on Friday was lost. “I went to six different music festivals in four states, got drunk at the Feast of St. Anthony, passed out in Cambridge, and almost died in a goddamn elevator crash. Where the fuck were you on Friday and why the fuck weren’t you answering your phone?”
The table fell silent, and eventually Riley said, “Did you get to the Thomas Point Beach Bluegrass show? I heard that was good this year.”
Patrick: WTF?
Patrick: Is this real?
Patrick: Regardless of whether it’s real…I’ve said it before, I’m saying it again: he needs regular appointments with that psychiatrist, the one who helped him with the OCD shit.
Shannon: Yes, because that will go over so well.
Shannon: Why don’t YOU have that convo with him?
“Is that a metaphor for something? Or are you talking about an actual elevator?” Patrick asked.
“Yeah. What do you mean, you almost died?” Matt said.
“The power went out in the Back Bay, and I was trapped in an elevator at the Comm Ave. property for eight hours,” Sam hissed.
Sam’s words landed like a fist to the gut. The one weekend I convinced myself I could sneak away was the same weekend the world had to implode.
Patrick: There must be more to this story because this sounds ridiculous
Patrick: Sam doesn’t go to music festivals. He must have gotten into RISD’s special brownies again.
Patrick: I’m almost fully convinced this entire story is a hallucination.
Patrick: And you were supposed to meet him there? What happened?
“The same elevator that slammed into the basement of that building?” Matt asked. “The one I read about, with the massive system failure compounded by the outage?”
“Same fucking one,” Sam said, his eyes locked on me. “So I’d love to know, Shannon. How was your weekend?”
I could almost hear Will’s voice telling me that my brothers were codependent children, and Sam’s insistence that I offer up an explanation worthy of abandoning him only confirmed it.
“Did you go somewhere?” Patrick shifted in his seat, staring at me. “You didn’t mention anything…I thought you were staying in town.”
“That’s because I don’t need you to approve my weekend plans, Patrick,” I said. “I don’t have to tell you where I’m going, or what I’m doing, or who I’m with.”
Okay, my attempts at neutral were not working out such that I was now sliding into screechy bitch territory.
Patrick: Was that really necessary?
Shannon: Quiet down over there.
Patrick: What? I thought we agreed we weren’t throwing down in meetings anymore
Patrick: United front? No fighting in front of the kids?
Shannon: Oh right, right, I forgot about that when you made my weekend plans a topic of this status meeting
Patrick: If you’re going dark for a weekend, prep me for that. I’ll support you but don’t send me in blind
Shannon: Noted.
Patrick: So…? Where’d you go?
Shannon: Away
Patrick: …and?
Shannon: I was getting back to neutral
“But it would be good if you tell me, so I don’t wait around at a property and get stuck in a fucking elevator,” Sam said.
“Jesus Christ, Sam, I’m sorry! I lost track of things, okay? I’m sorry.” I set my coffee cup down and took a deep breath. “I went away with some friends, and I forgot about the appointment at Comm Ave., and—”
“The only person you spend time with who isn’t presently accounted for in this room is my wife,” Matt said, and I was ready to fling my computer at his head. It was lovely hearing about my hollow, anti-social existence at such an early hour. “And she was with me, on the Cape.”
Sam turned to Matt. “Do you ever get tired of saying it with that sanctimonious tone? My wife?”
He shot Sam a smug grin. “Never.”
Shannon: Either you rein Juggernaut in or I will
Patrick: Ignore Matt. He’s just being a shit stirrer
Patrick: But the runt is off his fucking rocker this morning. He might actually want a pound of flesh for ditching him
Shannon: If he wants a pound of flesh, he’ll need to bite off my dick to get it
Patrick: There are times when you really scare me. This would be one of them.
“But you’re okay, yeah?” Riley asked. He pointed to the bruise on Sam’s face. “Is this from the elevator or blacking out in Cambridge?”
“Elevator,” Sam said.
“Why didn’t you call one of us?” Andy asked him, angling her pen at Riley, Patrick, and Matt.
Sam shrugged, and shifted his focus to his coffee cup. It was odd, considering the past ten minutes were loaded with a dramatic retelling of his weekend. I expected the tirade to continue, for the rest of the group to come under attack as well, but he smiled to himself, like there was a secret he was keeping safe.
Patrick: There is so much more to this story than we’re getting
Shannon: Yep
Shannon: But he’s mad that no one noticed he went missing for a weekend and I blew him off, and he’s withholding the details
Patrick: Yep
Shannon: We don’t have time to pander to this. Move on.
“All right,” Patrick murmured. “Let’s get back on track here. Sam’s alive. Shannon can’t manage her appointments. Moving on.”
It was Patrick’s favorite long-running quip: I could manage everything except my own schedule, and that was amusing because a thread of truth ran through it. I’d dedicated years to coordinating everyone else and forcing them to use a consistent, office-wide calendar system, and it was perfect for the nature of their work. Mine, not so much. Few were the days when I wasn’t overscheduled to the point of neurosis, but I made it work. I was everywhere, all the time, but something was always falling off.
While the boys talked properties, I paged through my calendar until I came to November. Thinking about another weekend with Will was reckless. I was tempting fate as far as ridiculous incidents involving Sam were concerned, and Lauren would hear about this soon enough, which was a bundle of awkward if I’d ever seen one.
And I had an event that weekend. Or, more precisely, Sam had an event that weekend. He was arguably one of the most talented, sought-after young architects in the region, and he was in constant demand for speaking engagements and conference appearances, not to mention the awards that came his way. But he hated it. He did everything to wiggle out of attending, and when he did, it was because I was dragging him.
Maybe this was a good time to change that routine.
“Sam…” I searched my notebook for the Architecture Society of New England’s invitation. I couldn’t remember whether it was black tie, and if I was bailing on him, I was at least going to remind him to get his tux pressed. “I can’t go with you to the ASNE event in November.”
Patrick: When you said ‘move on’ I thought that meant we were moving on
Patrick: Didn’t realize we’d be kicking hornets’ nests…
Shannon: Shut up
“And where will you be?” Sam asked.
I murmured, “It’s personal. If you need me to find someone to go and hold your hand, I will, but don’t pout over it.”
Patrick: I needed him to work on a flow issue with the Castavechia restoration
Patrick: Now he’s going to spend the day being petulant
Patrick: Well done.
Sam snapped his laptop shut and stood, and his chair crashed into the brick wall at his back. “You’re being a dick, Shannon,” he called.
We listened as he stormed down the stairs, and the table was silent until Riley burst out laughing. “He’s such a fucked-up diva,” Riley said.
Matt leaned back in his chair, one arm crossed over his chest. “What are we doing about this? I think it’s obvious that he’s not doing well, and I don’t think we can sit here and watch it get worse.”
“We can’t drop him off at a psychiatric hospital. As much as I’d like to,” Patrick added under his breath. “Until he’s willing to admit he needs some help, all we can do is keep the boat from rocking.” He glanced over at me. “And not blow off appointments with him.”
“He shouldn’t have flipped out like that,” Riley said. “Sam blows off everyone else and gets away with it because he’s a tortured soul and creative genius. That elevator was coming down regardless of whether Shannon was in it with him. I want to hear more about the rest of his weekend. It sounded like a great time, and it’s fucking weird because he doesn’t do shit like that.”
“Exactly,” Patrick said.
“Go right ahead,” I said. “Report back.”
“I think it’s my turn to check on him,” Matt grumbled. “I’m giving him five minutes to get over his shit.”
“No, no,” I sighed. “I’ll deal with him. He wants to be pissed at me, so let him be pissed at me. And,” I continued, tapping Patrick’s arm, “I’m going to talk to him about that project. The restoration and remodel for the musician’s house. If that doesn’t blow his skirt up, I don’t know what will.”
“All right,” Patrick said, nodding, “everyone get back to work.”
There was a time when Sam was my best friend. We were inseparable, and when we weren’t together, we called and texted constantly. There wasn’t a thought that drifted through his mind that he didn’t share with me. He appointed himself my chief stylist and online dating coordinator, and was my primary brunch-and-open-house companion. He even invited himself to pedicures with Lauren and me on occasion.
But then Angus died last winter, and though it should have alleviated the pressure on Sam, it made everything worse. He pulled back, curling in on himself, and pushed everyone away by small degrees. He cut me off slowly, and at first, I didn’t think much of his absence at pedicure night or the shortage of text messages bitching about temperamental clients who deigned to challenge his ideas. Drinking and meaningless sex were his solutions to everything, and he plastered on a smirk that dared anyone to question his happiness. There were days like today when I was certain he wanted someone to pick a fight with him just so he could unleash some of the emotions building up inside him.
The thing about Sam was that he only understood through experience. No one could tell him how to grapple with his issues; he had to live them. And I was starting to suspect he needed to feel the cold stone of rock bottom before he’d be able to take a step forward.
That scared the shit out of me. Sam always required so much more. He was born premature, and struggled from his first breath. The universe wasn’t kind to him, hitting him with diabetes, immature lungs, digestive issues, plus the challenge of arriving too early, too small. Nearly four months passed between his birth and his first day outside the hospital. For the first years of his life, he spent nearly as much time in the hospital as he did at home, always fighting off infections or learning to control blood sugar spikes or evaluating his slow growth.
I was almost four when he was born. I was always helping my mother with something. Folding clothes. Cleaning up the playroom. Mixing bottles. Rubbing Sam’s belly when he whimpered in pain. My mother relied on me, and when she died, I was the only one who could care for my siblings, Sam in particular.
His rock bottom was far worse than that of Patrick or Matt. Those two could drink until they pissed pure whiskey and live to tell about it. That was why we were all hovering around Sam: we knew the fall was coming, and we knew it wouldn’t be a smooth landing.
Instead of parking myself at his side, I gave him time to cool off. I sent Tom to Sam’s favorite cold-pressed juice shop in Kendall Square to grab one of those horrid blends he and Andy enjoyed so much. He’d be hungry at some point, and then I’d deal with him.
*
Sam was hunched over his desk, deep in his design when I stopped at his door later in the afternoon. The world quieted when he was working, and it wasn’t until I knocked on the door that he looked up and glanced at me over the frame of his glasses. “I come bearing gifts,” I said, raw pistachios and an old-fashioned glass bottle of swamp water in hand. “You have to be hungry.”
Sam stole a glimpse at the clock and nodded, beckoning me inside.
“I wanted to apologize about Friday. There’s nothing else I can say other than I’m sorry.” I set the bottle down, and dropped into a chair angled in front of his desk. “Carrots, honey, lemon, and celery. Andy said you were loving all things carrot.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I was going to stop for lunch soon.”
At four in the fucking afternoon?
“You can’t be skipping meals. I’m going to have Tom start placing a lunch order for you every day. You’re going to get yourself sick,” I said, biting back a surge of frustration. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he enjoyed the extreme bouts of hypoglycemia that followed his irregular eating.
“Save the nutrition lecture for another day, Shannon.”
Pick your battles. Don’t show up to every fight that sends an invitation. Lunch isn’t the hill to die on today.
“Fine.” I flattened my hands on my skirt and took a breath. “I’m sorry about the ASNE event. It’s the only event I’ll miss this season.”
“Actually, skip them all,” he said around a mouthful of pistachios. “I’m sure you have better things to do.”
I plucked a strand of hair from my hem and swallowed a grimace. If only Will was here to observe this exchange, he’d understand what I meant about family businesses involving much more than business. “Is this about Angus?”
“What? No. No, this has nothing to do with him, and if it’s the same to you, I’d rather we not continue bringing him up.”
“That sounds like it’s definitely about Angus,” I said.
“Shan, stop trying to psychoanalyze everything I say. I have a shit ton of designs to finish today, and I need to get my ass on the treadmill tonight, and then I’m going out. Thank you for lunch, but unless there’s something else, we’re finished with this conversation.”
I wasn’t leaving until he ate every one of those nuts, and the swamp water, too. “There’s one more thing. Something I hope will make you happy.”
My eye caught the framed snapshot from his desk, the one from the Boston Marathon finish line two years ago. I was in the middle, with Patrick and Matt on one side, and Riley and Sam on the other. Arms linked over shoulders, we leaned together, smiling. It was hard to process all the things that had changed since then.
Riley finished school and moved back from Rhode Island.
Matt met Lauren, and now they were married.
Angus died.
We hired Andy, and Patrick fell in love with her.
“Am I supposed to guess, or are you planning to say something?” he asked.
And I was here, as always, holding it together.
“It’s a good thing you’re cute, Sam. Otherwise I’d slap you upside the head for this shitty attitude.” I shook my head and flipped open my tablet. “I renewed your driver’s license for you. It will show up in a week or two. Oh, and I adjusted the automatic order for your replacement parts. When I went through the supplies at your place last week, it seemed like you were running low on infusion sets and insulin cartridges, but had enough skin preps and test strips for an eternity. Just let me know if you want more or less, or something different.”
Sam brushed the pistachio shells from his desk and glared at me, as if me keeping his life in order was a huge inconvenience to him. “Where were you this weekend?”
“I went away with friends.”
Just going to study my split ends while the runt attempts to interrogate me. No big deal.
“Where?” he asked.
It’s sweet how he’s allowed to ask questions and I’m not. So sweet. “Nantucket. I took the ferry.”
Sam arched an eyebrow. “Who did you go with? What did you do?”
He wants a story; I’ll give him a story. “Simone and Danielle, and it was a regular girls’ weekend. Beach, brunch, booze. What else would we do?”
And he knew it was a story. I kept no secrets about disinterest in girls’ weekends, or my shortage of affection for my law school friends. The honest communication train ran both directions, and if he was locking me out right now, I was doing the same.
We’ll see how you like it.
“Why aren’t you sunburned?”
“Sunscreen,” I said with a shrug.
“Why don’t you cut the shit,” he said. “What is the purpose of this exercise, Shan? Does it not seem ridiculous that you’re keeping something from me? From all of us? And you do notice that you’re making a bigger deal out of it by lying about going to Nantucket, right?”
Kind of like how it’s ridiculous that you don’t talk to me anymore? Or you only take care of yourself when someone forces you?
“Since you have a busy afternoon, I’d rather get down to the reason I came in here,” I said. “We were approached last month by a real estate agent who was representing a very private client. Since the agent was absurdly vague about her client’s interests, Patrick and I decided not to engage.”
He blinked, annoyed with my deflection. “Okay.”
“The agent came back, saying the client really, really wanted to work with us. It seems the client saw the Boston Globe spread on the future of green restoration.” I motioned to where the freshly framed newspaper feature showcasing one of his projects leaned against the wall. Another reminder to get Tom on that project right away. “And the client insisted on working with you.”
“I don’t have much free time, Shannon,” he said. “And no offense, but I don’t have a lot of patience for dealing with agents.”
I bit back a quip about being the agent who put him through college. I needed him to take this project. It was the type of all-encompassing restoration that he adored. It would give him the meaning and focus he required to gain his footing again, and if it worked out the way I was hoping, I could put another pair of eyes on him at all times.
“Well, it gets better.” I toggled through a few screens on my tablet, then turned it toward Sam. “Turns out the client is Eddie Turlan, from The Vials.” I pointed to a picture of the punk band popular in the eighties.
I toggled to the street view map, and showed Sam the red brick house. Once he saw the gorgeous façade, I knew he’d fall in love. “They want you to design it, and they offered to go well beyond your standard fees.” I swiped to another screen, and handed the tablet to Sam. “Here’s the most recent communication from the agent.”
He read the email, his eyes widening when he saw the budget, and handed the tablet back to me. “I still don’t have time.”
“You could make time if Riley moved off Matt’s projects and started working with you.” Sam’s expression turned pained, and I held up my hand. Riley was the resident fuck-up, and he’d spent the past year and a half bouncing between Patrick and Matt’s projects as he refined his skills. Neither of them had any success in training him to consistently zip his pants. “I think you’ve argued with me enough today. Just listen. He’s come a long, long way in the past eight months, and you have to admit that.”
Sam grumbled out a sigh and I was taking that as agreement.
“I was also thinking this could be a phenomenal opportunity to partner with the roof garden girl,” I said, angling for the last slice of Sam’s resistance. I didn’t know Magnolia Santillian, but Sam hadn’t stopped raving about her work since the spring. For reasons I had yet to comprehend, Patrick hated roof gardens and shut down every one of Sam’s attempts at weaving them into his designs. “If there’s ever been a property that needs a roof garden, it’s this one.”
He reached for the tablet again. He wouldn’t believe it until checking out the roof himself. After all, I was just the lawyer. I didn’t know anything about architecture or preservation or design. “What’s the timeline with all this?” he asked.
“They’d like to know as soon as possible. They close on the property in forty-five days or so, and want to start construction immediately. I promised them we’d follow up by Friday.”
“I’ll call Magnolia and find out whether she has any flexibility in her schedule,” he said. “I need Riley freed up in the next couple of weeks, and I want the blueprints pulled from City Hall by noon tomorrow. Get your errand boy, Tom, on that one.”
Miracles worked, mountains moved.
“Yes! I knew you’d be all over this. There’s just one more thing.” He groaned and flopped back in his chair as I held out my hands. “Actually, two things. One: why can’t we just call her Roof Garden Girl? I really prefer that to Magnolia. I mean, please. Who names a child Magnolia? It requires her to be a landscape architect, or own a flower shop. And two: there’s a strict non-disclosure agreement attached to this client. You can’t go tweeting about working on Eddie Turlan’s house.”
“I don’t tweet, and you’ll need to talk to Magnolia about that. I don’t think we know her well enough to give her a nickname yet.”
“But you’d like to know her a little better, right?” I asked, lifting my shoulders. “You’d like to get on a nickname basis.”
“You’re reading into this rather far, Shannon.”
I didn’t know much about Magnolia beyond the stray details Sam shared, but I couldn’t help wondering whether he needed someone as creative and strange as him. Anyone who designed roof gardens for a living had to fit the bill.
I paused at the door, and glanced back at him. “I really do want you to be happy, Sam. We all know the past year has been difficult for you, but we can’t help if you don’t let us.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m trying.”
With a nod, I returned to my office. I had nineteen urgent items on my list, and it didn’t matter how tired or sore I was, I wasn’t leaving until I had this place under control.
That was the price of disappearing, and I’d pay it again.