Jacqueline stared at him for a long, withering minute before turning her attention to the finger sandwiches, picking at them.“You know, Everett, there’s a vulgar saying: Don’t—you know what—where you eat.”
“I’m not shitting where I eat,” Larkin replied.
“Language,” Jacqueline reprimanded.“Honestly, you sound like you grew up in the public school system.”
“I was a public school kid,” Doyle stated.
Jacqueline looked across the table, staring at Doyle as if he were an unwelcome guest who’d shouldered his way into a private conversation.
But Doyle continued, “Born and raised in Hell’s Kitchen, in fact.”
Nonchalantly, she replied, “It shows.”
Doyle’s nonverbal response was apparent before he was likely even aware of his own emotional reaction—brow furrowed, jaw tense, his shoulders widening as he subconsciously puffed his chest.In the one hundred and two days he and Doyle had breathed the same air, Larkin had come to understand that his partner’s one serious and unresolved trigger was that of an avoidant-dismissive mother.And while their upbringings couldn’t have been more polar opposite—Michelin stars versus bodega candy bars—Larkin knew that Jacqueline’s belittling nature was acting as something like a mirror, reflecting past abuse Doyle had suffered in childhood back onto him as an adult.
“Mom, what the fuck,” Larkin spat.
Jacqueline said in a rush, “Everett, your husband called me because he couldn’t reach you.It would seem that your new—new—manhas been caught loitering outside his apartment.”
“What?”Doyle protested.
“Just last night,” Jacqueline insisted.
“I didn’t—I wouldn’t do that,” Doyle said.
“Noah’s lying,” Larkin said to Jacqueline.
“You’d have never married a liar, darling.Noah told me it was a blue Honda Civic.”
—the engine, the high beams, the Honda tearing away from the precinct—
Jacqueline was pointing a finger at Doyle that was both accusatory and dismissive.“He said it was this man’s car.”
“Do you know how many people own Hondas in the city?”But Doyle didn’t seem to be anticipating an answer from her, instead turning toward Larkin.“Evie—”
Larkin said over him to Jacqueline, “Whatever Noah thinks has happened, he’s mistaken.”
“You’re awfully certain, darling, for someone who wasn’t there,” Jacqueline said dispassionately before delicately wiping her hands on a cloth napkin.“Your father and I have been discussing this whole ordeal at length, but after this incident, we’re in agreement.Going forward, we’ll be handling Noah’s legal fees.”
Thetink,tink,tinkof rain hitting the glass wall punctuated the uneasy seconds that followed.
Larkin asked, utterly flabbergasted, “You’re taking my ex-husband’s side in the divorce?”
Doyle put his hands up in a placating gesture and said, “Mrs.Larkin, whoever Noah saw last night, it wasn’t me.”
Without missing a beat, Jacqueline said to him, “Noah’s been part of this family for seven years.You’ve been around for seven minutes.”
Lightning illuminated the lounge in a sudden flash of white.Larkin’s breath caught like he’d been seized by the throat, his hearing swelled to a high-pitched ring, and then the thunder’s resounding crack tore across the sky—its shockwave so strong, it ripped the Earth apart.And then Larkin was falling, six feet down into the open casket of his own rank and festering memories.And when the rotten bottom gave way, Larkin plunged headfirst into a dark abyss, surrounded by the hallucinogenic whispers of New York City’s lost and forgotten as he fell down, down, down the never-ending hole he’d been digging since that fateful night eighteen years ago.
Boom.
Squish.
Crack.
Larkin jumped to his feet, knocking the table and sending Jacqueline’s champagne glass to smash against the polished floor.
“Everett,” Jacqueline protested.“Good grief, look at this mess!”
