Tick Tock (Michael Bennett 4)

“This vacay is starting to suck. Big time,” Seamus said.

Chapter 35

LATER THAT NIGHT, I sat on the porch swing, having pulled guard duty. I had a plastic cup of cheap red wine in one hand and Brian’s Louisville Slugger in the other. Summer of Love, part two, this was not.

“Hark, who goes there?” I said as Mary Catherine came up the stairs, home from her art class. She was wearing tight jeans with a jazzy leopard-print tank and looked amazing.

“We’re arming ourselves? It’s that bad, huh?” Mary Catherine said as she shrugged off her laptop bag and sat her long legs down beside me.

I poured my nanny a glass of Malbec.

“Worse,” I said, handing it to her.

“Are they all asleep?”

“At least pretending to be,” I said. “All except the big one.”

“Brian?”

“No, Father Pain-in-the-Ass. He went out for a few jars, quote unquote, to soothe his troubled mind. Even the saints are hitting the suds tonight,” I said, clinking plastic cups.

“Are you any closer to catching the bomber guy?” she asked, kicking off her flats. “Because the people in my class are completely bonkers. Half of them didn’t even show up for tonight’s test. They told the professor they’re too afraid to ride the trains.”

“Smart kids,” I said. “You migh

t want to follow their example. If the color code thing were still in place, we’d be looking at orange, dark orange.”

“I’m a big girl, Mike. I know my way around the city now. I can take care of me own self.”

“I know that, but if something happens to you, who’s going to take care of me?” I said.

We swung back and forth for a while, talking and having more wine. She told me some funny stories about her summer vacations with her big family when she was a kid back in Tipperary. Even after the day I’d had, I was actually starting to relax.

I don’t remember who started kissing whom. For a while we held each other, just listening to the sound of the surf two blocks away. The waves were incredibly choppy and loud, making a relentless pounding noise. The first hurricane of the season was heading up the East Coast from Florida, I remembered I’d heard on the radio.

That’s when I remembered something else. The hurricane wasn’t the only thing coming up to New York.

Why had I told Emily Parker to come again? I thought as Mary Catherine undid the buttons on my shirt. Because she was a competent law enforcement expert? Even I knew that was bull. Emily was cute, and I liked her. But Mary Catherine was cute as well, and I liked her, too.

One thing led to another, and after a bit I found my hand under the back of Mary’s shirt. Mary suddenly pulled back and sat up.

“Talk about dark orange,” she said.

She was right. We both knew we were on the threshold of something either wonderful or terrible. Neither one of us knew what to do about it.

“What now?” Mary said.

“You tell me.”

“We’re so Irish, Michael.”

“Well, technically, I’m Irish-American,” I said, pulling her in again and kissing her sweet hot mouth.

“Eh-hem,” someone yelled.

I don’t know who jumped higher, me or Mary. There was a jangle of chains as we almost ripped the porch swing off its moorings.

Seamus came up the steps, a smile from ear to ear.