Page 9 of Nolan (The Doherty Mafia)
It was Reese who eventually found me. She came bearing a box of brownies, just like she’d promised.
“Sulking by yourself?” she asked playfully, coming up behind me.
“You don’t have to come here and initiate a deep discussion with me,” I snarled.
Reese smiled and held the box of brownies out to me. I took one in the hopes it’d make her go away.
“We don’t have to have a deep discussion if you don’t want to, Nolan. I’m just here to keep you company. If you want it.”
I looked at her and she waited a few ticks—probably waiting for me to shoo her away. I couldn’t do it. She was Killian’s wife, and I’d liked her from the start.
“You can say whatever you have to say, but I can’t promise I’ll listen,” I said.
Reese took a brownie and bit into it.
“I just thought you should know we are all worried about you.”
“Worried?”
“Yeah, you’re acting out. You’re not acting like yourself. I mean, I can’t claim I know you inside-out, but the little that I know you…you are always older than your age. Wiser somehow. These boys can be little kids around each other, you know? Your brothers.”
“Yet, I’m the one who is treated as the little kid in the family.”
“Then change your narrative. Only you have the power to change the way they look at you. They can’t help themselves. You’re the youngest in the family. Their baby brother. They want to protect you. You know, Killian won’t let me leave the house by myself anymore. I always have armed guards with me everywhere I go. You should know what they’re like. They just want to keep you safe.”
“I don’t need fuckin’ safe keeping. I’m a grown ass man who can look after himself.”
Reese nodded. “I know that, but I’m an outsider. Your brothers are having a hard time accepting it. Just give it time.”
I knew she meant well, and maybe she even made sense, but it was impossible for me to look past all the history in our lives. To look past everything we’d been through. How I’d been excluded from every major decision this family had taken. Somehow, they’d forgotten I’d experienced it all—the pain of loss, the suffering and the danger. I’d experienced it all along with them.
“Yeah, sure, thanks for that. And thanks for the brownie,” I said and finished eating the rest of it. Reese nodded. It looked like she had more to say but she figured she wasn’t getting through to me.
I wasn’t sure what would.
Maybe I was a lost case.
Maybe I just needed to get out of here.
Even though Killian had said we could talk after I had some time to cool off, I decided I didn’t want to.
Tristan was the one in the family I felt closest to these days. He was only a little over a year older than me, so we were closest in age. Yet, he wasn’t treated the same way I was.
I found him on a phone call in the foyer of the house just as I was about to leave. He ended the call quickly.
“You going somewhere, man?” he asked.
“Yeah, I need a drink.”
“Stay here. We’re all staying for dinner. We could have a couple of drinks.”
“Or you could come with me and we could get smashed somewhere the rest of the Dohertys won’t be breathing down our necks all night,” I suggested.
Tristan breathed in deeply and then shrugged.
“I don’t think I can, man. Elsie is here.”
That was all the answer I needed. Now that he had a woman in his life, he’d no longer be into the things we used to do together.
“And you and I need to talk, so you should stay,” he added.
“Talk about what? How you guys now blame me for not turning up to the meeting? What about all the other meetings I’d never been invited to?”
“Exactly. That’s the sort of stuff we need to discuss. Dad should be involved in this conversation. I know Killian would want to hear it.”
“And you think they don’t know already? They just don’t fuckin’ want to be reminded and lectured on it.”
“If you keep walking away from us, we won’t have a chance to fix the problem,” Tristan said.
I was already walking backwards, heading to the door. I shook my head.
“There isn’t a problem to fix. I am the problem. I don’t think there’s a place for me in this family.”
“Listen to yourself, bro. You’re not making any sense. Nobody in this family would want to hear you say that.”
“Yeah, I’m done walking around on eggshells. I’m done being treated like a pesky teenager who can’t handle some fire.”
Tristan stood facing me with his hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his pants. He didn’t have anything left to say to me, which was exactly what I expected.
