In baseball, I was always in control of everything until I let the ball go.
—Curt Schilling
Kate had to give Liam credit. As far as apologies went, that one was pretty good, especially considering he was being heckled while he did it. The facts that his cheeks flamed and he managed to look her in the eye the whole time were points in his favor, too.
He really was sorry, anyone could see that, but it was still awkward being up on that roof with him all afternoon. Sure, they threw a little small talk around, but their past hung between them. They’d slept together, got married, and then separated, all within the five days.
Who did stuff like that?
She and Liam managed to finish the roof on Orange before it got too dark, and while he and the others cleaned up and carted wheelbarrow loads of the old shingles down to the boat, Kate took her turn in the kitchen.
Normally she would have happily let someone else do it, but, damn, she was tired. And cold. She guessed that’s what she got for spending so much time working indoors these last eight years; her body wasn’t used to the manual labor anymore.
Besides, coming indoors gave the rest of them a bit of time away from her. They were like a unit, those three, and, sure, they might argue and what all, but Kate had a pretty good sense already that the O’Donnells stuck together, and even though Jessie wasn’t an O’Donnell, you’d never know it by the way they treated her. She was their family.
Kate, on the other hand, was an outsider who felt a little like a vulture, hovering around its prey until it could swoop in and claim the corpse.
Unfortunately for all of them, she’d told Jessie the truth about her cooking skills, so dinner wasn’t going to be anything spectacular, but even Kate couldn’t screw up pasta. With the beef browning for the sauce and the big pot of water on to boil, she puttered around the kitchen, chopping up veggies and cutting up the last half of a loaf of French bread. Every meal was better with garlic bread, right?
And the whole time she worked, one part of Liam’s apology played over and over in her head, so she was thankful he was the first one into the kitchen, because that gave her a chance to ask him about it in relative privacy.
“What did you mean earlier when you said, no matter what I wanted, you couldn’t change who you were?”
“Well, I couldn’t,” he said, as if that cleared it all up.
It took Kate a second to say anything else, because she was stupidly distracted by the way his T-shirt stretched over the expanse of his back when he reached into the fridge for some beers. If only she didn’t know what it felt like to slide her hands up that back and—
Stop it!
Over a long blink, she turned back toward the stove to stir the sauce, which was already bubbling over a little.
“But what does that mean? What did you think I wanted?”
When he didn’t answer right away, she glanced over her shoulder to see him frowning as he popped the tops off the bottles and set them down.
“Well, looking back, I don’t think I honestly knew what you wanted; I only knew what I wanted.”
And that obviously wasn’t her.
“I wanted to play ball, Kate, I had to play ball, and I couldn’t risk getting off track by what anyone else wanted. And I sure as hell couldn’t do something like set up house with you in Vancouver when my home was in Detroit.”
“What are you talking about, setting up house?” And why were her hands trembling like that? It wasn’t as if it was news to her that he hadn’t wanted her back then, so why did it still hurt? “I never said anything about you giving up Detroit, did I?”
“Maybe not directly, but…”
“But what?” Spinning, Kate accidentally knocked the wooden spoon out of the pot and sent it flying to the floor. “I must have said or done something to make you leave like that.”
“I don’t remember exactly,” he said, his frown deepening. “Just that you started talking about finding us an apartment in Vancouver and…I don’t know. Stuff.”
“Well, yeah,” she scoffed as she wiped up the sauce and tossed the spoon into the sink. “I don’t remember you inviting me to go to Detroit with you, not even after I stupidly quit my job. The room I was renting from my disgusting pig of a landlord was going to be way too small for the two of us, and I assumed, in my ignorance, that you’d at least come to see me once in a while. I didn’t expect—”
Before she could finish, Jessie and Finn walked in and stopped short, both of them shifting their gazes between Kate and Liam.
“Oh God,” Jessie muttered. “What did he do now?”
“What?” Liam cried, palms out. “I didn’t do anything.”
Dismissing his brother completely, Finn turned to Kate. “What did he do?”
“Actually,” she said over a soft snort, “this one’s probably on both of us. It would appear that during our long and fruitful marriage, Liam and I might have had a wee bit of a communication problem.”
“Shocking.” This time it was Jessie who snorted, but neither Liam nor Finn looked amused.
“From the sounds of it, I guess I said some things that made Sporto here think I wanted things he didn’t.” She turned to Liam. “Or did you think I wanted you to give up ball?”
Liam’s hesitation was as good as an answer to not only Kate but Finn, too, who sank onto the nearest chair and cocked his brow at Kate.
“Did you?” he asked.
“Did I what—say something? It was ten years ago; I don’t honestly remember. But I do know we never had a conversation about what either one of us wanted, so that was obviously a problem.”
“And what was it that you wanted?”
Kate frowned as she set the sauce on the table. Was this really any of Finn’s business? Did any of it matter now?
“I guess I wanted my husband to want to be with me, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to give up baseball for me, for crying out loud. We might not have known each other very well, and clearly we didn’t put much thought into anything before we marched into that chapel, but what I did know I liked well enough, so why would I suddenly want to change the thing that meant the most to him?”
Going by the looks on Liam’s and Finn’s faces, neither one of them was sure if that was a rhetorical question or not.
“Oh, sweetie,” Jessie said. “Save your breath, because no matter what you say, you won’t change their minds about the evil that is woman. The O’Donnell men believe that women live for the sole purpose of screwing them over, of trying to change them and make them give up everything they want for her.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Kate said, heading back to the sink, where the pasta was draining. “There were a few things I would have changed right out of the gate.”
From the corner of her eye, she caught the knowing look that Finn shot Liam, but before either of them could say anything, she continued.
“Like his leaving the lid off the toothpaste, for one—that got old real fast—and peeing with the bathroom door open. I mean, come on.”
“That’s just gross,” Jessie said, her voice thick with disgust. “Nobody wants to listen to that.”
“Right?”
“What—you two don’t pee?” Liam asked, the scorn dripping from each word.
“Not with the door open,” Kate shot back. “We’re not barnyard animals.”
The look that passed between Liam and Finn this time wasn’t quite so cocky or knowing.
“So you’re saying you wouldn’t have wanted him to quit playing ball?” Finn asked, his blue-green eyes narrowing. “That everything would have just gone along the way it had been?”
“Well, no, I’m sure some things would have had to change, right?”
“Mm-hmm.” Finn nodded. “Some things. That’s how it always starts, and then one day he would’ve woken up to find himself sitting behind a desk, working a nine-to-five job he hates, but he has to do it because it pays for the pink stucco house you wanted. You’ll have him giving up red meat for kale, drinking wheatgrass every morning, and before he knows it, he’ll be asking permission to go out for a beer with his buddies.”
“Whoa whoa whoa. Hold on a second. Before you accuse me of anything I’ve never even had the chance to do, let’s get one thing straight right now.” Kate set the pasta out as the rest of them sat down. “Kale is the work of the devil, and while a glass of wheatgrass every once in a while isn’t going to kill anyone, I wouldn’t trade a good hamburger for anything in the world.”
Neither Finn nor Liam so much as cracked a smile. Okay. Tough crowd.
“Oh, come on,” she said. “We might have been young and stupid, Finn, but neither one of us was a child, so I don’t understand why, when you don’t know anything about me, you think it’s okay to sit there and accuse me of these ridiculous things.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything,” Finn said with a shrug. “I’m only suggesting that you’d want to change things about him, make him do things he normally wouldn’t, stop him from doing other things he normally would.”
“Like what?” she scoffed. “Eat kale? Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t force that crap down his throat, because in case you hadn’t noticed, he’s significantly bigger and stronger than I am.”
Liam leaned forward, reaching for the bread. “Can we just eat?”
“Yes,” Kate said. “Please.”
“Hang on.” Finn shook his head slowly. “You’re telling me that no matter what you want or what you like, you’d let him keep doing whatever he wants—even if it’s…I don’t know…going to a strip club with his buddies?”
“I don’t understand what you mean by ‘let him.’ I mean, what am I in this scenario, his warden?”
“Well, yeah.” The look on Finn’s face was priceless: certainty giving way to a healthy dose of confusion.
“Told ya,” Jessie muttered. “Crazy runs deep in this crew.”
“Give it up, Finn,” Liam muttered. “Let’s just eat.”
“Uh, no,” Kate said, chuckling over the absurdity that was this conversation. “Obviously your brother and I weren’t together long enough to figure things out, but hypothetically speaking, if we’d stayed together, there absolutely would have been things that pissed us off about each other. Last I checked, though, this was still a free country, and one of the joys of being an adult—which, believe it or not, is what you O’Donnells are—is that you don’t need anyone’s permission to do anything.”
“Uh-huh,” Finn grunted, adding an eye roll for effect. “Sure.”
“I’m serious,” she said. “I mean, frankly, I don’t want to be with any guy who feels the need to go to strip clubs on a regular basis, but in this hypothetical world, if he and I were together and he wanted to go to one with his buddies, that’s his business and God bless him, so long as he doesn’t get all pissy when I want to do it with my girls.”
With a mouthful of bread, her eyes wide, Jessie leaned closer and mumbled from behind her hand, “You’ve been to strip clubs? What’s that like?”
“Ugh,” Kate answered over a short gag and a shudder. “I went once with some friends and it was awful. I mean, really? Some random dude shaking his junk all up in your face? No thank you.”
As Kate finished, Liam leaned over his plate and started twirling spaghetti around his fork, and even though she couldn’t see his whole face, Kate would have sworn he was smiling.
She’d obviously hit a nerve with Finn, though, because he wasn’t even smirking.
“So you’re saying you wouldn’t get all mad and cry and carry on to make him stay home,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “You’d just let him go.”
“Again with the ‘let’ him. What is that?” Jessie was obviously right; these guys had some issues. “I don’t understand why he’d want to be with me if he felt he had to ask permission for everything, and guilting a person into doing something or trying to make him stay with me when he doesn’t want to, well, that’s stupid.”
Finn raised his left brow and tipped his head to the side. He didn’t believe her, and while she knew it shouldn’t matter one iota what Finn O’Donnell thought of her, it did. And that’s what ticked her off the most.
Whatever problem these O’Donnells had with women had nothing to do with her, and yet Finn had gone and lumped her into their pile of rubbish without even giving her a chance to show them who she really was.
“Look, Finn, I learned a long time ago that I can’t force someone to want to be with me, and it’s a huge waste of energy even trying.”
“So when you and a dude are together, you let him do whatever he wants? Go where he wants, see who he wants, without giving him grief about it…” He trailed off for a second, shaking his head. “Yeah, right.”
“Is he going to ‘let’ me do whatever I want? Go where I want, see who I want, without giving me grief?”
“Guys don’t do that.”
“Oh, really?” she scoffed. “I don’t know what kind of dreamworld you’re living in, but here’s a news flash for you: Guys can be just as bitchy as women when they want to be.”
“Can we please just eat?” Jessie muttered, but the only one with food on his fork was Liam. Kate was waiting for Finn to admit he was wrong—at least about her—and that didn’t look as if it was about to happen soon. Instead, he kept on pushing.
“Is that right?” he said. “Well, I’m sorry, Kate, but every single woman out there wants to change the guy she’s with. You all push and push and push until we snap and then you blame us for it.”
“Every single woman?” Kate repeated. “And you’ve done the research on that, have you?”
“I’ve had some experience with it, yeah, and while you seem like a nice woman, Kate, I find it hard to believe you wouldn’t have done the same thing to Liam.”
This conversation had gone from weird to annoying to downright offensive, until the inside of Kate’s stomach burned.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said, using the last of her self-control to stay calm. “But whatever experiences you’ve had, none of them were with me. I never did anything to change who Liam was or what he wanted. I mean, for the love of God, did I even have time? The only thing I ever did was apparently say something that was misinterpreted, but he left without waiting to find out what I meant, which clearly suggests he wasn’t all that interested in finding out. He wanted to leave and it didn’t matter what I wanted, so there wasn’t a single tearful phone call, email, or text message from me begging him to change his mind, to come back, or at the very least to float me a loan so I had something other than stale Doritos to eat all day.”
She heard Jessie click her tongue, but Kate didn’t know if it was directed at her or at Liam. Either way, she kept on talking.
“The two of you can blame womankind for everything until the cows come home, I don’t really care, but bottom line, your brother left me in that hotel room because he didn’t want to be with me. Plain and simple. Did I want to call him after he left? You have no idea how much, but what good would that have done? Would hearing me cry make him want to come back and give us a chance? No, all that would’ve done was make me feel even more pathetic than I already did.”
How could admitting that Liam didn’t want her, something she’d come to accept a long time ago, still make her eyes prickle and her throat thicken? And why the hell was she letting herself get so worked up?
“Kate—” Finn started, easing his accusing tone back a notch.
Oh no, Kate thought. You wanted to go there, Finn; we’re there.
“I don’t know what kind of bullshit you guys have been through,” she said, shaking her head. “But you obviously believe that every woman out there is some kind of raving bitch.”
She didn’t even slow down when Finn’s eyes rolled again; oh hell no.
“And while Liam and I might have been stupid, I never did anything to him that would warrant me being heaped into that bitch pile with everyone else. So you want to roll your eyes at me, Finn, you go right ahead, but Liam knows I’m right.”
She’d never been one of those dramatic girls, never liked to cause a scene, but she just couldn’t keep sitting there. Who the hell did Finn think he was anyway?
“Excuse me,” she said, lifting her plate. “But I think it’s probably better if I take this to my cabin so we can all eat in peace.”
Plate in one hand, beer in the other, she headed straight out the back door and toward her cabin. Dark or not, she didn’t care. If a bear wanted to tangle with her tonight, he was going to be sorry.
She only made it about halfway when she heard the lodge door behind her swing open and shut again.
Damn it.
“Kate, wait up.” Liam’s long strides covered the distance in a few short seconds.
“Go eat your supper,” she said, picking up her pace. “I left to get away from you idiots, not to have you follow me out here and piss me off more.”
Instead of turning around, he fell into step beside her. “I’m sorry about Finn.”
Balancing her plate on the mouth of her bottle, Kate had her hand on the door latch before she turned to face him, and that was a mistake. Why did he have to be so damn cute? To make it worse, he was even cuter when he looked at her like that, trouble brewing in his blue eyes. His hands were unable to keep still for more than a few seconds at a time, so he alternated between running them over his head and messing up his hair to stuffing them in his pockets.
“And I’m sorry I walked out like that,” Kate finally managed. “I know he’s your family, so you need to have each other’s backs, but he doesn’t even know me.”
“I know.” He nodded slowly, then sighed. “And I’m sorry, I should have shut him up, because you were right what you said in there, it’s just…”
“It’s just what?” she prodded, wishing he’d hurry up and say whatever he wanted to say so she could go inside and eat. She might be cranky, but she was also hungry, and when he didn’t make any move to leave, she shuffled her plate back to her left hand so she could take a long swig from her bottle.
Liam’s mouth twisted a little before he looked down at his boot and scuffed it across the snow. “I always thought the reason you didn’t call me after Vegas was because you were happy we split up.”
Were all men this stupid?
“Split up?” She laughed, but there was no humor in it at all. “You make it sound like it was a mutual decision. I didn’t contact you because I’m not the bitch you and your stupid-ass brother assume I am. I might have been dumb and naïve back then, but you made it pretty clear you didn’t want to be with me, and as much as that hurt, I was smart enough to know that chasing you and begging you to come back was the worst thing I could have done.”
“Come on, Kate.”
“No.” Bottle in hand, she pressed the back of her wrist against her forehead and closed her eyes for a second. “I don’t mean for you to feel guilty when I say that, it’s just the way it was. Those are the facts. Believe it or not, I’d never hooked up with a guy the way I did with you, and I know we weren’t even together a week, so it sounds completely ridiculous to say, but I liked you a lot and I honestly thought we had something. I thought you were special. Clearly you didn’t think the same way, and that’s…that’s…fine.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, really?” She snorted. “Well, call me crazy, but if it meant anything to you, why did you leave? And even after, if you changed your mind, why didn’t you do anything about it? It doesn’t take a genius to track someone down these days, but if I hadn’t shown up here, we never would have spoken to each other again.”
Instead of answering, he reached into his back pocket, pulled out his cellphone, and starting tapping the screen.
“Sorry,” Kate muttered, turning back toward the cabin. “Didn’t mean to cut into your Candy Crush time.”
Juggling her plate and bottle again, she pushed open the door and started through, but Liam’s grip on her arm stopped her. When she tried to shake him off, he tightened his hold.
“Look.”
Fully expecting something else, she needed a second to realize what he was showing her, and even then she had to squint. His browser history? Really?
The first thing she wondered was, how many times a day did he need to go to MLB.com? Good grief! As she leaned closer, scanning past the MLB pages, he pointed at the date—a little more than three weeks ago.
“Yeah? So?”
Without a word, he scrolled a bit farther down the list and stopped. Kate’s breath froze in her throat, and it took what felt like forever before she could blink again.
“You googled me?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. “Why?”
Instead of answering, he kept scrolling lower, over the past weeks and months as far as his history went, pausing every time her name showed up. It wasn’t nearly as often as MLB, but it was at least a dozen times.
“But you…I don’t understand. Why would you—” She stopped because he’d stepped back, his lips pressed together, his hands raised slightly.
“I really liked you, too.” His voice barely a murmur, it looked like he had more to say, but it took him a long time to finally push it out, and when he finally did, it seemed to pain him. “But what I did…how I left…God, Kate, the truth is you scared the shit out of me.”
“Me?” she croaked. “Why? I didn’t—”
“I know,” he said, his voice low. “I know. It wasn’t anything you did. Well…that’s not true.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It was just that being with you…” He blew out a breath and swiped his sleeve across his cheek before he managed to finish. “Being with you…when you started talking about getting an apartment and all that, there was a moment—okay, more than a moment—when I forgot all about ball and started picturing what our place would look like.”
“And that was bad?”
“Oh yeah.” Eyes wide, he nodded solemnly. “That was really bad. I’d spent my whole life working to get into the show, and just like that, you made me lose focus. It was only for a while, but before you, it’d never happened before. Never happened since, either.”
“I didn’t—” she started, but he talked over her.
“It wasn’t your fault, I know that now. But ten years ago, lying in the hotel room with you that last night…” He hesitated long enough to exhale another long breath. “I kept remembering what it was like with Ma and the old man. She was always on him to get her out of here, to sell this place and move back to Ireland and do something different. He’d go along with her for a while, say things to appease her, but we knew he’d never leave here, and we didn’t want to go, either.”
Liam’s eyes never left Kate’s, but she knew he wasn’t looking at her; he was looking back, and whatever he was seeing wasn’t good. A few rapid blinks brought his eyes back into focus.
“Anyway…after you fell asleep that night, I just laid there watching you and I knew, I knew, if I didn’t get out of that bed right then, I’d never go back to Detroit and we’d end up exactly like my parents, resenting each other because I’d never be who you wanted me to be.”
“Oh, for—” Kate sighed quietly. “I wanted you to be who you were. Period.”
Liam choked out a harsh laugh. “That’s what Mandy told Ronan, too.”
“Who’s Mandy?” she asked, squinting through the chaos in her mind.
“His ex-wife. Before they got married, he had this great little farm outside Red Deer; wasn’t a moneymaker by any stretch, but he got by fine with what he made. He no sooner married Mandy than she made him sell it so she could have a big new house in Calgary. She even convinced him to go back to school and take night classes so he could get a degree.”
“What’s wrong with getting a degree?”
“Nothing, except then she bitched and complained because, between work and school, he was never home, and with all their money tied up in his tuition and textbooks, she couldn’t get the new car she wanted, she couldn’t travel, she couldn’t do any of the things her friends were doing. She hated that he wouldn’t turn vegan with her; she thought his friends were obnoxious and that his brothers were a bad influence on him.”
In the glow of the porch light, Kate watched his expression harden, darken.
“Turned out there wasn’t much about him Mandy liked. He hung in there a hell of a lot longer than I would’ve, never did finish getting his degree, and now he’s stuck working at the sewer plant and giving her half his paycheck so she can get her degree instead. That’s why he’s not here helping us.” Liam lifted his shoulder ever so slightly. “At least when Ma left, she just left. No fuss, no fights, no more crying. Just…gone.”
He said it as if it was a good thing, but the clouds that formed in his eyes didn’t lie.
“And you three didn’t go with her?”
“She never asked us to.”
Kate cringed. She’d never understood how parents could walk away from their children, but if she ever ran into her father again, it was the first thing she intended on asking. For now she’d have to settle for understanding at least a part of where Liam’s head was at when he ditched her the way he did.
“How old were you when she left?”
“Eleven.” It was only one word, but there was more raw emotion in those few syllables than in anything else he’d said, especially when he cleared his throat and turned his face away.
“I’m sorry about your parents,” she said, angling herself to the side until he was forced to look at her again. “And I’m sorry for what Ronan’s going through, but neither one of those situations had anything to do with us. I can’t explain why your mom or Ronan’s wife did what she did, but it wasn’t me. It’s not me.”
“Yeah,” he muttered over a slow, wry grin. “You kind of proved that every day you didn’t call or write. Part of me kept waiting for it, you know, kept thinking one day I’d get served with papers demanding half of everything, but that day never came.”
“If it makes you feel better, you can give me half now.” Kate’s mouth twitched, but she fought back the smile for another couple of seconds before finally letting it loose. “No?”
“Somehow I doubt you’d take it even if I could offer it to you.” His grin faded to nothing. “I was wrong about you, Kate.”
“Yeah,” she laughed. “You were, and so’s your stupid brother, so if you could go explain it to him, that’d be good; otherwise it’s going to be a long couple of months.”
Liam shrugged nonchalantly. “Already did.”
She doubted that very much, since he’d come out the door about ten seconds after her, but she was done arguing with everyone for one night. All she wanted to do was take her cold spaghetti and climb into bed.
“Can I go eat now?” she asked, tipping her head toward the door.
Much to her surprise, Liam shook his head. “No.”
“What? Why not?”
“Food’s not allowed in the cabins,” he said, and even though he was grinning slightly, he was obviously serious. “It attracts bears.”
“But I’m hungry, and it’s not like I’m going to leave the plate out on the porch.”
“Sorry. Rules are rules.” Liam tugged the plate out of her hand. “If you want to eat, you’re going to have to come back up to the lodge.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s such a great idea,” Kate said. “Not after the way I left.”
“Forget about it. It’s not like you’re the first one who’s ever done it, and once Ro shows up, it’ll probably happen a lot more.”
She hesitated a second, sighed, then pulled the cabin door closed again. They walked in silence until Kate let out a short choking laugh.
“I still can’t believe we got married like that,” she said. “I mean, that was some kind of crazy, wasn’t it?”
“Pretty much batshit, yeah.”
Yeah. What was even crazier was that she still had her ring. Okay, so it wasn’t really a ring, it was a strip of leather, but still.
Kate had no idea why he’d brought his ball glove to Vegas, but before they’d run off to the chapel, he pulled the damn thing out of his bag and tugged an already-loose, ragged piece of lacing out of the back near the wrist strap. Using her nail scissors, he’d cut it lengthwise into two thin strips, and they’d tied those around each other’s fingers.
When she’d finally gotten home, she tossed hers into the old cigar box that served as her jewelry box and hadn’t worn it since. Her fingers had brushed it a couple of times when she’d been reaching for other things over the years, but she’d never actually picked it up since tossing it in there.
Next time she went home, maybe she’d pull it out for old times’ sake, just to look at it.
Back at the lodge, Liam held the door and waited for her to go in ahead of him. She didn’t mean to hesitate, but she’d have been lying if she said she didn’t feel a bit stupid walking back into the kitchen after her little tirade, a feeling that grew exponentially worse the second she clapped eyes on Finn.
Still in his chair, Finn was sitting with his head tipped back, holding a plastic bag of ice over his face from the bridge of his nose to his chin. Blood—some dried, some running—streaked down his cheek, and as she watched, he lifted the ice pack just enough to be able to breathe out of his mouth.
“Oh my God,” Kate gasped. “What happened?”
Jessie turned from the sink, a wrung-out washcloth in her hand, her cheeks drawn in. “Ask your ex-husband.”
“What?” Liam shrugged innocently when Kate turned her accusing glare his way. “I told you I explained it to him.”
“By punching him?” she cried. “That’s how you explained it? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Sometimes you gotta speak the language he understands.”
“Is he okay?”
“No.” This from Jessie, even as Liam waved dismissively at his brother.
“He’s fine,” he said, lifting Kate’s plate a little. “I’ll nuke this for you.”
Kate slumped into her chair, while Liam headed for the microwave and Jessie gently wiped the blood from Finn’s cheek.
“Can I do anything?” Kate couldn’t blame Jessie for flashing her that look, the one that said she’d already done enough, but still, there had to be something. “I have a bottle of Advil in my cabin; I could go get that for you.”
This time it was Finn who spoke, mumbled and congested as it was. “Don’t worry ’bout it. He doesn’t hit nearly as hard as he used to.”
“Is that right?” Liam asked, taking a lunging step toward him. “Should we give it another go?”
Quick as a whip, Jessie was between them, shoving Liam back toward the microwave. “Grow up.”
By the look on Liam’s face, Kate thought he might have actually taken another swing if he’d gotten close enough, especially after she saw Finn smile. Blood running down his cheek, ice on his nose, and he thought it was funny?
These guys really were crazy.
“Gotta hand it to him,” Finn groaned. “He’s fast. I didn’t even see it coming.”
Liam set Kate’s plate down and pushed the Parmesan toward her, then sat down, reached over, and jerked the ice pack off Finn’s face, holding it just out of his brother’s reach. “Tell her you’re fine and you’re sorry for being such a dick.”
Still leaning back, Finn made a grab for the ice, but Liam moved it farther away.
“Oh, for God’s sake.” With a loud sigh, Jessie sat down in her chair and crossed her arms tight across her chest. “I should have stayed on the mainland. I might have hated it, but at least I got to work with adults.”
When Finn’s next grab failed, too, he slammed his fist awkwardly against Liam’s right biceps, but Liam didn’t flinch, just kept on twirling his spaghetti with his right hand while holding the ice with his left.
“Stop it,” Kate growled. “And give him back his ice.”
She may as well have been talking to her fork for all the reaction she got.
After a few more seconds of Finn’s hands flapping aimlessly in their attempts to reach the ice, he finally sat up—albeit slowly—and with bits of dried blood crusted around his nose and over his top lip, he looked Kate square in the eye.
“I’m fine, and I really am sorry for being such a dick.” His expression softened a little when he smiled and tipped his head toward Liam. “I usually leave that kind of shit up to him; he’s way better at it.”
Liam jerked his elbow up and feigned nailing Finn again, then stopped, hesitated a second, and tossed the bag of ice back at him.
Nothing like a forced apology to make an uncomfortable situation even worse, yet, oddly enough, Kate was the only one who seemed the least bit uncomfortable. Liam had kept right on eating as though nothing had happened, and it wasn’t long before Finn and Jessie both joined him.
“If they hadn’t gotten into it over you, it would’ve been something else soon enough,” Jessie explained, talking as if neither Liam nor Finn was sitting at the same table. “With these two, more often than not it’s just them goofing around, but every once in a while things get bloody. At least now it’s out of their systems for a while.”
“But they’re grown men!”
“Ha!” Jessie snorted. “That’s where you’re wrong. They might look like grown men, but inside they never got past adolescence—and it’ll get worse when Ronan shows up.”
“Great,” Kate muttered. “Can’t wait.”