Shay grabbed hold of my shoulder in that fatherly way of his. “We believe that you can take control of your father’s business and do something of your own with it.”
I scowled and shook him off me. “Ew, gross, boring,” I complained. “Why would I do that when I could mould that fiery thing into a proper lady?”
Shay sighed that signature disappointed sigh I’d heard all my life. It was the sigh my father, when he was still alive, sighed when he found me passed out on a floaty in the pool instead of at my university classes. It was the sigh the board of what was now my company sighed when I called to tell them I was “stuck in traffic” yet again and wouldn’t be making the board meeting; they all knew that was code for I did too much coke. It was the sigh women sighed when my butler, Benson, came to escort them from my mansion in the morning. They were all of them disappointed that I wasn’t who they thought I could be—a good son, a good CEO, a good man. By now, I was used to that sigh.
I even developed the perfect counter: a carefree laugh that said loud and clear, keep on dreaming, folks.
“Listen,” I said, neck craning around to catch the eye of a waitress, “I bet I can not only pass her off as part of our world but teach her so well that she’ll snag some rich sucker and actually become a part of our world.”
I winked at the waitress, who nodded at my extended three fingers before disappearing to fill my order. I turned back to Shay and Kane.
“And that’ll prove once and for all what I’ve always known, the truth that we try to hide from ourselves with manners and posh accents.” I paused and looked them each in the eye. “It’s all just a game. And all that matters is how you play.”
Kane and Shay exchanged a doubtful look.
“Well,” I said impatiently, sticking out my hand. “What do you say?”
Shay eyed my hand warily. “What are we betting?”
“One euro,” I said. “Since we’re all scrimping for money.” I wiggled the tips of my fingers like bait on a line. “Come on, what do you have to lose?”
Kane was the first to shake my hand, his eyes locking on mine with a dark flash. “I don’t think you’ll be able to take her to a McDonald’s without her getting booted out of the place,” he said with a devilish grin. “You’re on.”
I turned to Shay. “Well?”
He sighed and shook my hand as well. “I suppose I could afford to lose a euro. Though if anything, I think her manners are going to get worse around you, Ronan.”
The waitress came with the next round of drinks. I threw mine back, draining it in one go.
“Where are you going?” Shay asked as I pushed my chair back with a wretched screech.
I smacked my lips and rubbed my hands together, looking over the heads of the other diners toward the back kitchen door.
“I have to get to work, boys,” I said, grinning down at them. “I mustn’t keep my fair lady waiting.”
Delaney
My boss pinched the bridge of his long, narrow nose as he sighed and sagged against the side of his desk on the brink of collapse from the stacks of invoices, order forms, HR paperwork, and the straw that broke the camel’s back, my lovely-ass notice of immediate termination.
“Look, this can’t exactly come as a surprise, can it, Delaney?” Harold asked wearily. “I mean, I can’t count how many times we’ve talked about your demeanour with the customers.”
I held up a hand in protest. “I did call him ‘sir’. You have to admit that’s progress.”
Harold blinked at me without a trace of humour in his red-rimmed eyes. “Was that before or after you called him ‘asshole’?”
I drummed my fingers against my chin. “Well, umm—”
“Delaney, there’s no way I can keep you on,” Harold interrupted, reaching behind him to grab my termination paperwork. “After all that, there’s just no way.”
He extended the slip to me with his head tucked into his chest. I chewed my lip as I stared at it. I knew what that simple little piece of paper meant: more missed rent payments, emptier kitchen cabinets, louder growls of my stomach. I was teetering dangerously toward the edge of destitution, and that simple little piece of paper felt like a violent shove toward the long fall.
“Maybe if I apologised?” I asked sheepishly, scratching at the back of my neck.
Harold lifted his head just enough to meet my eye. He raised a mildly intrigued eyebrow.
I huffed and shifted from foot to foot under his steady gaze. “You know, maybe if I said I was… that I was… you know.”
“Sorry?” Harold supplied.
I waved my hand at him. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, that.”
Harold tapped the pink slip against his leg and then nodded. “Okay.”
I frowned. “Okay?”
Harold jabbed a finger at me. “Apologise to me and then we’ll go from there,” he said. “Tell me you’re sorry and that you regret what you did to that man and that you were wrong, and maybe we can work something out.”
I licked my lips and pulled myself up straighter. I had a second chance. All I had to do was admit I was wrong. “I…”
All I had to do was say that I shouldn’t have said those things to that ass—customer.
“I, um, I…”
All I had to do was say that he didn’t deserve what I did to him.
“Okay, so, um…”
Harold watched me with a blank face as I stammered and fidgeted with my clammy fingers. I told my mouth to form the words, but nothing was happening. After a minute of trying to force something, anything, out, Harold sighed.
I stared up at the ceiling and then said, “I’ll show myself out then.”
“Yeah.”
Harold nodded and then handed me my termination slip. It weighed nothing and yet it was a rock tied around my ankles. But to have apologised for saying what I said to that asshole would have been a rock tied around my soul, so I took the notice without protest.
At the doorway to the office I paused and glanced back in. “Maybe I could get a recommendation letter?”
Harold didn’t look back at me as he walked around his desk. “Goodbye, Delaney.”
I sighed in defeat and tapped my knuckles against the door frame before stuffing the notice into my pocket and walking down the narrow hallway past the kitchen to the alleyway door. I shoved it open in frustration and it slammed against the brick wall.
I didn’t know where I was going, but I was too mad to admit that this fact terrified me. I tugged angrily at the collar of my shirt. I wanted a drink—fuck, needed a drink—but I had no clue how I was even going to pay for it given that I stupidly returned that ten in a pointless display of protest. I was practically penniless and entirely directionless, like a weathervane spinning and spinning and spinning in a hot wind. I turned toward the yellow glare of the streetlamps on the sidewalk but stopped when someone spoke from the dark shadows across the alleyway.
“I have a few pointers.”
The deep, polished Irish accent seemed to trap me like a mouse between the sharp claws of a cat. The red glow of a cigarette flared like a ruby in the dark, and then a long tendril of smoke came to brush against my neck. I watched as a man waltzed lazily into the dim light. He tapped his cigarette with a long, narrow finger and assessed me with blue eyes unsteady with booze and drugs. The auburn stubble along his jaw was smudged with red lipstick that extended to the crumbled collar of his undone shirt. His hair was tousled as if by bed sheets or by a woman’s fingers or by a week of not showering. He looked like he was just coming off a bender or, I thought strangely, wanting people to think he was just coming off a bender.