sure he had his line of ladies outside of his hotel bedroom that he had to get to. I mean really, for all the shite I got, the only difference between him and me was that I let them all in at once. I was just hospitable, people!
“Look,” Kane said, pulling out his phone to glance at the screen before slipping it discreetly back into the inner pocket of his jacket. “We figured we best catch you before the real fireworks begin.”
“Real fireworks?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
Shay stuck out his hand and started to count on his fingers. “Oh, you know, arrest, streaking—”
“Streaking and arrest,” Kane added, grinning at me before realising he was having a good time and quickly snapping his lips back into a straight line.
Shay went on, “Stealing from the bar, swimming in the ornamental koi pool, um…”
“Inviting strippers from Montmartre into the party,” Kane said.
Shay laughed.
“How could I forget?”
I laughed myself. “Clearly you have forgotten, my friend,” I said, jabbing my finger into his chest. “Because they were hookers, not strippers.”
Kane rolled his eyes. “With you that’s nothing but semantics.”
Shay got us all back on track before Kane and I started arguing with words and then fists and then full body tussles on the streak-free marble floors.
“We came to talk about the bet,” he said. “We’re all very poor men here and a whole euro is at stake.”
“Ah,” I said, leaning back against the wall. Eh, leaning, slouching, who’s counting? “So you’ve seen my little protege, have you?”
How easy it was to slip back into the act, I thought with a jolt of concern. How easy it was to be the caricature of Ronan O’Hara my friends knew so well. Worse still, was how natural, how good it felt.
“She’s performing well, isn’t she?” I asked, only to be immediately horrified at myself.
Who was this speaking? Surely it couldn’t be me? The man who wanted to change, the man who wanted to be different, the man who wanted the girl.
Kane gave a reluctant nod of agreement, one so small and begrudging that I barely even noticed it. The fucker.
“We almost didn’t recognise her,” Shay said, slowly enough to worry me as he glanced at Kane before adding, “We almost didn’t recognise you.”
I can only describe what I felt in that moment as panic. I was worried that I’d been found out. I was terrified that they saw that I was in love with Delaney. I was horrified that they’d assume we were together only for me to have to tell them that we weren’t, that the moment I was about to ask for more she sent me off for drinks.
“What does that mean?” I asked, trying to laugh, but in the end more croaking.
Kane studied his cuticles in the dim light of the branching hallway.
“It means that the bet was for you to make her into a proper lady and it turns out that she made you into a proper man.”
Kane lifted his eyes to me and there was more warmth in that ice than I could ever remember seeing. My eyes, those of a nervous, trapped animal, darted to Shay, who beamed annoyingly with the pride of a new goddamn father.
“No, no,” I said, shaking my head, hoping not too crazily. “I don’t think so.”
Shay threw up his hands in frustration; Kane’s stoic face remained stoic since he probably knew me well enough to expect this.
“You said yourself that you’re not even drunk,” Shay said, pushing at my shoulder. “At the Le Ball of all places! Ronan O’Hara, not drunk?”
I winced and rubbed at the spot where Shay’s big, stupid hand hit me.
“Of course I’m drunk,” I said, reaching for that easy, mischievous grin and finding it not so easy anymore.
“You said you weren’t,” Kane dutifully reminded me.
“That’s because… that’s because…” The stretches between my words grew longer and longer while Kane and Shay watched on. I needed an excuse, any excuse. In that moment it was imperative that they believed I hadn’t changed, that I was my same old self. In that moment, I was once again afraid to be the man who risked the fall. In that moment, I was staring at that gun for a game of Russian roulette with the heart and I couldn’t bear to pick it up again. “That’s because it was all part of it,” I finally said, nearly exhaling in relief when the words blissfully came.
“Part of it?” Shay asked, clearly speaking for Kane as well,