Chapter Thirty
Harriet
The drive home from the gala is quiet, both Nolan and I lost to our thoughts. He lays his hand on my knee as we pull out of the small church parking lot, but otherwise gives me space, staring out the window as we wind our way back to my house.
I thought I’d be immediately ravaged by guilt. Second-guessing myself. But instead I just feel an odd sense of weightlessness. Like I could float right into the night sky if I wanted to.
Nolan clears his throat from the passenger seat.
“You’ve been sitting here with your chin on your steering wheel for seven minutes,” he says calmly.
“Oh.” I lean back and turn off the ignition, releasing my death grip on the wheel. I didn’t realize we were parked on the small parking pad behind my house. Muscle memory guided me home while my brain conducted an overthinking Olympics.
The low rumble of the engine cuts out. Silence descends. I pocket my keys in my jacket and collapse against the seat. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t apologize to me.” He frowns. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” I poke at the feeling, examining it for cracks, and realize it’s true. I do feel fine. I feel better than fine. I feel good. Euphoric, almost. Drunk off the power of finally speaking my mind. “Actually, I think I’m good.”
I said what I wanted to say and the world didn’t end.
I’m still here. I’ve opened a door, or …
kicked a pebble down the side of a mountain.
I chose myself, and I didn’t worry about how my relationships would suffer for it.
I didn’t contort myself into some absurd shape for the comfort of someone else.
I was strong, and brave, and a little bit of a badass.
It’s a relief, honestly.
“Good?” Nolan asks, sounding dubious. I nod. “Really good, yeah.”
I look over at him, cramped in the passenger side of my car, his knees almost to his chest, and my palms itch. I want to chase this feeling. I want to hold on to it with both hands.
“Would you like to come inside?” I ask.
His eyebrows jump in surprise. “Do you want me to come inside?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“You haven’t said a word to me since you told me to fetch your coat.”
“Oh,” I say again. “I’m sor—”
Nolan’s long fingers squeeze my thigh. He hasn’t moved his hand since we got in the car. “If you say you’re sorry one more time,” he says slowly, “I might lose my mind.”
I button my lips shut. Sorry is right there on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it. He lets out a breath through his nose, the smallest of smiles shadowing his cheeks. “Good,” he rumbles.
That word again. It glides over my shoulders and settles in the middle of my belly, warm and liquid. I shiver.
Nolan watches me, solemn.
“I’m the one who should be apologizing to you,” he says, his voice a low scratch. “I overstepped tonight. I’m sorry for that.”
“How?”
“Your mother came over to me while I was waiting for you at the bar.” He squeezes and releases my leg like he’s trying to convince himself to let go, but can’t quite manage it. “She wanted to know the nature of our relationship. She was—well. She’s a bit of a hag, really.”
I snort a laugh. “She really is, huh?”
My mother isn’t ever going to change. Oddly enough, it’s a relief to know it. I’ve tried to change so many things about myself to get her to like me, but it’s never been about me. I know that now. She’s holding on to old hurts, unwilling to forgive or forget.
Now that I’ve said my peace, I can let that wound start to heal. Nolan drops his head back against the headrest. “I lost my temper.
It wasn’t my place to correct her behavior.”
I give a noncommittal hum and inch closer.
I don’t want to have this conversation in the car with a console between us.
I want to be somewhere I can see his face.
Where I can smooth my hands against his warm skin and raised scars and reassure myself that he’s still here, sitting in the space next to me.
I settle for tangling our fingers together on my thigh. “What else did you say to her?”
Nolan swallows hard, still nervous. “I might have told her that her head resembled a potato.”
A laugh bursts out of me. “You what?”
“You have to admit she does vaguely resemble a root vegetable.” A flash of a dimple appears in his cheek. “I didn’t like the way she was talking about you,” he says softly. His touch brushes along the inside of my knee. “My frustration got the best of me.”
I snicker again, leaning forward to press my mouth to his. My bright, bubbly feeling expands. Nolan was there for me tonight. He showed up, he stayed, and he defended my honor. He made me feel good.
I catch his bottom lip between my teeth and suck at it, an indulgent kiss that makes him shift in his seat. He melts against me.
“You’re not mad,” he breathes when I let my mouth drift down the line of his neck.
“Of course I’m not mad.” I fumble with his bow tie, frustrated with how many buttons and clasps and closures are between me and his skin. He grunts when I tuck my finger in between his neck and the material, my nails scratching. “Why would I be mad?”
“Because I compared your mother to a yam.”
“I thought you said it was a potato.”
“There’s a saying about potatoes, but I don’t want to give in to Irish stereotypes.”
I laugh against his neck, letting my forehead rest against his jaw.
Tonight could have easily been another bad memory of Christmas Past to add to my already extensive collection, but it wasn’t.
I danced, and I laughed, and I said the words that have been hammering holes in my heart for years.
I was brave, and it was because of Nolan.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I murmur.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“I don’t want to talk.”
“Noted,” he says.
His fingers inch up my thigh, disappearing beneath the high cut of my dress.
When I don’t protest, the rest of his hand follows.
I spread my knees wider in the limited space of the driver’s seat, encouraging him to explore.
He takes the direction beautifully, his rough palm scraping at my hip, gripping it as his mouth dips back to mine. I sink into him, mindless and warm.
“Let’s go inside,” I breathe, draping my arms over his shoulders.
“Aye,” he grunts. “Hold on to me.”
“I am holding on to—” I shriek with a laugh as his magic explodes out of him in a rush.
It coils around my ankles before brushing up the backs of my legs, over the curve of my waist, up along my spine.
It sends my pulse skyrocketing, that happy-spinny feeling twisting low in my belly.
I close my eyes and hold on, laughing again when we land with a bounce in the middle of my bed.
I blink up at Nolan perched above me on his hands and knees. His bow tie is crooked and his hair is a mess, but he’s wearing a soft, somewhat bewildered smile. Like he can’t quite believe his luck.
I know the feeling.
“I love when you laugh like that,” he says.
I grin. “Like a hyena?”
“Like you’re happy.” He pushes some of my hair away from my face. “Like you can’t contain it.”
That tender, soft place beneath my ribs glows.
“You make me happy,” I confess quietly. A second ago we were wedged in the front seat of my car.
Now we’re splayed across my bed. Nolan’s holding himself above me on his elbows, my arms still wrapped around his shoulders. “That was very efficient,” I tell him.
“Best use of my magic in decades.”
I drop one hand and trace a finger down the line of my dress strap. “I have some other ideas on how you can use it.”
His smile sharpens into something hungry. “Not quite yet.” He settles his hand at the base of my throat, urging my chin up with his thumb. He holds me steady, looking me over. “My control is tenuous at best, Harriet. I need to go slow.”
I don’t want him in control. If I get to keep him for only a little bit, I want proof that I had him while he was here. I want snowflakes from my ceiling. I want bite marks on my belly. I want magic pulsing from his palms and rattling my windows in their frames.
“You don’t have to be careful with me,” I say, voice hushed, my hands tugging at him. I finally get a good grip on his bow tie and untangle it from around his neck. I toss it blindly off the side of the bed. “I can take it.”
His breath stutters out of him in a rough laugh. “I know you can.” That laugh tumbles into a darker sound when I unbutton his top two buttons, exposing the hollow of his throat. I scratch there lightly.
“And you will,” he rumbles. “I promise you that. You’ll take everything I give you, won’t you?”
My skin flushes hot. I nod.
“But maybe I need you to be careful with me, hmm?” He props himself up on his palms, staring down at me. “There’s so much I want with you.”
“I’ll be gentle with you,” I whisper.
His eyes soften. “I know that, too.”
I’ve never cared very much about what’s fair and what’s not. It hasn’t mattered. I’ve taken what the universe has handed me and made the best of it. But I’m not sure how I’m going to smile through the heartbreak that’s coming.
Nolan belongs to another time. Another place. He’s meant for a well-deserved afterlife, and I have no desire to keep him from the things he wants.
So I pack away the bruises I can already feel forming and do my best to exist in the moment.
“Your face got sad,” he whispers. “Where did you go?”
“Nowhere,” I answer. “I’m right here.”
I’m not going to spend tonight worrying about what’s next. I’m going to be here. With Nolan.
I tiptoe my fingers down his chest, undoing more of his buttons. I pat at his chest. “Up.”