Sparrow

I stretched, straightening my spine, wishing we weren’t in the middle of the traffic jam from hell. I had a feeling we weren’t going to make it to the restaurant even if he made reservations for nine o’clock.

I changed the subject. “We’re going to miss our reservation with this traffic. Maybe we should just forget dinner.” The less time together, the better.

“I don’t need reservations. I own the place. They’ll serve us at four in the morning if that’s what I feel like.”

Just like that, a gap opened up in the traffic. He sped through a light, and my heart picked up speed, along with the car. We were going to visit Rouge Bis, the restaurant I so desperately wanted to work at. This brought new possibilities and hence new hopefulness to my mood. I perked up in my seat, trying to keep my smile to myself.

Back to plan A.

Back to playing nice.

Back to building bridges.

I decided calling him by his first name would be a good start.

“Can you tell me a little more about why you chose to marry me, Troy?” I stared straight ahead to avoid the sting if he decided to award me with another snarky comment.

He was navigating the streets like a fire-spitting monster was on our heels, violating every driving law known to man, and inspiring some new laws in the process.

“When you were nine and I was nineteen…” He paused, letting the gravity of our age difference sink in. “There was a wedding. Paddy and Shona Rowan, remember them? She was his third wife, I think.”

I swallowed hard, nodding. One of the only mobster weddings Pops was ever invited to, and, boy, was he proud. The groom was a man who dabbled in real estate and drug smuggling after the FBI threw his friends in jail. He didn’t mind socializing with peasants like my dad.

And on his wedding day, I found out why.

Paddy Rowan was high on my shit list, one of the first two people up there, along with the man who sat right next to me. The only difference was that I hated Troy and wanted him out of my life, but Paddy? I wanted Paddy dead.

“I remember,” I said, pain already tickling the pit of my stomach. “‘Saving All My Love For You.’”

“Excuse me?” he said, sounding amused.

“The name of the song we…you know.” My face was on fire. I was embarrassed to admit that I remembered. “We danced to it. “Saving All My Love For You” by Whitney Houston.”

“Yeah, sure.” He shrugged a shoulder. “Anyway, my family shared a table with yours, much to everyone’s surprise.”

Just in case I’d forgotten just how low-class I was.

“But,” he continued, “Paddy was always a clueless prick. Anyway, you sat across from me. I didn’t pay much attention to you, because you were nine, and that was too f*cked up even by my standards.” He shook his head, almost cringing. “I remember you were the cutest, politest little thing. You asked my mother tons of questions. At one point you asked her if her teeth were real. Then you tried to convince me to dance with you.”

“You agreed.” Memories slammed into me. I dug my fingernails into my palms, pressing my fists on my thighs, hoping he wouldn’t notice. I tried to focus on the part of the day he was talking about, the sweet memory of my dance with the much older boy, a memory I’d somehow completely erased until now.

“Yeah.” He raised one eyebrow. “You were hell-bent on dancing a slow dance.” He suppressed a chuckle. “Even then, Red, I was your first.”

My fists tightened and I continued to stare out the window. It wasn’t embarrassment that he was my first slow dance that shook me to the core. It was what happened after that dance that made it one of the worst days in my life. So bad, in fact, that it made my mother leaving me seem like child’s play.

I cleared my throat, suddenly realizing how exposed I felt. “The line to the valet is two-blocks long. Pull over and I’ll let someone know we’re here.”

“I own the place.” Brennan—no, make that Troy—laughed, delighted by my unintended joke. “Watch.”

He slammed the Maserati into park in the middle of the busy street, slid out and threw his keys to a uniformed valet who was leaning against a wall in the alley and smoking a cigarette. The valet, who was about my age, caught the keys in his palm and nodded furiously at Troy, dropping the cigarette like it was a ticking bomb and jogging to the Maserati’s driver-side door.

As another traffic jam formed behind my husband’s vehicle, I began to suspect he was the sole reason for bad traffic in Boston. It was entirely possible that if it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t need the T.

“Smoke again during your shift and you’re fired. Scratch my car and you’re dead, get it?” Troy barked at the guy with his keys.

He sauntered over to my side of the car and opened the door. I stepped out, accepting his hand and allowing him to guide me by the waist as he ushered me into the glitzy restaurant. Two other restaurant staff already held the door open for us. Faint elevator music wafted through the doors, along with the smell of mouth-watering food and pale, sandy light.

“You’re not nine anymore,” he said gruffly as we waltzed in.

“And thank God for that,” I muttered, my thoughts traveling back to Paddy Rowan.

Block it, I ordered myself, just like I always did. Just like I blocked everything else.