AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We find the girls on the back porch drinking champagne. Fiona seems at ease, smiling, her hair pulled back. Molly’s in a big flowery dress with a hat shoved down over her unruly curls. “You’re lucky Orin invited you out here,” she says once we’re sitting. “He’s always such an uptight bastard in the city.”
“Hey now, easy there,” Orin says, but he’s grinning affectionately. He kisses his wife on the cheek. “You’re right though, as always. Minus the bastard part, you old cougar.”
The idea that Orin Crowley would let his wife joke about him like that would’ve been absurd a day ago. But I’m starting to get a sense of how he lives his life. There’s the crime lord Orin and the beachgoing Orin, and those men are very different people.
“He’s more relaxed out here,” Molly says, patting her husband on the knee. “I’m always encouraging him to spend more time at the beach house, but he always says his business is in Boston, and that’s where he should be.”
“What’s a man without work?” Orin asks, shrugging. “You understand, Gareth.”
“I do,” I say, not really sure how I feel about putting myself on the same level as a mob boss, but all right. He’s not wrong. I’m nothing without my job.
“Gareth’s a workaholic,” Fiona announces, looking pleased with herself. Her eyebrows arch when I give her a sharp look. “What? Are you going to argue?”
Molly laughs, delighted. “Did you know that before you married him?”
“I hoped he’d change,” Fiona says with a dramatic sigh. “I’m trying to save him. I like damaged men.”
“Damaged?” I ask, glaring. “I’m not damaged.”
“You should’ve seen him when we first met,” Fiona says, leaning closer to Molly. “He didn’t have a single picture on the walls of his apartment. It was like he lived in an extremely clean frat house.”
“Really now?” Orin asks, looking at me with wide eyes. “Is that true?”
Fiona answers before I can. “He said it was just a place to sleep, so why bother decorating? His entire life revolves around the office.”
“I had decorations,” I say, working my jaw.
“He had one dish, one cup, one towel. It was the ultimate bachelor pad.”
“Sounds depressing,” Molly says, nodding.
“God, you should’ve seen the first night he brought me home,” Fiona says, launching into a story that absolutely didnothappen. I shoot her a look, trying to get her to stop it, but she’s on a roll now. “His TV was on the floor, which was a total red flag. There was one chair, no coffee table, wires everywhere. Unopened boxes in all the corners, like he’d moved in and didn’t bother unpacking. I asked how long he’d been there and he said three years! He opened a bottle of wine, but there was only a single glass, so he had to drink from a mug. Then we ordered in, but there was only one plate, so he had to eat out of the cardboard container with a spoon, while I was privileged enough to get a fork.”
“And you still married him?” Molly asks, laughing. “I would’ve run screaming.”
“He kept apologizing,” Fiona says, putting a hand lightly on my leg. I want to throw her off this damn balcony right about now. “It was very sweet. But I started sort of wondering about him when I realized he had one towel. One set of sheets. One pillow and one pillowcase. I was like, what do you do when you do laundry? He said he just doesn’t shower.”
“Doesn’t shower!” Orin says, laughing. “Oh, boy, you truly needed a woman.”
“That’s not the worst of it,” Fiona says, eyes gleaming with excitement.
“It can’t get worse,” Molly says, hand over her heart.
“No, it really can’t,” I say through my teeth. “Right, sweetheart?”
“He used that all-in-one shampoo and body wash stuff,” she says, shaking her head. “It was the no-tears kind, you know, for little kids? Organic though, which I thought was very good, but when I asked him about it, he said it was to save time. Poured it over his head, rubbed it all over, and boom, all clean.”
“That has to be a joke,” Orin says, looking at me like he lost a little respect. “Truly, not the all-in-one?”
“Truly,” Fiona says, nodding proudly. “Now, I haven’t told you about the sock—”
“Okay!” I say, jumping to my feet. “Orin, why don’t you show us down to the beach? I’m sure Fiona’s done telling you about my totally unbelievable bachelor pad.”
“I was just getting started,” she says, grinning.
“But Gareth’s right, we should get some beach time in, and I know the boys would like to say hello,” Molly says, and I could kiss the woman. At least if her gangster husband wouldn’t cut my throat for it. “You two head out and get changed. We’ll meet here in ten.”
“Sounds good.” I yank Fiona by the hand. “Come on, love.”
