Chapter 27
Carli
SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO
Carli and Niall were doing maths homework in his bedroom. She was explaining how to do equations, and Niall was nuzzling into her neck.
‘Can’t I copy yours and then we have more time for hanging out? You smell like flowers, Cass. Why do you smell so lovely?’
‘Thanks. But c’mon, work them out yourself.
The quicker you do that, the more time we have for hanging out.
’ The truth was, she was working with all her self-control not to let him kiss her and forget all about maths.
But she would do her homework because she needed to go back to Australia with as many credits under her belt as possible.
At last, they finished the equations, but it was December; the light had long faded outside and it was too cold to do anything but stay indoors.
‘What now?’ Carli asked.
‘I’ve got an idea. Come on.’ Niall grasped her hand, leading Carli along the upstairs corridor and down the back staircase where they found themselves at the end of another long corridor.
‘Let’s go in here.’ He indicated a door, much the same as any other in the large Butler home. Ancient, wooden, panelled. A room Carli was aware of but had never been in, and she’d been in a few of the rooms in the house. This one was special, though.
‘Are you sure your mum won’t mind?’ she whispered. ‘It’s her room, isn’t it?’
‘Ach, she knows we all go in here from time to time. She doesn’t mind as long as we leave it as we found it. Come on. You’ll love it.’ Niall turned the handle.
The inside of the room was darker than a December night.
‘Stay there. I’ll put the lamp on.’ Carli waited, breathing in the smell of the room and trying to figure out what it was. Ancient paper, leather, fire smoke.
‘Is this some kind of study?’ she asked. ‘I can smell old paper and even older books.’
‘There’s a reason for that.’ And then that reason became illuminated in all its splendour as lamplight illuminated the space and Carli saw that every single wall except one was filled from ceiling to floor with books in a rainbow of colours.
‘It’s a library.’ She spun around. ‘Oh, my goodness, just… Wow!’
‘It’s not any old library.’ Niall slid his arms around her waist. He’d showered since football and smelled like laundry and lemons.
‘What kind of library is it?’ she asked.
Niall hovered his lips to hers. ‘It’s a romance library. We are surrounded by romance books.’
‘I’ve never read a romance book.’ Carli gaped at the floor-to-ceiling shelves, Niall’s warm hold still steadying her.
‘Well, you haven’t lived then. Between these pages is a whole world that’ll blow your mind.
There’s a reason my mum didn’t want us coming in here when we were younger.
I mean, we were fine as kids because we weren’t interested in boring grown-up books, but once Cal was fourteen he started tiptoeing in here quite a lot and then he brought Jamie to show him. ’
‘I never knew boys would be so interested in romance.’ Niall was romantic, but his brothers seemed less so. Then again, she wasn’t up close and personal with them.
‘Are you serious?’
‘What, yeah? Aren’t romance books about dashing gentlemen sweeping fair maidens off their feet and stuff like that?’
‘They can be, and some are, but a lot of these books are sexy as fuck. Some of them are very sexy.’
‘Sexier than you?’ Niall was quite the heartthrob as far as Carli was concerned.
Sometimes she wondered if using the word sexy around him might mean he’d want to have sex with her, but she took the risk.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t considered it, but she wouldn’t be going there until certain things were cemented.
‘Almost as sexy as me,’ he said. ‘Come on, I’ll show you.
And they’re categorised by sexiness. My mum thinks we’re clueless, but Cal worked it out ages ago.
Those three shelves over there are totally boring.
Nothing more than kisses. This one over here,’ Niall walked over to the wall to the right of the door, ‘complete filth.’ He reached up and pulled a book from the shelf.
‘Come on, I’ll read you a bit. If you want me to, that is? ’
‘Sure. My mum never had anything like this in the house and obviously my dad didn’t. This is a whole new world to me.’
‘Take a seat.’ Niall pulled some giant floor cushions over.
‘You sit,’ said Carli. ‘I’ll sit between your legs.’
‘Um, are you sure about that? I mean, these books are kind of…’
‘Racy?’ Carli’s neck grew a little warmer at her bold word choice. She was acting all grown-up, like she was a sex expert. And while it was true that she and Niall had done some things together and she was completely comfortable with him, at the same time, it was all new to her.
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Come on. Get down there and read me a story.’
‘C’mon then.’ Niall sat on the cushion and made room for Carli to sit between his legs.
He reached his arms round and pulled her back and she sank into his chest. Was there anything better than this?
This feeling of complete safety and love.
This boy. What would this trip have been like if he hadn’t been here to brighten the days, to hold her tight, to make her laugh and to hide in a romance library and read smutty books with?
‘Let’s start with this one.’ Niall flicked through the book he was holding in front of Carli.
He could be about to read her a Greek dictionary and she wouldn’t have cared.
All she could focus on was the waft of his warm breath on her neck and his rich Scottish burr vibrating to her heart.
Although once the words started to flow, something else edged into the mix.
‘Kind of hot, eh?’ Niall lifted her hair to the side and planted more kisses on her skin.
‘Mmm, I enjoyed that.’
‘We could always try some of that stuff out later, if you like?’
‘Later?’ Carli suspected Niall meant an indiscriminate later, or sometime between now and Sunday evening. He was ready for them to have sex. But she’d told herself, no sex without knowing exactly how he felt.
‘Yeah, maybe. Maybe we should read some of the other ones first. Or…you know what I’d love?’
‘Aye? I mean, no… What?’
‘I’d love if you’d read me some Burns.’ Niall might be disappointed, moving away from the steamier reads to something more romantic, but it was the best tool in her kit to steer the ship into calmer waters for a bit.
And she hit the jackpot as, for some reason, Niall loved Scotland’s national poet; possibly all the spirited declarations of ‘fancy’ chimed with him.
She hoped it wasn’t the ladies’ man aspect, Burns notoriously jumping from one love of his life to the next.
‘You want me to be Rabbie for you?’ Niall asked.
‘Ha, well, you can be Niall if you like but give me Rabbie’s words.’
There was no need for a book; Niall could recite the poems from memory, affording him freedom to murmur into her ear whilst stroking her fingers, ‘“I’ll ne’er blame my partial fancy, Naething could resist my Nancy”;... I’d replace Nancy with Carli,’ he added, ‘but it doesn’t rhyme…’
‘That’s okay.’
‘“But to see her was to love her; Love but her, and love forever.”’
Carli’s heart was at maximum beating capacity.
She loved those words so much, and one day, if Niall expressed that exact sentiment to her, she would be cartwheeling over the moon.
For now, though, just hearing the poetry was perfection.
There would not be a single one of her friends, here or in Australia, having a sexy Scottish boy murmur Scottish poetry into their ears whilst sitting in a romance library on a dark December evening, even if he did have his hand sliding down her thigh and there was something slightly less romantic pressing at her coccyx.
Niall continued, switching to a different poem. ‘“So fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I; And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a’ the seas gang dry.”’
‘What does that mean again?’ she asked.
‘It means you’re dead pretty and I’m madly in love with you and always will be until all the seas are dry. So, forever, basically.’
‘I see.’
A silence fell over them and there was only the sound of the December wind whipping round the house and far off voices in other rooms. Niall pulled his hand up from her thigh and rested it on Carli’s hand.
‘It’s true, by the way,’ he said, and Carli swore she saw her heart spin out of her chest and split into a million hopeful mini hearts dancing in front of them. Was he going to say it?
‘What is?’
‘I am madly in love with you.’
And there they went, the little hearts, dancing and singing and doing the polka all around the room. He loves you. He loves you. Niall and Carli forever. And ever.
No, stop, stop, don’t get carried away.
She craned her neck and shifted a little so she could see him.
And despite her worries, and although Carli had never had a boy tell her he loved her before, Niall’s words were etched all over his face.
‘Really?’ she asked.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I love you, Carli.’
They’d only known each other three months, but it was long enough for Carli to be gone for him. Niall was it for her. He might not be the teacher’s favourite, but he was without a doubt hers.
‘You don’t have to say it back,’ he said, hesitation flickering in his eyes.
He might be bluster on the outside but inside he was an absolute gem with misgivings, and those were causing this spark of doubt.
There was nothing more she would love to do than to put that doubt to bed.
Turning herself around properly, letting him adjust his legs so she could sit on his lap and look straight at him, unflinchingly, she asked. ‘Til a’ the seas gang dry?’
He smiled. ‘Aye.’
‘Love but me and love forever?’
‘Aye.’ He stroked his thumb down her cheek. ‘Forever.’
Carli mirrored his touch, running a finger from his temple to his chin, the emerging stubble on her journey telling her of the man he would one day be. She met his gaze. ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘I love you too, Niall Butler. Forever.’