Chapter 32 #2
She followed. The fireplace hadn't been used in years despite regular maintenance, but the chimney had been inspected recently enough that the report remained on the service file.
I found logs in the covered basket beside the hearth, dry enough after all this time because somebody had apparently replaced them during upkeep. Skye watched me kneel.
"Are you sure that's safe?" I looked over my shoulder.
"The interior designer is questioning my fireplace?"
"The interior designer has seen enough historic properties burn this week."
"Fair."
It took longer than it should have because the first match went out and the second produced more smoke than flame, but eventually the logs caught.
Fire moved slowly across the dry wood, filling the old grate with light.
I sat back on my heels. The room changed immediately without becoming something unrecognizable; it simply felt warmer, lived-in, and alive.
Skye lowered herself onto the sofa after removing the dust sheet and folded one leg beneath her.
"Your father sat there?" I looked at the armchair near the fireplace.
"Aye."
"Your mother?"
"Where you're sitting." She glanced down.
"Should I move?"
"No."
The answer came quickly enough that she looked at me.
I stood and removed the cover from Da's chair before sitting in it.
For a while, neither of us spoke. I had expected the chair to feel wrong, but it didn't; it felt like an old chair, comfortable and slightly sagging on one side.
Da had apparently spent decades destroying the cushion.
That realization nearly made me laugh. Skye watched the fire.
"We should talk about what happens when this is over." My body tightened before I could stop it. She noticed.
"We don't have to tonight."
"What do you mean by over?"
"The Ireland part." I looked at her. She kept her gaze on the flames.
"Saint Brigid's is exposed. Declan's evidence is going to the authorities. Croft's in custody. Harrow and Vale are still out there, but the operation is becoming bigger than what the six of us can handle by driving around County Clare."
"Aye."
"At some point we'll go back." America didn't need saying aloud.
My chest tightened for an entirely different reason.
Skye lived in Scotland. Her business was in Edinburgh.
Isla was recovering in England and would eventually need her partner.
I had known all of that from the beginning.
Knowing didn't make the future less complicated.
"What do you want?" I asked. She turned toward me.
"About what?"
"After." Her expression became wary.
"That's a large question."
"Aye."
"And you're asking it at one in the morning after a fire."
"Apparently."
"Your timing is terrible."
"I've been told." She shifted toward me.
"I want Isla to recover enough that she stops feeling like her life belongs to what happened to her.
I want Thistle & Stone running properly again.
I want to finish the projects we've already committed to and decide which ones still make sense.
I want to know what happened at Blackridge and why the Order was using restoration work as cover. " I waited.
"And?" Her eyes narrowed slightly.
"And I want you." There it was, simple enough to say and terrifying enough to hear. I looked toward the fire.
"Skye."
"You asked."
"I know."
"I'm not moving to America tomorrow."
"I didn't ask you to."
"You were going to." I looked at her. She smiled faintly.
"Your face did."
"I hate that you read people."
"You prefer rooms?"
"Rooms don't argue."
"Buildings are extremely argumentative."
"Only around you." She leaned back.
"I'm not giving up Scotland, Callum."
"I wouldn't ask."
"I know." That surprised her. I continued before I could retreat.
"I don't want you because you're convenient." Her expression changed.
"I don't want the version where you close your business, leave Isla, move into some house near the clubhouse, and wake up six months later realizing you gave away half your life because I was afraid of an ocean." She stared at me.
"That was unexpectedly evolved."
"Don't ruin it."
"I'm impressed."
"I can take it back."
"No." Her smile faded into something warmer.
"What do you want?" The question should have been easy. It wasn't. I looked around the sitting room at the fire, Mam's sofa, Da's chair, and the farmhouse I'd spent years refusing to call home because home had meant everyone who wasn't here anymore.
"I want this house." The words surprised me. Skye remained very still.
"Not as a museum." I looked toward the photographs along the wall.
"Not as somewhere I come once every fifteen years because guilt finally drags me back. I want the roof fixed where it needs fixing. I want the garden cut back without turning it into something Mam wouldn't recognize. I want someone to use the kitchen."
"You?"
"Maybe." Her eyebrows rose.
"I can learn."
"Can you?"
"Fuck off." She laughed. I smiled. Then I continued.
"I want America too." Her laughter faded.
"The club is my family. I'm not leaving them."
"I wouldn't ask."
"I know."
The answer settled between us: two countries, two careers, and two lives neither of us had any right to demand the other abandon.
Weeks ago, I would've treated that as proof we shouldn't start something complicated.
Tonight it felt like a problem intelligent people could solve.
That might have been the most frightening change of all.
"I don't know how it works," I admitted. Skye looked at me for a long moment.
"Neither do I."
"You hate not knowing."
"Deeply."
"Good."
"Why is that good?"
"Means I'm not the only one." She smiled. I stood and crossed to the sofa.
"Move."
"Very romantic."
"You're in Mam's seat."
"You told me not to move."
"Changed my mind."
"Control issues." I held out my hand. She took it. Instead of making her stand, I sat beside her and pulled her carefully against my side, mindful of the bruised shoulder. She gave me a suspicious look.
"That wasn't what move usually means."
"Adapt."
"You're learning interior design now?"
"No."
"Shame."
She settled against me. The fire cracked softly.
For the first time in fifteen years, I sat in that room without feeling as though every object belonged to the dead.
Some of the house belonged to memory and some of it belonged to me, and if I chose carefully, maybe some of what came next could belong to people who had never known the O'Briens who filled it before. Skye's head rested against my shoulder.
"Can I ask something?"
"Aye."
"If you restore this place, what stays?" I looked around.
"The table."
"Definitely."
"Da's chair."
"Even though it's destroyed?"