Chapter 48
48
Kieran
I dropped the seventeenth jug of pennies into the trunk of my car with a grunt. I’d planned to just collect my own, but people in the shop took notice and started leaving them, and then strangers would show up with their own containers full of pennies. The jars had to contain hundreds of dollars at this point.
“That the last one?” Lila leaned against the car. She’d been with Granddad all morning in the apartment until the home health aide arrived to check on him, part of what Sybil had arranged along with the hospital bill.
“Yeah,” I said, wiping my brow. We’d spent the morning taking inventory of the shop and what would need to be done ahead of selling. Lila and I had made a long list, from dealing with supplies and equipment to finding out if we needed to paint or make repairs. I thought it would be sadder, but adding things to the list felt good. I hadn’t realized how much I’d felt like most of my life was standing still, and the list getting longer and longer made it seem like we were building to something even though I wasn’t sure what it was. “Do you think this will work?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “It’s pretty romantic,” she said, walking toward the open trunk. “You’re going to take them out to the bridge?”
I nodded, thinking through my plan again. “It’s a spot she likes, and Emi and Marcus said they’d get her there.” I shifted my weight from foot to foot, nerves working through my body. “Is Marcus still pissed at me?”
“Yeah, but I asked him not to hulk out on you this time.” She chuckled. “You nervous?”
I ran a hand through my hair. “A little, and…excited. If this works, I get her back, and that seems like the best possible outcome.”
“I think it’ll work. And you’re ready to forgive her?”
I nodded and closed the trunk. “Staying mad means losing her, and…that’s not worth it. So…” I ran the back of my hand over my forehead. “I want to talk and figure it out.”
She grinned. “Then let’s go,” she said.
“Um, you’re not invited.” I pulled my keys from my pocket.
“Who else is going to stop Marcus from punching you in the jaw?”
“Will you stop him with a kiiiiiiiiss?” I teased my sister as I put the car in reverse to work my way out of the alley and earned a punch in the arm, and even that seemed like a good omen.
Lila helped me haul the jars from my trunk the short distance to the bridge. If Sybil said no, I was hoping someone would rob me so I wouldn’t have to transport them again, but now they caught the sunlight as the spring breeze blew off the water, and sparkles swirled around us. Lila patted my shoulder as we saw Marcus’s car approach, and he pulled into a spot on the other side of the bridge. “Good luck,” she said, jogging across the street after a quick look in both directions to greet the group as they climbed out of the car. Sybil wore jeans and a pink T-shirt, and it felt like she caught the sunlight, too. She looked between her friends, confused, and then I watched as Lila wrapped her in a hug and then said something before pointing to me.
A delivery truck lumbered past as she turned, and my heart rate rose the second I lost sight of her. I hoped it wasn’t a sign that my own luck had run out once I finally believed in luck and fate—when the truck came to a stop behind a line of traffic. “Shit,” I muttered, starting to jog the few feet to look behind the back of the truck, but as I heard a honk from a car going the other direction, I saw Sybil jogging toward me, waving a hand in apology to the car. Her curls blew loose around her head, and she brushed them away from her face with the breeze.
“Hi,” she said, scooting behind the truck to join me on the sidewalk.
“Hi,” I said, holding out my hand to help her onto the curb. I’d come close to forgetting how right her hand felt in mine. “I’m…glad this didn’t start with you getting hit by a truck.”
“I told you I’m lucky,” she said. She glanced over the bridge at the water. “You remembered I love this spot.”
I nodded. “For making wishes.”
She bit her lower lip. “I wish I hadn’t made that phone call,” she said. “You can’t know how sorry I am. I would take it back if I could.” She looked up at me through her dark lashes, and I saw the hint of tears.
“I know.” I cupped her cheek, the tip of my middle finger grazing her earlobe. “I’m sorry I reacted the way I did.”
“I deserved it,” she said.
“You didn’t.” I sucked in a breath. “I thought my wish was to be a surgeon and this whole situation was lucky because it would allow me to get back to school.” She opened her mouth to apologize again, but I pressed a finger gently to her lips. “But I think luck looks different than what I thought, because I don’t know what my professional dream is anymore. What I do know is I can’t imagine wanting any dream for myself that you’re not a part of. And if I’m honest with myself, I was more upset about my plan changing than about what actually happened.”
She stared at me with tears welling in her eyes, and even though I’d rehearsed this in my head over and over, it was coming out all jumbled with her in front of me. I stepped back and pointed to the ground where the jars sat. “And I don’t think I would have realized that was possible before you.”
Her eyes grew wide looking at the jars. “You got me lucky pennies?”
“Everyone I knew brought them to me, and then people at the shop started dropping them off.” I pointed at the mason jar on the right. “That one is from Granddad and Tom. They wanted me to tell you that.”
Sybil pressed a palm to her mouth and bent down, tracing her fingers over each jar.
“I can’t give you much,” I admitted, crouching down to join her. “I don’t have a plan right now. I don’t know what I’m going to do, and my sister informs me that therapy should be in my future, but I thought if I could give you this, if I could give you hundreds and hundreds of coins to wish on, well, maybe it might be a start.” I took her hand again. “You made me believe in luck, and love, and wishes coming true, and I want you to have all the lucky pennies that you can because you deserve every single one of them.”
The delivery truck that had been idling behind us finally rumbled past, and over her shoulder I saw Emi, Marcus, Lila, and Deacon waiting by Marcus’s car and watching us. Sybil looked from me to the pennies and then over her shoulder at her friends.
“So I guess I’m asking you if we can still be real.” I heard that same ticking clock I’d heard in the hospital hallway, but this time it didn’t tick for long because I knew exactly what to say next. “I love you, Sybil. I’m not worried about losing control in my life anymore, because I’ve lost it. You’re all I think about. I love you so much, I’d willingly get in your passenger seat, knowing my life was in jeopardy.”
She giggled through tears. “I don’t drive that fast. Maybe you just go too slow.”
“Maybe,” I said, realizing how much I’d missed touching her and feeling her skin under my fingers.
“Syb. I didn’t trust that good things could happen to me before you. But you’re my good thing, and loving you…having you look up at me like you are now is the best thing, and I want you for keeps.” I cupped her cheek, brushing a tear away with my thumb. “You’re what I’d wish for every time.”
She bent to pluck a penny from the top of one of the jars. She held it between us, kissed the air in front of it, and threw it into the river. It caught the sun’s light for a moment as it hung suspended in the air before falling into the water below and disappearing beneath the current.
“Will you tell me what you wished for?”
She shook her head and wrapped her arms around my neck, her soft body pressed to mine, and I knew I’d never let her go again. “If you tell, it doesn’t come true,” she said against my neck. “We’ve gone over this before.”
“Okay,” I said, cupping the back of her neck. “But can I get a hint?”
She sank her teeth into her lower lip and then nodded, tipping her chin up, and I didn’t hesitate to press my lips to hers, drinking in the warmth and sunlight taste of her kisses.
“It’s felt real to me for such a long time.” She held on to me. “I wanted my family to take me seriously before I knew how to do that myself, and now I’m really trying to take myself seriously, and it’s because of you.” Her fingers clutched my shirt, and I felt the pressure of them over my chest. “I love you, too.”
My cheeks hurt from the stretch of the smile. “Will you please tell me what you wished for?”
She shook her head but wrapped her arms around my neck. “No!” The cheers of Sybil’s friends and Lila from across the street registered in the background, but when she attempted to look at them, I pulled her lips back to mine.
If I was lucky enough to kiss her again, I wasn’t going to let anything stop me.