Chapter Twenty-Three
Hennessy
While I didn’t mind the idea of riding with him to Jameson’s, now I’m faced with the awkwardness of the ride home with Bryan after our earlier car conversation. Not to mention the very spirited luncheon discussion. Between Win and Jax, I don’t think the poor guy got a mouthful of food down.
“You must think my entire family is nuts,” I say at last, breaking an especially long stretch of silence.
“I think every family is nuts,” he assures me with a grin and then seems to think of something. “He’s not all that bad, you know. Win, that is.”
I take a long deep breath.
“I know it must seem that way to you. But there’s a lot of water under that particular bridge.”
“He loves his son,” Bryan points out.
“He does,” I agree. “But he could love his wife more and the rest of the women in Minnesota a little bit less.”
It takes him a second to get my meaning.
“Oh. So he’s…fooling around on her?”
“Yeah, afraid so. And he’s not very discreet about it. But you know what the worst thing is? I believe he really does love her…just not enough to be faithful to her. And, my God…” I pause, my voice catching. “It just kills her. It hurts her more than anything he could ever possibly do to her. He’s promised to stop. They’ve gone to therapy, even, but he just can’t seem to help himself.”
Bryan nods slowly as he processes what I’ve told him, glancing out the passenger’s side window as I navigate the back roads toward Mayhem. After what feels like a long time, he speaks again.
“You know, Hennessy, men cheat or sleep around for different reasons. Some like the thrill. Some are hooked on the sex. Others just don’t give a damn about their wives. Still others feel justified because they don’t think they’re getting what they need at home. And then there are guys who screw around again and again and again because it makes them feel something—even if it’s just for an hour. They feel some approximation of love…”
“But she does love him,” I object but he holds up his hand to stop me.
“I know, that’s obvious. But maybe he doesn’t love himself. Or maybe he doesn’t feel loved by his own family.”
There’s something in Bryan’s tone that makes me think there’s something in Bryan’s heart that relates to this story.
“Do you feel that way, Bryan?” I ask softly.
“I do—I did. For a long time. There were a lot of women who meant nothing. A lot of flings and short-term relationships that went south as soon as I realized there was still something missing inside me. You know what it’s like?” he asks.
“What?”
“It’s like being hungry. And there’s a perfectly good, healthy meal in front of you, but you keep choosing the Snickers and a can of Coke, thinking they’ll satisfy this deep, nagging hunger inside of you. It works for a little while, maybe gives you a little rush, but eventually you’re gonna slump. And big time. When that intense sugar-high wears off, you’re twice as hungry as you were, and now you’re disgusted with yourself to boot.”
I hate to give Win the benefit of the doubt. About anything. But I can’t deny that what Bryan is saying makes some sense. There really is something about my brother-in-law that conveys a love-hate thing. And not with Jameson, either. Is it possible that he’s got something going on? Depression or self-esteem issues?
No. Can’t be. He’s an egomaniac.
“And before you write him off as a narcissist, I don’t think that’s the case.”
Not for the first time, I wonder if I’ve actually expressed my thought out loud.
“Um, why is that?” I ask, a little spooked by his perceptiveness.
“A narcissist doesn’t care about his kid like that. A narcissist doesn’t care that his father disapproves of him. A narcissist doesn’t try to protect his family—”
“And just how is he protecting his family?” I demand.
Bryan shoots me a sidelong glance.
“Don’t you get it? All that stuff about me and what I’m doing here, that was his lame way of looking out for you.”
“Oh, now you’re just being ridiculous.”
I purse my lips, clutch the steering wheel harder, and look straight forward, refusing to even entertain this asinine theory.
“You sure about that? He was worried about me taking advantage of you. He wanted to make sure you got the most money possible. He wanted to know why I was hanging around so long. None of that was about him. It was about you…and your sisters. Trust me on this, Hennessy, guys know guys. Do I think Win Clarke Jr. is an ass? Absolutely. Do I think he wants to see anything bad happen to you? Not for a second. He just doesn’t know how to go about being an ass and being a good guy at the same time. It’s like Superman and Clark Kent. They can’t occupy the same space at the same time.”
Superman? Seriously? Well, now I have to entertain this asinine theory because he’s made it so…so…asinine!
“Dude, you’re just…that’s…that’s just wrong,” I sputter.
“No, don’t you see?” He’s really getting into this. “Bad Win acts like a jerk because he doesn’t like himself for whatever reason. Good Win feels like a jerk and doesn’t like himself because Bad Win acts like a jerk. Vicious cycle.”
“Circle,” I correct.
“I think it can be either.”
“You hungry?” I ask.
“Oh God, yeah. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough once everything started to hit the fan.”
I snicker.
“You mean once the potatoes hit your head.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
…
I lead him around to the apartment’s side entrance, which goes directly upstairs.
“Look at you with your super-secret staircase,” he comments.
“Couldn’t be all that secret, seeing as how you were waiting here for me this morning,” I remind him.
“Nah, I thought it was just a back way out of the pub. I didn’t realize it led up here. In fact, I didn’t realize there was an actual apartment up here. It just shows as unfinished space on the blueprints on file with the town.”
“This is where I grew up. For a while, anyway,” I explain as we climb the stairs and I unlock the door at the top. When we step inside, the apartment is bathed in late afternoon sunlight.
“Hey, do you mind if I change in your bathroom?” he asks, patting the gym bag he’s brought up with him from the car. “Don’t ask me how, but I think I’ve got to get out of this suit. There may be potatoes mushed down into my pockets.”
“Of course, just down the hall. First door on the left.”
While he’s gone, I ring the intercom that links the apartment kitchen with the pub kitchen.
“Kitchen,” Donovan’s voice comes crackling up at me from below.
“Hey, Don, it’s Hennessy. Are you busy? I’m wondering if you’ve got a shepherd’s pie down there that I can get my hands on.”
“You betcha, boss. It’s on its way,” he assures me.
“Perfect. Thanks, Don.” I hang up and take a deep breath, scanning the small kitchen around me. I’m a little alarmed to find I’ve got butterflies in my stomach. First date butterflies. What? No… Oh yeah. Having Bryan Truitt in this apartment, alone, is a little…thrilling. And exciting. And scary.
Definitely first date butterflies. But this isn’t even a real date!
Right?
Shaking off my confusion and ignoring the fluttering in my tummy, I start to set the table, pulling down dishes from the cupboard and lifting silverware from the drawer. I find a bottle of Merlot in the cabinet above the fridge, and I rummage around for wineglasses. The good wineglasses. I rinse them and set them on the table, then stand back and take in my handiwork.
“Nice,” I murmur, just as Bryan sticks his head back into the kitchen.
“Hey, the carpentry work in this place is amazing! I hope you don’t mind, I just took a peek around. My God, the built-in dressers and bookcases are beautiful.”
“My pops made those,” I inform him proudly. “You said there was only unfinished space on the blueprints? That’s because he bought it like that, and then he and my mom put in the apartment themselves.”
His dark brows arch up in surprise. I like surprised on him. It’s a nice change of pace from smug and all-knowing.
“Seriously? I mean, that’s the work of a craftsman, not a hobbyist.”
“Yeah, well, things were pretty tight when I was very young, and if my parents wanted something, they had to do it themselves. Even the pub. That used to be a restaurant downstairs. They gutted it and turned it into what it is today. I was a munchkin then. There are pictures of me asleep in my bassinet on the floor while my father is hammering a two-by-four not five feet away. I guess I just got used to the noise.” I laugh. “But all that woodwork down there was Pops. He built that bar by hand.”
Bryan looks impressed.
“Jeez, he had some talent, your father.”
“He did,” I agree, pulling a corkscrew from a drawer and handing it to him. “Would you mind opening that bottle on the counter for me? I think I hear our supper coming up the stairs.”
“What, like room service? Well, that’s a nice little perk.”
I open the door to the back staircase just in time to greet Donovan, who has a large, stainless steel tray balanced on his shoulder.
“Dinner is served,” he quips as I step aside so he can enter the kitchen.
“Bryan, have you met Donovan Douglas? He’s our cook. Well, I guess ‘chef’ is more flattering.” I chuckle and elbow his ribs gently.
“We haven’t officially met, but I’m a big fan. Man, that chili you made for the cook-off would’ve been my favorite if I’d been allowed to vote for you,” Bryan gushes, and Donovan smiles proudly.
“Thanks, man, I appreciate that. I hope you like shepherd’s pie, too. That’s my specialty,” he announces proudly as he sets the deep pie dish on the table atop a folded bar towel that doubles as a trivet.
“Hey, this thing is mammoth,” I say, poking at the pie. “It’s like the size of a wagon wheel! Do you want to take a break and join us, Donovan?”
But he’s already turning back toward the stairs. “Sorry, Hen, I can’t. The Sunday night darts league has their first match tonight, and Walker’s already freaking out. I’ve got to go back down there and talk her off the ledge.”
“Oh…did you want me to go down and help out?” I offer, hoping he’ll decline. He does.
“Nah, we got it covered. But I’ll ring you up here if we get into the weeds.”
“Fair enough,” I agree, closing the door behind him. “Please, sit,” I gesture to the table and pull out my own chair. Bryan joins me with a freshly poured glass of Merlot, and I take a long, slow sip.
“What was that about?” Bryan asks as I scoop a steaming heap of the pie onto his plate. “Your sister doesn’t strike me as one to lose her cool.”
“She doesn’t, really. But for some reason, Walker’s got a lot of self-doubt. Especially when it comes to the pub. She’s loved being there since she could turn the doorknob and manage the stairs herself. And of course, Pops loved that about her. He was grooming her to be his Mini Me. You’d never know it to look at her, but Walker took his death harder than all of us. They were really close. And now, it’s like she’s afraid she’ll let him down.”
He nods his understanding.
“Yeah, I so get that.”
“You and your dad?” I venture slowly. But he shakes his head.
“No, actually, me and Helen,” he clarifies and takes a sip of wine.
I feel my chest tighten.
“Helen is your…girlfriend?”
I’m totally unprepared for the shower of red wine that sprays across the table.
“Holy crap, Bryan!” I squeal and laugh at the same time. “What the hell was that?”
But he’s choking. And laughing. And crying. It takes almost a full minute for him to be able to speak again. I grab some paper towels.
“She’s my assistant,” he rasps. “And she bears a striking resemblance to one of those funny troll dolls. No way—I think I’d join Father Romance at the seminary before I’d get in a romantic relationship with Helen!”
“Okay, okay,” I laugh, sopping up the red wine. “If there’s not attraction between you, then what’s the deal with her?”
“What I meant is that she’s really helped me to get myself together. Before her, there was a string of gorgeous, clueless women parading through my office. Helen got me off the late-night party circuit and broke me out of the hung-over workday habit. She made sure I looked presentable and acted like a professional.” He pauses and looks down at his lap for a few seconds before finally raising his dark brown eyes to mine. They’re filled with a depth of sincerity and emotion that I haven’t seen from him before.
“I–I don’t think I realized how far down the rabbit hole I’d gone until she grabbed me by my stained necktie and dragged me out. And, believe me, I fought her every step of the way, too. I must’ve fired that woman a dozen times. But she just kept coming back. Kept telling me I had to get the hell out of my own way. And she was right.”
I find that I’ve been hanging on his every word, leaning across the table on my elbows, chin resting on the propped-up palm of my right hand. I draw a deep breath and pull myself back into the here and now. I like this guy. In fact, I like him more and more with every passing hour that we’re together. But I have to remember…
“Bryan, what’s your end game? What happens when all this is over—one way or the other?” I blurt. I don’t know where I get the nerve to ask, but now that the question is out there, I need to hear the answer.
His brows knit as he considers his reply. A couple of times he starts to speak but stops himself. At last, he commits to a thought.
“My endgame is always the same, Hennessy: to get what I want. I’ve never lied to anyone about that.”
“So you’ve said.”
“Thing is… While the goal hasn’t changed, the parameters of it have.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” I ask with some irritation. “I don’t like doubletalk, Bryan. I get entirely too much of it in my line of work, so just spit it out. Please.”
“It means,” he begins, standing up and moving around the table until he’s directly in front of my chair, “that I’m not sure what it is I want anymore. I came here looking for one thing, and now I’ve found something else entirely.”
I look up at him. His strong, square jaw has just a hint of stubble, and his normally perfect hair is a little tousled. Bryan Truitt looks handsome and respectable in his expensive suits and fancy shoes. But Bryan Truitt looks smoking hot in jeans and a button-down shirt. He offers me his hand, and for some inexplicable reason, I take it.
We’re only inches apart when he puts his hands on my shoulders, keeping those eyes, the color of molten chocolate, trained on mine.
“Do you know what you want, Hennessy?” he asks me, his voice barely more than a rumble in his chest.
I should say that I want to go back to my apartment and my job. I should say that I’m ready to be a responsible adult again, doing the work I’ve been trained to do. I should say that he has absolutely no effect on me, so he should just shuffle on back to his life in L.A.
But I can’t say any of those things. So I just shake my head and brace for the worst. I’m certain that he’s going to tease me, or worse, mock me. But he doesn’t. Bryan Truitt gives me the sweetest, softest smile I think I’ve ever seen in my life. And then, he puts a big, warm hand to my cheek. I find myself leaning into it as if by instinct. He keeps it there as he leans down, his face connecting to mine.
At first, the kiss is a whisper against my lips, a caress as light as a feather. But after a few moments, it turns into something darker and all consuming. I wrap my arms under his shoulders so that my palms are resting against his back, pulling him into me.
My God, it’s been so long…
For the briefest of seconds, I flash on my neighbor friend. The one with the benefits. Except, suddenly I’m not seeing as much benefit to that relationship as I did a month ago. Suddenly, convenient and low-key and simple are looking a whole lot less appealing. Suddenly, I realize that what I really want—what I’m really longing for—is a messy, complicated relationship that spills over into every aspect of my life. I want a man and a love that consume me.
The second I feel his hands on my waist, all thoughts of any other man…of every other man…just fall away.
And then there is only him.