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Being beguiling
(Blakely)
The next night we had a workers get together at the pub, it included all the laid-off hotel workers, and a six-foot sub sandwich down the bar, with drinks on us.
We made deals. We talked plans. We hired back those that wanted to work with us. We had an open bar for friends and associates and I met a lot of new people. Then after the party, Liam and I, alongside Naisha, cleaned up.
She thought the whole thing was hilarious and kept teasing Liam, “Now you’re going to run the place? Like it’s your dream? Walking around here with a smile on your face? You, Liam, have lost your mind.”
He had laughed and said, “Och, I haena lost m’mind, I am bein’ beguilin’.”
“What in the world does that mean?”
He raised his brow up and down, while plunging the mop up and down in the bucket. “Och ye ken what it means, Naisha, I am beguilin’ ye right now.”
She had laughed. “Whatever you say, boss. What I see is a surly man who went to LA and got changed into a smiling man and what I want to know is, did you join a cult?”
Liam and I laughed.
He teased, “Nae, I just decided tae manifest some magical success in m’life with wishful thinking.”
“That is exactly the kind of thing a cult member would say.” Naisha pointed at me with a bar rag in her hand and teased, “I blame you for swapping him out. Is Liam Campbell still back in LA? Is that what’s happening?”
Liam and I grinned at each other.
I placed a receipt into a drawer. “What’s this?” I pulled out a photo of a man in front of a painting.
“That is a photo of m’dad.”
“Oh, he looks like you and what’s the painting? It resembles you too.”
“That’s m’great great great, many times great grandfather, ye ken, I told ye about him — Sean Campbell.”
I pulled out my laptop and put it on the counter and at Ancestry.com asked Liam, “Do you have a membership?”
“Nae, no’ anymore.”
“I’m going to sign you back up.” I filled out the forms as Liam Campbell and signed up for a year while Liam and Naisha finished cleaning up the pub. Then Naisha went home and Liam and I sat at the bar with one last drink while I looked up Sean Campbell. He was the nephew of the Earl of Breadalbane, and had a sister named Lizbeth, and a wife named Maggie and many children, the oldest named Gavin and then... I followed that line down and came to Liam’s dad. “You and your brother and sister aren’t on here. Mind if I add you?”
“If someone steals m’identity I am blamin’ ye.”
“Go right ahead. It’s a big world of everyone stealing each other’s identity you might as well join in.”
I added Liam’s name.
