He shook his head. “I have no current plans to return to London.”
“Right.”
“Do you want me to?”
“What?”
“Go home.”
“You’ll do whatever you want to do.”
“That’s not an answer.” There was a thread of irritation in Mac’s voice that said he’d been fishing for something specific.
“It’s all I’ve got.” I started for the bedroom door. “I may as well get this over with. Experience tells me it won’t last any longer than five minutes.”
“Remember what I said,” Mac called after me.
“Yeah, yeah.”
I recalled something about Finn and Cillian’s guest room as soon as I stepped inside, and that was that it had a lock on the outside. I’d once made a joke about Finn locking Cillian in when he got fed up with him. Unfortunately, I only remembered it as the lock clicked shut in my wake. Oh yeah, Mac and I definitely had a problem.
Chapter Twenty-one
My father was over by the window with his back to me—neither chilling nor appearing nervous. He turned slightly when I entered the room.
“We’ve just been locked in,” I announced.
He shrugged. “I have nowhere else to be.” He sounded sober. No slur to his words. “How about you?”
“I had plans for today.” He didn’t need to know that those plans had involved Mac, that I’d expected a day spent doing crazy things, followed by energetic sex. Now, none of those things would happen because Mac had chosen violence instead. “I have better things to do with my time than rehash stuff that doesn’t need rehashing.”
“So why come in here? Why didn’t you tell your friend…” My father frowned. “Is he your friend? Or is he more than that? He was with you at the hospital.” He shook his head. “I don’t suppose it matters. Friend. Boyfriend. Fiance.”
“It wouldn’t matter if he was my fiance? That wouldn’t interest you in the slightest?”
“Don’t twist my words. Although, it’s not like you’d invite me to the wedding if you were getting married.”
“Why would I? There’d need to be some alcohol left for the rest of the guests, and I’d hardly want to ruin my special day by having you make a show of yourself. Wedding photos are so much better without someone falling down drunk in the background.”
“You’re ashamed of me.”
“Don’t pretend you give a fuck what I think!” Anger rose in me like lava in a volcano, threatening to be uglier than ever when it spilled over. And it would. This was what it was always like between us. One of us said something that set the other off, and then it was downhill from there with jibes designed to cause the maximum amount of pain.
“I wouldn’t want to come to your wedding, anyway. Not when you’re so ashamed of me.”
I strode back to the door and tried the doorhandle, hoping for a shoddy lock. It didn’t shift. I pounded on it with my fist. “Mac. Open the door. Now!” Silence. “I know you’re there. Answer me.”
“You’ve only been in there two minutes.”
“Yeah, well. Two minutes is long enough. Open the fucking door.”
A long pause, like Mac was thinking carefully about what response to give. “I can’t do that. If I do, you’ll just continue on and nothing will change or get resolved.”
I slammed my hand against the door, taking some satisfaction from hearing Mac step back on the other side of it. “Get Finn. I want to talk to him.” Finn, I could reason with. Finn was nowhere near as stubborn as Mac was.
“He’s gone out.”
“That’s an out-and-out lie.” More silence. “Fine. I’ll settle for Cillian. I’ll speak to him.” Things really were bad if I was asking to speak to Cillian.
