Chapter 49 - Gwen - Bumping into You
Chapter 49
Gwen
The following Wednesday, I’m back at my office bright and early. I decided to get a head start on the day’s to-do list before the rest of the staff arrive. It’s not like I can sleep anyway. Last night, we held an alumni event at one of the historic mansions in Donelson, and there’s still a lot that needs to be cleaned and put away.
“Hi, Gwennie,” a voice startles me. I spin around to see my brother looking sheepish.
“Hi, G,” adds Holly warmly from behind him, then she glares at her husband. I walk past Greg, practically ignoring him, and give Holly a big hug.
“How was Vermont?” I ask, forcing a smile for my best friend, now sister-in-law.
“It was perfect, but that is not the point of why we dropped in unannounced, is it, Greg?”
Greg nods.
“Greg has something he wants to say to you,” Holly continues. “I’m going to For The Love of Sugar. When you two are done, come over and I’ll have your favorites ready for you.”
Greg and I watch as Holly leaves out the door. “Marriage has made her fierce,” I say.
Greg laughs. “Yeah,” he agrees, “but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“I’m guessing I know what you want to speak about, and while I don’t really want to hear anything you say, I know Holly will know if we’ve had this talk or not, so let’s just get it over with.” I pull out two stools for us to sit on.
“First, I want to say I’m sorry,” Greg says, looking sincere. “What I did was with good intentions. I never meant for you to get hurt. I wanted the opposite actually.”
“Go on,” I say.
“The morning we boarded the cruise, I ran into Niall at breakfast. I asked him to spend time with you during the cruise to help you have a good time like Trent, Niall, and I had in college together. You’ve just been so distant and sad lately, not like yourself at all. I’ve been worried about you and got the not-so-brilliant idea that you could benefit from some of Sully’s energy. And for the record, I just want to say it worked. You came out of your shell on the cruise.”
I glare at him, my arms crossed over my chest.
“But that’s beside the point,” he continues. “Niall was hesitant to agree to it at first. It took some convincing on my end. And then you two seemed to be having a good time, maybe more than a good time.” Greg gives me a wink, but I remain stoic.
“Anyway,” Greg continues, “I didn’t find out about your pact until much later. Then I saw Niall kiss you, and I confronted him about it because that definitely wasn’t part of the favor I asked him. I mean, I practically pulled a you, when you yelled at me about Holly. I was going to kill him for playing with you like that.”
Then Greg says something that shocks me to my core. Something I never saw coming.
“But, Gwennie, the sincerity in his eyes and the tone of his voice when he told me how it wasn’t pretend and it had never been pretend. I just, I saw a little bit of me in him. How I felt about Holly, I mean. He truly cares for you; I’d say he even loves you.”
My eyes shoot up at his use of the word love. My breath halts. It can’t be, he couldn’t.
“If he cared that much,” I say, “he wouldn’t have kept a secret like this from me. I can’t be in a relationship that is based on a lie. I need someone who is going to be open and honest with me.”
“Yes, Gwennie, but Niall is a good guy, a great one even. Did he maybe make a bad decision in listening to me? Yes. But I don’t think he’d ever purposely try to hurt you. And I’d bet if you gave him a chance, he wouldn’t ever do anything like that again.”
“I’m still angry,” I say.
“As you have every right to be,” Greg says. “But give Niall another chance.”
“I can’t promise anything, but I can think about what you said.”
“Thank you. I think you’ll see that giving him a chance, even just hearing him out, will be worth it.” He stands and pulls me into a hug. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry for meddling and giving him a reason to lie to you in the first place.”
I hug Greg back, then thump him on the head. “I know you were doing this with the best intentions, but please never meddle in my life again.”
The next two days, I’m a mess. I work long hours during the day and toss and turn all night. I can’t get what Greg said out of my head.
Were Niall’s feelings always genuine? Does Niall truly love me?
My mind flashes back to the look on his face when I left him. Was it true sorrow and heartbreak I’d seen on his face? Not just anguish from being caught?
Taking a deep breath, I pull up my voicemails. They’ve gone down in number over the past few days, but he hasn’t missed a day yet trying to get in touch with me. The realization makes my heart thump loudly in my chest.
I pick a random voicemail from the long list and hit play. Just hearing Niall’s voice causes tears to well in my eyes. It’s a simple voicemail, asking for a chance to explain everything when I’m ready to talk. I can’t take hearing his voice again. It hurts too much, so I look through a few of the texts.
Niall
Gwendolyn, I’m sorry for hurting you. That was never my intention. Please let me explain.
Niall
Please let me know you made it home ok. I just want to make sure you are safe.
Niall
Gwen, I heard from Trent and he says you are working a lot and avoiding them. Please know this was not their fault. The fault is fully mine. I should have been open and honest with you.
Niall
Rose, I’m sorry.
Niall
I miss you, Rose, I care about you. Call me anytime, day or night. I just want the chance to talk.
After reading through the rest of the texts and even listening to a few more voicemails, I put my phone down, tears falling from my eyes like a dam has broken and nothing can stop the downpour of emotions flooding my system. Never once was he angry or mad with me. Each text and voicemail was calm, caring, sincere.
I feel so confused. I’m hurt that he didn’t open up to me. I mean what I said to Greg about a relationship not being able to start on a lie, but my gut is telling me that I need to forgive Niall, that I should give us another chance. But how do I do that? How do I move past what happened?
I have another sleepless night, unable to get these thoughts out of my head. I’m so confused. I need to talk to Holly.
Early the next morning, I go to see Holly before she opens up her bakery for the day, a strong cup of coffee in my hands.
The sweet smells of pastries baking overwhelm my senses as I walk in the back entrance. “Hols, you close by?” I yell out after not seeing her in the kitchen.
“I’m up front.”
Walking to the front of the shop, it’s like walking into a fairy garden. Display cases, grass, and flowers cover the walls in a beautiful mural. Plants hang from the ceiling as well as strands of lights giving off a magical glow. Outdoor-style tables and chairs dot the floor, making it feel like you’ve entered an actual garden. No matter what mood I’m in, the moment I walk into her bakery, it brings a smile to my face.
“What brings you in this early?” Holly asks, not even looking up from where she’s loading some baked goods into the display cases.
“I . . .” I start, but then stop immediately.
I don’t know what to say.
“G, what is it?” she looks over at me, worry creasing her brow.
“I . . . I think I messed up, and I don’t know how to fix it,” I admit, sinking into a bench by the wall.
“About Niall?” she offers.
I nod.
“Okay, how can I help?” Holly asks, wiping her hands on her apron and then heading around the display cases toward me.
“Can you just tell me what to do?” I laugh meekly.
“Afraid not, G. But I can tell you that Niall is an amazing guy. Probably one of the best.”
“He lied to me.”
“Yes, he lied. And while that’s not okay, you can’t really put the whole blame on him. I mean, you asked him to do the same lie, to spend time with you with your little fake relationship thing. So really, if you both had that pact going on, and Niall agreed to do the same favor for Greg, did Niall even really lie?”
“You’ve got a point,” I admit.
“Niall really cares about you, G. Even now, after everything.”
I snap up at her admission. “You think so?”
“I know so,” she says so matter-of-factly that I can’t not believe her.
“Then I think I know what I need to do,” I say, pulling out my phone. “I need to book a plane ticket.”
I hop in a rideshare and head to the Nashville airport. With traffic on I-24 always a nightmare, I have to leave three hours before my flight. In the blink of an eye, the normally forty-five-minute drive can take an hour and a half, and I’d rather not miss this flight.
Sending a quick text to my second-in-command, Becca, I explain that she’ll be in charge for the weekend because I have to take care of something important immediately. And that, oh yeah, she’s getting promoted to senior event planner effective immediately.
I have no clue if Niall will want anything to do with me after how I treated him, but I have to try.
I love him.
Thankfully, at ten o’clock on a Friday morning, the traffic isn’t so bad. We actually make it to the airport in record time. Now, if I could just calm my beating heart.
Clyde, my rideshare driver, says, “If it’s alright with you, miss, can I drop you off at the rideshare pickup spot so I don’t have to drive all the way around to pick up my next passenger?”
I need all the good karma I can get, so I tell him, “I have no problem with that.”
“Thank you, miss,” he responds, driving toward the pickup area.
Clyde parks and hops out to meet his next passenger as I lean down to pick up my backpack. Reaching for the door, my hand misses as the door is opened from the outside.
“ Mo ghrá ?” says a male voice, one that makes my heart stop.
It can’t be.
There’s no way. It’s not possible.
I look up, and sure enough, it’s Niall.
“What are you doing here?” We both say in unison.
A single tear rolls down my cheek. Stupid emotions taking over. Niall reaches out a hand to me, and I take it. Then, he wipes the tear from my face.
“Why are you crying, Gwen?” he asks, his voice cracking with emotion.
“Niall, I’m so sorry,” I manage to say on a sob, as more tears begin to fall.
“Oh, mo ghrá , so am I. More than I could ever describe.” He pulls me into a soul-crushing hug. I feel the hug throughout my entire body. Fifty years from now, I will remember this hug, the way it feels to be held by him.
“You two know each other then?” Clyde asks.
“You could say that.” Niall laughs. “If you could give us a minute, please?” Clyde nods and gets back in the car.
“Look,” says Niall, pulling back from me slightly. “I should have told you about the favor I agreed to do for Greg. It was daft of me to keep it to myself.”
“I was just so hurt and confused that you didn’t tell me about the pact you made with Greg. And it made me think that you were just spending time with me because he asked you to, not that you really wanted to be with me. I was afraid you didn’t really like me for me. And I was scared you’d want me to change, be someone else.”
“Gwen, that’s just not true. From the first moment we’d met, there was something about you that called to me, and I wanted to get to know you more, so when Greg asked me, I went along with it. I was happy he was, in a way, giving me his stamp of approval. I was hoping it would keep Greg from acting like an overly protective, angry older brother if things between us went somewhere. And I really wanted them to go somewhere.”
“You did?”
“Of course I did. Why else would I agree to fake date you if I didn’t already want to date you in the first place?”
More tears stream down my face, and I wrap my arms around Niall.
“Though I was totally wrong about Greg’s reaction,” Niall says, shaking his head. “He was not thrilled when he found out I was being more than friendly with you.”
“Overprotection and hot-headedness do seem to be a family trait of ours,” I say, then laugh.
“I’m so sorry for lying to you,” says Niall, “and I promise to never knowingly do so again. But as for making daft decisions, I’m sure I’ll make plenty of those in the future. But hopefully you can be patient with me. Maybe even give me a second chance? That’s why I’m here. I had to give this one more shot. A life without you isn’t a life at all.”
“I was coming to you,” I say, “to ask you to give me a second chance. I’m so sorry I let my emotions and fears get the best of me and that I didn’t give you a chance to explain. I can’t promise that won’t happen again, but I can promise that I will work on hearing you out. I just need you to be patient with me while I work on it.”
“Were you really going to fly up to Boston to see me?” he asks.
“Yes, but seems like you beat me to it by coming here.” I chuckle lightly.
“Gwendolyn, even though we’ve only known each other for a few weeks, and some of those days we’ve spent apart—by the way, those were some of the worst days of my life—” he admits, “I’ve been a shell of myself without you. I’ve felt empty and so lost. Because I want us to give this a real chance. I realized I was falling for you. No,” he stops himself.
“No?” I ask.
“Correction, I was not falling for you. I have fallen for you. To be more specific, I’ve fallen in love with you.”
“Oh,” I say timidly, letting out a small hiccup sob.
“Being without you made me feel like I had lost a part of myself. You make me happy. You make me whole. I don’t ever want to lose you again.”
And then his mouth is on mine, not soft, but fierce. A kiss filled with a desperate longing from both of us.
We pull apart to take a breath, and he leans his forehead against mine. “I want to be with you, Gwendolyn. I don’t want to be apart from you ever again.”
Nodding, I say, “I would love nothing more. I love you, Niall.”