Tempting the Knight (The Fairy Tales of New York Book 2) Page 14

  Why hadn’t she told him sooner? When he’d accused her of being drunk in the station house? When he’d offered her that beer on the barge? Before he’d fucked her like a mad man next to the kegs of Guinness in Sully’s basement?

  But of course she hadn’t told him, because they’d only known each other for ten days by the time he’d jumped her that night at Sully’s. And while he’d been losing his head over her, and holding nothing back, she’d been holding everything back.

  “Sorry man,” Finn said. “I’m working on a violin concerto and it’s killing me.”

  That would explain the pissy attitude. When Finn was in the zone, you couldn’t blast him out of it with a stick of dynamite.

  “No problem. I’ll take a rain check,” Ty said into the intercom, as his spirits plummeted even further into the pit of doom at the thought of returning to the house barge alone. And spending another night trying not to see Zelda in the shower, or lounging on the couch, or hurling potato salad at him. It was as if the scales had been ripped away from his eyes. He’d gotten one shining glimpse of what his life could be like—richer, fuller, more real—and now everywhere he looked the memory of that moment was torturing him. He couldn’t sleep, was struggling to eat, and his work was suffering, too.

  He still spent hours every evening reviewing cases, checking precedents, writing notes for court appearances, but somehow he’d lost the drive, the ambition, and, most of all, his optimism, the unshakeable belief that if Ty Sullivan was on the case, he could make a difference. How could he have been so damn arrogant? The truth was the poor would always be there, struggling against unscrupulous landlords, exploitative employers, punitive bureaucrats, and anything he could do to help was like pissing in an ocean.

  And however much he might want to help and protect Zelda, he couldn’t undo all the crap that had happened to her, or make her want him back.

  “Hey, hold up, Ty. Why don’t you come up? I’ve got some Sam Adams in the fridge. I’ve hit a snag with the damn concerto and Dawn will be home soon anyhow.”

  “That’d be great,” Ty replied.

  He shoved the heavy security door open as Finn buzzed him in, pathetically grateful for his brother’s change of heart. He bypassed the elevator and made his way up the metal stairwell to the sixth floor loft apartment. If he could stretch this beer out until Dawn appeared, he could stave off returning to the house barge alone for at least another hour.

  *

  “So what’s going on?” Finn cracked open the bottle of beer and handed it to Ty. “You look like shit.”

  “Thanks,” Ty said ruefully, and took a swig of the beer. But the cool lager tasted sour on his tongue.

  “Hard day at the office, huh?” Finn said, the smug smile an acknowledgement of the running joke they’d had for years about which one of them had chosen the better career path.

  “It’s been a long day, that’s for sure.” As they all were these days.

  Ty took off his tie and tucked it into his pants pocket, not in the mood for his brother’s friendly mockery as he followed Finn out of the state-of-the-art kitchen and into the loft’s huge open living space. Polished, cedar wood floors flowed to a wall of floor-to-ceiling French doors that afforded a dramatic view of the downtown skyline, and the bridges of the East River, framed by the 1920s building’s fancy ironwork. The place was all clean lines and luxurious designer accents that had to be down to Finn’s girlfriend, because as far as Ty could remember his brother had never had an opinion on interior design. He spotted the vase of fresh flowers on the sideboard, sunny yellow buds he couldn’t name in a profusion of spiky green leaves. No way were they Finn’s doing either.

  “Tough case?” Finn asked as he settled onto one of the green suede sofas parked on top of a deep pile rug.

  “Something like that. How’s Dawn?” Ty asked, keen to change the subject.

  He might have needed company for this evening, but he’d rather suck out his own eyeballs than let his brother know how low he’d gotten over a woman who didn’t want him. He was the big brother in this relationship. He didn’t lean on his siblings, they leaned on him.

  “Dawn’s good.” Finn placed his beer on the low occasional table and Ty noticed the upright piano behind him, tucked into the corner of the huge space, which had once been jammed into their bedroom above the pub. The battered instrument should have looked out of place in the five million dollar apartment, but it somehow seemed as comfortable here as his brother. “In fact, Dawn’s great,” Finn added. “We’re thinking of trying for a kid.”

  Ty stifled the cruel stab of envy at the cautious optimism in Finn’s voice. What the hell was he jealous of? He knew this was a big step for Finn, after finding out Dawn had miscarried ten years ago—and all the other drama involved when she had come back into his life. Plus, Ty had made a decision years ago he probably wouldn’t want kids of his own. Kids were a lot of responsibility and he couldn’t see himself wanting to interrupt his career. And he could hardly ask the woman he married to interrupt her career, because he believed wholeheartedly in gender equality.

  But the thought of that meticulously detailed blueprint for his life and that of the fictional Mrs. Tyrone Sullivan, which he’d designed before he’d ever met Zelda, felt like so much self-serving bullshit now. Jesus, had he actually believed that he could just plan out his life cleanly and efficiently and that everything would simply slot into place the way he wanted? Life was messy, emotions were messy, people were messy. Real people that was, like Zelda with all her faults and flaws. But that’s what made them fascinating and exciting and unique. And as hard as he was finding it now to move on and forget her, he wouldn’t have changed the short time they’d had together for anything. Because he’d discovered in those precious few days, it was better to face the curveballs life threw at him, than spend his whole damned life watching the game from the bleachers.

  “That’s great, man.” Ty tried to inject some enthusiasm into his tone as he leaned across to clink the neck of his bottle with Finn’s. “Here’s to the next generation of Sullivans.” He was happy for Finn and Dawn, they’d had a rough time and they deserved the good stuff now.

  Finn laughed, and took a long swig of his beer. “Yeah, well…” He sent Ty a smartass grin, the same smartass grin Ty remembered from when they were kids, which usually meant Finn was about to talk them all into a whole heap of trouble. “It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it, because we all know you’re dead set against following in Mom and Pop’s footsteps and fathering a load of little Sullies.”

  It was a familiar jibe, one Ty had deflected a thousand times before with a self-satisfied smirk, because he’d once boasted about how immune he was to the kind of love that left you struggling to raise five kids above a rundown pub in Brooklyn. But after a week of feeling the huge loss in his life just get bigger, of what he might have had with Zelda, the self-satisfied smirk refused to come. In fact, he couldn’t even muster the smallest smile.

  He placed the beer on the coffee table, and sank his head into his hands, the misery he’d kept so carefully at bay for the last week, ever since Zelda had walked away from him, rushing towards him like a runaway train.

  “Fuck.” He thrust his fingers through his hair, and bit into his lip to stop the misery engulfing him. If he started bawling like a baby in front of his kid brother, he’d have to kill himself. “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me what a major league asshole I was being?”

  “Hey, man, what gives?” Finn patted Ty uncomfortably on the back. “I was only kidding around. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t kidding around.” He gazed at his brother, whose face had gone ashen beneath his tanned complexion. And who looked a lot less relaxed and carefree than usual. Ty would hazard a guess Finn hadn’t expected to be handling his brother having a breakdown on a Friday evening. “I thought I was better than them. That what they had wasn’t real,” he said. “Wasn’t important. I was going to make something of myse
lf and find the perfect wife and be who I wanted to be and never end up letting my emotions turn my life into the chaos our lives were.” He leaned back, and Finn’s hand dropped away.

  “What’s wrong with that?” Finn said, jumping to his defense, because when the Sullivan brothers had their backs against the wall, they always stood up for each other. “You’re a planner,” Finn added. “You’ve always been a planner. That’s just who you are, Ty. No one ever felt worse of you for that,” he said, one hundred percent earnest for once.

  Wow, he must really look like shit if his brother was actually being serious for a change.

  “Yeah, but I felt worse of Pop. When he went to pieces after Mom died. I thought he was weak, that I would never be that weak.”

  “That was a tough time for all of us,” Finn said, looking confused and wary now, as well as earnest. “Especially for you. We all knew how close you were to Mom, how much witnessing her miscarriage screwed you up.”

  “Wait a minute, you knew about the miscarriage?” How could Finn have known, he’d only been three years old?

  “I didn’t know the particulars, not until years later, but Pop told me and the twins not to tease you about the nightmares.”

  “What nightmares?”

  “You had nightmares, for years afterward. Don’t you remember? You’d wake up sweating and crying. And mom would have to come in and hold you until you calmed down.”

  Ty shook his head, but he did remember, vaguely. The night terrors that had haunted him for years. And his mother’s cool hand stroking his brow, the soft crooning lulling him back to sleep. ‘It’s okay Tyrone. I’m okay, we’re okay. You’re my hero, my sweet boy.’ And the ones that had returned for months after his mother had passed and the aching pain because she had no longer been there to soothe him and tell him everything would be all right.

  Somehow he’d blanked the nightmares though, or blanked them enough never to have to acknowledge their significance. “And Pop told you not to tease me about them? And you didn’t?” This was new, too.

  “You know Pop, he was usually a pushover. Mom was the one with the evil eye that could spot mischief a mile away and a smack which could keep your butt hurting for weeks. But he put the fear of God into us over that. And it scared us all so much when you had them, we never did mention it in the morning.”

  “I never knew that,” Ty said. How many times had he sold his father short? Found him wanting? When he’d been a devoted husband, a loving father. Probably a better man than Ty would ever be. “I guess I owe the old guy an apology.”

  “If you do, I owe him about fifty, so let’s not go there,” Finn said. “What’s going on Ty? Because you’re freaking me out a little here.”

  He could have lied, he really wanted to. If he confided in Finn about Zelda, it would change the complexion of their relationship forever. He’d always been the older brother, the one who knew best, the one who had all the answers. And he’d liked lording it over his brothers. The way he’d tried to lord it over Zelda.

  But he didn’t have the answer to this. And maybe Finn did. Finn had fallen for Dawn when he was still a teenager. And somehow or other he’d figured out a way to get past all the bullshit and rekindle the flame over a decade later when Dawn had returned.

  And maybe it was about time Ty got off his high horse and asked someone else for help. Because if there was one thing Zelda had taught him, you couldn’t solve a problem until you admitted you had one.

  “You know Faith’s friend Zelda?” he began.

  “Sure, the model, right?” Finn replied. “With all the hair?”

  “Not anymore. She cut off the hair,” Ty said. “She spent the Labor Day weekend on my house barge and we…” He hesitated. How did he explain the unexplainable? That while banging her senseless he’d fallen in love with her? In the space of a long weekend? Finn would think he was nuts. He probably was nuts.

  “You what?” Finn prompted.

  “We got together. At first, I thought it was just exceptionally good sexual chemistry, because the sex was awesome. But then we talked and I discovered stuff about her that made me realize she wasn’t at all what I thought she was… She’s been hurt so badly, lost so much when she was a kid, and even though she’s made a lot of mistakes in her life, she came out the other side a stronger and better person. She’s smart and funny and sassy and unconventional. She made me feel alive when I was with her. And I didn’t want it to end. I wanted to see more of her. A lot more.”

  He stopped. Shit, he was babbling. What was wrong with him? He made a living out of his skills as a litigator and now the one time he had to explain something as succinctly as he possibly could, so his brother wouldn’t think Ty needed to go to the nut house, he sounded like freaking Oprah.

  “Okay.” Finn didn’t look stunned or astonished. In fact he didn’t even look particularly surprised.

  “Okay?” Ty asked, annoyed at the low-key response. His whole life had been turned upside down in the space of a weekend and that was all his kid brother had to say on the matter. Finn had always been laid back, but this was insane. “That’s all you’ve got?”

  “Well, it sounds pretty intense, if you fell in love with her after only three days. But that can happen. It happened to me and Dawn after one night.”

  “Yeah, but you were like seventeen and full of rioting hormones. I’m thirty-two, a graduate of Columbia, and a licensed attorney.”

  “When it hits, it hits. Your age, your SAT scores, and your professional qualifications don’t have a hell of a lot to do with it. And it sounds like you had a few rioting hormones going on, too.”

  A blush warmed Ty’s cheeks, mortifying him.

  “So what’s the problem?” Finn said, being more perceptive than Ty had expected, but at least not ribbing him about the blush. “Because I’m assuming there’s gotta be a problem or you wouldn’t be wasting your time with me on a Friday night?”

  “The problem is, she doesn’t want me. I told her I was falling in love with her…” And had been arrogant enough to believe that was all he needed to do. “And she told me she didn’t do relationships because she’s an alcoholic in recovery. And then she told me to get lost.”

  “How did you respond? When she told you she was an alcoholic?”

  “I told her it didn’t matter to me, that I still wanted to try.” He picked up the beer, ran this thumb down the perspiration on the glass, still not sure what he’d said that had made her so mad. “That I wanted to help her.”

  “Ty Sullivan to the rescue, huh?” Finn said, the sympathy in his voice making Ty feel like a bit of an ass.

  “I guess it sounds arrogant, but I was in shock, and feeling hurt that she hadn’t told me already.”

  Finn shrugged. “It doesn’t sound arrogant; it sounds exactly like you, Ty. You’ve always had an overdeveloped superhero complex.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Come on, Ty, remember when we used to play superhero super-soaker wars when we were kids and you always wanted to be Batman?”

  “So what?” Ty said, getting annoyed. He’d already been given the third degree about this by Zelda, he hardly needed to take another hit from his kid brother.

  “Do you remember why you always wanted to be Batman?”

  “Sure, because Batman had all the cool gadgets and he was real.”

  Finn’s eyebrows popped up in ironic amusement.

  “You know what I mean.” Ty qualified. “He didn’t have special powers, he was smart, and he worked for it. And that’s how he saved people. What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Here’s my point, Ty.” Finn leaned forward, earnest again. “You wanted to be Batman, because he was a real guy. You never wanted to take the easy road. You planned and you worked hard and, because you wanted to help people, you carried on arming yourself with cool gadgets—like your law degree and your bar certificate. That’s just who you are and I figure it goes right back to that little kid who found his Mom
bleeding out on the bathroom floor and had nightmares for years afterwards because he couldn’t save her from that.”

  “I still don’t see why that’s a bad thing,” Ty said, feeling surly and defensive. What was so wrong with wanting to help people, wanting to protect the ones you loved?

  “It’s not a bad thing. It’s a good thing. And it totally stands to reason that if you’re falling for Zelda, you would want to be able to help her and protect her, too. But sometimes people have to save themselves, Ty. I know guys who’ve been through the twelve-step program and an important part of the recovery process is knowing they can save themselves. They need their autonomy. You probably scared the crap out of Zelda, coming on strong like that with your superhero routine as soon as she told you she was an alcoholic.”

  “But I didn’t mean it like that. I know how strong she is, how smart, how real. I would never want to take that away from her. Or undermine her.”

  “Then maybe you need to tell her that?”

  The tiny spurt of hope was squashed like a bug. “It wouldn’t do any good. Not if she doesn’t have any feelings for me. To her it was just a weekend hook up; she made that pretty damn clear.”

  “Did she? Are you sure about that? Isn’t it possible that you just spooked her, Ty? This thing between you has happened fast and I’ll bet being in the program also means she has to be cautious about making drastic changes in her life. So you coming on strong like that was bound to spook her even more. But did she actually tell you she didn’t have feelings for you, or did she just tell you all the reasons why it wouldn’t work?”