Page 65 of The Unexpected

“Inside first.”

He gets out, circling to open Stella’s door. She lets him take her by the elbow, lets him steer her into the building and up the cinderblock stairs, never once pulling away or talking back. I follow, close enough to catch her if she folds, but not touching, not yet.

The apartment is a bachelor’s space: small, spare, clean with just a minimum of furnishings. One lamp in the corner throws a weak yellow triangle onto the threadbare carpet. There’s the crucifix on the wall above the sagging couch, the cheap bookshelf loaded with theology and the kind of literary fiction that impresses book group types, and a battered kitchen table covered in unopened mail and a single mug of cold coffee. It smells like lemon cleaner, with a shadow of something darker—maybe incense, maybe the rot of old despair.

Stella stands in the center of the room, arms wrapped around herself, and spins once, taking it all in. She laughs—a dry, choked sound, more cough than giggle—and then she collapses onto the couch, body folding up so tight she looks fetal. O’Toole stands in the kitchenette, hands braced on the counter, staring at the floor. I close the door behind us, leaning against it like a bouncer at a bar that’s just seen its last call.

The silence is fucking nuclear.

I’m the first to break. “You want water? Coffee? Anything?”

Stella shakes her head, hair curtaining her face. Her voice is so thin it almost doesn’t make it across the room. “I want to wake up and have none of this be real.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Me too.”

O’Toole walks over, drags a chair out from the table, and sits. He angles himself toward Stella, but not too close. “Stella,” he starts, and the accent is deeper now, something rural or ancient pressing up through the vowels. “I need you to listen to me, and I need you to believe me.”

She doesn’t move.

He waits, hands clasped in front of him. “I didn’t know. I swear to God—I had no idea you were my niece. Not until tonight. If I had known—” He stops, jaw working. “No, that’s a lie. I would have still wanted you. I’d have just been smarter about it.”

The words hang there, ugly and perfect.

I guffaw a bit.

“She’s your niece too? What the fuck? I mean, I saw Brenda across the way, but how the fuck did you end up being Stella’s uncle?”

Lachlan shoots me a poisonous look.

“It’s a long story. My dad was married to Brenda’s mom. He passed. Irma packed me off to boarding school, and then I went into the military and divinity school, so out of sight, out of mind. But via marriage, yes, I’m Stella’s step-uncle.”

“Holy fuck,” I mutter. “Jesus Christ.”

Stella lifts her head, just enough to glare at me. “Stop with taking the Lord’s name in vain.”

I throw up my hands.

“This is a holy clusterfuck! I’m going to swear up and down all night if I want.”

Stella shakes her head, exasperated. Then she turns to Lachlan. “You’re a man of God,” she says, but there’s no heat in it. “You’re supposed to be better than this.”

O’Toole barks a laugh, sharp as a slap. “I had no idea, Stella. Same as you. I was in the dark about the job, your dad getting me the job, everything.” He shakes his head, then looks her dead in the eye. “But I know this: I love you, Stella. Doesn’t matter how wrong it is. Doesn’t matter what label you want to put on it. I adore the ground you walk on, and this time that we’ve been together,” he says, including me, “has been the best of my life, and I haven’t had a lot of good times in my life.” His voice is steady as a freight train, and for a second I wonder if he’s ever said those words out loud before. Maybe not even to himself.

I wait for Stella to shriek, to throw something, to run. Instead, she just closes her eyes. “Oh no,” she whispers. “Fuck. Fuck.”

I watch O’Toole’s hands, the way the knuckles have gone bloodless, the skin stretched so tight you can see the pulse. I know that feeling. The need to grip something until it breaks.

I push off from the door, crossing the carpet in three strides. “Look,” I say, “this is a hellscape, no question. But none of this is your fault, Stella. It seems that your dad—my brother—he’s been pulling strings since day one. I guarantee you, Thomas knew who O’Toole was the second he came to Trinity. Hell, he probably made it happen.”

Stella snorts. “Yes, of course! My dad’s always been like that. The fucking Wizard of Oz behind the curtain.”

“He’s good at it,” I say, not unkind. “It’s what made Thomas a billionaire.”

She looks up at me, blue eyes streaked with misery, and for a second she looks about eight years old. “But I’m not a victim,” she says, and the words are a dare.

“I know,” I say. “You’re the farthest thing from it.” I take a knee in front of the couch, elbows on my knees, close enough to smell the champagne and adrenaline sweat off her skin. “You want the truth, sweetheart? Here it is: I adore you, too. Maybe I don’t get a say in what’s right or wrong given the depraved life I’ve lived, but I know what I want, and I want you.” The words come out rough, stripped of everything but fact.

For a second, the room is just us. Three fuck-ups in a church apartment, waiting for lightning to strike.