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“He’s dead,” Toby replied.
I stared at him, though I wasn’t looking at him or anything else for that matter. It was only when O’Phelan rolled out my food on the trolley and began to set my plate that I snapped out of it, plucking the grapes from the vine and tossing them into my mouth as I leaned back.
“From the look on your face. I’m guessing he didn’t die of natural causes?” I finally replied.
“The police are saying he accidentally fell down the fire escape.”
“Thank you.” I nodded to O’Phelan when he moved to leave before I looked back to Toby. “I know what the police are saying…what are people saying?”
“Declan Eilis…or at least someone in the Eilis family.”
“Of course,” I rolled my eyes, lifting my spoon and yogurt.
Toby frowned, confused, “You don’t believe it’s him?”
I swallowed the spoonful in my mouth before replying “It’s a little stupid, don’t you think? I make the Eilis boy apologize to the Forte boy, and when I turn around the Eilis boy pushes the Forte boy down a fire-escape, killing him? Why? It’s too obvious and too soon. He knows I’d find out and he wouldn’t try it.”
“Dona, he’s a kid, not a trained assassin. I doubt in the moment he was thinking about the optics or with any rationality at all. Worse, if Marco might have taunted him…he could have snapped.”
“Or…someone is testing me.” Who, though? The Irish? The Italian? Ethan? “Someone wants to know what happens when I get involved.”
“Dona, I really think you’re overthinking this. Who would do that?”
“I don’t care what you think!” I snapped at him. “I’m not sure why you keep asking me questions that you should already have answers to. Isn’t this your job?”
He inhaled deeply through his nose, then exhaled. I kept eating my yogurt. Finally, he replied, “My job is to help you look at the optics… Irish kid kills an Italian kid—”
“Allegedly,” I cut in, licking my spoon.
“You know as well as I do that a rumor is as good as a signed confession for many of these people, Dona. Some people are going to be looking to your family…no, to you… to handle it the way such matters have always been handled.”
I dug into the bottom of the cup for the last bit of yogurt as I spoke, “So since you are also supposed to look at the optics, explain to me how would it look to have two dead kids?”
“One dead kid and a dead murderer.”
“A kid who murders is still a kid,” I said reaching for the eggs before looking up at him. “And if he’s gone, especially so soon, the blame will fall on me. People will say ‘oh, this is her fault, she made a big deal out of such a small issue, which should have been left to the boys to resolve. Now look what happened’…bad optics…for me.”
He didn’t reply, instead he moved closer and closer…until he was too close. He reached inside his jacket pocket, pulling out an origami dandelion. Holding it up between us, he twirled it in his fingers as he spoke, “I remember when you used to take your time picking dandelions one by one and everyone thought you were crazy, but I realized you did that to see which dandelions were the strongest. Which ones wouldn’t blow away because of the wind as you walked. You were testing each flower and when you collected the perfect ones you’d use them to make a crown, place it on your head, and with this enormous hallelujah grin on your face, you’d get up and run and spin and jump as hard as you could, until every last petal came off the stems and it was floating all around you. You’d close your eyes and make wish…and each time you did…I did too.”
“You wished to have me,” I stated, reaching to take the paper flower from his hand, but he moved it. His fingers barely touc
hed my ear as he brushed my hair behind it and placed the paper flower there, too.
“No, Dona,” he said softly, “I wished that whatever you were wishing for would come true. Because in my mind, any wish from someone as sweet, kind, and innocent as you deserved to come true.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I stood up and he leaned back, allowing me to move around the chair. However, I didn’t leave. Instead, I kissed him, and like all our kisses it started off gently, tenderly. His hand fell to my waist, pulling me to him, both of our bodies pressed against each other…his hand sliding down to grab my ass when I stopped him, and pulled away.
“The cameras,” I whispered to him, wiping the corner of my lip. “Later.”
He just nodded and let me go. Walking around him, I headed back out the door. And just as I was about to make my escape he spoke.
“It is bad optics…for you, I know. However, it’s worse optics for you to look weak. The public only remembers you as that sweet, kind, innocent little girl who cried her heart out the day her mother died… They need to see and know that you are no different than Ethan,” he said. I turned around to tell him not to lecture me, however he spoke again before I could. “My job is also to tell you things you don’t want to hear. Yes, I know, annoying. Ethan hates it, too.”
The shit-faced grin on his lips as he ate my leftover strawberries killed the whole mood he had worked so hard to set with the damn dandelion.
“And you know what I said about later… I need to cancel.” His mouth dropped open. I smiled. “You should have stopped while you were ahead, Tobias. Ethan can simply hate you… I can blue ball you.”
I left and I didn’t look back, allowing the doors to close him in as I walked towards the large grand staircase, to the elevator which lead to our private rooms, taking the paper flower from behind my ear.
