But eventually that tactic failed.
“I can’t believe that you would throw your whole life away,” Moira said in a near-wail of grief. She did that when she’d had too much to drink. And yet she always held her daughters to strict standards of decorum and didn’t see the irony in her dramatics.
“She’s not throwing her life away.” Sasha tried to use a soothing voice, but you couldn’t soothe her mother when she was in this state. “She’s trying to live it herself.”
“Thank you, Sasha.” Her sister had been much more subdued in her alcohol consumption tonight, but she still wasn’t standing up for herself the way that Sasha wished she would. Sasha could admit that Madison was actually playing things smart. She would eventually have to go back to New York and somehow figure out how to survive. If she remained sympathetic and marginally compliant, chances were that their father’s checkbook would remain open.
But that wasn’t on the table tonight. Not even a little bit. This was more an airing of grievances. It would last until they could get their mother into a car and send her back to the hotel where she would fall asleep after calling her husband and screaming about how her children didn’t love her.
Sasha hated the sympathetic looks that came from Patrick standing behind the bar. Although she’d confided in him about her terrible family, it was many times more embarrassing for him to actually see it.
After her mother had admonished her, she’d been careful not to flirt with him again. The last thing Patrick needed was her mother calling his manager—the bishop—about a wayward pastor trying to corrupt her daughters, especially since her thoughts drifted to how she’d like to corrupt him plenty of times.
Especially the way he looked tonight. He didn’t look like a priest at all. He was tall and brawny, and the skin at the base of his neck—the skin that was normally covered by his collar—was visible and completely tantalizing. She wanted to put her mouth there. Somehow, without the collar—which he didn’t have to wear when he was off duty—he was earthier and more alive. It was as though the collar was a shield. When he wore a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, there was nothing hiding his appeal. She’d seen him before. She’d always seen him. But after hearing him make suggestive jokes, she could actually feel his sexuality in his bones.
He startled her when he approached to see if he could get them anything else. Of course her mother noticed and gave her a look. And she really wasn’t prepared for it when he reached over her and put one of the puzzle pieces in place.
“Anybody need another drink?”
Before her mother could answer, Sasha said, “We’re good for now.”
“I wouldn’t say we’re good,” her mother said, pointing at Madison. “This one is getting a divorce.”
Her mother seemed to be waiting for Patrick to register shock or disdain, which didn’t happen.
For her part, Madison shrugged at Patrick. “Sometimes things just don’t work out.”
Patrick nodded sagely and Sasha liked him all the more for it. Her mother and sisters were all lit matches. Someone considering what they said before it came out of their mouth was truly refreshing. He pointed to where one piece of Sasha’s puzzle was missing. “See this piece?”
Madison nodded, and Patrick continued, “It didn’t come inside the box. I looked for it for days, even thought about cutting out a piece of cardboard and painting it to match. But it wouldn’t have looked right no matter what I did. It was never going to be whole. Eventually, I had to accept that it would never be complete and move on.”
“I don’t see what this has to do with my daughters,” Moira said, looking like she was winding up for another wailing session.
“The point is, a marriage, a business, a—” Sasha thought for a moment that he was going to say calling, but instead he said, “—a career is made up of a lot of pieces. If there are too many missing pieces, or if even one really important piece is missing, nothing you can do is going to make it whole. Sometimes you just have to move on.”
It knocked Sasha on her ass to hear him say that, and Madison looked a little shell-shocked as well. Moira was the only one who wasn’t speechless. “You’re certainly an unconventional priest.”
Patrick smiled at her and shrugged, nonplussed. His dimple crinkled, and he walked back to the bar.
That whole exchange made her wonder what it would be like for her to be able to introduce him to her family as a boyfriend. She’d never been excited about doing that before. It had always been a complicated operation that filled her with dread. But Patrick was so different from anyone she’d ever dated. He was magnetic, and left her mother—a woman who was rarely without words—without anything that could make a direct hit.
“I think I want to go to bed,” Madison said. Sasha begged her sister with her eyes not to leave her alone with their mother. “I’m grabbing a car back to Sasha’s.”
“You’re just going to abandon me?” Moira was back to the wailing again, but Madison was out the door faster than Sasha had ever seen her move.
Sasha tried to think of a way to get them all back to where they were supposed to sleep in one piece without saying anything they would regret. She was coming up blank.
Patrick came to her rescue. “I’ll call you a car, Mrs. Finerghty.” His beneficence shone down upon her like divine light.
Her mother’s whole being bristled, but she said, “I suppose that would be acceptable.”
Thankfully, she was only drunk enough to be mean, not enough to need to be carried out of the bar. It wasn’t a chore to get her out.
But then Sasha was alone with Patrick. The rest of the patrons had cleared out when her mother was at about a martini and a half.
This was very bad.
She should have left that very moment—actually, she should have dragged Moira out when her sister had announced that she was going to leave.
But she hadn’t. Part of her had wanted this from the moment that she’d suggested that they come here. She hadn’t seen Patrick, but she’d felt him with her every day. He was in her mind, her fantasies, and he was starting to burrow his way into her heart. It didn’t matter that it was hopeless. That they had no future. That her feelings for him were sinful.
She wanted it, and that was all that mattered. She was everything her parents told her she was. She was selfish, lustful, craven, and had all the wrong desires.
But Patrick stood there looking at her—not like a priest looked at a penitent or a friend. He looked at her like a man looking at a woman he wanted.
It was so much more real in that moment. She was filled with power and lust and regret all at the same time.