In the Unlikely Event by L.J. Shen
Present
Rory
Like a moth to a flame, a junkie to his favorite drug, a girl with daddy issues to a destructive bad boy, I’m hooked again.
Five rounds between the sheets with Mal and three apology emails to Callum later—which remain unanswered, much to no one’s surprise—Mal is fast asleep next to me. I’m still guilt-ridden and feeling low about Callum, yet somehow high about being here with Mal. It’s an emotional overdose that makes me feel scattered. Bittersweet remorse dipped in ecstasy.
I send Summer a quick text informing her of the latest development in my love life and ask her to leave her judgment at the door. When she starts blowing up my phone with text messages and calls, I flip it over and slip out of bed. I take the elevator up to Ashton’s room.
I know I’m bypassing Mal’s direct request, but I’ve come up with a plan. He’s so secretive about whatever’s going on in Tolka—like Father Doherty, Ms. Patel, and Maeve and Heather—I decide to beat him at his own game.
I knock on Ashton’s door, and he opens up a minute later, his golden robe wide open and revealing his loose anaconda, which flips from side to side like a wiggly tail. I blink, focusing really hard on his face and trying not to blush.
“Do you have a minute?” I ask.
He nods, sparing me the sex-slave jokes—even though, for the first time since we’ve met, I do look thoroughly screwed—and steps aside to let me in.
As I suspect, there are two girls in his bed, sleeping soundly. One of them is Brandy, and it feels like some sort of validation of an unkind thought to find her there. He leads me to a separate room—a living room of sorts—and we sit across from each other. I pitch him my idea—stay in Greece, soak up the sun and some culture, and write the album. I bring out the big guns and my selling points: this place is so much warmer, and close to big cities, and the sea. It is full of tan, gorgeous tourists he can sample. Besides, it’s only for a week out of the entire project. We’ll be back in Tolka in no time. What’s the rush?
Ashton nods vehemently, though he seems kind of distracted, a faraway look stamped on his face. “Yeah. Great idea. Yeah.”
I realize it’s the first time I’ve caught him semi-sober.
“Are you okay?” I scratch at my eyebrow.
He laughs, reaching for a bottle of whiskey. “Why wouldn’t I be, honey pie?”
I shake my head. Not your business, Rory. But isn’t that what people say when they turn a blind eye to truly devastating things that happen in the world? I make a mental note to bring Ashton’s drug problem to Ryner’s attention next time I email him, which should be tomorrow.
When I get back to the room and tuck myself under the blankets next to Mal, I think about how I’m putting him in a position he doesn’t want to be in. If whatever’s waiting for him in Tolka is that important, he will have to spit it out in order for us to up and leave. If it turns out to be nothing—well, I earned a week in the sun.
I close my eyes, trying to fall asleep, but all I can see in my dreams is my mother, running down Tolka’s Main Street, crying hysterically with me in her arms. In my dreams, I’m tiny. Still a baby. And I’m bleeding all over. We leave a trail of blood as the entire village follows us, running.
They are chasing us.
And we are running away.
I wake up in a cold sweat and feel the familiar chill wrapping itself around me. I’m shaking so hard my teeth are chattering.
I maneuver myself between Mal’s arms and borrow his heat, but sleep doesn’t revisit me.
A NOTE FROM ASHTON RICHARDS
Despite what y’all think, I’m not a world-class idiot.
I can tell she broke up with Hugh Cunt or whatever that suited, English dude’s name is. I mean, when she and Pissy Poet are in the same room, you can cut the sexual tension with a butter knife. Also, I’m privy to the fact that Pissy Poet and Sex Slave want to spend the next few days going at it like the world’s about to end.
I’m a pretty decent human, believe it or not, despite how the media portrays me. I mean, sure, I love my drugs. MDMA keeps me happy and bursting with colors and inspiration, and that’s the type of shit I’m known for. I’m the smiley, carefree guy.
Weed is a necessity at this point—who doesn’t smoke it these days? And my doctor prescribes the painkillers, so it’s not like I played God and decided I needed to cram them into my body on my own accord.
Also, I’m not going to defend my cocaine usage. But you try to live in the public eye since age seventeen and see what it does to your self-esteem. Every single mistake you’ve ever made is recorded, documented, aired on TMC, and stored—ready to be thrown in your face at any given moment.
And don’t get me started on dick pics and public breakups and Taylor Swift-like starlets who write songs about how bad in bed I am. (Let the record show that I didn’t even try with that particular chick. Eat shit, Jordan Jackson. Come to think of it, you’re probably into that BS. You were always too kinky for my taste.)
But I digress.
So, yeah, I mean, okay. I may have had my own motivation for this whole staying-in-Greece plot that doesn’t have anything to do with Sex Slave and Pissy Poet’s sexcapade.
It simply made perfect sense for my master plan.
Them keeping each other occupied = less people on my case.
Less people on my case = more time to do drugs and get drunk.
More drug and alcohol time = less time to think about how this album is never going to materialize, because I’m never going to record it, because I won’t be alive by March.
Because I have terminal cancer, you see. Stage fucking billion cancer, which has spread to every single part of my body. And here I thought I was just permanently hungover, never expecting to find out that while I was partying, my body was eating itself to death.
It is all fun and games until the fat lady—in this case my doctor—sings the sad news to me, and I choose to go out with a bang, not like a faded version of my old self—a sad, bony, shadow of myself, lying in a hospice bed staring at a pleasant, generic picture on a wall.
Yeah, that’s the money shot I won’t allow TMC to ever have: me dying in a hospital gown, looking like a corpse.
Wanna hear the best part? With the amount of drugs I’m using, people are never going to suspect I’m anything other than a twenty-seven-year-old rock star who died from an overdose. A good ol’ tragic legend who worked hard and partied even harder. I’ll slip into the Amy Winehouse and Brian Jones club with a fake ID, so to speak.
If any of the goddamn idiots surrounding me just looked closely—not even too close, just enough to smell my sick-person’s breath and see all the rotting behind my eyes—they’d have realized nothing I’ve done makes sense.
Riding cows? Traveling to Thailand? All the other Jackass shit?
I’m seizing the day, one second at a time, because I’m not counting years, or months, or days. I’m counting seconds.
Yo, Hendrix, Morrison, Cobain—I’m coming for you. Make room on the couch and put a good record on.
Over and fucking out.
Rory
I wake up trembling from the cold and immediately know Mal is not in bed. I can hear him in the corridor outside our room, talking on the phone. His hushed voice skates over my flesh even though he’s nowhere near me, causing my nipples to pucker. I jump out of bed and plaster my ear to the door, every bone in me aching for answers.
It’s not that I don’t respect Mal’s privacy; it’s that he knows everything about my life, and I know nothing about his. There’s a big gap between us, and I’d just like to build a bridge over it, bring us both into the light.
I strain my ears, but hear nothing.
The door flings open suddenly, and I get hit in the face, stumbling down on my butt. I rub my ass cheek, feeling my ears turning red.
“Oh, shit. Sorry.” Mal rushes around the door and pulls me up, frowning. “Were you eavesdropping?”
Hmm?
“No,” I groan, wiping the hair out of my face. “I was about to open the door to look for you. Why, were you talking to your secret lover?” I joke lamely.
“No, but close. Ryner,” he clips.
“Didn’t think he was your style.”
I try to lighten the mood. Anything to make him forget I did try to eavesdrop on him.
“Did you know Richards wants us to stay here for the remainder of New Year’s week? The nerve on this wanker.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Another lie in our deceit bucket, which is piling up quite nicely. I don’t even feel so bad this time, since Mal is lying through his teeth every day we spend together.
“That a problem?” I cock an eyebrow, daring him to open up.
“You know it is,” he retorts, storming into the room and shoving clothes into his open suitcase. “I agreed to two nights in Greece. Just the two. Even that was a stretch, and against my contract with Ryner. I’m done here.”
I’d ask him again why, but I know better than to think he’d answer.
“Pack up your stuff, Princess. We’re leaving, with or without the project.”
“How do you mean?”
He turns toward me, scowling. “I mean, I don’t give a damn about this album, and neither should you. Let’s go back.”
Hecan’t stay.
But I certainly can. And should. This is my job. In a moment of pure, sharp clarity, I realize that nothing’s changed. Mal still wants me to make gigantic sacrifices in the name of our unstable relationship. And I still humor him because…why? His pretty purple eyes? His bulging biceps? His panty-melting songs?
Move to Ireland at eighteen.
Give up on college.
Leave my job.
It’s a good thing he still hasn’t asked me to lick his shoes clean.
I pick up my purse, throw the strap over my shoulder, and advance to the door.
“Where are you going?” He grabs my wrist.
I shake him off, laughing bitterly. “Not sure, but wherever it is, you won’t be there, acting like a jerk who thinks I owe the world to him. I broke up with my boyfriend because of you. You pursued me relentlessly, and for what? To act like I need to up and leave my work just because you said so?”
Mal’s face twists in agony. He understands how badly he is screwing up. He shakes his head, sighs, and drops to his knees, pressing his forehead to my stomach. It is not an act of begging or kneeling, but a simple, sweet gesture.
“I’m sorry. I am being an arsehole, but I don’t mean to. And trust me when I say the last thing I do is take you for granted. Let’s do something fun today. I’ll make some calls and see what I can do about postponing going back to Ireland. What do you want to do?”
You, I think with exasperation. That’s what got me into this pickle in the first place.
He reads my face and starts laughing, rubbing his cheek.
He’s blushing. I am melting despite my best efforts. This is how it’s always going to be.
“Other than the obvious, mutual answer.” He presses his hot lips to my midriff through my pajamas.
“Surprise me,” I whisper.
“Surprise you?”
He grins, the same grin the wolf flashes before he opens his mouth and swallows Little Red Riding Hood whole.
“Your wish is my command, Princess.”
I wore a yellow summer dress and a slightly unhinged smile on my wedding day. The groom wore a red bandana on his forehead, Blundstone boots, cargo shorts, and a black V-neck tee that smelled of warm beer.
We looked too young and too drunk and too careless, but we both somehow knew it wasn’t a mistake.
We just needed liquid courage to be able to do this despite the secrets.
Mal and I got married in Cyprus eight hours later in honor of our napkin contract.
We took a ferry first thing in the morning, right after our mini-argument, and spent our time on it eating clams and drinking white wine. By the time we got to Cyprus, Mal’s nose was sunburned, and I was tipsy and giddy—but not enough to think this was a good idea just because the alcohol in my bloodstream told me so.
The truth is, I wanted to marry Mal.
I’ve always wanted to marry him, from the first time I met him. What seemed impossibly juvenile and destined for failure at age eighteen, seemed…well, just as unlikely right now, at nearly twenty-seven, but the contract was a great excuse, and a big chunk of me just wanted to promise him forever and take it one day at a time.
After the mayor of Larnaka performed the ceremony (no kidding), during which we were surrounded by three other couples who’d come to get married, Mal bought me a drink at a nearby English pub.
Now we are sitting here, basking in the surreal, and it feels a little like a parallel universe I never want to step out of—one without Mom or Ryner or Callum.
I’m telling myself this could work. That it will work.
So what if we live an ocean apart? I can visit him for long periods of time. He can do the same. He works from home, for crying out loud. I might make him fall in love with New York and move in with me.
How hard is it to fall in love with New York? All the best artists did.
“Don’t you think it’s weird how we just ran into each other at Ryner’s event a few weeks ago, and now we’re married? I never actually thought I’d see you again.”
I pop my martini’s olive into my mouth. I’m sun-kissed, have a good buzz going, and I’m sexually satisfied.
“Positively mental,” he agrees, kissing my nose.
His entire face is hot and smells of sea breeze, sand, and ice-cold beer.
“It’s like fate intervened.”
Summer is going to kill me when she finds out I tied the knot with my Irish fling from a decade ago, my mom will finally have that heart attack she’s been threatening me with, and Callum…I don’t want to think about his reaction. I’m hoping he’ll never find out. It’s not like there’s anything tying us together. We hang out in different social circles and work in different jobs. He hasn’t left anything at my apartment. He’s always been weird about coming over. Come to think of it, I’m not sure he liked Summer very much.
“We haven’t discussed where we want to live. I didn’t even sign a pre-nup,” I point out.
The way Mal lives, he doesn’t really give the impression of swimming in money—which I don’t care about—but everything about his track record of selling hundreds of songs—songs I listened to over the years and thought sounded familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on why until I came face to face with him again—tells me money shouldn’t be a worry for him.
Mal shrugs. “Why would you?”
“I’m officially entitled to half of what’s yours,” I joke.
I’d never touch a dime he’s earned, and he knows it. The money from Glen remains untouched in my mother’s bank account to this day.
“You can take my money. I never much cared for it.” He dips his head, kissing the side of my neck.
“What do you care about, then, Malachy Doherty?”
He smiles, takes my hands in his, and kisses my knuckles, his purple, magnificent eyes still trained on mine. “You.”
We stumble back into our room at three in the morning, not expecting any company. I head toward the little bar by our window to fix myself a gin and tonic. Mal is bending down next to me to grab a bottle of water from the mini-fridge when the door to our suite flings open.
“Mal? Are you there?” calls a soft voice.
Brandy. My blood immediately boils to an unhealthy temperature, because:
- What the hell is she doing in this room, and how did she get the digital key?
- She just slept with someone else—her boss!—not even twenty-four hours ago, for crying out loud.
Whatever. I don’t need a reason to be mad at her. She is after my husband. My husband. I want to wave the ring he purchased for me earlier today at a local jewelry store—with a heartfelt promise to get me something bigger and fancier soon.
Like I’d ever care about the size of my ring.
I look down at Mal, who is holding the bottle of water at my feet. He unscrews the cap, takes a big gulp, and presses his index to his lips, smirking, so childlike in his mischievousness.
I get to break the news to her uninterrupted. Sweet.
“Over here,” I sing from behind the bar. She can’t see Mal from his position.
Brandy strolls in, looking like a high-class street worker: red mini dress and blow-dried hair intact, all wrapped in perfect makeup and crimson-red lips.
“Oh, I wasn’t expecting to see you here.” Her smile falls.
She stops a few feet from the bar. I take a sip of my gin and tonic.
“Can I get you anything?” I bat my eyelashes.
“Is Mal on his way? Is he in the shower?” She looks around.
“He’s around.”
As soon as I say that, I feel Mal’s fingers wrapping my bare thigh. He levels his head in front of my groin and hooks his thumbs into my underwear, pulling them down slowly.
What is he doing? We have company.
“What are you doing here at three in the morning?” I ask, trying to keep it as casual as possible when I feel his hot breath against my exposed self, now free of panties. My pulse quickens, and I feel the familiar pool of want coating my insides.
“I just thought…I mean…” She looks around again, like Mal is going to materialize through the turned-off TV at any moment. “Ashton said he works into the night, so I thought maybe he needed something.”
Like a dirty one-night stand?
“It’s okay. We work closely. I help him wherever I can.”
I trace the rim of my gin and tonic glass. I still haven’t gotten used to the weight of the ring on my finger, but it makes me feel empowered. Like I can conquer the world. It’s what Mal’s love does to me. Even though he hasn’t spoken the words aloud, I can feel them soaking into my skin when he looks at me.
“Have you ever been in love?” I should ask him that again, and soon.
Mal swipes his tongue—still cold from the water—along my slit, and I shudder violently with uncontrolled desire. Brandy takes a step toward me and parks her elbows on the edge of the bar.
“No offense, but I don’t think you’re helping him in the way he wants me to help him.”
“None taken,” I manage to say on a suffocated moan, just as his tongue digs deep between my walls.
I can feel how wet I am on his tongue, and I can also feel his smile, the rumbly, dark chuckle he emits in response to her last, stupid comment. He is eating me raw while she’s telling me it’s her he wants to bed.
Now that’s ironic. Although I doubt Alanis Morissette would’ve wanted to use it for her song.
“Anything I can pass on to him? Doesn’t seem like our guy is coming anytime soo—” I try to control my breathing as Mal thrusts his tongue in and out of me, swirling it around my clit every now and again to remind me what’s to come (me).
“Well, I…”
“Ohhh, God,” I wail, holding on to the edges of the bar, white-knuckled, and throwing my head back shamelessly.
He uses his nose to massage my sensitive nub and digs his tongue so deep into me, I see stars. I lose my ability to keep my eyes open somewhere along the way.
“Is everything okay?”
I can practically hear her frown.
“You look like you’re getting sick or something.”
Mal can’t help it. He full-blown laughs into my pussy as he eats me, nibbling on my lips, sucking, tonguing me ruthlessly. He wants me to come on his face and in her face. And I do. I climax hard, spreading my legs apart while my dress is mostly hoisted up and biting my lower lip as I splay my fingers on the bar, my gin and tonic knocked to the floor.
After a few seconds, I open my eyes and bat my eyelashes at Brandy.
“Yeah, I’m good. I had a bit of a…” I clear my throat. “Pulled a muscle or something.”
Brandy takes a final step toward me and peers down, her eyebrows still drawn together in annoyance.
“Mal!” she gasps, clutching her invisible pearls while wearing a dress as short as a napkin.
I tumble away from my husband, watching as he flashes her a completely charming, casual smile and stands up. He is sporting a huge erection through his cargo pants, his lips are swollen and look as if he just ate a glazed doughnut, and his hair is messy and delicious and silky as flower petals.
Right now, he looks so delightful, I know there’s absolutely no way on Earth I will ever give him up.
“Hey, Britney.”
“Brandy.” She exposes her teeth, her cheeks red with fury.
“Right.” He puts his hands on his hips. “How can I help you?”
“Is this a fling or…?” She points her finger between us, narrowing her eyes at Mal.
He exhales sharply, blowing away a lock of his shiny, overgrown hair that has fallen across his bandana, and pretends to think about it.
“Well, I asked her to marry me this morning. Actually, that’s not entirely accurate. I asked her eight years ago, but she said no. This time she said yes. And so, for the past few hours we’ve been legally married, which makes me lean toward serious. What say you, Mrs. Doherty?” He turns to look at me, stroking his chin. “It’s not friendship bracelets, but it’s a step in the right direction, no?”
I offer him a noncommittal shrug. “Looks like I’m going to keep you for now. No offense, Brandy,” I mimic her condescending tone.
I’ve never seen anyone rush out of a room so fast. She looks horrified. I’m half-sad for her. But I’m completely happy for myself, because when Mal scoops me in his arms and lifts me in the air, and we’re both defying gravity and logic and the worlds we’ve built for the past decade.
I swear I don’t even notice when he puts me back down.
I’m floating on a thick, heavenly cloud.
But because I’m still in the dark, bathing in the unknown, a minute from forcing the truth out of him, I know the bubble is going to burst.
A NOTE FROM BRANDY
*Taps mic*
Is this thing on?
Oh. Hi. Brandy here. I guess I should explain myself.
Let me start by saying, the token trashy girl never knows she plays that role, you know?
No one would ever audition for the part, let alone willingly play along.
If you ask me, I had every right to go after the tortured poet. Every time I saw him with the weird silver-haired girl, they either looked like they were about to kill each other, or they actively tried to sabotage each other’s lives in one way or another. How was I to know there was more to them than just two professionals who weren’t getting along?
Oh, and don’t even try me with the whole sleeping-with-my-boss incident.
Yeah, yeah, I sleep with my single, available, generous, rock-star boss. The one with the huge dick and thirty-two million followers on Instagram. Who wouldn’t? He is effing Ashton Richards!
Besides, since when is it wrong to go after a single, hot man? And when the guy looks like Malachy Doherty, it is legit my duty to try to seduce him.
Also, let the record show that I’m not the worst, most dreadful person in the world.
Just ask my sister, Whitney, who works for Ryner.
She hooked me up with this job, and she knows better than to warn me off my gorgeous employer.
Because I might be sleeping with my boss (technically, I don’t, because I was hired by his manager), but she’s the one having a baby with an English banker who apparently has a girlfriend.
A fancy, hot, photographer girlfriend who has no freaking clue he’s been messing around for months behind her back.
The banker doesn’t even like Whit, but does she care? No. Because he’s going to pay her way through the next nineteen years.
Now that I think about it, Callum Brooks totally fits the bill.
I need to make a mental note to ask Whitney about this. Maybe when she isn’t so emotional and complaining about her sore breasts.
Oh, well. Back to the perfect-husband drawing board I go.
