Nya

I paced the small office Patrick had left me in, feeling nervous, anxious, and, most of all, worried about him.

There was complete silence from the room that he had gone into with his brothers, but through the second door I could hear the muffled sounds of the bar, and it sounded like everything had gone back to normal.

How such a thing was possible when that monstrous man lurked, I didn’t understand. I also didn’t understand how someone like him could have anything at all to do with Patrick and his brothers.

It was strange, especially since I knew what Patrick did, and suspected that all of them were involved. They didn’t seem evil, bad, not at all like their father.

His words, his demeanor had been vile, but not particularly of note. Sadly, people who liked to denigrate others to make themselves feel better were more than common.

So his words, his tone, hadn’t mattered, but the pure malevolence that had dripped from him, the scorn with which he had spoken, the complete lack of anything resembling human emotion in his gaze was what lingered with me.

Even the worst parents sometimes had something, gave some semblance of warmth, human emotion.

There had been none with him.

He seemed to enjoy putting them down, watching them squirm, and seemed to be confident in the fact that they would do nothing about it.

That had worried me. Hearing his words had angered me, and they weren’t directed at me, or my mother, and, though the Murphys, to a man, had kept their stoic expressions in place, I had sensed the anger, would have been blind or stupid not to.

And besides, even if I hadn’t seen it, or rather hadn’t been able to deduce that despite their lack of outward displays, I had been sitting so close to Patrick that I felt when his body stiffened. The sensation had reminded me of something like surprise, but it wasn’t that. I could feel the way he held himself rigid, seemed to be fighting back the urge to respond.

A few days ago, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it. It was so subtle, so almost imperceptible, that I might have missed it.

But just as this time with him had given him insight into me, it had also given me insight into him. And I could sense how he was holding himself back, could see it in his rigid posture, even see it in his blank expression.

I’d wanted to comfort him more than anything, knew that I had no power to do so.

So, driven by emotion I couldn’t stop, I’d reached for him, covered his hand with mine.

He hadn’t moved, hadn’t given any indication that he noticed me touching him at all. But I had done it, and then quickly pulled my hand away.

Now, I was left with the question of why.

I did have this awful habit of getting attached, but I reminded myself that this was a consequence of circumstances beyond my control. It wasn’t a situation where I should seek to comfort him, wasn’t a circumstance where I was even sure that I could.

But the impulse, the need, to do so had been irresistible.

I told myself it was because he’d been so nice, so attentive. But that didn’t matter. I couldn’t let myself forget what this was.

What he was.

Seeing his father should have made that clear. And even as much as I felt for him for having that horrific man as a father, it shouldn’t change anything between us.

It shouldn’t have, but it did. I’d guessed that he’d had a less than ideal childhood, but having met his father, having seen what he’d had to overcome only made me care for him that much more. Because despite where he’d come from, what he did, Patrick was still kind in his way, loved his brothers, cared enough to keep me from harm.

The desire for Patrick was something I could deny about as much as I could voluntarily stop my breath. But my reaction tonight was something different, something deeper. I wanted to shield him from that awfulness, wanted to protect him more than I’d ever wanted to protect anyone else, including Jade.

Which made no sense at all.

Patrick didn’t need my protection. Only hours ago he had, yet again, promised to protect me, a promise I knew he would keep. There was nothing I could offer him, least of all protection.

Even knowing that, I still wanted to be there for him, still wanted to do whatever I could to make this better for him, even though I had no idea how.

I sighed and then sat, sinking into the small, surprisingly comfortable couch.

Let the realization I had been fighting to ignore come over me.

I cared about Patrick. Deeply.

How fucked up was that?

He was directly responsible for me being shot at. Had more or less kidnapped me. Was responsible for the fact that going into my own home was something I wouldn’t dare risk.

And despite all that, all that he had cost me, I cared.

It would be so easy to say it was the sex, the delicious body that I couldn’t get enough of, but I knew that wasn’t true.

It was Patrick, the man, direct to the point of rude, stubborn, funny, so much more than I even knew. He was the one I cared about.

It was official. The world had gone insane and taken me with it.

I laughed, the sound coming out somewhat hysterical, but entirely appropriate given the circumstances.

I quickly went quiet when there was a soft knock at the door and then it opened. I wasn’t at all surprised when Grace walked in.

She seemed so timid, even now didn’t really look at me, but after what I’d seen earlier, I knew there was more to her than was clear at first sight. The tension between Patrick, his brothers, and his father had been so thick that it seemed to choke off the air in the room.

But Grace, who was clearly perceptive enough to notice that the situation was escalating had stepped in and calmly diffused it. She’d willingly allowed herself to be the center of that man’s attention and she’d handled it with skill.

Admirable, and it proved that she was appropriately named and that there was much more to her than her air of fragility let on.

“I hope you don’t mind…” she whispered, looking down, though I knew she was talking to me.

I followed her gaze to the small tray she carried. “Of course not,” I said.

I felt a little odd inviting her in. Unless Sean had a thing for pink, this office, with its small rose-colored love seat, white lacquered desk, and two small red-tinted glass vases filled with fresh flowers belonged to her, so it should have been her inviting me in and not the other way around.

She closed the door behind her and then walked toward me.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said shyly. “Just a drink and a snack.” She froze, her eyes still glued to the floor, her shoulders hunched tight. “It’s stupid. I can go.”

Just that quickly she made a move to turn and I jumped up to stop her. “No. Please wait. I’d appreciate a snack very much,” I said.

She paused, looked at me warily, and then walked toward me again and sat the tray on the table beside me. “Thank you,” I said.

I caught her gaze and smiled but she looked away quickly, and after, I turned to the tray and took in the small loaf of brown bread, spotted the rich amber of my whiskey, and a glass of water.

“Thank you,” I repeated, surprisingly touched by the gesture.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “Just a drink and some bread. Sean loves my brown bread. Or he says he does anyway.”

She stopped speaking quickly, then seemed to pull back. “Anyway,” she said, all the whimsy that had been in her voice when she had said Sean’s name gone. “It’s just some bread and butter. You can have it. Or not.”

She again moved toward the door, but I moved to stop her. “Wait. Why don’t you sit with me?” I asked.

She looked at me like I had two heads. “I…I guess,” she said.

“You don’t have to. Only if you want to. But…it would be nice to have some company,” I said.

She looked at me for a moment, then gave me the sweetest smile.

“Okay.”

She approached me cautiously, then sat in the chair that was the farthest in the room from me.

When she made no move to speak, I reached for the whiskey and tossed it down, then looked at the bread. My stomach was twisted in knots, and I thought there was no way I’d ever be able to eat, but it would be rude to insult my new friend.

So, I dutifully sliced the bread, and applied a liberal amount of the soft butter to it. The butter melted instantly.

“It’s so warm,” I observed.

She nodded. “Just out of the oven.”

I took a bite of the bread, initially intending to simply take a small nibble. But, the warm inside, rich butter, along with the perfectly flaking crust was amazing.

I swallowed, took another bite.

“This is fantastic!”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“So I guess you’re the ‘bakery’ part of Boiler Room Irish Pub?” I said.

She nodded curtly. “It’s nothing really. Pretzels, bread. You know, bar food.”

“Well, this is really delicious,” I said.

“Thank you.”

Then we both went silent, her seeming unwilling to say anything else and me at a loss of what to say.

“I’m Nya,” I said.

“I heard,” she replied.

“You’re Grace?” I asked.

“Yeah. I’m sorry,” she said, a smile that I could see was of embarrassment covering her face. “I can bake but I’m not so good at conversation…”

I took a sip of water, and then sat with Grace, neither of us speaking. I wondered what Patrick was doing, and then wondered what his relationship with Grace was.

Immediately chided myself for the thought. Patrick didn’t belong to me, and besides, I’d seen the way Grace looked at Sean. If I were a betting woman, I’d say that even if Patrick wanted her, he didn’t have a chance.

“It was really nice of you to bring this,” I said, wanting to open a conversation and figuring this was the best way.

“It’s nothing,” she said, shaking her head.

“No, it’s not nothing. It’s really considerate,” I countered.

Grace paused a moment but then shrugged. “It’s no problem. Besides, you’re a friend of Patrick’s, so you’re a friend of mine.”

“Really?” I asked.

She nodded quickly, emphatically. “You’re important to him,” she said.

Her eyes widened, and I thought she would clamp her hand over her mouth. She didn’t but I could see her unease at speaking.

“I’m not, but what makes you say that?” I asked.

She considered for a moment, and I thought she would say nothing. But, after a breath, two, she spoke. “He’s never brought anyone in here. None of them have. Except Sean,” she said.

There was a wealth of meaning in that, but I didn’t push. Instead, I said, “He’s never brought anyone to Boiler Room?”

“No, and never back here. Even I wasn’t allowed for a couple of years,” she said.

“Don’t you work here?” I asked.

She nodded. “Sure, but I didn’t mind.”

“Why not?”

She smiled. “Because it’s a small thing. I mean, Patrick’s a good man. If he asks something, I trust him enough to know he has a reason,” she said.

There’d been a time when I would have denied that, tried to fight her contention that Patrick was good.

But I didn’t have a leg to stand on.

Everything I’d seen of him proved to me that he was, and I wasn’t sure that I could process it all. Patrick had never told me the details of his business, and I’d been too cowardly to ask. But I knew enough to know that it wasn’t pretty, that he couldn’t be pretty and survive this long.

And yet…

If I ignored what I should have believed, what reason dictated I believe, and paid attention to what I’d experienced with him, what I’d felt, I couldn’t reach any other conclusion.

I sank against the sofa, my mind churning. There had to be some way to reconcile this. Maybe if I knew more about Patrick, asked Grace more questions, I could make it make sense. I looked at her, desperate to know more.

From the look on her face, she wouldn’t tell me more, and I didn’t want to put her position at risk.

Instead, we sat for a few more minutes in silence. I jumped when I heard the lock on the door that Patrick and the others had gone into turn and then I stood.

Grace did the same, and we both watched the door expectantly as it opened.

When Patrick emerged I wanted to run to him, but instead I simply stayed where I was, watched him, doing my best not to stare but also searching his face for any signs of distress.

He, Michael, Sean, and Declan looked grim. The jovial times of earlier were definitely gone.

“Thanks for keeping her company, Grace,” Patrick said.

“No problem,” she responded. “I’ll see you guys later. It was nice to meet you, Nya.”

Grace nodded at each of the men, though she didn’t look at Declan, and left.

Patrick looked at me. “Are you ready to leave?” he asked.

I nodded, not wanting to speak when I heard the tightness in his voice, a sound I realized I didn’t like one bit. I much preferred the carefree Patrick, even the smug Patrick. Hearing that tightness in his voice told me that something had gotten to him, and I couldn’t stand the thought of him hurting.

We left without another word.

As we had been before, we were treated to a parade of good-byes, and though Patrick responded, it wasn’t with nearly the same enthusiasm as he’d had earlier.

I searched the bar, looking for any signs of Aengus. He seemed to be gone, but his presence was still felt. The entire bar seemed different, a little less lively, happy, a little more tense. It was a shame. The fun I’d had here seemed almost like a different world, but as much as I regretted the loss of those carefree moments, that loss was small compared to what was actually confronting me.

Being at Patrick’s house had put me in a bubble, one that made the danger we both still faced seem remote. Patrick’s father had brought that danger back full force. And worse, he had shown that there was a deep, perhaps deadly rift between father and sons. I couldn’t help but wonder at the source of that rift, knew that Patrick would never tell me.

I hated the way it seemed that everything had changed in an instant.

And even more, I hated the change in Patrick.

He still had his arm around my shoulder as he had before, but there was a tension there that hadn’t been there before. He still seemed attentive, aware of everything around him, but there was also distance.

He felt like a stranger, something that he hadn’t been since the moment he sat down and handed me my whiskey.

Just as he had said, the SUV was exactly where he had left it, didn’t appear to be touched.

He unlocked the door and waited until I sat before he closed it, and as he walked around I looked at the surroundings, saw the broken, collapsed buildings in a different way.

Some were bad, but I could see other things, small patches of grass on what looked to be well-tended homes.

Patrick got into the car and drove off without speaking.

I realized I didn’t like that, hated the tension that was present now.

“Did you grow up in this neighborhood?” I asked.

“No,” came his response.

“Oh. I see. You seem to be well-known there,” I said.

“Seem to be,” he responded.

He had no inflection in his voice and seemed incredibly disinterested. Perhaps I should take the hint, but then again, I was almost as stubborn as him.

“That was a nice place. Your brother’s?”

“Yeah. Like I said before,” he said.

“He seems to run it well. It’s popular.”

“Look, Nya,” he said, his voice coming out tense and frustrated. “I’m in no mood to talk. So be quiet.”

“What are you gonna do instead? Cry?” I tossed the words out, and I instantly regretted them.

I remembered the way his father had spoken to him, how he seemed to be fighting back anger. Seemed to be doing the same thing now.

“What did you just say to me?” he asked.

His voice was soft, a breath of a whisper, lethal.

“I said, ‘What are you going to do? Cry?’”

I repeated the words, wondering if maybe I should have said something else, tried to cover. I had no doubt he had heard, knew that asking me to repeat myself had been my chance to take the words back.

One I passed up.

Call it stupidity, which I certainly would. Maybe pride. But for some reason I couldn’t make myself lie to him, even when it was smart. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t explain myself though.

“You remember saying that to me?” I asked.

I waited, and then waited some more, because Patrick didn’t respond.

“Well you may not. But I do. You told me that I was being stupid, that I needed to cut my dad some slack.”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Nya,” Patrick said.

It felt like the world was shifting with the intensity of his anger. I heard it in his voice, saw it in his body, the way he held the wheel.

I’d been on dangerous ground before, but this was something different, another level than I’d treaded in before. And I wasn’t smart enough to stop myself.

“No. I don’t. But it doesn’t matter,” I said.

I apparently had no sense of self-preservation left, so why not push him? Patrick had, all things considered, been exceedingly kind to me, almost gentle, which I sensed didn’t come naturally to him. And here I was pushing, going into something I knew nothing about, practically daring him to respond. I just couldn’t stop myself. Didn’t have the sense to. Because he had given me a gift, one I was intent on returning, even if I was doing so in the absolutely wrong way.

I’d thought a lot about what Patrick had said about my family, had realized how right he had been. I hoped he’d see the same from me.

“Nya, drop it. Just stop,” he said.

That was as much warning as I was going to get, so I swallowed, considered. Then pushed on.

“No.”

He looked at me, held my gaze long enough to make me nervous, a reasonable response considering the fact we were still barreling down the road.

He finally looked away but said, “No?”

“Yes,” I replied. “No. Now answer my question. Are you going to cry now?”

I thought his rage would send the roof of the SUV flying off. Every instinct, every shred of self-preservation that remained told me to stop, but I didn’t listen.

Instead I looked at Patrick, waiting, willing to stand up to him despite how insane doing so might be.

He kept his eyes on the road, his face unreadable, but I could sense his turmoil, feel it as acutely as I did my own. Wanted to take it away.

I reached for him, tried to ignore the sting of rejection when he flinched at my touch. I didn’t immediately take my hand away, though. I squeezed his knee like he had mine before, let my hand linger for just a moment before I pulled away.

The tension only increased when Patrick broke that silence.

“Do you have any idea what he is? What he did?”

“I know it was nothing good. But he has no power over you. Or won’t if you don’t let him,” I said.

He clinched his jaw down so tight, I thought he might break his teeth. But he didn’t yell, didn’t push me out of the car like I thought he might want to. Not exactly what I’d call a good sign, but it was enough for me to push on.

“Patrick, I’m not trying to pry. I’m just giving you some advice like you did me,” I said.

“You think your bullshit problems with your father compare?” he said, his voice edged, mean.

He reminded me of his father, but I wouldn’t tell him that. Ever. Instead, I answered, even though the question had been intended to push me away.

“No, but it’s the opposite side of the same coin,” I said as calmly as I could.

He snorted, the sound bitter, angry, and in its own odd way, my cue to continue.

“My parents, for all their flaws, love me. It seems your father does not love you.”

“Understatement,” he said, ending on a disgusted almost laugh.

“But,” I said, continuing, “the principle is the same.”

“And what is this principle?” he asked, probably an attempt to move me off this subject, though it should have been clear that I would not be dissuaded.

“Love or not, family or not, he doesn’t define you. Not if you don’t let him,” I said.

Patrick snorted, pulled his lips back into a snarl. But I could see that my words did not leave him unaffected, especially when he tightened his grip on the wheel.

“He likes to bully people, push them around. But I see how small he is. How weak,” I said.

He looked at me sharply, shook his head. “Don’t underestimate him, Nya,” he said.

“I’m not. I’m telling you not to underestimate yourself,” I said.

“What the fuck does that mean?” he said.

“He’s afraid of you,” I replied.

“He should be,” Patrick said.

I ignored that, continued on with the point that I for some reason felt compelled to make. “He’s afraid of you,” I repeated. “So why would you give someone so weak, so petty, such power over you?”

“You think I give him power?” Patrick said, his expression and tone of voice telling me what he thought of that idea.

“When he walked in, you changed, all of you did,” I said.

“Yeah, because it was taking everything inside of me not to snap his fucking neck,” he said through clenched teeth.

I didn’t doubt that he could have, that, under the right circumstances, he would have. Whatever had happened between them went deep, deep enough that it tested Patrick’s self-control, something that hours ago seemed impossible. Now that I had seen it, I just wanted to remind Patrick that it didn’t have to be that way.

“You’re only proving my point,” I said.

“There’s a point in all this?” he replied.

I ignored that too, pressed on. “You obviously hate him. More than likely with good reason. Don’t let him make you do things you don’t want to. Feel things you don’t want to,” I said.

“Fuck me,” Patrick said. “Are we talking about my fucking feelings?”

The incredulity that laced his voice made it impossible for me not to smile, but I let the humor go quickly, refocused on the main question.

“I’m just making an observation. I walked around for years, my whole life really, determined that I would never be like my father, or my mother. That I’d be better than them. I measured everything I did against who I thought they were. Who I never wanted to be.”

“It got you away from them,” he said.

“It got me nothing,” I countered. “Nothing but years of never measuring up. I shudder to think of all those years I wasted, all that time and emotion, that hurt.”

“What’s your point, Nya?” he said.

“My point is I was only hurting myself. I spent all this time and effort trying not to be like them. They were off living their lives. Happy with each other.”

I went quiet then, allowed myself to think again of something that had been so present in my mind these last days.

“All that time and energy,” I said, trailing off before beginning again. “All that time and energy and they were happy.”

I looked at Patrick then, my gaze on him steady.

“And my parents love me, worship the ground I walk on really. But me hurting myself, suffering, trying to outrun them, didn’t affect them one bit. What do you think you doing so does to your father?”

I was silent then, but I didn’t have anything else to say.

I had no clue what his father had done to him, and I didn’t want to know. But I did know this. Whatever he had done, he had four sons who seemed to be good men, one whom I trusted with my life. I didn’t want to see any of them, especially Patrick, waste a single second on scum like him.

I kept my eyes on Patrick, but he didn’t utter a single sound for the rest of the ride. As he pulled in toward his house, I again felt that tension that had been there before, but it wasn’t about fear of being shot at or boredom or trying to reconcile these feelings that I knew I shouldn’t have but did anyway.

No, it was all about Patrick, about what I had said to him and what it meant.

He didn’t look at me as he got out of the car, or as he circled and opened the passenger door.

Didn’t look at me as he keyed in his alarm code, didn’t crack a joke or anything. He just led me in, and then immediately went to his study.

I had known that saying what I had was out of line, that I was treading in areas where I had no business. Somehow his reaction was even worse than I had suspected.

I supposed I could deal with rage, but distance, space, the wall between us that seemed to be there now, where it hadn’t been before, was even worse.

Because, despite my common sense, despite everything that I knew, I realized then that I cared about Patrick more than I wanted to, more than I should. I was worried that I had now pushed him away.

I stared at the study door, willing it to open, willing Patrick to come out.

He didn’t.