Unfixable

Chapter Six

One day, a little over a year ago, Ginger locked her keys in her car. It was just about sunset on an unusually gorgeous day in Chicago and instead of calling Derek to come pick her up, she decided to walk home. Unfortunately, with f*cked-up luck running in the family, her cell-phone battery died and she got lost. When she finally gave up on finding her way and called Derek from a payphone, he’d been ready to call in the National Guard. Seriously, I was there. He actually picked up the phone to make that call.
We’d immediately rushed out of the apartment to go pick Ginger up in a less-than-savory section of town, finding her in a Laundromat located beside an abandoned lot. The strained silence that reined in the car during the ride home was thick and impenetrable.
Exactly like the silence I’m experiencing now in the passenger’s seat of Shane’s car as Faith fumes in the backseat.
She didn’t make a scene in front of Brian and Patrick, but as soon as she’d seen Shane’s car idling at the curb, she became the poster child for angst. A glance in the rearview mirror tells me the back of Shane’s head is still the recipient of her ferocious glare. If his rigid posture is any indication, he feels that look like an ice pick lodged in his skull.
I grab onto the dashboard as Shane snakes between two delivery trucks and takes a quick right turn. He only has one hand draped casually over the steering wheel and yet, he somehow handles this car with practiced ease. It’s there in his eyes, the love of driving. I’ve seen him angry, and I’ve seen him turned on. This is a combination of those two emotions. Intensity snaps in the air around him, the rev of the engine corresponding to his body movements, as if he’s one with the car. It’s clear this is what he’s passionate about. What he was meant to do with his life. I glance away, back out the window.
Finally, we pull up in front of the Claymore Inn. Shane puts the car in park and for a second, no one moves. I unfasten my seat belt, intending to be the first one out, to give them time to hash out their private family issues. I don’t want to be involved, even if a small part of me wants to stick around and defend Faith, but she beats me to it.
“I’m sick to death of being treated like a child.” She snatches up her purse and throws open the back door. “You just had to come collect me like some sort of…unruly teenager.”
Thankfully, Shane doesn’t point out the irony of that statement. If he had, I’m pretty sure twin laser beams would have shot from Faith’s eyeballs to slice him in half. “Faith, if you wanted to go out, you could have talked to me. That part of town isn’t suitable—”
“Jesus, do you hear yourself? You sound like Da.”
Faith’s sobbed statement shuts Shane down cold. His hands drop from the steering wheel to lay in his lap. His sister isn’t finished, though. As I sit frozen in my seat, I listen to what I suspect is years of frustration pour out of her. It’s stilted and unnatural coming from the normally happy-go-lucky Faith, but it’s like she can’t control it. While I understand what she’s going through, I feel so horribly out of place sitting there, listening like an interloper. Once again I start to exit the car, just as Faith delivers the final blow.
“You left, Shane. You left because you couldn’t live under his thumb. Well, take a good, long look in the mirror, because you’re exactly like him. You are him.”
She slams the door and runs into the inn. My hand drops from my door, and I slump back in my seat. Tension hums in the car, and I know where it’s coming from. Shane is probably blaming this debacle on me. I’m woman enough to admit he might be half right. While this little scene was inevitable in my estimation, I urged it along by taking Faith out tonight.
There is also a shred of decency left inside me, apparently, because I feel bad on Shane’s behalf. Just a little. Like Shane, my sister had the unfortunate luck to be born first, giving her a sense of responsibility for me. The same kind Shane feels for Faith. It’s not something either one of them can turn off. Some people are built to care about others more than themselves. I’m not declaring him right or making excuses for him, but in that moment, I can see he didn’t just swoop into O’Kelly’s tonight like an overprotective father purely to be an a*shole. There’s something more complicated simmering under the surface.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
I jerk my attention away from him to look out the windshield once more, wondering what he’s imagined on my face since he’s not even looking directly at me. Of course, it’s starting to rain again and droplets are obscuring my view of the street. On the spot, it turns the car into a closed-off void of which myself and Shane are the only residents. The feeling is only compounded by the darkness and lack of pedestrians on the usually busy street. There is no other sound apart from rain pattering on the roof, but both of our minds are clicking away. I can almost make it out over the steady downpour. “She didn’t mean it.”
He laughs without humor. “And what would you know about it, Willa? You don’t know a damn thing about us.” He’s silent a moment. “No. She meant every word of it.”
“I’m not getting involved,” I mean to say inside my head, but it slips out. Why do these lapses in my verbal skills keep happening around him?
“People like you can’t help getting involved.”
I peer through the near darkness at him, genuinely curious. “People like me?”
Finally, he looks over at me, but his eyes have gone blank. “You think everything can be solved with your unique logic or a snappy comeback. This isn’t one of your sappy Hollywood movies. Real life is more complicated than that.”
“Real life.”
“Are you just planning on repeating everything I say?”
Annoyed, I grab my purse and begin to dig through it, looking for my room key. I’m not going to sit here much longer in his über-pissed-off presence. Besides, despite my declaration that I don’t want to get involved, I have the urge to check on Faith. “God, Shane, what are you so f*cking angry about?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
The rain starts to fall harder, pelting the roof, making me hesitant to leave the car and get soaked. “Answer it for yourself, since you seem to have me figured out.”
He sighs, but there’s anticipation in it. As if he’s thrilled to have the chance to finally let me know what he thinks of me. “If a breakup has sent you four-thousand miles away just to recover, I’m guessing there hasn’t been a ton of adversity in your life.”
“Really.” I hold in the burst of laughter dying to escape. “What sent you away from here?”
His expression hardens. “We weren’t talking about me.”
“We are now.”
Shane considers me a moment. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a righteous pain in the arse?”
I smile sweetly. “If I had a nickel…”
“Right.” He runs an impatient hand through his hair, and I try not to stare at the muscle flexing in his arms, stretching the fabric of his shirt. “Suffice it to say my father and I never saw eye to eye. When Faith says I’m just like him, she means to say I’m a controlling bastard.”
The harshness in his voice cuts through me. There are more unresolved issues here than raindrops on the windshield. “I thought the Irish were superstitious people. You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”
“I only speak the truth.” He’s all restless energy now, shifting in his seat, adjusting mirrors. “So let me guess. Your parents are in full support of this ridiculous pilgrimage to discover yourself. Maybe one of them has a friend on the committee that named you the contest winner?” Blue eyes drill into mine. “What would you know about having your every move criticized? Being told to get back behind the bar where you belong? You wouldn’t understand a goddamn thing about it.”
“You’re right. I don’t get it.” My anger is whipping through my chest like a gale wind. Never, I’ve never talked about my past with anyone outside my sister, save Evan. But I want to put this f*cker in his place so badly now, that I can’t hold back. It all comes spilling from my lips, even though I know I’ll regret it the second I finish talking. “I understand nothing about having a controlling parent. I don’t know what it’s like to have a mom who brings you toast, even though it’s cold and rock hard. Or a father. Period.” I push my door open, no longer giving a damn about the rain. “I’ll see your overprotective daddy and raise you a prostitute mother with a nasty heroin habit. You cocky motherf*cker.”
Slowly, he sits up straighter in the driver’s seat. “Wait—”
I slam the door on his stunned expression and stomp through the pooling water toward the inn. Through the wall of sound that is the torrential rain, I barely make out the sound of Shane’s driver-side door opening and closing. All I can focus on is getting inside, getting to my room, so I can scream into a pillow and try to forget I’ve just been reduced to a petulant teenager. I hate that he’s the only one who’s ever done it to me. With Evan, I allowed every piece of information about my mother, my past, to be revealed at my own comfortable pace. He’d never pushed or pried, never shown me anything but…
Pity. Horrible, gooey, unwelcome pity. It hits me like a lightning rod, how much I’d resented Evan for that. From the beginning. Yet I’m only seeing it now. Awesome timing.
I’m just about to reach the entrance when Shane hooks an arm around my waist. I whirl around to push him away, but he pulls me back against his hard frame, walking us to the dark alley that runs alongside the inn.
“Why?” He growls into my wet hair, bracing one hand on the brick wall, keeping his other thick forearm wrapped around my middle. “Why can’t you stay put? Every time it gets uncomfortable, I have to chase you down.”
The words are so familiar. Evan said something similar to me once. Why do you keep running from me? All the struggle goes out of me at the visceral reminder of what a coward I am. “What are you going to say next?” Sarcasm drips from my voice. “That you just want to get to know me? That I have nothing to be scared of?”
“No.” He nudges his fingers just below the waistband of my jeans and presses down hard on my belly. Oh God, in my current worked-up state, I don’t expect the bullet of pleasure that wings me in the gut. It catches me off guard and I moan, head falling back against his rain-dampened shoulder. “I’m not going to say that. It would be a load of bullshit.” He fits his lap against my bottom, his lips drag up the side of my neck, bringing rain with them. “Here’s what I want to say, girl. Having to chase you only makes me want to pin you down.”
Like a bomb has been waiting for the right opportunity to go off, heat explodes through me, sending shrapnel in every direction. Some inner demon stowed away deep inside me loves the fact that he didn’t run after me spouting apologies. Reassuring me that my secrets are safe with him. It loves the honesty, has quite possibly been craving it for a long time.
It has been ages since I’ve had sex. That has to be the main reason I’m considering turning around, wrapping my legs around his waist, and letting Shane hate-f*ck me against this filthy brick wall. I like sex, even if I’ve only ever had it with one person. Instinctively, I know Shane wouldn’t give me the sweet intimacy I’m used to. No tender looks or gentle kisses on my eyelids. He would be an entirely different experience, demanding and intense.
Shane’s hand curls into a fist at my belly. “Take back your words. Tell me I can touch you.” His breath shudders out, the sound almost lost in the pounding rain. “Take it back.”
“No,” I choke out, but my bottom presses back against him harder, contradicting my words. Shane groans and the sound liquefies my insides. It’s hot and needy and male.
“I’ll have you over him in five minutes flat, babe.” Biting my ear lightly, he fingers the snap of my jeans. “Let me take him right out of your head.”
I’m equally horrified and tempted. Tempted because, my God, I’ve never been so achingly hot or turned on in my life. I’m not even sure I knew what being turned on meant until right this moment, soaked to the skin in an alleyway while someone I’m supposed to dislike begs to have me. It’s an unbelievable rush, knowing the frustratingly complicated Shane wants me enough to let his pride slip for the chance. It would be amazing between us. I don’t need a crystal ball to tell me that. Even now, I’m battling the need to drag his hand down the front of my jeans, to the source of the throb he’s created.
But the horrified half of me wins.
I’ll admit it. I’m afraid. Afraid Shane is right. That letting go right now, letting this urge work itself out, might mean Evan slips a little further from my mind. Don’t I owe him more than that? I wasted two years of his life, and now I’m going to tarnish his memory, which is still fresh, by letting a near stranger attempt to exorcise him from my brain? My body? I can’t do it.
I try not to acknowledge the final reason I tear myself away from him. Shane would change me. For the better or worse, I don’t know. But I’m not ready to find out.
“Stop. You have to stop doing this.”
“You say that like its simple.” His head drops to the crook of my neck. “God, why do I hate the idea of you having had a f*cking boyfriend? I shouldn’t give a shit. You’re just passing through.”
“I don’t know.” My voice is a strangled whisper. “Get over it.”
A beat passes, and then he lets me go with a harsh curse. I can feel his gaze burning into my back as I jog on unsteady legs toward the inn, wanting to go back and throw myself into his arms every step of the way.