Dangerous Games (7 page)

“Understood, Mom.”

“I love you and talk to you soon.”

“You too. Bye.”

“Bye, sweetheart—”

I ended the call and put my phone back on the bedside table drawer.

“So, what exactly do you guys get up to around here for fun besides get high?”

“Well, there is the horizontal dance but since we have to wait until you’re on something…” Finn trailed off.

I got off the bed then and weaved a bit. “I don’t think so, Romeo. Last time we indulged in
that
, we both got in a world of trouble so that is definitely going to have to wait. Besides, we have to get to know one another again. I don’t think I would feel comfortable having sex with you again when we just met up again after four years of being apart. It’s not like we are the same people we were back then.”

He nodded his head in agreement. “You can say that again because you have definitely changed.”

“I don’t know if that is a compliment or an insult.”

Finn grabbed my arm closest to him and pulled me back to the bed. “We can just lay here and talk. We don’t have to do anything you know.”

We spooned though we were both mostly dressed and he slipped an arm around my waist. “Thank you.”

“For what? You act like this is easy for me when it isn’t. It’s complete torture for me because the last four years have been hell. I have been so lost without you…we were each other first loves and I fear what will happen to you if you just leave for L.A. Perhaps we won’t see each other again and that would be devastating to me.”

I looked over my shoulder. “Exactly what do you think is going to happen to me if I go back to L.A.? I am gonna find some hot stud to replace you?”

“Yes,” he replied truthfully. “You are an attractive woman. Don’t tell me you have any problems with getting a man.”

“No, that has never been an issue but that doesn’t mean I jump into bed with everyone that looks my way. I’m not that easy, you know.”

The heat of his body felt perfect against me and instead of saying anything, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to drift off in the cocoon that was his warmth and steady embrace.

I
t was a bit scary when I awoke and realized I was no longer in Seattle. The weather was the first indicator. It was warm and the sun shined through the slatted blinds. It was a beautiful feeling to look over and see Finn who was completely knocked out next to me.

I didn’t bother to wake him but instead stood, stripped out of my clothes and took another shower before I dressed in a pair of skinny blue jeans and a pale pink baby doll top that was short-sleeved. I wouldn’t be able to ignore my grandparents and I knew Dylan would have their address. I had my doubts whether they still resided in Dorchester now that so many people in the family were making money.

Dylan and Fiona—like me—had mostly been raised by our grandparents. None of us had parents’ who wanted to be bothered with their own children. His father was my mother’s half-brother, and due to his mother’s problems with drugs and alcohol, neither he nor Fiona had been brought up in the most functional household. In retrospect, our grandparents were probably the best place for all three of us.

Unfortunately, although it was shortly after eight, I was the only person up and instead of bothering anyone, I merely called Granddad and got the address from him. It turned out my grandparents weren’t even quarter of a mile up the street, also in the yuppie part of Charlestown. Their home wasn’t much different from Dylan’s except it was a light sand color and there was only one car, a ‘67 restored black Chevy Impala, in the garage. It was my grandfather’s pride and joy and every time I saw that car, I was reminded of Sam and Dean Winchester on 
Supernatural
.

I walked up the steps and rung the doorbell. The door was promptly opened by my grandmother. She was older and there were more wrinkles around her warm blue-gray eyes but she smiled and embraced me immediately.

“Oh, Elvira, you have grown into a beautiful woman,” she greeted before her lips brushed my cheek. “You must drive the men crazy everywhere you go.”

“Not quite but thanks for the compliment, Grandma,” I replied.

She seemed to hesitate before she opened the door. “We weren’t expecting you so soon. Patrick and Clara are over with Kieran—”

“I promise not to make a scene, Grandma. Remember, Kieran belongs to them, and I would never do anything to contradict that. I swear.”

She slipped an arm around my shoulders and ushered me in. “I just put on another pot of coffee. How about cup, honey?”

“That would be great,” I responded and stopped as a rambunctious four year old crashed right into my legs.

“Kieran, honey, you can’t attack every person who comes to visit your grandparents—”

Patrick stopped talking as soon as he saw me, and glared at me with cold blue-gray eyes.

“I came by to see Grandma and Grandpa but who is this little person?” I inquired as I knelt before him, and came face to face with large gray-blue eyes. His hair was flaxen blond and he had strawberry preserves all over his cheeks.

“My name is Kieran,” he replied in his soft voice, “and I am four years old. Who are you?”

My heart thundered in my chest and I tried to push the pain as deep as it would go. “My name is Evie and…I’m your cousin. Your father and my mother are brother and sister. How are you, little man?”

“I’m good but I think I ate too much brekfass because my tummy hurts.”

I reached out to touch his hair, so much like his father’s when he was his age, but Patrick swooped in and grabbed Kieran so fast, he made the Airbus seem slow. “Come on, little guy, let’s get you cleaned up.”

Clara, his wife, walked into the living room, and her lightly tanned face drained of color as soon as she saw me. “Elvira! What are you 
doing
here?”

I suddenly felt like I’d been dropped into an episode of the 
Twilight Zone
. “I’m here to visit Grandma and Grandpa. I had no idea you were here—”

“Patrick’s job took us to Connecticut, and we now live in New Haven. We had a long weekend due to Pat having some vacation time. It looks like you are the queen of bad timing. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were here just to see Kieran.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Clara. I’m not here to snatch your precious bundle but one day you will have to tell him about us, you barren bitch,” I said before I could stop myself.

Her hazel eyes grew wide with surprise. “Well, well. It looks like the more things change, the more they stay the same. Nice to know
my
son wasn’t in the room when you decided to use that kind of language with me.” She planted her hands on slim hips that had never, and wouldn’t ever know the experience of childbirth. “Yes, that’s right, he’s my son! Your mother signed the paperwork on your behalf and as far as the law is concerned, Patrick and I are Kieran’s parents.”

“What is wrong with you? I have already told you I am not here for him—I came to see my grandparents, and all the sudden I have committed some kind of crime for being here? What is wrong with either one of you?”

Granddad walked into the living room; his cornflower blue eyes glanced coldly at Clara. “You leave my baby alone. We raised Evie from the time she was an infant. She always comes to see us. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Why don’t you go upstairs, and
help
your husband with your
son
.”

I breathed a sigh of relief before I ran over and embraced my grandfather. “How are you, Pops?”

I never really called him or my grandmother my grandparents unless we were in polite company. For the first eight years of my life, they had been Ma and Pops to me. I didn’t even know I had real parents until I learned the woman I called Aunt Athena had actually given birth to me, and my father was her husband she’d finally tied down to marry her. That was explained to me a week before she and my real father had come to pick me up and take me to Los Angeles where I would have a rich and glamorous life.

My so-called life with my real parents wasn’t that great after all. I was surrounded by nannies and I rarely saw my parents at all. I went to the best schools but the kids made fun of my “strange” accent. It was miserable and I would have traded it in a heartbeat for the streets of Dorchester with Ma and Pops in a minute. However, there was no going back—not then and certainly not now.

I suppose Ma and Pops were pretty disappointed when I came to stay with them for the summer of 2007 and ended up preggers with my cousin’s best friend’s kid. If they were, they didn’t show it. They were nothing but supportive while my mother cried a lot, and my father tried to be “pragmatic” about the whole situation.

It all worked out in the end because Clara, Patrick’s wife, couldn’t have any children, and it was against church policy to try any “artificial methods of becoming pregnant.” Both my uncle and his wife were hard-core Catholics who followed the church’s teachings like the goddamn Holy Grail. They thought of me, an unwed, fifteen-year-old, giving birth to a child, was an anathema to the Church’s practices but my misfortune was their reversal of bad luck. It was decided they would adopt the child, and Father O’Malley oversaw it with a Church attorney.

When I gave birth, there was an announcement but it was that Patrick and Clara McKenna had welcomed a seven pound, two-ounce son into the world. They named him Kieran, and before I could get out of the hospital, Finn was gone. My mother had paid for her brother and Clara to take a long trip back to Ireland. At least long enough to get me away from Boston without seeing the man who had impregnated me and loved me more than life itself again before we left Boston.

I traveled back to Los Angeles with my parents and started school in late March, just a couple weeks after giving birth, and told everyone who would listen I’d been kicked out of one of the most prestigious boarding schools in Switzerland therefore no one knew the truth. Not even Monika was privy to the news and we didn’t keep secrets from one another but this was one I held next to my heart and never let go.

The following year was rough for me but I was safe with the knowledge Kieran was in the hands of a family who truly wanted him and would do anything to keep him safe.

Now that I was back, I was considered a threat but why would Patrick or Clara think I would want Kieran back? He didn’t know me, and the only parents he knew were them. What would I, as a nineteen-year-old who would be twenty in less than a couple of weeks, do with a preschool-aged kid? I wasn’t even sure I wanted children yet these two were somehow convinced I would sweep in and take their precious bundle? They were both delusional, and crazy as shit house rats as far as I was concerned.

I looked down and realized I was so angry my hands were shaking. Grandma grabbed one of my hands, and glared at Clara as if she should be ashamed before she sat me down at the breakfast table. She poured me a cup of coffee, and coupled this with a plate of sausage, two eggs over easy and two slices of toasted white bread. She set down her strawberry preserve in front of me and sat across from me.

All the sudden, I was transported back to my childhood and I smiled as I began to cut my sausage and took a satisfying bite before I buttered and covered my bread in strawberry preserve. The two over easy eggs were slid in between the bread. I loved to make a messy egg sandwich and bite from it with a bit of sausage between bites.

“Why doesn’t it surprise me you haven’t had a decent meal? They’re not here long so if you ever want a home-cooked breakfast or dinner, you know where to come, okay?” Grandma remarked before she patted my right hand.

“Thanks, Ma.”

Her blue-gray eyes watered a bit before she grabbed a napkin and dabbed at her eyes. “You have grown into a beautiful young woman, and no doubt Finn has seen you again. How did that go?”

I rolled my eyes as I bit into my sandwich. “He wanted to devour me but Mom says I have to get myself taken care of before we can you-know-what. She’s not ready to be a grandmother.”

“Silly cow, what the hell does she think she is now? It makes no difference if Kieran is adopted out to her brother—he’s still her
grandson
. She’s always been like that. She wasn’t ready to be a mother either. Why do you think you spent the first eight years here? Her career was the most important thing in her life. Now look at her, embarrassing herself with that young man. For God’s sake, the guy is only five years older than her nephew.”