“Billy barely even knows Daisy.”
“And I’m not saying that I think she is necessarily the person that he’s going to end up with. But I’d like him to have the chance, and I don’t think that’s going to happen if you’re around. It’s his birthday soon, you know.”
“So what—this is your early birthday present to him? A new girlfriend?”
“Come on, Ian. Stop fooling yourself. We both know that she doesn’t really mean anything to you.”
I leaned back in the chair and rubbed my hand across the lower part of my face. It seemed beyond surreal that I was sitting here with Seamus McAllister, who was asking me to stop seeing Daisy so she could get together with his son instead. Was I dreaming? It wouldn’t seem to be so. This was really happening, but why the hell did Seamus think I’d ever agree to something like this?
The thing was, up until Daisy, I probably would have. If this conversation were happening, say, five months ago, and Seamus was asking me to stop fucking Annie because Billy was interested in her, I probably would have resisted a little—because who really wants to be told what to do?—but really, I would have had no problem in letting him have her. Because what we were doing was just for fun, it wasn’t serious, and it would eventually end. I knew this, even if she didn’t. With Daisy, though, it was different.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that,” I said.
“I heard something interesting about you,” Seamus said, completely ignoring what I just said. “I heard that every Wednesday, you go visit your step-father, Pete, at that god-awful nursing home he’s spending the rest of his days in since that second stroke did him in.”
“Correct,” I said, wondering who had told him that.
“A lot of people probably think that’s very kind, very compassionate of you to continue to see him.”
I shrugged. “I don’t really care what other people think.”
“You know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think you’re doing it to spite him. I don’t think there’s a single compassionate bone in your body, at least when it comes to that man.”
I held Seamus’s gaze, wondering what he was trying to get at. “You’re entitled to think whatever you want. I’m not going to change your mind. You’re not really the sort of person who can be swayed by what others want, anyway.”
“Most people probably don’t know how bad it was between the two of you,” he said. “Did you ever wonder why he suddenly started leaving you alone? That would be the summer of your sophomore year. Do you remember that?”
“Of course I do. It was because he finally realized I was big enough that I could fight back.” I was still kind of scrawny that summer, but I’d shot up in height, and I was doing what I could to build muscle. That summer—and every year after that—Pete had left me alone. Barely even looked at me. I had felt as though I’d achieved some sort of victory.
“You might’ve stood more of a chance with him than when you were in sixth grade,” Seamus said, “but I remember you at fifteen. You weren’t much. He still would’ve been able to lay you flat on your ass. But he didn’t.”
Seamus kept his eyes on me, watching, waiting. I tried to keep my face impassive; I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, as it slowly dawned on me what he was saying.
“So what did you do?” I asked. “Tell him you were going to kill him if he didn’t leave me alone?”
“Oh, we weren’t going to kill him,” Seamus said. “But we were at least going to match him up with someone so it would’ve been a more fair fight. And he backed down immediately. It probably didn’t seem that way to you at the time, but Pete wasn’t a hard guy, and he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of anything violent. One of those guys that could dish it out but couldn’t take it. And do you know how I knew this was going on? Billy.”
“I see.” I shifted in my seat and leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table. “So now you think I owe you some debt because you did something for me—when I didn’t even realize it—and now you’re calling it in. Is that what this is?”
“If that’s how you want to look at it. Come on, Ian. You know as well as I do that you could get any woman you wanted. Walk out of here and you probably wouldn’t even make it around the block without catching at least three ladies’ eyes. It’s a gift that you were born with. Unfortunately, good looks is one of those impermanent gifts, but no one would argue with the fact that you’ve been taking advantage of this gift while you still have it. So keep on doing what you’ve always done, give my son a chance at this girl he’s so interested in, and everyone will be happy.”
“I won’t be,” I said. “Because she’s not just some girl that I want to use and get rid of. And you do realize she works for me. You know, so I see her pretty much every day.”
“I trust that you’ll be able to find something else to occupy your attention. Or—fire her. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
How did he know all this shit? It was a little disconcerting. Then again, I knew that S
eamus had people all over the city—all over the world, probably. He had connections. He had ways of finding things out.
“What if I refuse?” I asked.
“You won’t,” he said, giving me a level look.
And he was right—I wouldn’t refuse him. I couldn’t. It would be one thing to lose Martin Harris as a client, but it would be another thing altogether to lose Seamus. To lose both would basically be the end of the company, and I had a sneaking feeling that Seamus would have the ability to get Martin to walk if he did. And if I refused, it wouldn’t surprise me if bad things started happening to people that I cared about.