Chapter 21 #2
“Go to one of those Christmas markets. The ones with the little wooden stalls and the mulled wine and the smell of cinnamon on everything.”
“You'd drag me around a Christmas market? You know I hate shopping.”
“Gleefully. You'd hate every second.”
“Probably,” he agrees, and he's smiling. I let myself believe it for a moment—the two of us, somewhere nobody knows our names, eating pretzels at a wooden stall in the cold.
“I loved a cold beer,” he says thoughtfully, “even if I don’t drink it anymore. You could drink mine for me.”
“That's a lie,” I tell him. “I swear to god, everyone who claims to like beer is lying. Same with matcha. Both taste like punishment.”
He laughs out loud. “You would say that.”
I sigh. “When do you have to go?”
“Don’t know. Just give me the morning, love, will you?”
“The morning,” I repeat, nodding.
I look at him for a long moment—those adorable glasses on the bridge of his nose, his scarred hands, and those eyes that would make any woman's knickers melt—and something in me settles. “And then? What about after the morning, Declan?”
He looks at me, and there's something in his eyes I don't think I've seen before. “Right now, we'll take it day by day, won't we?”
I sigh and nod. “Aye.”
This time, when he glances at his phone, I can see he has a list of obstetric hematologists—names, hospitals, and estimated waiting times.
He's been working on how to take care of me since before I got up, even before I was sick.
He's been sitting in that chair in his boxers with those new glasses, researching the safest way forward for me and the baby.
Both of us know this morning has to end, but we make the most of it as he sits with me and we talk about doctors. He helps me into the kitchen, and we eat breakfast. Me—dry toast and a bit of egg. Him—everything I don't eat, a pile of more eggs, and three cups of coffee.
He works quietly, answering texts and emails. Then he finally sighs.
“I need to go,” he says. “I'm sorry.”
“There's nothing to apologize for. Just don’t kiss me until I’ve brushed my teeth first.”
“For fuck's sake,” he says, slapping my arse and dragging me over to him. He holds my chin in his hands the way he does and kisses me long and deep and slow. “I love you,” he murmurs in my ear. Warmth floods my chest, and with it an ache. He loves me. But is it enough?
“No matter what happens, Bridget, you need to remember that, won't you?”
I open my mouth to tell him the truth, that I love him back, that I love him more than anything, that I’ll never love anyone else like this ever again.
But I can’t. The words are clogged in my throat. I love him, but he’s engaged to another woman.
So I only nod. “Of course. I know.”
His phone vibrates with a text. I watch a shadow pass over his face. “What is it?”
“Work stuff. I need to manage this.”
He dresses in yesterday's clothes, the hood pulled over his face. I watch him from the kitchen and don't say what I'm thinking, which is that I'm already waiting for him to come back.
He catches me looking, and something moves across his face.
“Don't,” he says.
“Don't what?”
“Look at me like that when I'm trying to leave because I won’t be able to.”
I say nothing. He leans down and kisses me once, brief and certain, and then he's gone.
He's back by two o'clock. I know it's him before I even open the door, by the sound of his knock, certain and unhurried, like he has every right to be here.
I didn't meet with Erin today, so I'm still in my ratty shorts and faded tee, my hair loose, with a cold cup of tea on the counter. I've been sitting at the table, looking at the names of the doctors he researched for me for two hours, but when he comes back in, I'm on my feet and at the door.
“You're back.”
“Aye. Supposed to meet up with Seamus, but he got called away. Uncle Keenan’s doctors have him in a vise grip.”
I nod.
Again, he's got the hood up. He looks furtively from side to side before stepping back in. He shrugs out of his hoodie, throws it on a chair, then reaches for me, cups my face, and kisses me.
“Tell me you've eaten somethin’, love,” he says.
“I had a biscuit. Another cup of tea,” I say. “Listen, I don't usually have trouble eating, but I am pregnant, and things just don't sit right at the moment.”
“Alright.” He folds his arms across his chest. “What sounds good right now?”
“Fish and chips,” I say with a shrug. “Sounds delicious.”
Fish and chips it is. Thirty minutes later, a steaming plate of greasy fish and chips sits on my kitchen table, and my mouth is watering just looking at it. I douse it liberally with vinegar and a sprinkle of salt as he sits across from me, watching approvingly.
I glance at him over the rim of my mug as I take a sip of tea—this man with scars on his knuckles, looking at me like I am the only one in the world who matters to him. “Stay, Declan.” He nods and drinks his tea.
“Thought you’d never ask.”
So we spend the afternoon doing nothing, which turns out to be magnificent.
He sits on my sofa with his long legs stretched out, reading something on his phone, and I tuck myself onto the other end with a book and a blanket.
At one point, he absentmindedly reaches over and tucks the blanket more firmly around me.
The rain comes back against the window, and neither of us feels the need to fill the silence.
Later, I make cheese toast because it's the only thing that sounds remotely edible, and he eats all of his and half of mine when I can only manage a few bites.
“What's the worst meal you've ever had?” I ask.
“Christ. There was some function room in Boston, and they served this fish. Absolutely disgusting. Nothing like here,” he says.
“Like caviar?”
“Like the kind of fish they bring out that still has the eyeballs and scales on it.”
“Oh god, stop,” I say, grabbing my belly before I get sick—but I'm laughing, and I have to put my head on the table.
“I'm serious,” he says with a grimace. “It looked at me. The fish made eye contact.”
“That's normal in some cultures,” I say.
“So is roasting a pig over an open fire, but you don't see me doing that in my back garden, do you?”
I laugh out loud.
“You're in the Irish mafia, Declan. You've done unspeakable things, and you're frightened of a fish that made eye contact with you?”
“I didn't say I was afraid of it. I just said I didn't want to eat it. There's a difference.”
I shake my head, still smiling. I don't want to examine this too closely, because if I do, I'll want it all the time, and I won't handle it very well when he's not here anymore. But right now, he's sitting across from me at my little table, and it feels right.
“Hey,” he says.
I look up. He's watching me with that steady, unhurried gaze. He reaches across the table for my hand, and I let him take it.
“We're grand, you and I,” he says.
“Grand,” I agree—the word feels hollow, yet still gives me reason to hope.
Later, I fall asleep on the sofa, with my head on his lap and his hand moving through my hair. I can hear his breathing slow and steady above me.
Except I'm not asleep.
And neither is he.
His hand stills, then starts again, slower.
Fingers trace the curve of my ear, the line of my jaw, like he's trying to memorize something.
The room is quiet in a way that feels deliberate, as if we've both agreed, without words, to stay inside this moment a little longer. To not name what's outside it.
“Is ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine,” he says quietly, more to himself than to me.
I stare at him.
“It means—we live in each other's shadow. In each other's shelter.” He shrugs, like he's embarrassed to have said it. “My grandmother used to say it.”
His eyes are already on me, in that dark, unguarded sincerity that’s stripped of every layer of performance, vulnerable and pained. Something in my chest aches because I have never seen him look at anyone that way. I don't think he knows he's doing it.
“Declan, I—”
He leans down and kisses me.
Not like before, with heat and need and urgency. This is slower. Deeper. His hand comes up to cup my face. I straddle his lap and kiss him back. I swallow his moan and my need to cry because I’m trying to ignore how every moment with him feels like it could be the last.
We move to the bedroom without speaking.
He undresses me slowly, in the dark, as if he slows down enough, time might do the same.
“Look at me,” he whispers.
I do.
“Good girl.”
We move together like we're trying to say something neither of us has the words for, as if we know the clock is running but won't look at it. His mouth finds my temple, my throat, the curve of my shoulder. My hands grip him like he's already leaving.
“That’s my girl,” he murmurs into my hair when I come with my head back and my mouth parted. “I've got you.”
Afterward, he pulls me against his chest and doesn't let go. His breathing slows. His hand resumes its slow path through my hair, its own sort of comfort.
His heartbeat is steady under my palm. I match my breathing to his. Outside these walls, it feels as if the world is plotting against us, eager to tear us apart from each other, and the faster time ticks, the harder we hold on.
I close my eyes.
I don't sleep for a long time.
The rain has gone quiet, and I think this might be the most peaceful I've felt in years. Maybe ever.
I know what tomorrow might look like. But tonight, his hand is in my hair, and the room is warm. I let myself have just this one night when none of that is true yet.
I don’t ask him about Seamus, or Valentina, or what happens next, and he doesn’t offer any information. I tug on the familiar weight of my necklace and focus on here. Now.
Tonight we're grand.