“I’m not that good a man, Dad.” Seamus stood up, feeling awkward. “You make me sound like a saint but you don’t know…”
“What is it, Seamus? What don’t I know?”
Habit and fear kept him from bringing up Presley or Bellamy, but he couldn’t accept praise he didn’t deserve. There were things inside him that weren’t nice. Anger. Lust. Violent, desperate need. He’d just pushed it all down for so long no one knew it was there.
Someone knows.
“It doesn’t matter. I should let you get ready for your cruise.”
“Seamus?”
“I’m fine, Dad. Just tired.”
Tired of lying. Tired of pretending I don’t miss him.
Tired of being alone.
Chapter Ten
Seamus started setup early, needing to do something to calm his nerves and busy his hands. The brewery offered no distraction this morning. He had several different styles of beer either fermenting or slowly lagering in the cooler at this point, so they were in the “hands-off” stage. What needed to be bottled had been already. He was seriously beginning to question his decision to take up this side venture that required so much patience. But none of that mattered right now. His mind was too busy trying to solve the riddle of the damn century.
What was he going to say to Bellamy?
For the first few months after Ireland, he’d told himself that the relationship was a case of temporary insanity. He tried to be dispassionate about it. To look at it logically. And logically, he and Bellamy were too different for anything real to happen between them.
Bellamy was spoiled. He’d had the best of everything. Education, travel, and a lifestyle that Seamus couldn’t even imagine. When he was trying to find his path without his family’s help, Seamus had lived above a damn garage and eaten Ramen and diner waffles every day. Bellamy’s rebellion was the year he’d stayed at his father’s home in St. Barts instead of interning at one of his family’s companies.
Was that being a reverse snob? Maybe, but he didn’t think anyone could blame him for thinking they had nothing in common.
Bellamy also acted impulsively as a rule and did things for the thrill of the experience without thinking about repercussions. He was proud of that. He’d told Seamus he didn’t have to think about them. He paid other people obscene amounts of money to do it for him.
Seamus didn’t have that luxury. He couldn’t travel the world taking dangerous risks because he had a business to run and a mortgage to pay. He had family that needed him to always be there with a shoulder and some good advice. He had a porch roof that was developing more leaks than a political campaign.
And he had pride. Shawn Finn had taught his sons that family should always be there to help each other in times of need, but there were some things a man had to do for himself. Seamus had worked hard to reinvigorate Finn’s and introduce it to a new generation of regulars. He was proud of that.
Bellamy, meanwhile, ran a massive corporation with his father, created science and clean energy scholarships, and co-chaired foundations for female literacy and education around the world, as well as investing in private space exploration programs and offering grants to countless small businesses.
Okay, so maybe in a weak moment he’d looked him up. And maybe he’d felt like shit for judging the sexy love child of Bill Gates and Elon Musk as harshly as he had. But even if none of his preconceptions about Bellamy were true…the passionate frenzy he’d experienced with him couldn’t be good for the long haul.
Who he’d been for those few days scared him, because things that were supposed to matter hadn’t. The only thing he’d been able to think about was touching Bellamy. Kissing Bellamy. Giving himself to Bellamy.
And when they’d fought, it was just as passionate. Disturbingly so.
How could something like that last in his life? And how could he survive it if it didn’t?
He’d seen what that kind of intensity could do when it went wrong. When Tasha had left Stephen to protect his reputation, he’d spent weeks broken at the bottom of a bottle, shutting out his family. Brady’d had a similar reaction after his fight with Tanaka, and Jen hadn’t been much better—though to be fair, that was more about their mother’s reaction to her relationship than Declan or Trick’s.
He’d seen it all from the safe objectivity of his bar. The highs were epic, and while Seamus couldn’t deny each of his family’s situations had ended well, he knew they could have easily gone the other way. His uncle was bitter and alone because of his broken heart. His cousin James was…well, Seamus wasn’t entirely sure what was going on with James, but he was willing to bet it was romance-related. Something was destroying his relationship with his family. Someone. But no one, not even Solomon, had been able to get it out of him.