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“And the fighting? Fuck, Liam, isn’t all this shit controlled by criminal organizations anyway?”
“Not at the level I fight, no.”
I’m not entirely convinced and I think Liam sees it.
“This is a criminal organization, but they are honest people”, he says.
“You just told me they cut people into tiny pieces and throw them out of airplanes.”
“If you don’t pay your debt to them”, he insists. “If you do, you are free to do whatever you want. They don’t get involved with the fights, it’s not worth the hassle for them.”
“Fuck , Liam”, I say.
“I know, adventure time right.”
“This shit doesn’t scare you?” I ask.
“There is nothing I want more than to get out of this world and start leading a normal life, believe me. I am tired of pushing people away. I nearly couldn’t with you before, and now I definitely can’t. Like I say, the ball’s in your park. If you want to leave this here, I totally understand. I’m almost out, though, I will say that, and when I am, there is nothing else I want to dedicate myself to but seeing if we work. I’ve never felt like I have with you, never even thought it was possible.”
“Me too”, I say, reaching for his hand.
Fuck. This is typical me. Alarm bells ringing all over the place and me making a decision with my heart. And now that he’s opened up, that means that there is nothing else but for me to do the same. He needs to know about Maggie. He needs to know about the daughter that now forms part of his world and is something else massively at stake should he somehow fuck up his exit from it.
I open my mouth but the words refuse to come out. They are there, already formed, a year old, but something in the connection between my mouth and my brain is stopping them from being vocalized.
Instead, I say, “I’m going to the bathroom”, and the look Liam gives me makes me think he thinks I’m not coming back.
Liam
I’m a fuck up. I could have kept this whole thing a secret until the end of next year when the debt will be completely paid off and I’ll be a free man, but no, moral integrity decides I have to be absolutely honest.
She’s not coming back. She’ll be in the bathroom resting her head against the mirror wondering what the fuck she ever did wrong in her life to deserve me. If mercilessly smashing strangers skulls in wasn’t enough to put her off, being in debt to a crime family with a penchant for killing certainly will be.
She’s probably halfway through the window and ready to run away up the street. Fuck. The first time in what feels like forever I get a real chance to be with someone, someone I clearly have a connection with, and I have the compulsion to confess everything there is to know about myself as if doing anything else would be entirely ungentlemanly.
That, coming from a man that puts people into hospital on a regular basis. If I ever get to see her again, maybe I should tell her how I stole sweets from my local shop when I was six, or about when I put dog shit in my dad’s shoes, just in case she hasn’t made up her mind about me yet.
I’ve looked so often at the doors to the restaurant that the waiter keeps thinking I’m calling him over. Five minutes pass and nothing. I’ve finished my beer and don’t want to order another and sit here alone drinking it.
A lipstick mark around Jasmine’s wine glass is the only thing that remains of her, as though she’s been swept up suddenly by a tornado and ripped dramatically away from me.
That wouldn’t be too far from the truth. A tornado of information turning me from one thing into another.
A bare fist boxer is one thing, a bare fist ex-drug addict, in debt to the mafia is a different prospect entirely.
I’m about to give up and call the waiter over for real, when the doors to the restaurant open and Jasmine comes confidently striding back out. I almost can’t believe it, as she takes her seat again, kisses me and then pushes her hair casually away from her face as though nothing has changed between us at all.
“Jasmine, are you okay?” I ask, worried the opposite may be true. Worried she’s come back to tell me it’s over.
“Sorry”, she says, and my heart sinks for a moment. “That was a lot to take in, I had to take a moment. I still don’t know.”
“Take as long as you need”, I say. “Fuck, I thought you were going to leave.”
“I nearly did”, she says. “Fuck, Liam, this is serious.”
“It’s under control”, I say. “I promise you. The end of this year it’ll be over.”
She doesn’t look entirely convinced, but then again, what else can I do? I’ve been honest with her, probably more honest than I needed to be, and she’s still come back. If that’s not a good sign, I don’t know what is.
Her eyes go to the table briefly and then back up to me.
“My secret”, she says, pausing briefly to compose herself.
“Don’t tell me you’re in debt to a mafia family as well”, I say, trying to be light-hearted.
Jasmine shakes her head. When she looks back at me she’s biting her lip and trying not to cry.
“Jasmine, what’s wrong?” I ask, closing the gap between us immediately.
“I tried to tell you before”, she says. “I tried to find you after that night, I went to your apartment but you had already gone. I tried, Liam.”
“Okay”, I say, unsure of what she’s about to tell me.
“I-”, Jasmine begins.
“Take your time”, I insist. “There’s no rush.”
Jasmine wipes tears away from her cheeks with the heel of her palm. “You know”, she says. “She looks like you.”
I watch a tear roll slowly down her cheek to gather in the crease of a smile, and it hits me like a haymaker to the temple.
“Fuck”, I blurt out. “Holy fuck.”
I’m on my feet before I realize it, the chair thrown behind me and tipped to the ground.
Jasmine nods, and even before she says the words I know what’s coming.
“We have a baby”, she says, looking at my reaction as though I’m a madman.
I don’t know what to do. I spin around, I put my hands on my head, I laugh like a maniac and I want to scream at the top of my lungs.
I have a child. A her. She looks like me. Fuck.
“I don’t know what to say.”
I really don’t know what to say. Jesus, talk about trumping my fucking story.
“That’s what you mean by complicated?”
Jasmine nods, the tears still rolling out of her cheek.
“Why didn’t you tell me this the other day?” I ask, a little upset that this was her second chance to do so. “What if I hadn’t called you?”
“Sit down, Liam, please”, she asks.
I gather the chair but I can’t sit still on it. I’m a fucking dad with a capital D. Me. Liam Dougherty. Barefist boxer extraordinaire, in debt to the mafia, world’s worst dad.
“I should have told you, but I didn’t, I’m sorry. I know it’s wrong, but I didn’t think it was fair on Maggie.”
“Maggie?” I ask. “Oh, fuck, she has a name.”
“Margaret Alice Cooke”, Jasmine says. “Maggie. Magpie. Maggers. Magson.”
“Fuck.”
“It’s real, Liam”, she says.
“You should have told me before”, I say. “This is-. I can’t wrap my head around it.”
“Do you want a drink?”
“Yes. Fuck, yes.”
