Something to Prove

Chapter 2-2

Colin strode through the back door of O’Leary’s to grab a cup of coffee before heading up to shower. He was getting a little old for this.

Mary sat at the bar drinking coffee and reading the Sunday Tribune. She looked over her shoulder as he got closer. “The walk of shame again, Colin?”

He shrugged and smiled. She didn’t need to know that it was a poker game with the guys and not a woman that had kept him out all night. He enjoyed his reputation as a ladies’ man. If he got half the action everyone thought he did, he’d be a very happy man. “What are you doing here so early?”

“I like the quiet here on a Sunday morning. Don’t you have family dinner today?”

He nodded and poured a cup of coffee. O’Leary family Sunday dinner was early afternoon to accommodate the bar schedules. He checked his watch. “I have time for a nap before I go. You need anything down here before you open?”

“Nope. I’m good.”

And she was. Ryan had totally lucked out in hiring Mary. She ran the place in Ryan’s stead, a job Colin should’ve had years ago. He took his mug with him up to his apartment. This, too, used to be his brother’s. When Ryan moved into his house with Quinn, Colin decided he’d rather live above the bar than with their mother.

He set his cup on the counter and lay across the couch his brother had left for him.

Hours later, Colin sat on the couch in his childhood home and felt the cushions sink and curve around his body. The nap hadn’t done him any good. He needed a good night’s sleep. Liam sat and handed him a beer.

“Mom know you grabbed these?”

“Hell, no. She’s in the kitchen talking babies with the girls.”

That had such a strange ring to it, but it fit. The girls Liam referred to weren’t their sisters, but were family just the same.

“So how’d you manage to sneak the beer past her?”

Liam lifted a shoulder. “Her back was turned.”

Colin knew that meant nothing. Their mom knew. She just let it slide because she was preoccupied. Ryan’s wife, Quinn, waddled into the dining room carrying the basket of silverware. He jumped up to help.

“Go sit down,” he suggested.

“If one more person tells me to take it easy, I’m going to hurt him. I’m fine. I want to move. I want this baby out of me.”

Colin took a step back. The woman was downright scary. This hormonal version was worse than anything he’d experienced with his two younger sisters growing up. He didn’t have a response. “I’ll get the plates.”

“Thank you.”

In the kitchen, Quinn’s sister, Indy, stood with a baby cradled in her arms. He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Hey, good to see you. Where’s Griff?”

“He went with Ryan to get dessert. Ryan forgot it was his turn, which pissed off Quinn because she would’ve made something. Bugged me too, because she probably would’ve made chocolate cake.” The baby squirmed.

He reached out. “Let me have her.”

Indy’s brow furrowed. “You sure?”

“I’m the oldest of six. I spent most of my childhood with babies around.” He scooped the tiny girl from her mother’s arms. She weighed nothing, but then again, she was little more than a week old. She had that baby smell no one could resist. While he held Colleen against his chest, he said, “I need the plates for dinner before Quinn gets mad at me.”

Indy brushed past him. “Don’t mind her. She’s mad at everyone right now. I’ll get the plates.”

He followed Indy back through the house and took Colleen into the living room with him. Holding her like a football, he returned to his spot next to Liam and drank from his beer.

Liam slapped Colin’s free arm. “You look kind of natural holding a baby.”

“Shut up.” He took a drink from the bottle again. The truth was that he had been thinking about marriage and babies a lot lately. How could he not? Ryan had gotten married, then Michael. Griffin and Indy were engaged. He was surrounded by marriage and babies.

Colleen squirmed again, so Colin set his beer on the table and shifted her onto his shoulder. It did feel natural.

Some old cowboy movie played on TV in front of them. “What’s going on at work?” he asked Liam.

“Nothing. I guess I don’t have to ask how the bar is going. Ryan would’ve told us if there was a problem.”

“Let me ask you something.”

Liam shifted to face him. Of all of his brothers, Liam was by far the most serious and level-headed.

“Do you regret not getting involved in the bar?”

“What do you mean? We all grew up in that place. We all work St. Paddy’s Day. I’m involved.”

“Not in the daily stuff, though. You never wanted to run it?” He smoothed a hand over Colleen’s back.

“No. It always belonged to you and Ryan. It was your place with Dad. We all kind of knew it.”

Liam said it with no animosity, but Colin wanted to know. “Did we push you out? Make you feel like you couldn’t be there?”

“No. We all found our own things. You and Ryan, though, O’Leary’s has always been yours.” He finished his beer and stood.

Liam’s assessment didn’t fit. Eight years ago, sure. O’Leary’s was his until he f****d it up. Now, he felt like a foreigner. Maybe not that bad, but he didn’t fit. For a year now, he was pushing to find that fit, to make it feel like home, and it wasn’t happening.

Of course, it didn’t help that Ryan kept him at a distance either. He didn’t know how many other ways to apologize. Maybe it was time to move on again.

Colleen fell asleep in his arms, and he laid her in the cradle his mother had bought for the grandbabies. She’d turned his old bedroom into a nursery. He watched the baby sleep and knew he wanted more than what he had.

Ryan and Griffin came into the living room holding a grocery-store coffee cake. “Before anyone bitches, Blackstone’s was already closed. I did what I could.”

Quinn’s golden-brown eyes shot daggers at her husband, and Colin derived no small amount of pleasure from witnessing it. He moved to the table and took the seat that had always been his father’s. When he came back to town last year, Colin had started sitting in the spot just to irritate Ryan. He’d succeeded, but he never felt right in the chair.

He was no more head of the family now than he could’ve been when their father died. Those were shoes he didn’t know how to fill.

Mom and Moira carried the last of the plates of food to the table. Colin was struck by how much Moira looked like their mother. Red hair and pale blue eyes. His sister had become a woman when he wasn’t looking. He was suddenly grateful Maggie wasn’t there to make him feel even older. Ryan said grace. Colin looked around the house and saw subtle differences. The pictures on the wall had been updated with wedding photos of Ryan and Quinn and a family portrait with everyone but him.

One photo of him remained on the wall: His father stood with Ryan and Colin at his side in front of the bar at O’Leary’s. One more piece of evidence that his life hadn’t moved on but everyone else’s had.

Moira nudged him with a bowl of potatoes. “Something wrong?”

He slid his easy smile into place to be the man everyone expected. “Nope.”