“I guess I’ll have to try and fix it.”
I nodded, edging towards the door, my twin scampering out through it already. “Good. Sure, you’ll be able to do that.”
As soon as I was out of there, I called his wife, hoping she wouldn’t give me any details of what she’d do to get him out of there before he caused any more damage.
Thursdays had been the new Fridays for as long as I could remember. In Borough Market, where the Callaghan Green law firm was based, the bars and restaurants buzzed on a Thursday night as loudly as they did on a weekend. I didn’t need to go far to find someone I knew who didn’t have a toddler or a baby or a pregnant significant other at home, which accounted for most of my family now.
This evening, having escaped the office only slightly deafened by Maxwell’s cussing at the copier, I was meeting Shay, my housemate and cousin who was coming off a two-day shift at the hospital where he was an emergency paediatric consultant or something.
Shay had been God’s apology for marrying off all of my brothers and leaving me without a wingman, only he had easily taken my trophy for biggest manwhore south of the Thames by his second week here.
“Joseph!” His holler from the other side of the bar was loud and attention-drawing, not that he needed to draw any attention his way. Two women flanked him, one that I vaguely recognised as working with him. I glanced to the table near to where he stood and saw another half a dozen women. It looked like I was crashing some form of hospital night out.
Not something that boded well. I had work in the morning and although it’d been a long time since I’d gone in with a hangover, I didn’t want to get dragged into being the centre of the cesspool of gossip that would inevitably happen if I started talking to one of Shay’s colleagues.
Even though I hadn’t hooked up with anyone, or even been on a date, for about four months, my reputation of being a party boy hadn’t been diminished. It still burned brighter than the Vegas lights and probably with the same amount of class.
The fact I’d had a long-term relationship for several years wasn’t considered. It was as if Cassie had never existed, that my family and friends had wiped her from their memories and time had rewound itself to back when I was nineteen and had never had a girlfriend, let alone a serious one.
That didn’t mean I was innocent though. That innocence had been lost when I was fifteen and visiting Callum – my only non-lawyer brother - when he was at university. The experience wasn't bad, not for me at least, and although I’d been fairly stupid in most things at that age, I’d at least had the sense not to brag about it. My mother kidded herself into thinking that Cassie had been my first everything, and because she’d eradicated her from her memory, I was back to being a teenager.
Incapable of surviving unsupervised.
The person who was incapable of surviving unsupervised was, in this case, my cousin. Shay Green, doctor extraordinaire, had an arm around a blonde woman on his right and a brunette on his left. He was unshaven and looked at the point of exhaustion where delirium had set in.
I frowned.
Shay’s grin grew wider.
I shook my head.
He shook his back.
All of a sudden, the lengthy pile of time recording on my desk looked appealing.
“Joseph, have you met Larissa?” Shay tilted his head toward the blond. “And Shelly,” he tilted his head toward the brunette and squeezed her. Larissa took this as a hint, giggled and stepped out of his relaxed hold.
She was the nurse I remembered meeting a month or so ago, only she hadn’t been with Shay at the time. She’d been climbing all over another doctor, an orthopaedic surgeon or something to do with bones.
Larissa had been very interested in one of his bones.
I took a big lungful of breath and caught the whiff of familiar perfume. Cassie’s. The scent of it made my stomach do an impression of a washing machine and for a moment I felt lightheaded.
“Definitely Larissa.” I gave her grin that I hoped wasn’t too flirty. “You got a tab open?”
I really hoped Shay had left his credit card behind the bar. His days off between his long, lengthy, inhuman shifts at the hospital tended to be complete blow-outs – lengthy drinking sessions, followed by some form of escapade that ended in him having either a marathon fucking session in my living room or being collected at stupid o’clock two days later from the floor of someone’s apartment, not smelling entirely fresh.
I got that his job was busy and stressful, and he dealt with some fucking shitty situations where kids were sick, but my eardrums would never recover from some of the noises I’d heard when my living room had turned into his boudoir of badness.
That was Shay’s name for it.
Boudoir of badness.
He made me seem entirely normal.
“Of course. Go treat yourself, cuz.”
I felt Larissa’s hand on my back. Caught another mouthful of her perfume. Thought of Cassie. Tried not to look for her or find what she was doing, because she wasn’t there.
“You mind getting me a drink while you’re there?” Larissa gave me a tired smile.
She was pretty, somewhere in her late twenties with highlighted blonde hair and make-up that wasn’t overdone. I’d dated a couple of models and a couple of women who were wannabe ‘it’ girls, desperate to make their name in the gossip mags and social media, and I knew I preferred the underdone look.
Four months ago, Larissa would probably have gone home with me, maybe for a couple of nights until I found a way to let her down easy or she got bored of waiting for me to be serious.
“Sure. Looks like Shay’s paying. What do you want?” I knew it would be prosecco or a cocktail, probably a Porn Star Martini.
I was right. She almost blushed when she asked for the martini and let out a slight giggle. It should’ve been cute.
“I’ll bring it over.” I stepped away from her hand on my back and headed to the bar. A couple of the fee earners from Callaghan Green were there, bottles of beer in their hands, empty shot glasses next to them. “Out for the night?” I nodded at the glasses.
Vinny, who worked in the employment law department, grinned. “Booked the day off tomorrow. Three-day weekend.” He glanced over to where Larissa waited. “That your date?”
“No. She works with my cousin.” An iota of relief settled my stomach. I was pretty sure Larissa was looking to get lucky and burn some tension off tonight. Vinny would be decent enough to help her.
He didn’t take his eyes off her arse. “She single?”
“I’d assume so, but couldn’t swear to it. She’s drinking Porn Stars.” I’d save Shay a few quid and be a good cousin.
He rubbed his hands together. “One Porn Star coming up.”
I looked at his colleague, Lucas, and shook my head. Neither of us had a clue how to take that.
“You know I really love you, don’t you?”
There were times when I understood how it felt to be one of my older brothers dealing with my post-Cassie-meltdown phase. Most of those times had ended in one of them dragging me through the doors of their houses, my mood anywhere between euphoric and the sewer of a meltdown, leaving me in the recovery position and removing my phone so I couldn’t drunk dial anyone, including Cassie.