Caroline nodded. “Maybe you should,” she said reluctantly.
I waited until later that day, and then I texted him. I told him that I wanted to talk, and he said he’d come by because he wasn’t too far from my place. I had thought that he’d refuse altogether, but I took it as a good sign that he seemed willing.
“I know what you did,” I said when he got there. I didn’t bother with any small talk; I wanted him to know that I knew everything that had happened. “I know that Seamus told you to stop seeing me because he wanted me to date his son.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I happened to be down at Failte the other night when Billy was there, for his birthday. And his parents were with him, and the whole story just sort of came out.”
“Oh.”
“Why would you do that?” I asked him. “Why would you stop seeing me all of the sudden, just because he told you to?”
His eyes were downcast, and he seemed to be struggling to come up with the correct thing to say. “I’d like to tell you that it’s something I don’t want to talk about ever, and just leave it at that,” he said. “Which I suppose I could. But I also want to be honest with you, because I think you deserve that.”
“Did he threaten to stop being a client? Isn’t that extortion or something?”
“Seamus obviously cares about his son, and is willing to do some things that maybe other parents wouldn’t,” Ian said. “And no, I don’t want to lose him as a client. But it’s more than that, really. My stepfather used to kick the shit out of me when I was younger. Seamus was the one who eventually put an end to that, which I didn’t realize until recently, when he told me. So in a way, I feel like I owe him this debt, even though I had no idea that I’d incurred it in the first place.”
“But you don’t owe him anything for that,” I said. “That’s ridiculous. Did you put him up to talking to your stepfather? Did you ask him to do it?”
“No.”
“Then you shouldn’t think for a second that it would be something he could use against you.”
“I know. But . . . it’s hard to explain. I just felt like I had to do it, even though it was really the last thing I wanted to do.” He pressed his lips together. “I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel toward you, Daisy. I know that I’ve said that enough times by now you’re probably rolling your eyes, but it’s true. One o
f the things that Pete used to say when he’d be kicking the shit out of me was how no one was ever going to want to be with me, that I was that much of a loser. And I think I kind of ingrained that into my mind.”
He looked so uncomfortable that my heart ached for him. At that moment, he wasn’t the man that could confidently walk into a room and know that he could get with any woman he wanted; I could see him then as he must’ve been when he was a little kid, scared and alone and believing that no one would ever love him.
“Wait a second,” I said, “I thought you loved your step-father. I thought he was really good to you.” An image of Pete, wheelchair-bound, flashed through my mind. It didn’t seem like that person would be capable of the sorts of things that Ian was saying. “Why would you keep on visiting him if he did all these horrible things to you?”
“For that exact reason,” Ian said, addressing his hands. He wouldn’t meet my eye. “He was so awful to me, and made me feel like I was completely powerless for so long, that when it the roles were reversed, and he was the one that couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, I just wanted to rub it in his face that I was still here, living my life, getting to go out and do all the sorts of things that he would never be able to do again.”
“Isn’t that kind of messed up? Sadistic?”
Ian shrugged. “Probably.”
“I didn’t realize he’d done all those things to you.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to. It’s not something that I really like to talk about. But if you want to know the short version of it, Pete used to beat the shit out of me on a regular basis, though he never did anything when my mother was around. She was too busy or tired to be able to do anything about it, anyway. And I didn’t want to be the sort of kid that went running to his mommy just because he was having a problem.”
“But you were a kid,” I said. “That’s what your parents are there for.”
“Does it even matter now?” he asked. “I’m not a kid anymore, my mother’s dead, Pete’s in a nursing home.”
“Maybe it doesn’t matter,” I said. “Maybe it’s something you could’ve moved on from by now, except that you keep going there to see him. Don’t you think if you want to get over it, it’d be better if you just stopped?”
He finally looked at me. “It probably would,” he said. “But I don’t, because it feels good.”
I went over to him and put my hands on either side of his face. “I don’t want that to be something that makes you feel good,” I said. “Because part of the reason that makes you feel good is keeping alive the past when he was hurting you. And he’s not doing that anymore, and he can’t do that anymore. I want to be the one to make you feel good. Because being around you makes me feel good—I feel better being around you than I ever have around anyone else. And I mean that. I know there’s been all sorts of shit that’s happened and things that have come up and people that have tried to keep us apart, but I don’t want to let them happen anymore. I am not going to ignore the way I feel about you, and I know that you feel the same way. And I told Billy’s father there was no way in hell that I was ever going to date his son, so he’s not going to bother you about that anymore.”
A tiny smile touched the corner of Ian’s mouth. “You told Seamus that?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And what did he say?”