Lucky This Isn't Real

While I was in there, I noticed that the bed was unmade. Unable to leave a chore undone, I threw on my clothes and started making it. I had just tucked the last corner when I heard a knock on the front door.

I figured it was Gavin’s housekeeper. He was certainly rich enough to have one, and, being a bachelor, it made sense that he would. I wondered why she didn’t have her own code, but then figured that maybe she had forgotten it.

I grabbed my purse, planning to leave once I let her in, and opened the door. It wasn’t the housekeeper. Instead, a guy who looked an awful lot like Gavin stood in the threshold.

He was a couple years younger than me and had the same MacBride height and coloring. For a second, I thought the kid might be Gavin’s son, but then I did the math, and it seemed very unlikely.

“Hello there,” he said, his Irish accent unmissable.

His eyes didn’t meet mine. They were too busy ogling my tits.

I couldn’t really blame the kid. To a teenage guy like him, I was sure they would be pretty mesmerizing.

I sort of doubted he had seen many like them, at least not in real life, and I wasn’t even wearing a bra. He could no doubt see my nipples pressed up against the thin material of my shirt.

I ignored his innocent staring and tried to get to the matter at hand.

“Where’s Gavin?” he inquired of my boobs.

“He’s not here. May I ask who you are?”

“Eoin,” he said, as if suddenly remembering his manners, and then he looked up at my eyes. “Eoin MacBride. I’m Gavin’s youngest brother.”

“Number six?” I asked.

“Aye. Did he tell ye about me?”

“Kind of. I mean, he said he had five brothers.”

“You’re one up on me then, ‘cause he never told me he had a smokin’ hot girlfriend.”

I blushed a bit at the compliment. No one but Kenny had used those exact words to describe me, and I now suspected he had had an agenda. Eoin had no reason to lie and was clearly speaking the impulsive truth.

Except maybe for the girlfriend bit. I still wasn’t too sure of that one but saw no reason to overcomplicate things.

“I guess not, and thank you, Eoin. My name’s Maggie.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Maggie.”

“What brings you by?” I asked. “Gavin didn’t mention any of his brothers were in L.A. like him.”

“I wasn’t. I-I came all the way from Ireland. I had to. I really need to talk to Gavin, but I think he’s screening my calls. I used the money he sent me to pay for the flight. Our dad is in a bad way.”

“Oh no. What happened?” I asked, my fingertips flying to my lips.

He took a small step back, as if clearly shocked that I didn’t know anything about his father.

“He didn’t tell you?”

“No,” I said, my heart sinking into my stomach.

“Our dad. He’s not well. Kind of brought it on himself with the booze and the smack.”

My jaw dropped.

“The smack? Like heroin?”

Eoin nodded.

“Aye, he’s a lifelong addict. Keeps disappearing and turning up odd places. A gutter, a rooftop, in the forest passed out. It’s gotten to be like a macabre game of Where’s Waldo? Anyway, last time he went on a bender, he OD’d and was dead for ten minutes.”

He paused then, and I could tell what was coming. He put on a brave face, but his chin wobbled, and I knew that Eoin MacBride was about to cry.

“I tried to get him to go into rehab like Gavin suggested last time I talked to him, but he refused and ended up in the hospital. He’s got a real bad blood infection. It’s not looking good. I need to know what to do. Gavin is down as next of kin. The hospital staff won’t listen to me or any of our brothers. We need to decide the next step, and since he’s been ignoring my calls, I decided to come here and talk to him one on one.”

I reached into my purse and got out a fresh tissue, handing it to Eoin, which he took gratefully. I really wanted to give him a hug, but I restrained myself, unsure if he wanted me to.

“Thanks,” he said, blowing his nose noisily.

“He never told me about that,” I said.

He never told me anything.

“I’m not surprised,” Eoin said, pocketing the tissue. “He likes to keep his dark secrets in the past. He’d rather run from them than actually have to face them.”

My stomach somersaulted.

Dark secrets?

“Was he— violent?” I asked, remembering the scars I had seen on Gavin when I was drying him off.

It suddenly dawned on me that I didn’t know the first thing about the man I’d gone to bed with.

“Only when he had to be. You’ve got to understand we’re from a really rough neighborhood in West Belfast. Pretty much every boy over fifteen has at least one scar. It’s considered a sort of rite of passage. Time was it used to be guns and bombs, back when Gavin was a teenager, during the end of The Troubles. We count ourselves kinda lucky that we just gotta put up with the occasional shanking now. Hurts like hellfire, but everyone survives, mostly.”