“Suddenly he was marrying my girlfriend and having a baby?” Sully had gone pale. His eyes were filled with a hint of madness that finally, finally set him apart from Ronan. What was he going to do next? Scream at me some more? I could take it. I could if it meant that he and I were talking. A month had already gone by, and Sheryl hadn’t found anywhere suitable for Connor and Amie. Another five months would easily fly by in the blink of an eye, and then the two children would be shipped off to the group home after all, regardless of what I wanted for them.
I’d come to the conclusion that I needed to complete the task Ronan hired me to do and get Sully to take them, but now that I was standing in front of him and he was acting so unhinged I wasn’t so sure that was the best course of action anymore.
“Yes,” I answered him. “It wasn’t fair. Ronan shouldn’t have done it. But at the end of the day, he couldn’t help who he fell in love with either.”
Sitting perfectly still, Sully seemed to try and digest these words for a second, which could have explained why he looked like he was about to throw up. And then he said, “He and I shared the same heart. Of course we were bound to fall in love with the same girl.” He didn’t try and get around me again. Instead, Sully put the car in reverse and gunned the engine, tearing off backwards down the street, a shower of dirt and small rocks kicked up by the tires, raining down on me as he sped away.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Happy Birthday, Rose
“Did you manage to—god, what have you got all over your face?” Rose met me at the door, Amie hot on her heels, a slab of cake in her tiny hand, chocolate frosting all around her mouth and all over her cheeks. Rose saw the sharp look on my face and had the decency to look apologetic. “Sorry. She didn’t touch her lunch. It was this or nothing. Why do you look like you’ve just been quad biking?”
“Sully,” I said.
“Ah.” Clearly the one-word answer was explanation enough. Rose produced a pack of tissues from her pocket. “I was just about to clean up the chocolate monster, but looks like you might need these more than she does.”
“Thanks.”
“I could speak to him, y’know? To Sully? He might not be so polite to you, but he wouldn’t dare be rude to me. He’s coming to my birthday party next week. You’ll be there, too. He’s going to have to learn how to keep a civil tongue by then, or I’ll cut the damn thing right out of his head.”
Ah. Rose had mentioned the birthday party a couple of times, but I hadn’t had the heart to tell her I wasn’t going to be able to come. What was I supposed to do with Connor and Amie? And anyway, now that I’d found out Sully was going to be there, my desire to mingle and be sociable with the inhabitants of the island had strangely disintegrated. The thought of Sully at a party was just so out there that I couldn’t help but smile, though. I could just picture the uptight bastard hovering with a plate of cheese in his hand, looking more than a little uncomfortable while a volley of people tried to talk to him about the weather and his carpentry business. I felt manic laughter bubbling up at the back of my throat.
Truth of the matter was, if he showed up, he would probably hang around for twenty minutes to fulfill his social obligations, and then he’d make his exit as quickly as possible while no one was looking.
“No, it’s okay, Rose. If he doesn’t want to be nice, then that’s on him. I wouldn’t want to submit the kids to his shitty attitude anyway. And I think…it would probably be so confusing for them as well. I mean, he looks just like Ronan. I nearly had a heart attack when I set eyes on him. If Amie saw him…” It didn’t even bear thinking about.
“Hmm. Perhaps you’re right.” She didn’t say she wouldn’t talk to Sully, though. Her mouth had an odd quirk to it. I could tell just by looking at her that she was already planning what she was going to say to him and how she was going to say it, regardless if I begged or pleaded. I didn’t waste my breath asking her to keep her mouth shut. If there was one thing I’d learned about Rose in the brief time I had known her, it was that she was extraordinarily stubborn, and when she made up her mind about something, there was no moving her on it.
******
A week later: a party.