Tequila Mockingbird (34 page)

Nearly as cool as he felt.

They’d decided to hold a soft opening, a small gathering of friends and family as a kind of test drive. A freebie meet and greet with coffee and nibbles of pastries on an invite-only kind of thing. Forest figured no one would come by.

He’d forgotten his lover was related to half the police force, and the other half seemed to drop by just for shits and giggles. Still, with the Amp’s spacious interior filled with Irish lilts and laughter, Forest felt… content.

Fuck that. He was goddamned
happy
.

“Holy shit. This is what happy feels like.” He looked around the shop, sifting through the sea of Morgans until he found Connor standing in a semicircle with a couple of his brothers. They were laughing about something, but Con must have felt Forest’s gaze because he looked up and their eyes caught. Winking, Con gave Forest a small off-kilter smile, and the warmth in his belly kicked up a notch.

The espresso machines were doing a brisk business, and the smell of roasted coffee beans and sugary pastries drew in people off the street. Jules gave him a curious look, as if to ask if she should kick out the uninvited, but Forest shook his head, mouthing for her not to worry. They had enough food to feed five armies, especially since the cops and firemen the Morgans dragged in seemed much more interested in coffee and chatting than donuts.

Not something he’d ever thought he’d see, cops not interested in donuts—but as he glanced over at Connor who was licking chocolate off his fingers, Forest was kind of glad he only had to keep
one
cop in ganache-enrobed pastries. The oldest Morgan boy definitely knew his way around a chocolate donut.

And Forest was more than happy to help him work off that chocolate afterward.

“Hey, Forest.” Miki nudged him in the ribs. “You doing okay, dude?”

“Yeah, just kind of… things are good,” he replied, glancing around the room over the singer’s shoulders.

“Freaky, isn’t it?” Miki leaned against the counter, brushing up against Forest’s side. They’d come to be good friends—close friends. Bonding over a shitty childhood could do that to a couple of guys, but most of all, Miki was an all-or-nothing kind of guy. Still, Forest had hope he could bring Miki around to seeing Brigid as one of the best things to ever happen to them.

He wasn’t holding out a lot of hope, but he was going to try.

“You get all happy inside,” Miki continued softly in his distinctive raspy purr. “And then you kinda want to check yourself because it feels so fucking wrong. Makes you a little scared.”

“Makes me a
lot
scared,” Forest admitted. “You ever get used to it?”

“Dunno,” he replied. “Haven’t yet. I still get up in the middle of the night and touch Kane to make sure he’s real. Sometimes I worry about being in a coma, and this is all bullshit my mind’s come up with to keep me busy or shit.”

“But I’m not in a coma,” Forest snorted. “Shit, at least I hope not.”

“Nah, maybe I dreamed this for you too,” Miki said, pushing off the counter. “Or maybe Damie’s doing it. You know, so we both have better lives. He’s good like that.”

The singer wandered off to find his brother, dodging a chattering pair of women walking away from the cream and sugar bar. Snagging a lemon bar bite, Forest popped the treat into his mouth and chewed, wondering if he could ever taste the tart citrus sweet without thinking of the lemon chiffon soap Con used. Or how good the man’s skin smelled when they had sex in the shower.

A familiar shape appeared to linger just in view of the Amp’s main picture window, and Forest frowned, wondering for a fraction of a second why he
knew
that indistinct form, when it dawned on him. It was Ginger, and the warmth in his soul crackled up quickly, turning to an ashen sourness thick enough to choke on.

“Are you all right, love?” Brigid came up to him and put her hand on his back. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Maybe you should sit down.”

“No, um….” He stumbled over his own tongue, unsure about what to say—what to do, really. He’d not seen his mother in months, and when he’d paid her bail, she hadn’t even come by to thank him. Now she hovered outside, obviously turned off by the show of police in the shop but wanting something bad enough to slink about at the perimeter, probably gathering enough of a spine to walk through the door. “My… mom’s here. Outside.”

“Do you want me to get rid of her for you?” Connor’s mother asked gently. “’Cause I can, you know. It’d be my pleasure. I won’t even use a knife to do it.”

He looked down at her, startled but not surprised. For all of her soft voice and sweet Irish tone, Brigid’s eyes glittered with a fierce anger. She’d been a constant in his life since Rollins invaded Con’s—their—home. Between cooking dinners and stuffing the freezer, she’d plied Forest with cookies, hot coffee, and most of all, a constant chatter to fill the quiet he often found himself falling into.

She’d gone with him to buy a car, working the salesperson down to the bone in price. Then they’d spent the afternoon making ice cream with a bemused Damien and a wary Miki. When Brigid finally wrangled a wide smile from the singer with an impromptu game of throwing chocolate chips at his mouth to see if Miki could catch them, Forest felt his first tingling awareness of a life outside of what he’d known. Of what he’d expected. Sitting in the Morgans’ kitchen, surrounded by decades of family and love, Forest found himself not
longing
any more.

It was the weirdest day of his life—the most
normal
day he’d ever had—but it was weird.

When Connor came by to ooh and ahh over his newly purchased Honda SUV, he’d let the man lead him up to the widows’ walk and sat there in the waning sun, holding Con’s hand as Donal readied a massive BBQ for the family’s Sunday gathering. It was perfect—sitting between Connor’s raised knees and basking in the sun.

The moment became sublime when Connor leaned over Forest’s shoulder to kiss his ear, then murmured, “Love you,
a ghra
.”

Forest couldn’t let his mother—wouldn’t let his mother—ruin this for him. Not when he’d not even let himself
dare
to dream of living a life he’d seen others lead.

Shaking his head, he replied, “No, but thanks. I’ve got to—this is something I’ve got to do myself.”

“I’m here if you need me, honey.” Brigid’s growl was a soft mewl compared to her son’s rumbling whiskey of a voice, but it bore as much of a bite. “You go and tell her what you need to, but when she tries to pull any shit, you remember I’m there with you.” She tapped his chest, right above his heart. “In here. No matter what, I’ve got you, son.”

“Thanks, Bridge.” Forest kissed her cheek, and one of her curls tickled his nose. “Tell Con where I’m at if he asks.”

“S
O
R
OLLINS
is sick?” Captain Leonard frowned over his coffee. “What the hell is porphyria? And why the hell didn’t they find it when he was in prison?”

“It’s genetic,” Connor explained to his boss. “He had records of migraines, but they figured it was bad eyesight or something else. Why look for zebras when you hear hoofbeats? Doctors went after what they thought was the problem. It’s not common. They don’t know if they can cure it either. He’s too far gone.”

“Mad King George’s disease,” Kiki said. “Makes people delusional. Even hallucinate. They don’t know if he’s ever going to be really okay. It was left untreated for too long. Some talk of suing the prison docs, but shit, those guys are risking their lives to give out flu shots. They gave him the best care they could. The court’s going to have to see what they can do for him. DA’s still pressing him for murder. That’s not going to change.”

“So he’s nuts,” Leonard stated. “They’re going to let him walk.”

“Can’t. He’s a danger to himself as much as to society,” Connor pointed out. “They put him on suicide watch. No matter what the doctors say, Rollins isn’t coming out again.”

He spotted his mother moving through the crowd, and Connor looked past her, searching for Forest. He missed something Leonard said, and rather than ask the man to repeat it, he nodded and let Kiki take the conversation as they moved on to talking about the police department’s new rugby team and its slim chance of winning against Fire and Rescue’s brutes.

“That bitch who gave birth to him is outside,” Brigid muttered at her oldest son, her voice low enough to carry up to his ears but not much farther. “Bring the Hummer around. I’ll grab a knife from the kitchen and take care of her. We can dump her in the bay. Maybe there’s enough crabs left down by the bridge they’ll eat her body.”

Connor excused himself from his conversation with Captain Leonard. Grabbing his mother by the elbow, he led her away to a more secluded corner. He saw his father’s eyebrows raise in question, but by the expression on Donal’s face, Connor knew he was feeling more sympathy than curiosity. After all, the man had several decades of dealing with the Finnegan he’d married. If anyone knew when to get out of Brigid’s way, it certainly was his da.

Connor just had to figure out if it was one of those times.

“What do you mean, she’s outside?” Connor bent his head down to hear his mother over the rumble of conversation in the shop. “Here? What does she want?”

“She wants to destroy him,” Brigid growled back. “God, I hate her. I want to stab her eyes out with a fork. I’d do it, too, if I wasn’t sure your da would arrest me. What’s wrong with that man? Sometimes, I think his mum dropped him on his head.”

“Forest?” Connor tried to follow his mother’s heated rant. “You think he was dropped on his head?”

“No, your da! Donal,” Brigid sighed. “Pay attention, boy. Focus. What are we going to do about that woman?”

“What’s up?” Damie edged in. “Something wrong with Forest? Where’d he go?”

“Probably too many people. I’d duck too,” Miki cut in, and Connor sighed, wondering how he’d ever thought he’d have a private conversation with his mother anywhere near Forest’s band mates. Catching the look he got from Con, Miki frowned. “What? No?”

“Unlike you, freak, Forest likes people,” Damie snorted, then nodded to Brigid. “No seriously, what’s up?”

“His mother’s here.” Connor held up his hand to ward off the rounds of suggestions on how to deal with Ginger Ackerman he knew would be offered up. “Mum just wanted me to know.”

“Why’s she around?” Miki cocked his head. Jerking a thumb toward Brigid, he said, “He’s got a new one. Mom 2.0. Much fucking better.”

The interruption was worth it just to see Brigid’s emerald eyes glittering with tears at Miki’s casual remark. Her arms lifted, and the singer found himself caught up in a fierce hug. To his credit, he didn’t wriggle free immediately, and it took a second or two for his shoulders to stop being stiff, but eventually he hugged her in return, patting her back awkwardly until she let go.

“You should go see if he needs some help.” Brigid turned to Connor, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “Maybe run her off into the street where I can hit her with a car.”

“Gotta love you, Bridge.” Damie grinned.

“I’d kill for any of you.” She sniffed back. “God, that woman just boils my teeth. Connor, you’ve got to….”

“I’ll see if he needs me,” he promised as he clasped his hands onto his mom’s shoulders. “But Mum, he’s a strong guy. He can take care of himself.”

“But he shouldn’t have to,” Brigid shot back. “That’s your job. Just like he takes care of you. It’s how a marriage works. Good marriages.”

“I haven’t asked him to marry me, Mum. Too soon. Probably scare him off. Hell, scares the shit out of me just thinking about it,” Connor admitted, holding up his cast-wrapped arm. “I’d like to get this piece of shit off of me first. It’d be nice to have hot rock star sex without worrying if I’m going to bash his head in.”

Miki eyed Connor and snorted softy. “Dude, if you’re worrying about bashing someone’s head in during hot rock star sex, then you’re doing it
all
wrong.”

I
T
WAS
hard seeing her. Not because of the changes in his life but because a part of him ached to see his own mother shuffling back and forth on a street corner, her arms wrapped around her too-skinny body. Even in broad daylight, she scanned passing cars, looking for something—someone to take her in.

He’d done that with her. That looking. That hoping for a trick so he could get something to eat. Have enough money to stay someplace warm.

Then he’d spat in Franklin’s face when the man gave him what he’d wanted, what he’d needed. But Forest couldn’t abandon her. Not then, when he’d still held onto the lingering belief she’d always been there for him.

Only to discover she’d abandoned him long before Frank
ever
came into the picture.

“Hey, Mom.” She turned when he spoke, startled for some reason to find him staring down at her.

Ginger looked like shit. Worn and scrawny, he caught her lighting a cigarette off the end of another, puffing furiously to get the thing going. A couple of burned-out stubs lay at her feet, their smashed filtered ends a fan of greasy brown and white.

“Hey.” Her eyes, so much like his, flicked over his shoulder. “You alone?”

He looked around, wondering for a half second if someone’d followed him out, but other than the stream of people coming in and out of the Amp, it was just the two of them. Handing her the cup of coffee he’d brought for her, Forest nodded.

“You want to go inside?” He regretted asking as soon as the words left his mouth. Asking opened him up to her rejection, and Forest didn’t know if he was ready to deal with
that
on top of the already long and trying day.

“Nah, not my thing.” Ginger took the coffee and sipped at it, making a face. “Not enough sugar. You know I like things sweet.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied wryly. The refusal didn’t sting as much as it had in the past. So
much
had changed in the past few months.

“I didn’t know this was going on.” She waved her long press-on nails at the store. “Or I would have come by some other time.”