Jack and Djinn (The Houri Legends, #1)(20)

“I don’t know. This is, like, your family. Your parents. I don’t know if I’m ready for this.” She wasn’t even really his girlfriend. She had a “boyfriend,” for god’s sake.

Jack seemed to understand her trepidation. “Look, you’re my friend, okay? There’s more than that, sure, but that’s between us. My brothers and sisters bring friends to these parties all the time. It’s no big deal, okay? Just relax.” Miriam nodded, a little reassured, but not completely.

Jack pushed open the front door and led her in. Inside was a madhouse. There were, as Jack had promised, dozens of people, all of them with drinks in their hands, milling and chatting. Not letting go of Miriam’s hand, he led her through the crowd, most of whom greeted him with a hug and a slap on the back.

She leaned in close to his ear, asking, “Who are all these people? Is this all your family?”

“Most of them are family—cousins, uncles, and aunts—and some friends as well. We’re a big family. This isn’t even half of us. You should see this place during the holidays!” Miriam tried to imagine double the amount of people, and she just couldn’t. Holidays, when she was growing up, were quiet affairs, to say the least. Jack led her outside to the backyard, going straight through the house, past the kitchen and living room, both of which were packed as well. He sat her down on a rocking swing on the back porch and disappeared. Miriam was rigid, hands folded on her lap, back straight, breath coming in short, shallow, scared heaves. Everyone seemed to know everyone else, and there seemed to be many conversations going on between people—some from across the yard. Everyone was drinking, but no one seemed to be drunk, just loose and genial. An elderly man tottered up to Miriam and sat down next to her, sipping whiskey and Coke from a red plastic cup.

“Hello there, girlie,” he said in a thick Irish accent. “I saw Jackie sit you down here, and thought ya might need some company, hey? I’m Séan, Jackie’s grandfather. He treatin’ you well, then, my boy Jackie?”

“Hi, yeah, I’m a friend of Jack’s. I’m Miriam.”

“Miriam, you say? Why, ain’t that a pretty name, then.” Séan leaned in close and peered at Miriam with bright blue eyes set deep in a tanned, wrinkled face. He seemed to be searching Miriam’s face for something, exactly as Jack had done before, not looking at her so much as looking into her. He nodded.

“Aye, you’ll do, then,” he said, cryptically.

“I’ll…do?” Miriam had no idea what to make of his words.

“Oh, aye. You’ll do.” Séan tapped the side of his nose; a gesture Miriam didn’t quite know how to interpret. “You’re Jackie’s friend, you say, but old Séan, I know better. No need to hide the truth from me, no, ma’am. He’s a good boy, my Jack. He’ll take good care of you. Just promise me one thing, will you?”

“I’ll…I’ll try, I guess.”

“He loves quick and hard, that boy. The other one, the mean one you’ve been seeing? He’s trouble, he is. Best make your move quick, or you won’t make it a’tall.” Séan nodded sagely, sipped his drink, patting Miriam on the knee. Miriam’s head was spinning. He seemed to know exactly what was going on. Had Jack talked to him?

Jack returned with two bottles of Corona, wedges of lime stuffed into the tops, as well as a bag of tortilla chips and a bowl of salsa. “Ah, you met Gramps, I see. You aren’t scaring her, are you, Gramps?” Séan moved over and Jack sat between them, handing Miriam one of the bottles.

“Oh, no. We just chatted a wee bit. Didn’t tell her none of your secrets.”

“I don’t have any secrets, Gramps. Don’t be weird.”

“Everyone’s got secrets, boy-o.” Séan glanced sideways at Miriam as he said this, winking at her. “Yours are just more boring than most.”

Jack laughed, crunching a chip. “Oh, yeah? So what’s an interesting secret, then?”

Séan pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket, clipped it and lit it, puffed on it. At length he answered. “I’ll tell you a secret, Jackie. One of my very own. Just ’cause you’re my favorite grandson, and this here Miriam of yours seems a right corker.” Miriam didn’t know what a corker was, or whether it was good thing or not, but she didn’t interrupt.

“This goes back, oh, to when I was sixteen or so. Before the war, this was. Me and my two best mates were off to the river, fishin’ on a Sunday mornin’. Mass was over, and we had nothin’ to do but laze about all the day, and that’s what we did. Well, on about noon come these two girls, strollin’ down the road pretty as you please. They sees us, me and my mates, and they come over to us and they ask us what we’re doin’. Well, we thought it were fairly obvious what we was doin’, so I says, ‘We’re fishin’ ain’t we?’ and the prettier of the two, ’cause you know whenever there’s two girls as friends, there’s always one who’s the prettier, I dunno why, but there it is. Anyway, the prettier of the two lasses says to me, she says, ‘Well, I’ve got a dare for one of you, if you’re brave enough.’

“This was a serious thing, you know. You don’t never back down from a dare, most especially at sixteen you don’t. So I puffed up me chest and said, ‘I’ll take your dare,’ and threw my pole to my mate Bill. The girl takes me by the hand and starts pullin’ me back up the road, away from my mates and her friend and the fish, and I says, ‘What’s the dare, then? Where’re we goin’?’, and the girl, she don’t answer, just yanks me into a run. I can’t back down, can I? So I run with her, and she takes me right over the hill and down the other side and around a corner so we’re alone as can be, and she comes to a stop behind a bush, and she says, ‘Are you sure you want to take the dare? No backin’ out if you promise now.’