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I added a little too much whiskey. I added a little too much more.
“So what?” I looked up and gave Rian a cool gaze.
Confusion flickered across his face. “So why have her go all the way out to Limerick? Why make her find a new place? Why make her find a new job? Why separate her from Dublin Ink?”
I supposed that I should have expected these kinds of questions. It probably wasn’t a very good idea for me to be, at least as Rian was concerned, irrationally irritable at hearing them. But I couldn’t help it. Maybe because I knew I couldn’t stop them. Maybe because I had no good answer.
“The school in Limerick is the best,” I grumbled as I tried to keep my foot from bouncing.
Rian tapped his finger against the edge of his cup before returning it to its saucer.
“Yes, it’s a decent art school,” he said. “You and I both have a lot to owe to it.”
I gave nothing more than a grunt of agreement. Rian seemed to accept it.
“But still,” he said, leaning forward with those cutting blue eyes fixed on me, “a lot of people in Dublin would disagree. I can’t imagine that given the choice between uprooting her life and not uprooting her life, Aurnia would care much about squabbles in rankings and whatnot.”
Rian hesitated and then added, “Can you?”
I stood up. Stood up too quickly. The porcelain rattled and tea spilled and dripped off the side of the coffee table onto the rug. Rian seemed more surprised by my reaction than I expected. Not good. Really not good.
I couldn’t reel myself in as I said too angrily, far too angrily, “It’s not uprooting her life. It’s starting a life. It’s building a life. Uprooting? Uprooting? What roots has she dug in this place? Hmm? Tell me. What roots has Dublin Ink, a failing tattoo shop in the wrong part of town given her? What roots have we given her? A druggie who stares at moths all day, a womanizer who lives in his dead mother’s townhouse, a bitter old man who’s more likely to die on his motorcycle than find success in this fucking world? What roots can grow here, Rian? What roots can grow in soil that is parched and dead and covered with goddamn salt? Uprooting. Uprooting my ass.”
I was not only being an asshole. I was being stupid. So fucking stupid. Lines gathered on Rian’s face and I saw it. I saw what I hoped I would never see: suspicion. Suspicion.
To cover my ass, I sank back down to the couch and grabbed my cup of tea. It sloshed over the edge messily, but still I took a sip from it. It burned my lip and the whiskey stung, but I sipped it like I was a gentleman. I cleared my throat and tried to speak as calmly as I could as Rian stared and stared at me, his new hopeless moth in the dusty shadows.
“I’d really appreciate it if you just talk to them,” I said, gripping my knees till they hurt. “As a favour to me.”
Rian was still looking at me. Still suspicious. What he was piecing together, I wasn’t sure. Looks from Aurnia. Looks from me. Brushes in the hallway. Whispered conversations behind closed doors. What was so fucking great was that he was probably imagining something far more than there was. More than I’d allowed there to be.
Rian’s voice was hesitant. “Why don’t you talk to them? You went there, too.”
I pounded my fist on the table. “Because—”
I almost didn’t stop myself in time. I almost blurted out the secret that I’d managed to keep from Rian from the start. From the start and for all these years. The secret that our relationship was based on. The lie that he called the start of our friendship.
“Because,” I repeated, dragging my fingers through my hair, “because we both know that you had a better track record there than me.”
“But your art,” Rian said, scooting to the edge of the couch. “But Conor, surely your art speaks for itself.”
I dug my fingers into my eye sockets. I was surprised when I heard Rian get up. Surprised when I opened my eyes to find him in the chair next to mine. His hand about to reach out to my knee. It was only my eyes on his hand that stopped him. He drew it back and sighed.
“Conor…I feel like you’re not telling me something.”
I snorted, because wasn’t that the fucking understatement of the year. If Rian knew all that I wasn’t telling him… Rian thought he knew me, but he didn’t. Neither did Mason. Neither did anyone who was masochistic enough to call me “friend”.
Rian touched my hand. I snatched my hand back like he’d placed a hot iron against my skin. Despite this, Rian persisted. He leaned forward even closer. His eyes were more focused than I could remember them being in a long, long time.
“Conor,” he said, and I wanted to get away. Far away. “I want you to know that you can tell me. You can tell me anything.”
It was funny before. Now it was fucking enraging. I wrenched my hand away from his and stood abruptly. My knee hit the coffee table and this time there was no chance for the little teacup. It fell and shattered and my only regret was that I didn’t drink the precious whiskey.
“Don’t say shite like that,” I said, pointing at him with a shaking finger. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Conor—”
“I mean it, Rian.” My eyes checked the big window for any sign of Aurnia. I paused to judge whether they’d heard me upstairs. In a hiss I said once more, “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
