Page 24 of The Love Destroyers

As Nicole leads me into the narrow hallway between the apartment’s two bedrooms, I down the whole mimosa.

Nicole points to a photograph of a juiced-up car that’s framed and mounted on the warm beige wall. “Isn’t this place weird as shit? I mean, he’s got cross-stitched slogans framed, unironically, and then stuff like this.” She gestures to the photo. “No shit, I’m halfway convinced Chuck is a serial killer.”

“What does your sister have to say to that?” I ask, glancing back into the living room, where Claire and Declan are having an animated conversation with Chuck.

“She thinks there’s another explanation.” There’s a thread of teasing in her voice. Like she’s messing with me and doesn’t really mind if I can tell. Like she’s…testing me.

“You’re up to something,” I say blandly.

Her lips twitch with amusement. “Oh, I’m always up to something. It makes life more interesting.”

“For the millionth time, I’m not interested in your schemes,” I admonish, trying to sound bored. Succeeding, probably, because my mother stumbled onto an unwelcome truth earlier. Iambored. So bored I googled whether it was possible for a person to die of boredom. No, in case you’re wondering.

Shaking the thought away, I finish, “The best revenge is a life well lived.”

Nicole cocks her head at me, and I’m sure she’s about to start in on her usualyou’re unfulfilledschtick.But she surprises me by saying, “Oh, totally, I got that. Crystal clear. I shouldn’t have bothered you in the first place. Sometimes people deal with things in different ways. While I would certainly want to put that motherfucker in his place, you’re doing the adult thing and moving on. Finding new interests.” She waves down the hall toward the pretty, uncomfortable chair, which suddenly feels like a metaphor for my life. “It’s cool. I respect that, and I’m not going to bother you about it again.”

I’ve been trying to get her to leave me alone, but I feel a creeping sense of panic. Shit. I don’t want her to leave this alone, do I?

“Uh…”

I have no idea where I’m going with that, so it’s a relief when she says, “So therealreason Damien gave us some girl time wasso I could do the friend thing and give you a heads up on who Chuck’s roommate is.”

I glance around, verifying that I do in fact know everyone who is present.

“What roommate?” I ask.

And that’s when the front door opens.

It’s Seamus, carrying a nondescript bag that is, I’m guessing, from the liquor store. He’s wearing the same leather coat he slung over my shoulders a month and a half ago. He catches my eye and winks at me, and I’ll be damned if my whole body doesn’t quake.

I whip my head around to look at Nicole. “No.”

“Yes. Are you finally ready to wake up, Emma?” Her grin widens, showing off her sharp incisors. “Because life is about to geteen-teresting.”

CHAPTER SIX

SEAMUS

It went down like this.

After I said goodnight to Emma on New Year’s Day, I had another cigarette for good luck, then went looking for Nicole. I found her and her husband Damien sucking face in one of the unused rooms at Smith House, which Emma has probably since converted to a salad serving room. Nicole agreed to talk to me; Damien agreed to let us speak privately after making it clear that his wife would fillet me if I pulled anything, and he would then feed me to the guests. He said it in the same even-tempered, upbeat voice in which one person would invite another to a pickup game of basketball.

Fair. If I had a woman, I wouldn’t let anyone mess with her either.

I told Nicole to stop digging into the past, because Declan and Claire were happy, and if she kept digging, they might not stay that way.

She told me that sounded an awful lot like a threat.

I agreed but countered that I wanted them to be happy too, and it wouldn’t make any of us feel joyful to discuss the things I’d had to do to protect my family.

She’d listened. Nodded. And then asked me what I’d had to do to protect my family.

I’d suggested it was none of her damn business. The only thing she needed to know was that I was walking the straight and narrow. Had been, more or less, ever since we’d changed our last name and left Pennsylvania.

She said she had a mind to make it her business.

So I figured it was a banner time to leave. I offered to buy Chuck a plane ticket, he turned me down, thank Christ, and I went back to my shitty apartment in NYC, cleared out the mousetraps, and spent the next several weeks working on my baby—the car I’d spent thousands of dollars on and probably couldn’t afford to keep—and trying to figure out what came next.

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