Epilogue Part Two #2
“I asked Jules where you got inspiration for your tattoos,” she says, “and he told me about the boundary marker you liked when you were a kid. Seán went and took photos of it for me. I know it’s a little morbid since it’s an urn, but—”
“Thank you,” I say, my throat tight. I have to clear it before I can turn to Seán, who is wearing that obnoxious, soft smile again. I can’t quite bring myself to say the same to him.
Jules takes the urns and immediately makes room on the mantelpiece, displaying them proudly.
Other gifts are exchanged, but nothing compares to the replicated boundary marker in glossy black and bright burnt orange, shining on the mantel.
Seán quietly bumps my side as we pause between party games. “You might actually make me cry if you don’t stop making that face, and I’d rather not embarrass myself in front of my friends.”
“I’m not making a face.”
Seán squeezes my shoulder and joins Charles in the kitchen to help with the next round of cocktails.
It’s late when Mary and Charles peel off to bed, and Seán finally lets out a big yawn and lumbers off too.
I cast a final look over the boundary marker before following Jules and Mathieu into the bedroom.
They’re on the bed. Mathieu is on top of Jules, kissing him, talking into his mouth, nipping, laughing.
I skirt around the edge of the intimacy, discomfort creeping into my shoulders and tensing the muscles.
I grab my pillow. The throw blankets on the couch will be enough to keep me warm overnight.
If only I had arranged it earlier, before walking in on them kissing and having the knowledge of them having drunk sex planted in my mind, I could have pretended they went straight to sleep.
“I love you,” Mathieu says.
I freeze.
“I love you too,” Jules says back.
The discomfort races from my shoulders down my spine and lashes into my stomach with a vengeance.
Their gazes turn to me. “I lo—” Mathieu begins.
“Don’t,” I cut him off.
A startled look flashes across Mathieu’s face, followed by hurt in his eyes.
I realise, belatedly, the harshness of my tone.
I struggle to keep my breathing even. I tip my head away, trying to escape the hurt in Mathieu’s eyes.
The firmness in drunken hurt feelings is nothing at all like the infirmity of drunken affection.
“I’m sorry,” I say stiffly. “I just don’t want to hear that right now.
” Especially not for the first time. It’ll haunt me if the first time it’s said is while they’re drunk.
It could be something they didn’t really mean, but then didn’t know how to step back from while sober.
A mistake they were too nice to correct in case it hurt my feelings.
There’s a long pause. “Oh,” Mathieu sounds very small. It cuts through me.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat, staring a hole through the door. “Please don’t be upset. If you feel like saying it when you’re sober, do, but—”
“Cillian,” Jules interrupts softly, “we’re not drunk.”
There’s another, longer pause.
“Mathieu, can you?” Jules presses against Mathieu’s shoulders, and Mathieu lets him up. Jules comes around the bed to me and grabs my wrist. “Come here,” he says calmly.
He leads me to the kitchen, where he digs out the glass return box from under the kitchen sink and sets it on the counter. He sorts the wine bottles into two rows. Mathieu joins us, standing at my side.
“Two different types, see? Mathieu and I were drinking from this type.” Jules hands me the bottle. “Read the label.”
In horrible gold on green that’s hard to read is the tagline: non-alcoholic.
“Charles didn’t put any alcohol in our cocktails,” Jules adds. “It isn’t that we’re not ‘drunk’ because we didn’t drink too much, we didn’t drink at all. Okay?”
I glance at Charles’s washed cocktail set, cleaned and dripping onto the draining board. He’d reassured me there was no alcohol in my drink. I didn’t ask about Jules’s and Mathieu’s drinks. I run my thumb over the percentage marker. The number next to it is 0.
“I’m sorry. I thought—”
“No, it’s okay. That’s my bad. I just assumed you saw the bottles earlier,” Jules says. “We didn’t clarify.”
I turn to Mathieu, hurting.
Mathieu smiles. “Can I say it now?” he asks.
“I’d like it if you would.”
That gets me a bigger smile and a proper kiss. “I love you to bits,” Mathieu says against my mouth.
“I love you too.” Jules leans against my side. “Okay?”
The urge to bury my face in my hands is overwhelming, as is the urge to apologise again. “I was getting myself wound up all evening over something that wasn’t even happening,” I mutter.
They’re both equally forgiving.
“Please come here,” I ask. I make them sit on the couch and retrieve the parcels under the decorated branches. “It’s past midnight, so I think it’s fair to open these now.”
I sit on the coffee table in front of them, antsy as they tear off wrapping paper to reveal red velvet boxes. They make soft snicks as they open. The rings are nestled in more red velvet. Golden bands embedded with blue stones.
Blue quartz for Jules’s eyes. Shining gold for Mathieu’s hair. Woven Celtic swirls along the band. “I wasn’t trying to cheap out by not getting diamonds, I just thought that—”
“They’re perfect.” Jules turns over his, smiling softly.
Mathieu has already put his on his ring finger. His dark eyes find mine. “Put yours on,” he requests.
I retrieve it from its hiding place in our bedroom, and once I resit on the coffee table, I see gold snug on Jules’s ring finger.
They both watch me put my ring on. Mathieu collapses against Jules’s side, grinning.
An hour ago, I would have mistaken his expression for drunken happiness. My perception twisted by my own psyche.
“I love you both,” I say. “I have for a long time.” Then, “Yes?”
“Yes.”