Chapter 33
"D id you ever imagine you’d be here?" I ask, looking over at Cole from my spot lying in the back garden. I see him blowing smoke rings up at the sky as Teddy sleeps on his chest.
It’s just me and him today, since Logan and Alex have had to head up to London for the quarterly Table meeting, and Smithy had some kind of family emergency. Dad used to always say it was mostly a show and tell of who’s who and what’s what in a safe space. Currently, I’m praying that’s true, and Logan comes back to me in one piece. We’ve been getting closer and closer, and it’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him how I feel, but the moment never feels right. To distract me from stress cleaning the house, Cole had dragged me out to enjoy the last of the decent weather under the guise of him needing fresh air. Something about all the bleach hurting his senses, which, considering the amount of bleach it must take to bleach his hair—I call bullshit.
"Here, as in the Clan's compound?" he clarifies, twisting his head to look at me.
"Yeah."
"Hell fucking no. Not unless we were attacking them. But in a way, I’m glad I’m here. It’s given me space from my brothers for the first time in my life, and the fact you wanted me here is a huge honour."
"But," I ask as he trails off, looking back at the sky as he blows smoke out his mouth.
"It’s weird not being with my brothers. We’ve spent our whole lives together. Hell, we all still live together, and I thought space from them is what I wanted. Aidan was furious, but I told him I wanted some freedom to see if the way we do things is really what I want. He actually tore me a new one for it at your wedding, threatened to pull some strings with Jonathan to put a stop to it."
"I never meant to come between you guys, Cole. You could have told me, and I’d have thought of someone else."
"As weird as it was fighting with him and only seeing them occasionally, this was needed. Distance makes the heart grow fonder; you know?"
"Are you still planning to head back after the year here?"
"That’s the plan. Liam’s been talking about seeing if Jonathan will let the three of us stay on as Cora’s detail, permanently. But either way, I know for sure I want to be back working with those two knuckleheads. But enough about me, how are things with the grump going?" he asks me, twisting to look at me again as he scratches Teddy’s ears, much to her delight.
"Cora would love that. She adores you three, you know that right? You’re like the brothers she never had. As for me, things have been going a lot better than I expected. It feels like there might be a chance that this will turn into something real." Voicing it out loud for the first time feels like jinxing it, but keeping my excitement inside is a pipe dream at this point. It’s all I can do not to call my girls and giggle down the phone like a teenager with her first crush.
"I’m happy for you, Abbie. I know my crush on you was no secret but seeing you happy is all I ever wanted for you."
"You know, I never planned on pulling you up about that…but now you’ve brought it up…how the fuck did that come about anyway?" I ask on a laugh as I flip onto my stomach, head resting on my arm as I look at him.
"Fuck knows, I think it’s just… you’re so pure. Which is so fucking rare in our world, you know that right? Everyone gravitates towards you, and I think I just got so absorbed in that for a hot second. Though Logan seems to think it’s more than that," he remarks with a smirk, looking at me with a quirked eyebrow.
"A bit of jealousy never did him any harm." I chuckle before letting a comfortable silence blanket us as we watch the sunset.
“I’ve been thinking—”
“That’s never a good sign,” Cora cuts Lily off with a laugh. After watching the sunset, I’d left Cole in charge of dinner so I could ring Lily back. Little did I know I would be greeted with the sight of her and Cora lounging on Cora’s bed with Socks, Cora and Owen’s kitten, curled up between them.
“Ignore her, what’s going on?”
“I’m going to apply to study abroad for a year,” she blurts out in one breath, as if the words are burning her tongue to keep them in.
“What the fuck!” Exchanging shocked glances with Cora through the phone screen, it’s clear she’s as shocked as I am about this.
I swear if this is because of Matt, I will kill him.
“Listen, it’s no secret I never wanted to stay local in the first place. The only reason I did was Ciaran put his foot down, but I think if it’s only for a year of my three-year fashion design course I could win him over. Plus, it’s in Paris, how the hell could I not go? And some of the girls from my course are looking at sharing a house, so it’s not like I’d be alone.” The more she pitches it, the clearer it is she's given it a lot of thought, and who would we be to stop her from going?
“If you're sure this is what you want to do, I'll do whatever we can to help you. But are you sure this is the right thing, and you're not just trying to run away from something?” I ask her, quirking my eyebrow at her in question.
“Positive. I’ll miss you two, but I think some space, some time away would be exactly what I need to spread my wings a bit, you know?” In all the time I’ve known Lily, including her pregnancy scare, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look so vulnerable, so open.
“If Ciaran won’t agree, I can ask my dad to step in,” Cora offers, pulling Lily in close to her side and shooting me a look that screams a thousand questions. As much as I wish Lily would spill the details about what’s going on with her and Matt, and as much as I know Cora would take her secrets to the grave—it’s not my place to break her trust. So instead, I let the silence between us lull as Cora comforts Lily.