A Bad Bit Nice (12 page)

Mick’s B-day

Em noticed Rory’s bold handwriting from across the room. Was that why Mick had seemed somewhat melancholy last night? She knew he was a few years older than she was. Maybe 45 was hitting him hard?

Em chewed her lip. What to do? Should she acknowledge his birthday? If so, how? It was too early in their relationship for presents.

Once again, Em longed for mix tapes. That would be perfect for him. She laughed at the thought of giving Mick a homemade mix tape. The man made his living building recording studios and being a sound engineer. He wouldn’t be impressed with a mix tape that she’d made on her little boom box.

Maybe she could make him a cake? She knew he had a sweet tooth and that he really liked German chocolate cake. The faces and sounds he’d made when they had shared a slice of cake at the Basque place rivaled those that he made during their little snogfest.

Yes, that’s what she would do. She would make a mini-cake, just enough for the two of them. She didn’t think that was too pushy.

Em made a list of ingredients she needed for the cake. Her email pinged with a message from Rory, asking her to stop by his office before she left. She checked her watch, noting that if she left now, she’d have time to get the store before the rush. She gathered her bags and went to Rory’s office, hoping that whatever it was wouldn’t take long.

Rory’s door was mostly closed and she could hear him yelling at whoever he was talking to on the phone. She waited a few minutes, not wanting to interrupt, but when she heard his fist pound his desk, she knew the call was going to continue for longer than she wanted to wait.

She slipped out the door, resolving to call him after she got home while the cake was baking. She would take it to Mick’s before it got late and interrupted whatever plans he had for the evening.

Plans for the evening. What if he had a date? Shit. Maybe
that’s
why he’d started acting squirrelly last night. S
hit shit
damn
. She didn’t want to interrupt a romantic birthday date. No one wanted to be alone on their birthday. Em was a big enough person to admit that she was a bit hurt that he hadn’t mentioned his birthday the night before, and she was sad that Mick obviously didn’t want to spend it with her. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all.

Fuck it
.
Live dangerously for once, Em. Take a risk.

Her decision made, Em strode through the parking lot.

Still on the phone with the unapologetic and very tardy vendor, Rory rapped loudly on the window, trying to get Em’s attention.
Fuck
, he thought. He really needed to give Em a heads up about what was going on with Mick this weekend. He’d seen her eyeballing his calendar and knew that she wouldn’t be able to resist doing something for Mick’s birthday. This could be really good or really bad.
Fuck.

Rory checked the clock. It was still early. He’d call Em as soon as he got off this call, this frustratingly drawn-out call.

“What? No, that’s not acceptable, Jonathan. How much business have I given you over the past year? You need to cut me a deal. Run the numbers and get back with me tonight.”

Rory slammed the receiver down and immediately picked it back up and dialed Em’s cell phone.
Damn, straight to voicemail
. He debated calling Mick. The guy was so prickly, though Rory couldn’t really blame him, especially today of all days.

Rory dove for his cell phone when he heard the familiar chirp.

“Have you talked to Mick?” he barked without a greeting.

“No, I was calling to ask you if you’d talked to him,” Sheila Doyle replied. “And hello to you, son.”

“Sorry, Mam,” Rory apologized. “I’m worried. Mick’s not picking up. I’m trying to decide if it’s going to be better to go over there and check on him and piss him off or just ignore him and let him get it out of his system.”

“Well, I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t worried about him, but I might leave him be this year, Rory. What about that woman you said he was seeing? Do you know if they have plans?”

Rory sighed. “Not as far as I know. I don’t even think he told her about today. She’s the type to make him a cake and surprise him with it, though.”

“Maybe that’s just what he needs, Rory, some sweets and some sugar to dull the pain.”

“Mam! Are you suggesting that Mick get laid?” Rory laughed incredulously.

“I’m saying that sometimes if a man has had a hard time, he needs something soft to hold onto, that’s all.” Sheila sighed. “This is a rough day for all of us, but Mick, he’d already lost so much.”

“I know, Mam. I’ll call him again.”

“You’re such a good boy,” Sheila said, knowing that being called a boy irritated her son. “I’ll talk to you on Sunday as usual, okay, unless there’s a crisis.”

“Love ya, Mam.”

Rory rubbed his hands over his face and dialed Mick’s number. If he didn’t answer, Rory was going to go over there regardless of Mick’s request to be left alone. Hopefully he would find Mick at home, eating cake off of Em’s substantial cleavage.

“Fuck off, Rory. I’m fine. I’m not answering the phone again and don’t come over. Fuck.”

Okay, then. Mick was fine, or at least as fine as he was going to be
.

Rory shook his head. He heard the tone of his email notification and saw that Jonathan had sent over the revised contracts. He might as well look them over, since he wasn’t going to have to play nursemaid tonight. He sat heavily in his chair, opened the email attachment, and began reading and marking up the paperwork.

*****

Mick clicked the off button on the phone and tossed it to the side.

He had started drinking early this year. Generally, he obeyed a strict one- or two-drink limit, but on this one day, the date that encompassed both the absolute best and the devastating worst that he had ever experienced, he didn’t limit himself.

Mick ran his fingers over the spines of the scrapbooks that Grace had so lovingly put together, and took another pull directly from the whiskey bottle. The alcohol burned going down but filled his gut with warmth and dulled the ache in his chest. Maybe because he’d started drinking early this year, the pain didn’t seem as bad. Or maybe he was finally getting over her.

Mick leaned his head on the back of the couch, and inhaled, then exhaled. It seemed like both just yesterday and a hundred years ago that all he could manage
was
to breathe. Those first few weeks, after, he’d sat on the couch while Rory and his parents called to check on him and popped in and out of the brownstone, delivering food that spoiled in the refrigerator and rotted on the counter.

Mick took another pull on the bottle, his fingers now stroking the snippet of soft hair that she’d so carefully tied up for a keepsake. He took another deep breath and let it out, chased it with another swallow of whiskey.

Rory would kick my arse if he saw me sitting here sooking.

No, Rory would look at the books with him, and
then
give him a proper ass-kicking.

Mick huffed a small laugh. Maybe he should have let his best friend come over.

No, it was better that he didn’t. Things felt a bit different this year, more settled, less sharp. Maybe work was finally filling the empty spots in his life. Mick glanced through the open door of his home office at the piles of plans and specs and contracts that littered his desk.

He shook his head. No matter how organized and systematic the other areas of his life were, his office was always a complete and total disaster.

Mick pushed himself off the couch and was surprised when he wobbled a bit. He frowned at the bottle in his hand, as if it were the bottle’s fault that it was already mostly empty. Mick drained the rest of the bottle and went to the kitchen to fetch another and his cigarettes.

His eye caught Em’s note, that first note warning of the movers. After all these months, he had held onto it. He wasn’t going to examine
why
right now, not today.

Em
.

Maybe that’s what was different this year. She was so different from Grace, at least physically, but her personality was similar: fiery and passionate, yet sweet.

Mick thought back a few nights to their make-out session on Em’s prissy divan. How many years had it been since he had come with another person? Too damn long, he knew. He had briefly considered calling her and taking her up on the movies or a show that she mentioned last night, but he had ultimately decided that it wasn’t a good idea. The last thing he would want was to upset her, and with the volatility of today, he probably would.

Mick sat heavily on a wrought-iron chair and lit a cigarette.

Inhale, exhale.

Yeah, that’s all he was good for today.

He held the cigarette in his mouth while he broke the seal on a new bottle.

Inhale, exhale, drink.

He repeated the pattern until he was down to his last cigarette and the second bottle was empty. He debated getting another bottle, but no, that was too much. He really needed to get something in his belly or he’d really be hurting tomorrow, but the kitchen seemed so far away. He sat debating dinner for so long that the cigarette burned down to his fingers.

“Fuck!” Mick hissed, shaking his hand and leaping up when the final ashes fell into his lap and burned a hole through his jeans. “Goddammit.”

He took a few unsteady steps back into the house, retrieved another pack of cigarettes, and went back to his porch. God, he already had the beginnings of a headache, though whether it resulted from too much drink or not enough food, he didn’t know.

“Mickey, you’re an asshole,” he said to himself as he leaned against the wall. He lit a cigarette and promised himself that when he finished this pack, he would quit. He took another drag and started to sit down, but the chair wasn’t quite where he thought it was. His normally quick reflexes dulled from the whiskey, Mick lost his balance and went crashing to the concrete slab.

Em made it to the store and got the cake in the oven in record time. She called Rory’s office, but he didn’t answer; she tried his cell phone, which went straight to voicemail. He was probably still screaming at whoever that unfortunate vendor was. Em shuddered. She wouldn’t want to be on the other side of Rory’s fury, that’s for sure.

Em put the final touches on the cake, decorating the top with a swirl of pecans. It looked good, if she did say so herself. Hopefully Mick would like it. She transferred the cake to a covered cake plate and took it downstairs. She heard music through the door, which told her he was home. She rapped loudly at the door. After two further attempts, she thought he might be on the porch with a celebratory cigar and a whiskey, so she headed out the front door and around the house to check things out.

“Mick? Mick, are you here?” This was weird. The open door and the unattended burning cigarette weren’t like Mick. Em leaned over the railing, and then she saw him.

The cake forgotten, Em scrambled over the rail when she saw Mick’s prone body on the patio. Broken glass and cigarette butts were scattered around and underneath him, making it apparent that he had fallen into one of the glass tables on his porch. He stirred a bit, raising his hand to his forehead. He opened his eyes to see Em’s concerned face hovering over him.

“Hey beautiful,” he slurred, pawing at her hair and blouse. “How’d you get so tall? Are you wearing those sexy, sexy shoes again? I really like those. Maybe you can wear
just
those sometime. I am so glad to see you.” He grinned widely and sighed.

Oh, boy.

“Hey, Mick. What have you gotten yourself into? I think you’ve had an accident.” She lightly touched his head, brushing bits of safety glass from his hair. “Do you think you can stand up? You’re too big of a boy for me to haul your butt inside.”

Mick rolled over, unfortunately in more glass, and tried to push himself to his feet. He was obviously very, very drunk. When he couldn’t stand, he curled back up, mumbling that he was going to rest his eyes for just a bit.

Em tugged on his arm, whispering words of encouragement to get him into the house. Finally, with Em’s help, he was able to crawl through the door into the living room. There was no way that she was going to get him into the bedroom, so she pulled some cushions off the couch and covered him with a blanket.

She sat by him, stroking his handsome face and rubbing his chest. She softly kissed his forehead. “What happened to you today, Mick?” she murmured.

He opened his eyes and brought a big hand to her cheek. “Everything that’s precious to me gets taken away,” he mumbled. He looked so sad. He stroked her cheek a few times before closing his eyes.

Em sat with him, running her eyes over his stilled form and holding his hand. When she was sure that he would stay asleep, she got up to sit in the chair and figure out what she was going to do. Should she call Rory?

Em rubbed her face. She noticed several scrapbooks on the coffee table that she hadn’t seen on previous visits. The top one, white with satin and ribbons, was opened to a portrait.

As Em looked more closely, she recognized a much younger, clean-shaven Mick, with a willowy woman who had a shock of curly copper hair. Mick was wearing a suit and she had on a white empire waist dress and carried a bouquet of flowers. They were looking at each other as if no one else in the world existed.

There was a printed card glued to the picture.
Michael and Grace, October 18, 1990.
Em’s eyes welled.
Well, shit. This was their anniversary, too?

Curiosity got the best of Em. She looked through the scrapbook, seeing an also-young Rory and people who were undoubtedly Rory and Grace’s parents. She saw two rough-looking men that looked a lot like Mick, older but not old enough to be his father. The brothers that he mentioned, maybe?

As she looked through the pictures, it became obvious that Grace had been pregnant when they got married, but this was hardly a shotgun wedding: everyone looked thrilled. Em smiled sadly. They were both so young.

Since she was being nosy, she picked up the other scrapbook. Opening it up, she saw another picture of Grace and Mick, this time with two sturdy babies with red topknots. Em paged through the book, tears streaming down her face. The two tiny curls of hair, bound up in small blue bows, did her in.

God, he had two boys. TWO. She shut the book and crawled over to Mick’s side. She clasped his hand tightly, then pressed her lips against his jaw and settled down beside him.

*****

Mick woke up in his living room floor, fully dressed except for his shoes and belt, and wanted to die but was afraid he wouldn’t. He had cotton-mouth and a splitting headache.

His headache wasn’t improved by the chainsaw noise that seemed to be coming from his kitchen. He sat up slowly so that his brain wouldn’t rattle around in his head, his eyes closed to keep the nausea at bay. When he opened his eyes, Em was crouched in front of him, a glass of vile-looking liquid in her hand. She smiled at him, and he couldn’t help but return her smile.

“Okay, big guy,” Em said, not unkindly. “You need to go into the bathroom, turn on the shower and drink that concoction. After you’re done puking—because you will
definitely
puke—clean yourself up, and come back in and I’ll make you breakfast.”

Her tone brooked no argument and Mick did as she said. A minute after he drank the contents of the glass, he was violently ill, just as she’d promised, but afterward, sure enough, he felt a lot better.

When he emerged from the bathroom, freshly showered, clothes changed, and somewhat refreshed, Em presented him with a hot plate of scrambled eggs, along with peanut butter toast and another glass of the nasty-looking liquid. He eyed it and Em said, “No coffee until you drink that down. Go on.”

“God, you’re bossy in the morning.”

Em eyeballed him as he drank it, then quirked an eyebrow at him when the glass was empty.

“Fine. I feel better. Whatever was in that vile concoction was magic.”

Mick ate his breakfast in silence as Em cleaned up the dishes.

“Thank you,” he said.

Em’s face softened. “Will you tell me about her?”

Mick took a deep breath and started talking.