Ruin Me (2 page)

Chapter Two

I know where Patrick Whelan lives. Everybody in our little town knows where everybody else lives and for how long and with whom.

Patrick lives alone toward the end of a long dirt road that winds into the woods, just on our side of the town line between Dereham and Riverdale. I’ve never been to his house but I find it easily. There’s a bank of mailboxes at the foot of the road and the one labeled fourteen says Whelan on the side. I take a right at the long, anonymous driveway just after the one marked twelve, my old navy hatchback bucking in the dry potholes.

My heart starts to hammer when I spot Patrick’s ancient pickup in the driveway. It’s Sunday morning and I wish I were religious so I could remember I’m supposed to be at church like a good person and get the hell out of here. Instead I park my car behind his truck and slam the door as loud as I can—a warning. I trot up a path of slate flagstones to the door of his small red house and I push the bell, contorting my face into an imitation of casual cool.

But Patrick doesn’t come to the door. He appears around the side of the house with an axe in one gloved hand. This deviates from my script and I falter.

“Hi!” I say, way too perky, and wave like a moron.

“Robin.”

Goddamn, he’s so tall. I always manage to make him shorter in my mind’s eye. He doesn’t smile but that’s not surprising. Patrick Whelan’s not a smiley guy.

“Can I interest you in the word of Our Lord, Jesus Christ?” I ask and grin.

He grins back, cautious. That’s what I always used to say to him when I’d sit down at the table in the correctional facility’s visiting room. It freaked him out the first time but broke the ice once he realized I was kidding. Then it became our greeting. This is the first time I’ve said it since he got released, over five years ago now.

He leans his axe against the side of the house and crosses his arms over his chest. I should mention Patrick’s an honest-to-God lumberjack. That’s probably not his actual job title, but he spends four months of the year in northern New Hampshire, logging. It must pay well because it’s exceedingly dangerous. The rest of the year he works at a lumberyard here in Dereham. I think he does some contract carpentry too, because every once in a while I’ll see his truck in some random driveway, its bed full of two-by-fours. A couple times I’ve been tempted to call him up to do some carpentry for me, but I can never think up a project. Not one that Jay couldn’t probably do a decent job of, anyway. God, there’s a metaphor if I ever heard one.

“Can I help you with something, Robin?”

“Maybe.” Being close to him makes me shake, as always. “Can I talk to you for a few minutes?”

He thinks a second and nods. “You talk, I chop,” he says and grabs his axe and heads around the house again. I follow, watching his ass. You would too, if you were here.

There’s a mountain of firewood at the edge of his backyard. He must have just had a couple cords delivered.

“Don’t mind me,” he says and starts splitting logs at a stump. “You just do your talking.”

I don’t want to launch into the meat of the matter right off, not after we haven’t had a real conversation in half a decade. I toy with the fringe at the end of my scarf. “How have you been?”

“All right.” His brown eyes meet mine. He’s got several days’ worth of stubble and is a couple months overdue for a haircut. I want to run my palms over his face and neck and devour him.

I clear my throat and point to the wood. “Why do you do this by hand?”

“Relaxes me.” He splits a log down the middle with a whack then adds another to the stump. It’s so unselfconsciously manly I have to stifle an urge to tear my clothes off and tackle him.

Instead I ask, “How’s your mom?”

He shrugs. “’Bout the same.”

Despite all those visits, I don’t know a ton about Patrick, but I know his mom lives a few towns away and she’s some kind of compulsive hoarder. I think about Patrick whenever I see a show about people with that problem. I know he worries about her and that she drives him up the wall. Or she would, if you could get to her walls through all the stacks of moldy old catalogs and magazines Patrick said she’s got herself barricaded behind.

“I don’t suppose you could invite me in for a coffee?” I ask. “It’s not really a wood-chopping conversation I’ve come here to have with you.”

He thwacks the blade into the stump and mops his brow. Snow starts to drift down, the first of the season. The flakes land in his dark hair for a second before dissolving. He nods and I follow him to the side door.

His house is small and as soon as I step inside I’m struck by how cool it is. He’s got tons of recessed shelving built into the walls and a handsome granite counter running along one side of his kitchen. Everything feels Spartan and organized—a poorly hidden filial rebellion.

We don’t talk and soon a kettle’s whistling. He puts grounds into a little metal basket and steeps me a cup of coffee.

“Milk?” he asks.

“Please. And sugar if you have it.”

He hands me the mug, royal blue with the logo of his lumber company. I take a sip even though it’s way too hot and pretend it doesn’t hurt, and he sits down opposite me at his little scrubbed pine table, looking patient. He’s got way more grays than Jay, mostly in his temples and his not-quite-a-beard. I think he turned thirty-eight or -nine last January.

“So,” I finally begin. “I want to apologize in advance, about this. It’s really weird, what I have to say. You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

His gaze darts around the kitchen—scouting for escape routes, I suspect—then settles back on my face. “Okay.”

“I, um… I was wondering if maybe, sometime…if I might possibly…kiss you,” I mumble. “Maybe not just kiss. Maybe more. I’m not sure. And not today, just sometime.”

His mouth twitches behind his stubble. His dark eyes widen, which is a strange look for him because normally they’re sort of squinty. He’s got hooded eyes, I think they’re called. They make him look a bit Slavic, like a moody Russian exile from Romanov times, with an Irish name. I realize I’m staring when I should be elucidating.

“So that’s why I’m here,” I say lamely.

Patrick clears his throat. “No offense, if you’re a feminist or whatever, but aren’t you Jay Fleury’s woman?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“He seems like a good man,” Patrick says, cautious and clearly confused.

I nod again. “He’s wonderful.”

His fingers wrestle with themselves, as though he wishes he had a mug, too, to keep them busy. “Well, I’ll be honest with you, Robin. Even if he was a world-class shit, I wouldn’t ever mess with another man’s woman.”

“It was his idea,” I say and watch Patrick’s hands go perfectly still.

“That sounds a bit fucked up. No offense, Robin.”

“It’s a lot simpler than I’m making it seem,” I say, wondering if it might not be the opposite. “Would you consider it? It’s important. To him. To both of us.”

“Why do you need to…do whatever you need to? With me?”

I think I catch his ears go a bit pink then wonder if they’ve been like that all along from the cold.

“I have some feelings for you, and they won’t go away,” I say. “I don’t think I can move on with Jay until I—” I pause, dogged by my own flagrant selfishness. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. This is the most psychotic thing I’ve ever done. I can’t believe I came here and said this to you. I’m so sorry.” I get up and put my still-steaming coffee on the cutting board by the sink, stuff my arms into my coat sleeves and head toward the door. I hear Patrick’s chair scrape behind me.

“Don’t just dump that on me and run off,” he says.

I stop. I turn and look at him and my face must be as red my scarf. “It sounds really horrible when I say it out loud.” I look at his feet. “Like I’m propositioning you. And I guess I am.”

“I gotta say, I don’t get it.”

“Me neither,” I say and I laugh, wanting to die.

“I’ll think about it.”

His words knock the sense clear out of my brain. I blink a few times. “Will you?”

He nods. “Send your man over this afternoon. I want to hear him explain it.”

“But you’d…you’d think about it? You’d be okay with kissing me, or more?” I blush so hard I feel sunburned.

“I’m not okay with anything ‘til I talk to him,” Patrick says, walking over. “You tell him two o’clock.” He pulls the door open for me. “Drive safe now.”

* * * * *

It’s a quarter after five.

When Jay left to go to Patrick’s three hours ago, he’d looked pale and understandably freaked out. I don’t know what I’d have felt if I was him—how I’d feel toward Patrick Whelan. I’d be scared, I bet, because Jay is a slender five-foot-eleven and Patrick’s probably four or five inches taller and he’s pretty jacked, if his arms are any indication. There’s no reason Patrick should have a beef with Jay but that’s bound to be intimidating.

I’d also be super pissed, I think, because if I was Jay I’d have been on my way to talk to the man my long-term girlfriend—who I’m super-awesome to—admits to being obsessed with. Obsessed in a joyless kind of way, I should add. I don’t like having feelings for Patrick. I never think about him when I’m having sex with Jay…at least I never mean to. Sometimes I slip up but I’m always careful to come staring right into Jay’s eyes if we’re face-to-face. Sometimes my brain gets itself in trouble if he’s taking me from behind.

You can probably tell that I fret a lot. It’s one of my dearest hobbies, one that drove my dad nuts while I was growing up. I wish I could call him now and ask his artless, sage advice. He makes everything sound so obvious. If I could somehow explain my problem without creeping both of us out, he’d probably say, “So, Jay’s upset because you want to bang this lumberjack guy? Well, of course he is. Haven’t you ever heard of monogamy? Christ, Robin, it’s not rocket science.”

I jump when I hear the car door slam in the driveway. I run downstairs to the living room like a puppy and watch through the picture window as Jay walks up the side steps. He does a little dance, a shuffly mashed-potato dance on the doormat, cleaning off his shoes before he comes in. It seems obscenely normal in light of what’s going on.

“So?” I ask, nearly falling as I slide across the kitchen floor in my socks.

He kicks his sneakers off and tosses them in the bin by the closet, just like normal. When he looks at me, I can’t read him. He holds his hands up, showing me a pair of red, blistered palms. I notice little bits of wood stuck to his hat.

“Oh my God, he made you chop wood with him? For how long?”

“Three. Fucking. Hours.”

“He didn’t give you gloves?”

“This
is
with gloves. Look.” Jay raises his arms up like a zombie, not quite to the shoulder. “That’s as far as they’ll go, now.”

“Yikes.”

“Can you take my hat off for me?”

I do and he walks to the table and slumps into a seat, looking wrecked. I sit across from him and clasp my hands, pretending to be patient, dying of curiosity.

“So what happened?” I ask.

“I tried to explain it to him, and I think I made as much sense as I could’ve hoped to.”

“What did he say?”

Jay purses his lips. “He said he likes you. That way. He said he’s always liked you.”

“Really?” My heart doesn’t flutter, I promise you. It sinks straight down into my feet.

He nods. “But he never thought you felt that way about him. Because you always seemed to avoid him, after he was released. And, he said, because every time he runs into you, you always look worried he might headbutt you or something.”

“Oh.” That was never my fear. As threatening as Patrick Whelan arguably looks, I’ve always been more afraid of what
I’m
capable of when I’m within ten feet of him.

“I think he’s like half in love with you, Robin.”

“Do you think that’ll make things more complicated?”

“Probably.” Jay sighs and finally makes solid eye contact. “But I think he’ll do it. Are you… Do you think you’re in love with him?” There’s a cold fear in his eyes.

I shake my head. “I don’t really know him that well. It’s just sexual. Or whatever primal kind of thing you feel when somebody rescues you. I love
you
,” I add emphatically. “And whatever I feel about him, it’s nothing like that. Like us.”

He nods, solemn but steady. “Well, if I had to guess, I think he’ll do it.”

I marvel that we can even be having a calm discussion like this.

“Although he kept squinting at me, like I was trying to trick him or something,” Jay says.

I smile at him to cut the tension. “Do you still think he’s an asshole?”

He sighs again, so theatrical I assume it’s a joke. “Jury’s still out… I guess he’s okay. He gave us some wood,” he adds. “But I don’t think I’ll be able to get it out of the car for a few days. I could barely turn the key in the ignition.”

I stand and give Jay’s shoulder a squeeze.

“Ow.”

“Sorry.” I pat his head instead. “Go find some football to watch or something. I’ll bring you a beer and start dinner.”