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“I have an important question to ask.” Keely leans forward, grinning slightly as she catches Alisa’s eye. “Now that you’re a Crowley, when’s the first baby coming?”
“Uh,” Alisa says, panicking. She looks over at me.
“There won’t be any babies,” I say flatly.
“Come on, we all know your mother’s not going for that,” Keely says, leaning back in her chair with a smirk. “There’s always a baby. That’s just how this family works.”
“That isn’t our relationship.” I refuse to give an inch to this.
“Oh, come on, Keels,” Dara says, holding up her hands. “They’ve been married for a day. No need to start pressuring them into reproducing yet.”
Keely shrugs, swirling her wine. “If it’s not me, it’ll be someone else. I don’t personally care whether you guys pump out a bunch of kids or not, but this family does.”
“I never really thought about kids,” Alisa says, her voice small.
“All right, enough.” Nolan waves over the waitress. “Let’s order food.”
The rest of the meal goes well enough. I don’t engage the others if I don’t have to. Dara and Keely carry the conversation, though Alisa and my brothers both participate. When the night’s over, I drag my wife away from that restaurant as fast as I can, eager to be done with that farce.
“What’s the matter with you?” Alisa says once we’re far enough away that we won’t be overheard. She yanks her hand away, glaring at me.
“I don’t understand the question,” I say, already in the process of texting my driver our location.
“You were a prick that whole meal,” she says, looking at me like she wants to strangle me. “It wouldn’t have killed you to be nice for a couple hours.”
I point back the way we’d just walked. “That was a waste of our time,” I say. “The only reason we had that meal is my mother asked us to. We should be on my plane, heading back to Portland. Every minute spent not taking advantage of this situation is a minute Rustik had to plan his counter-move.”
She scoffs, shaking her head. “You’re unbelievable. Do you have any clue what just happened back there?”
Now it’s my turn to be annoyed. “My brothers and my sisters-in-law decided to be pushy about our relationship. Nothing important beyond that.”
She rubs her temples. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Explain to me why you’re so annoyed. It isn’t like you’ll be seeing much of those people. The moment our job is done—”
“That’s just it though, don’t you get it? They want you to be happy.”
I stare at her, trying to comprehend that absurd sentiment, but failing. “They want us to have children to further solidify the Crowley position.”
“All that baby talk, all those questions about you and me, it was all because they care. And because you don’t tell them anything.”
“That’s a convenient interpretation.”
“No, Liam. God, you’re so frustrating. It’s not convenient at all. They’re going to be hurt when we divorce. They think you’re being normal for once in your life and they’re excited.”
I step toward her. “Why do you care what they want?”
“I don’t know,” she admits. “They were nice.”
“My gangster brothers are nice? That’s a first.”
“Their wives are at least. Keely and Dara are both normal people, at least compared to your family. They kept asking me—” She opens her mouth to keep talking, then snaps it shut. “You know what? Forget it.”
She tries to walk away. I catch her wrist before she can escape, holding on tight. “Tell me what you were going to say.”
“No. It doesn’t matter. You won’t care.” She struggles to pull free.
“Tell me, Alisa.”
She stands, glaring at me in silence for a beat. Then says, “They kept asking if you were okay. They’re worried about you, since you’re never home. And both your brothers came up to me separately and said they’re really excited that I’m in the family, and they hope I can make you happy.”
I let that sink in. My sisters-in-law checking up on my well-being? My brothers worried about my happiness? It’s hard to imagine any of them caring about me. I assumed they thought about me as often as I thought about them—which is not at all.
“It doesn’t matter.” I release her. She rubs her wrist. “What they want isn’t relevant. You and I have a job to do, princess, and what’s going to be our focus.”
“Right. Naturally. Better to shut it all down and ignore the fact that your family’s worried about you.”
“I already told you.” I turn away as a black sedan pulls up. “It’s not that they care about me. It’s that they care about this family.”
She looks at me like she can’t believe what I’m saying, but I’m finished arguing. I open the door for her, and she climbs into the back.
I pause before getting in beside her. For all that, I have to admit that it’s nice being back in Boston, being around my brothers. I’ve always been an outsider, no matter where I go, but at least here they accept me for what I am.
