My eyes narrow. Apparently, she doesn’t recognize his name, and apparently he’s not going to hold it against a pretty girl that his former son-in-law married her mom.
The entryway is all black and white Italian marble and would look more appropriate in a hotel lobby in Vegas, but Avery marvels over it. She stares up at the black crystal chandelier for at least twenty seconds.
“You like it?” Pops asks. “My Riona picked everything out.”
“I love it. Riona’s your wife?”
“No, my daughter. Shane’s mother.”
“Oh! My gosh. I should’ve known her name. I’m so sorry.”
“Shane, you don’t talk about your mother?”
Definitely not,I think grimly.
“Shane doesn’t talk about anyone,” Avery says quickly, with a conspiratorial smile. “Becoming a talk show host is not in the cards for him, I’m afraid.”
Pops laughs and puts out his arm to escort her inside. She slides her arm through and holds his as he takes her on a tour. I follow behind them, looking at her peach of an ass and biding my time.
In the living room, he shows her pictures of celebrities and tells stories. She laughs at all the right places and jumps in with her own one-liners. I haven’t seen her this relaxed and animated in a long time. The underlying irony isn’t lost on me, but I still like it more than I should.
“Do you look like your mom?” the old man asks her.
“A bit. I got her lips and her nose,” she says, touching her face. “But her eyes are brown.”
“You know who you look like?” He walks her over to a picture and points. “That’s my wife, Siobhan, God rest her. She got a bit of the black Irish with the hair, and she had eyes as blue as the sea. Like yours.”
As blue as the sea? Seriously?
Avery doesn’t bat an eye, so Pops sails onward, talking and showing off more family photos. He always claims he was a “ladykiller” in his day. As a kid, I had an entirely different impression about what that meant until he explained the slang. At the time, I didn’t really buy that he had a way with women. Now I see I misjudged him because Avery’s hanging on his arm and his every word.
“Siobhan walked into a room and took every man’s breath away,” he announces. “That’s Ri, too. Just the same.” He points to a picture of my mother sitting at a cliffside café.
“Beautiful,” Avery agrees. “She looks like a movie star. Where is this?”
“Portugal. She lives there, with a useless husband and two ugly cats.”
Avery laughs.
His smile widens. He likes all pretty women, but especially the ones with a great sense of humor. “Come. Let’s get to the kitchen where I’ve got the treasure stashed.”
Her eyes twinkle. “Sounds perfect.”
The old man takes us into the white marble and silver kitchen and pours himself a whiskey and us some iced chocolate concoction.
“If you dare, lad,” he says, raising his glass.
I cock an eyebrow and sniff what’s in my glass. Smells like cocoa and maybe—damn him—cherries. As a little kid once, when I stayed the night, I snuck an unopened box of holiday chocolate-covered cherry cordials into my room and ate the entire thing. Then I rolled around my race car bed with a stomach ache for the rest of the night. I was three, but he has not let me live it down.
Avery, all innocence, takes a healthy swig and then practically moans with delight. She drinks her entire glass before I’ve taken a sip.
When I get to drinking, I confirm the worst. It’s cherry liqueur buried under so much chocolate and cream it’s almost unrecognizable. Fucking hell. I have not touched a chocolate-covered cherry in almost two decades, which from the glint in his eyes, Pops probably realizes.
Tapping his glass, I shrug. “Slàinte.”
“Slàinte,” he says cheerfully with a wicked smirk.
I turn half away and down it quickly with no ill effects. My stomach’s been iron clad since puberty. A chocolate cocktail is not going to come back up, no matter how nauseatingly sweet it is. When I’m done, I put the empty glass in the sink, signaling that one’s my limit.
