Down on Luck

Chapter Nine

Maggie

I wanted him so bad I could taste it. He had done such a good job of playing my Prince Charming that I was pretty much in awe of him. I knew somewhere in the more cynical part of my mind that it wasn’t real – not the way that it appeared to all the snobs at the party, of course – but there was something there.

An undeniable, underlying chemistry that made me want to tear my clothes off and jump on him.

An urge that I hadn’t had in a long while.

“You didn’t have to kiss me. To make a point, I mean.”’

“It wasn’t ta make a point. Not entirely, anyway.”

“Oh, well, I’m glad we’re on the same page there. It’s awful but I felt kind of good seeing that look on Kenny’s face. He can be such an asshole.”

“T’at why ye broke up with him?”

“The root of it, yeah. I mean that’s what let him do what he did.”

“How long was it that he was doing what he did?” Gavin asked, making me giggle with his phrasing of it.

I never thought I’d be able to laugh at what happened, yet here I was, chuckling about the absurdity of it all, thanks to Gavin.

“I don’t know. But my best guess, now that I had to face reality, is that he’d been fucking my little sister behind my back since she turned legal.”

“Raquel is only 18?”

“I know, she looks older, right?”

“Aye.”

“It’s mostly the boobs. They started coming in when she was ten. They got to be the size they are by age fourteen. She’s never been short of male attention. I tried to protect her as much as I could. Keep her from doing anything too stupid. As far as I know, she was a virgin until she was legal, so that’s something, I guess. But maybe she was up to way more than she was letting on. Perhaps she was just pretending to be good while really being very bad. It all hit me as a bit more than a little shock, of course, when I came home to get my notebook and found him pounding her in my bed.”

“Aye, I canna see how t’at might be disconcertin’,” Gavin agreed.

“I haven’t been the same since, honestly. I had to get a job as a personal assistant. I would much rather be following my passion of writing, which I was doing pretty well at, for a while, but it never really paid all the bills and I haven’t been able to write the same since it happened.”

“I t’ink I get t’at.”

“You do?”

“Sure, da no money bit. Not da boyfriend bangin’ me baby sister bit. For starters, I only have brothers. Five o’ ‘em actually.”

“Oh, your poor mother!”

“I know, right? And its not like she had any help, what with me Da pretty much acting like a seventh child for her. I grew up wit’ beans on toast being a Sunday feast and actin’ isn’t always a lucrative gig. Especially for a newbie like me. I really only started at it in earnest this year. I had to wait tables when I first got here, after turnin’ out be too tall or too Irish for most parts, except for da ones t’at called for a tall Irishman. What I like ta t’ink of as da Neeson niche. T’ough Liam and I are from very different parts. I finally got lucky and nailed a pretty big part on a T.V. show. Da days I’ve already worked have paid more than I had my first six months here. I’m on a contract, so t’ey’ll be lots more work besides, when we’re don’ filmin’ this season.”

“What’s the show about?”

“A rag-tag group of friends struggling t’rough life in Millennial America wit’ an Urban Fantasy twist. Da promotion calls it Girls meets Being Human. I play Finn O’Hanlon, the whacky, lovable Irish one who is also secretly a very tall leprechaun. I t’ink t’ey’re tryin’ ta ‘subvert expectations’, like havin’ Arya kill da night king. Maybe I shoula flashed my moderate wealth more. Made Kenny really jealous.”

“Honestly, I’ve forgotten all about Kenny, he’s really not worth my time,” I said, and meant it, surprisingly. “He exploited me when I was too young to know better, to know what he was like, and now he’s doing the same to Raquel. They deserve each other, as far as I’m concerned.”

We drove in silence the rest of the way back to my apartment. Parking on the street, he got out and came around to my side, opening my door for me an escorting me out of the passenger side. He made me feel like a princess. I wanted so much for him to kiss me again and I also wanted him to do a heck of a lot more after that, if I was honest with myself.