Dangerous Games (6 page)

S
hortly after my heart to heart with Finn, I took a shower and dressed in a pair of cut-off pale blue jeans and a white short-sleeved peasant blouse. I’d had a couple of shots of Jack Daniels and was feeling no pain as I grabbed my phone to call my mother.

Finn grabbed my Ulysse Nardin and whistled out loud. “Wow, this makes my iPhone look like one of those pay-as-you-go piece of shit phones. How much did this thing set you back?”

I would never get used to the sound of his voice. He’d lived in Northern Ireland until he was ten years old when he and his mother moved here with the help of Cleona. His mother and my grandmother were second cousins but I always thought there was more to them moving to the States than met the eye.

Though they technically arrived shortly before the famed Good Friday Agreement that was signed in 1998, he and his mother had returned to Northern Ireland often though no one really referred to the two separate entities as such, not around this part of Boston at least. When they’d gone back to see family, they merely were going back to Ireland to see family. The only difference between my grandmother and grandfather was geography. Granddad’s family came from County Kerry where as Grandma’s family originated from County Tyrone, Omagh to be exact.

Finn had spent his first ten years of life in Omagh and had lost good friends when the bombing happened in August of 1998 by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army opposed to the Good Friday Agreement which had been signed the previous April on the tenth.

Ironically, Finn also had friends who went on to join the very same organization. The IRA was, technically, a disbanded terrorist organization and now only known by its political wing, Sinn Féin. Ironically, while most Americans had spent the first decade of the millennium addressing the “war on terror”, the IRA had received most of its financing from Irish-Americans. Drugs and guns were the main source of where most of the financing came from and Boston was at the heart of it all. It was impossible to grow up Irish, especially in south Boston, and be clean of all gangster activity unless one was just a working stiff. Even then, one was still touched by it through a family member or loved one.

Unfortunately, my mother’s family was heavily involved in gangster activity though most of my uncles and great uncles had legitimate jobs. This wasn’t quite the truth for a lot of my cousins. Some had gone on to become Yuppies and they promptly cut ties with the family, similar to what my mother had done. She was basically the shining star of the family. If Athena Donahue could do it then why couldn’t they? It was a bit ironic me, being my mother’s daughter, found myself right back in the middle of the “family business” and in love with a criminal.

Did I still love Finbar Reilly?

It wasn’t so much a question of whether I loved him because he was my first love but whether we were willing to try for a second time to make our relationship work now that we were adults. If he continued his criminal enterprise activities then obviously the chances of us having a functional relationship were slim to none. My mother would rather have me murdered herself than to have her only child wrapped up with an Irish thug.

I promptly grabbed my phone from Finn and replied, “I didn’t buy the damn thing—my dad did for my nineteenth birthday.”

“Wow. He really thinks a nineteen-year-old needs a fifty thousand dollar mobile phone?” he inquired in a sarcastic voice.

“Whoa, check out the big brain on Finn. How the hell do you know how much this phone costs anyway?”

“I read you know. Contrary to what you might think, I am completely literate and can use a computer just fine. I have an iBook over there in the corner, a Kindle Fire, an iPod Touch and the latest iPhone. I also have an iPad but I mostly use it to watch films when I want to be alone.”

I shrugged apathetic shoulders. “What can I say? He’s old world and Swedish…not to mention a former action hero superstar. He doesn’t get that people in the real world don’t carry around outrageously expensive shit like rich people do.”

“Oh yeah, where is he living now and when’s the last time you saw him? I read about his marriage to Artemis Ozan. That must have sent your mother around the bend. He dumps her and marries a British pop singer who used to be part of the mega-girl group, The Baby Gyrls.”

“No one even knows who the hell she is here so that helped.” I began to play with my phone just to keep my hands busy and away from his body. “It didn’t help that Artemis is a huge star in the UK. Mom used to hate to attend premieres there because they would always ask her questions about the woman and wonder whether she had anything to do with my parents’ divorce.”

Finn stared me over with bright crystal blue eyes. “Did she?”

“Well…yeah. He met her at the premiere of that film he did about the rogue CIA agent. He and Mom were having problems because of what had happened here between us but…she doesn’t blame me. She thinks she made the right decision but Dad was furious with her. He thought you and I could really make a go of it and wanted to buy us a place in Europe. I would have been sixteen soon and that’s the age of consent in Sweden. We could have gotten married.”

I was silent for a moment. “He never thought we should have just been separated the way we were and furthermore, he didn’t want me to grow up in the spotlight. His bright idea was moving us away and allowing me to grow up like a normal teenager in Sweden. Of course that would have meant you would have wanted to move there but he was willing to finance the whole set-up.”

Finn took the phone from my hands and set it down on the table next to the bed before he slipped his arms around my waist. “You know I would have gone anywhere with you. Why didn’t your dad have more of a say?”

“Because Mom just took over the whole situation and that is when he gave up and went to Europe to do that film. By the time he got back, everything was already put into motion and there was nothing he could do. He kind of just allowed the marriage to fall apart and the next thing I knew, Mom told me he was moving to London to star in a Broadway show and they were getting a divorce.”

We drifted down onto the bed and when he kissed me again my heart began to thump in my chest with an intensity I didn’t think was possible. Everything about the situation was perfect including the way his JD soaked tongue swirled with mine and we both kind of drifted into each other’s space.

My hands had a mind of their own as they removed his wife-beater to reveal a new tattoo, one of a shamrock on the left side of his chest with the colors of the Irish flag. This joined a black Celtic cross he had on his right shoulder blade, a black broken heart on his right upper arm and my name in cursive on his left upper shoulder just above a hard-core barbed wire tattoo.

I traced the shamrock tattoo on his chest. “This your last time dabbling with ink?” I questioned in a teasing manner.

“I don’t know. You still have your tramp stamp?” he inquired.

“Um, yeah. It makes interesting conversation when ever I have ever been in bed with a guy…which has only been a couple of times since you…guys I mean.”

The tramp stamp he referred to was a tattoo I had at the base of my back, which read “Property of Finn R.” It was during the days when we were inseparable and although I was underage, it didn’t stop me from getting it done. I was so happy to be with him I would have had it tattooed on my face if he’d wanted me to at the time.

“Speaking of being with other guys…I don’t want to hear about it, okay? And does that mean you’re on anything?” Finn inquired with cold look flashing through his gorgeous eyes.

“No, I’m not on anything because the guys I have been with…we always used rubbers and lately, I’ve been kind of dabbling on the other side of the fence.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I have been fucking my roomie, Amaani. I managed to get her to transfer to Boston University with me so I wouldn’t be alone. We’re gonna live off campus though. Since I am sleeping with a woman, I don’t need to be on 
anything
.”

“She a hardcore crack snacker or is she just doin’ this because she finds you attractive?”

“Um, she’s a Muslim female who believes she should save her virginity until she gets married. And neither of us are doing this because we are bored. We genuinely love each other though it is different from what you and I have if that’s what you’re asking. And yes, we find each other mutually attractive so that definitely makes our situation that much easier.”

“Why do I feel like I am holding you up from doing something?” he inquired as he sat up, and handed me my phone again.

“You aren’t. I just need to call my Mom. Will you please stay? I don’t want to talk to her in this room all by myself.”

Finn gave me a look. “Need a little courage?”

I stared at him sheepishly. “Yeah. You got some hash?”

“I can do you one better.” He opened a bedside drawer and removed a baggie full of blue pills. Finn searched through them until he found what he was looking for and put the baggie away. He then used the bottom of the shot glass to crush it on a square mirror and a credit card to make thin blue lines. Expertly, he rolled up a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to me.

“Wait a fucking minute. Is that Oxy?” I wondered, stating the obvious.

“Yeah but it’s a twenty milligram tablet. One line isn’t going to send you into a 
Pulp Fiction
 scenario. Plus, it isn’t cut with coke. You should be fine. It’s just going to relax you.”

I snorted a line and the powder burned my nose but the taste was no worse than coke. I dealt with the drip down the back of my throat by downing another shot of JD, and waited for the pill to take effect.

By the time I called my mother, I was feeling no pain and there wasn’t much she could say to me to really upset me. Oxy was a depressant, and with three shots of Jack, I really didn’t give a shit what she said to me.

She answered on the third ring. “Evie? How are you? I’m about to start filming again. What’s going on and what the hell are you doing in Boston?”

“I can’t deal with the fakeness of L.A. right now, and I just needed to get away. What difference does it make? You aren’t there. Plus, I was thinkin’ of comin’ to visit you in Montreal. Wouldn’t that be fun? I can’t wait to meet this Etienne guy,” I said while tried my best not to slur.

“Yeah but I know for a fact that Finbar Reilly is there because he and Dylan are living together. You’re not staying with your grandparents because I’ve called them so you must be staying with him.”

“I am. He’s got this dope house in Charlestown—the bougie part—and it’s completely safe here. I swear it’s not shady at all. Nothin’ is gonna happen to me.”

“Evie, are you drunk?”

“I had a couple shots of JD but nothin’ I can’t handle, Mom.”

“Jack Daniels?” my mother whispered. “Just look after yourself and go down to the clinic. If you’re going to be in the house with them then you need to…make sure you’re protected. I’m not ready to be a grandmother yet.”

I almost said something to the contrary but I would live to regret such a remark so I reluctantly bit my tongue. “I will. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine, okay?”

“If you say so. And watch the alcohol consumption—you’re still in the States and technically, you 
aren’t
 old enough to legally drink yet.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I responded.

“You know you can call me at any time and we can discuss when you plan to go back to L.A.”