Chapter Thirty-Four
Ciara
It takes three days for things to move on. Three days to clean up the mess from the storm. Three days before we’re let back into the house to sort out what I need now and what can be put into storage. Three days that feel like an eternity.
The only good thing that happens?
I sleep.
Every night, we return to the room above Delaney’s and climb into that tiny bed.
Every night, I’m dreaming before I hit the pillow.
Sam develops a sixth sense when it comes to me and the internet, miraculously appearing every time I get the urge to Google the book and distracting me with food or a walk or a kiss.
It’s pretty obvious what he’s doing, but I know he’s right.
The last thing I need right now is a doom scroll.
But I also know by all his phone calls and emailing that things are happening, and that it must be difficult trying to deal with it in a completely different time zone.
He’ll need to go back to New York soon, but for now he barely leaves my side.
One early morning, we sit on a bench outside Delaney’s as Maddie skims through a small list of rentals on her tablet. There’s no way I’ll be able to move back into the house in the next few months, but I can’t live out of a single room above the pub, either.
As predicted, my other options are limited.
“This one looks promising,” Maddie says, pointing to a depressing terraced house. “It’s got a little nook you could write in.”
“That’s a fireplace.”
“Yeah, but they’ve taken the fireplace out. So it’s a nook.”
I peer closer at the photos. “Is the bathroom outside?”
“You live in rural Ireland in the middle of a housing crisis, Ciara; I don’t know what to tell you.” She swipes through a few other listings, only to get distracted when her phone vibrates on the table.
Shane’s name flashes up.
“You can get that,” I tell her when she doesn’t.
“It’s fine,” she mutters, letting it ring out. Barely three seconds pass before it starts again.
“Maddie,” I urge, and she scowls.
“Give me a second.” She passes the tablet to Sam before putting the phone to her ear. “I’m busy,” she snaps into it, and walks around the side of the pub.
New business partnership is going well, then.
Sam waits until she’s out of earshot before pointing at the screen. “You hate them all.”
“I don’t,” I lie. “I’m just so sick of thinking about the house.
And I have to wait for the insurance to kick in and then I’ll have to organize repairs and see what else I need to do and it will probably take years and I—” I groan, dropping my head into my hands.
“You’re going to tell me to sell it, aren’t you? ”
“No.”
“But you’re thinking it.”
“I mean…” He sighs. “You don’t want to live there.”
“I don’t know what I want anymore. All I know is that he left it to me.”
“As a gift,” Sam reminds me. “He thought he was making you happy. You think he would have saddled you with it if he’d known it would do the opposite?”
“No,” I admit, looking up. “But I can’t change the past. And if I want to focus on the future, then I need to focus on the book.”
“Casey said he’ll give you as much time as you need.”
“I don’t want time,” I insist. “I don’t want to lose my rhythm. It’s going to be hard enough with you leaving.”
I say the last bit without thinking, and we both tense before I take the tablet from him, pretending to scroll until Maddie sits back down.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Everything’s perfect,” she says briskly, only to sigh at what she sees on the screen. “You could just live with me, you know.”
“We’d drive each other nuts.”
“Yeah, but in a sitcom way.” She reaches for the tablet as she shifts in place for the hundredth time. She hasn’t been able to sit still all morning.
“You sure you’re all right?” I ask.
“I’m grand, Ciara. We’re focusing on you here.”
“But I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’ve been through a traumatic event.” But she avoids my gaze as she flicks back, landing on a house that doesn’t look as if it’s been changed since the seventies. “I think this place could be livable, with a lick of paint.”
She starts searching again, ignoring her phone even as it lights up with a text from Shane.
Fine.
I turn to Sam, staring at him until he gets the hint and says something about needing refreshment. I wait until he’s disappeared into the pub before focusing on Maddie. Then I kick her under the table.
“Did you have sex with Shane McCauley?” I hiss.
“Okay, ow,” she says, glaring at me. “And no! What the hell?”
“You’re being so weird.”
“He’s just really serious,” she says, dropping her voice. “Like, more serious than I thought he’d be. I thought he’d back out or lose interest, but he keeps sending me all these plans and asking my opinion and he invited me to dinner next week and—”
“Dinner.”
“A business dinner,” she says. “To discuss our business.”
“Oh my God.”
“A business—”
“How is this even going to work?” I interrupt. “Is he moving here?”
“That’s the thing,” she says, purposely not looking at me. “This was always going to be a next year opening. So he suggested we keep going, see out the summer, and then, if I want, I can go and work with him in Dublin for a while. Learn the ropes.”
And there it is. She fidgets under my gaze, playing with the bracelet on her wrist.
“Dublin?” I say.
“Yeah.”
“When?”
She shrugs, looking cagey. “September, maybe.”
“For how long?”
“A few months. And then—”
“Months?”
“He’s right, Ciara,” she says. “I’ve worked in places like that before, but I’ve never managed them. It’s an opportunity I can’t turn down.”
“There are cafés closer than Dublin.”
“But none that he owns. And none that he’s offered me the chance to run. It means I’ll know what I’m doing when we open.”
“So you’re leaving.”
“Not forever.”
“For half of the year.”
“You can come and visit me. You like Dublin.”
“But you keep saying you don’t like him,” I remind her, and she grimaces.
“He’s not the worst.”
I shake my head, trying to imagine my days without her. “I can’t believe this.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, reaching over to grasp my hand.
Movement at the corner of my eye catches my attention, and I look over just as Sam steps out of the pub, takes one look at us, and goes back inside.
I take a deep breath. “This is what you want to do?”
“Yes.” She doesn’t even hesitate.
“And you’re excited?”
“Extremely.”
“Okay.” Another breath. Even though I still feel like pouting. “To be clear, I’m happy for you but sad for me—that’s what’s going on here.”
She pats my hand. “I know.”
“It sounds like a great opportunity.”
“It is.”
“It’s just that I love you and you’re my best friend.”
“I better be,” she says before rolling her eyes at what is probably a bereft look on my face.
“Oh Jesus, come here.” She climbs off the bench and clambers over to my side, where she wraps me in a big Maddie hug.
“For someone who earns a living being inside other people’s heads, you’re extremely bad at dealing with your own feelings. ”
“Hey,” I complain, even though I am.
“You could come too.”
“To Dublin?”
“We could rent together. Complain about the cost of things.”
“I’ve got to sort out the house first.”
“She said for the millionth time.”
“But this time it’s true. I don’t know if you heard, but there was this massive storm?”
“Is that what that noise was?” She pulls back, tilting my face to see my bandage. “Does it hurt?”
“Stings like a bitch,” I say. “Might get a cool scar, though.”
“We can only hope.” She drops her hand, her face turning serious. “What do you want to do, Ciara? Anything you want, I’ll help you.”
“I want to finish this book,” I say. “For Dad and for me. After that, I don’t know.” I frown. “You ever feel like you’re completely free and yet utterly stuck at the same time?”
“Never,” she says, and okay, great. Just me, then.
Maddie grasps my shoulders, sensing my thoughts. “You know you’re not alone, right? I can be across the country and still only be a phone call away. You have never and will never be in this alone.”
She hugs me again, more tightly than before, and I reluctantly accept the fact that things are changing. That I am not the center of the universe, no matter how much I’d like to be. That Maddie has a life outside of here. So does Ronan. So does Sam.
And so do I.
I just don’t know what that looks like yet.
But maybe that’s okay too. Maybe I don’t need to know right now. Maybe my story hasn’t ended yet.