Page 21 of Hustle

I hate that after all these years, I’m suddenly checking my phone like he’s going to call. He’s your lawyer, Evi. Nothing else. He made that clear enough. And maybe I have, too.

I finished up a giant, artistic back piece for one of my best clients, and did an interview with a national magazine. Secretly, it’s fun to think about ink magazines talking about my work and people on the West Coast seeing it. Not that I’d ever let on.

But the day’s over and it’s time to kick back. Drinks with my friend Rose and her wife while they’re in town for a conference? I don’t think I can do the small talk that catching up requires tonight, but I’m too antsy to stay in with Hank. I look over at him, and he’s licking his ass. Yep, Hank needs some alone time.

Cocktails and live music solo it is. Something low key. In a few minutes, I’ve changed into jeans and a tank, and slipped out into the night. It’s a short walk from my place to the No Name Pub. A traditional Irish band has already started in on their first set, and I order a Hemingway daiquiri and sit back to enjoy the show.

The older guy singing had some big hit in the ’80s, and he still rocks out with the best of them. I’m soaking up the music and letting the tension drain away, when I feel it.

My skin starts to tingle and heat rises from the low cut V-neck of my shirt before I’m even aware of what’s causing it. Swiveling to take in the room, my eyes skim the crowd for potential danger when they find him.

Seamus fucking Doyle. Apparently undercover? He’s wearing a dark t-shirt and jeans and has staked out a back booth all to himself, as if he’s trying to keep people away. I don’t think I’ve seen him in a t-shirt since senior year gym class. He’s so deliberately staring at the band, so consciously not looking at me, that I can feel his awareness buzzing between us.

I give it a few minutes and then conclude that no one has ever worked harder to not to look at another person.

With a bit of a resigned sigh, I slide down off my stool and work my way around the edge of the room to where he’s sitting, throwing an elbow into the ribs of some townie that calls me baby.

Seamus is drinking some dark beer and he looks like he could have just gotten off his shift at the dock or whatever, if you don’t look too closely at the impeccable grooming. For a minute, I think that he’s probably got beard wax or beard oil in his bedroom, and then my mind goes to him in his bedroom.

With some effort, I snap my attention back.

“Hello, Evi,” he says in a very carefully neutral voice. “Would you like to join me?”

I’d never admit it, but I love the polish in his voice, how carefully he enunciates every word.

I slip into the booth next to him. Our knees bump under the table, and I don’t make any special effort to move mine, even when warmth spikes through me. He seems to weigh his options, and then just lets it be. If only he could do that more often.

Then I flush, remembering how he let me move against him in the club. I probably owe him an explanation for that. Maybe an apology?

Instead I ask, “On one of your famous Seamuscapes?”

He quirks an eyebrow at me, cool as ever, but don’t you think for a minute that I don’t catch that flush creeping up above the neck of his dark t-shirt. Instead of denying it thought, he grants me the slightest dip of his chin.

A major admission for a man like Seamus.

He’s always had too much weight on those shoulders, even when we were kids. The costs of being a Doyle, the cost of fighting to escape what it means to be a Doyle, and the simple weight of being Seamus. He’s always rebelled just a little by claiming time to himself.

It’s not that I don’t get the enormity of his responsibilities and the realities that they’ll take their toll. I’m not exactly a stranger to stress myself. But the way that Seamus lets it eat him alive – the way he lets the things he carries for other people and his to-do list – dictate every part of his day and of his soul?

The fact that he feels like he can only get a bit back for himself at the margins?

That’s one of the reasons that things between us can never work. I work to live, but I don’t live to work. There’s too much out there, too much to see, to do, to experience, to feel.

You can’t plan for that magic in a fucking box.

You can’t schedule “enjoy life” between your last meeting at six and when you start your paperwork at 6:30.

One time in high school I heard he took his father’s antique car and drove north just to get away. Way north. Was it Nova Scotia? Maybe that was just a rumor, but somehow looking at the handsome lines of his face and those intelligent eyes, I don’t doubt for a minute that Seamus could pull it off. I’d always been disappointed that he hadn’t asked me along.

“What are you drinking?” He motions to the server to bring us two more. She’s throwing daggers in my direction and longing glances at Seamus, and I oddly feel a little feline satisfaction at being at his table tonight.

Silence stretches for too long, and then he starts, “I had another thought about the shop.”

At the same time, I say, “For Christ sake, Seamus. We’re off the clock. Relax.”

It’s not that I don’t want to talk about my shop. Not that it’s not on my mind; this just seems like a rare chance to get to go a little deeper with this man.

No matter how much he frustrates me, I want to go deeper.

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