Page 41 of Hustle

Kieran isn’t good with feelings, hell, most of us aren’t. The best he can manage is to slap my back and push his beer at me. I take a swig.

“Seamus,” my father says. Even as frail as he is now, he’s a force to be reckoned with. I drag my eyes up from the table and meet his gaze.

“Yeah, Dad?”

“Come with me. Let’s get some air.”

I obediently follow him out the front door. To my utter surprise, he pulls out a pack of cigarettes and lights one up.

“You’re smoking?” I gasp, horrified. I remember what he did to my brother Ronan when he found out he’d been smoking with one of the O’Brien boys.

“I’m dying, Seamus. What’s the difference?” He takes a long puff of the cigarette and then coughs, his frame wracked by it. I go to grab his shoulder to support him and he waves me off. “Never mind.”

We stand there quietly for a few minutes until it’s too much for me.

“Dad, I’m sorry.”

He takes another drag of the cigarette.

“Seamus, you’re a good boy,” he says finally. “You’ve always been a good boy. Never caused any trouble like your brothers. Only ever got into mischief when you were helping people. Like Evi.”

He looks at me, his eyes more tired than I’d like to admit. “She’s a good girl. She’s had a rough go of it, Seamus, and you were good to look out for her. Your Ma liked her a lot. She’d be proud.”

That hits me right in the gut. “I don’t know what she wants from me,” I say, hating how my voice sounds petulant, like I’m a snotty teenager again.

He laughs. “Wish your Ma were here for this one.” He takes another drag, blows out the smoke and tosses the butt on the curb where it joins dozens of others. “Seamus. You’re a smart boy. Maybe the smartest of your brothers, though I’ll end ya if you ever tell them that.”

I laugh. My brothers were all smart but in very different ways. I was definitely the most book smart.

“But you’re being a bit of a dummy here. What do you think the girl wants?” He lights up another cigarette. I go to say something about that but think better of it.

“Her shop saved from the Stacys,” I reply automatically. My father does a little coughing laugh, and I feel like I’m failing a test.

“Why does she love that shop so much, hey?”

I think about it. It’s the first thing she’s had that was all her own. She worked hard to build it, and to earn her reputation as one of the nation’s best tattoo artists. It was an artifact of her success.

My father seems tired of waiting and blows out a puff of smoke. “It proves her prick of a father and all the fuckers who treated her like she wasn’t worth shit wrong, Seamus. She never had any security in her life. Imagine never knowing where you stand, son? Of course she feels she has to make her own way.”

I blink several times, trying to clear my thoughts. I’ve faced pretty big challenges in my life, difficult ones. Painful ones. And even though my family has been the source of many of those challenges, I know they always have my back. That’s never been a question for a moment.

“I care about her,” I say.

“I know you do, Seamus. I think she knows too. But do you know in what way you care for her? The girl just wants to know where she stands. You two have been dancing around each other longer than Owen and Molly have.”

My brother Owen had been in love with his best friend’s little sister for a very long time, though he hadn’t admitted it. It was complicated, but they worked it out, much to my family’s delight.

“I thought I made that clear,” I murmur. I’m not going to tell my father I slept with her. Weak as he is, he could still trash me for being disrespectful.

“Did you now?” he asks, stabbing out the second cigarette.

I thought I had.

But maybe I should’ve been more explicit.

Better to not think about being explicit with Evi while talking to my father.

“Well.” My father puts his hand on my shoulder. “Seamus. I’m proud of you. You’ve done everything I’ve ever asked of you without complaint. Sometimes I think I’ve asked too much of you. You never had time to have fun, to be a kid.”

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