Chapter Sixteen ~ Fiona #2
“That she is,” I agree. “She’s an incredible friend. Dad loved her.”
“I bet he saw a kindred spirit in her.”
“That’s exactly what he said after he first met her.”
“Anam cara,” Nathan murmurs.
My heart trips over itself. Anam cara is Irish for ‘soul friend’. “Did Dad teach you that?” I ask, and he nods without looking at me. “Mila and I have matching compass tattoos with those words. We got them a few years ago in Ireland. We almost convinced Dad to get one too.”
One side of Nathan’s mouth quirks. “Mae would have killed him. Not for getting a tattoo, but for getting one without her.”
A sad sort of fondness warms my chest at how well he truly knows my parents. “Exactly. I’ve actually been thinking about getting something in his honour. I’m just not sure what yet.”
“I was thinking about getting a Celtic tree of life,” Nathan says. He glances in my direction, his gaze settling on me briefly before returning to the road. “Like the one in his office.”
He’s referring to a watercolour painting that was a gift from one of Dad’s super fans in the ’90s. He loved the painting so much it inspired a story about Celtic lore that gained him a whole new set of readers and his first-ever TV adaptation. “That would be perfect.”
The truck jostles as we go over several bumps, and I become aware of our surroundings for the first time. Nathan has pulled onto one of the gravel roads that lead down to the waterfront, where there are several narrow roads and walking trails.
“It’s a nice night,” he says. “Thought maybe we could take a walk by the water.” At my nod, he pulls the truck over and kills the engine. As I reach to open my door, his hand lands on my arm. “Wait.”
I think he’s going to tell me something, but he’s not looking at me. I follow his gaze out the window to where two shadowy figures are standing at the water’s edge.
“He finally did it,” Nathan whispers, almost to himself.
“Who did what?” I ask.
Nathan jerks his chin toward the couple.
“The boy’s name is Rory. His dad came to work for Liam and me a few months ago, and Rory comes into the office sometimes after school.
We’ve chatted a few times, and last week he told me about this girl he likes at school.
Said he was afraid to ask her out, but I told him he should go for it. ”
“Never thought you’d be one to offer dating advice,” I say.
He gives me a wry look. “I’m not, usually. There’s something about him that reminds me of me at that age. I thought of what I would have needed to hear back then, and went for it.”
When he says he went for it, I know he means telling Rory to ask out the girl he likes, yet I can’t help thinking about how he went for it when it came to me too.
I still vividly remember the summer night he took me to the bridge at the back of my parents’ property and laid his feelings at my feet while fireflies danced around us.
He told me he was afraid to ruin our friendship, but he was more afraid of not telling me how he felt, and seeing if there could be something more between us.
It was one of those monumental, life-altering moments that feel like a dream and stick with you forever.
“Good for you,” I murmur. “And good for him.”
The pair are facing each other, but not touching or speaking.
Rory shifts from foot to foot while the girl stares at her clasped hands.
Rory’s arms lift as if he’s going to touch her, but then drop to his sides, his shoulders slumping.
He jams his hands in his pockets at the same moment the girl crosses her arms over her chest.
“They remind me of us,” I say. Despite knowing each other our entire lives and feeling comfortable enough around Nathan to do or say anything, when we started dating, we went through a bit of an awkward phase.
I don’t think either of us accounted for the learning curve that would come with transitioning from friends to lovers.
“I was just thinking that,” Nathan says. “I can practically read Rory’s thoughts right now: Do I touch her? Do I kiss her? Is my breath okay? Will she feel how sweaty my palms are? Can she hear my heart racing? Maybe I should take her home and forget this whole thing.”
I laugh under my breath. “Is he ever going to kiss me? Does he think I’m pretty? What if I’m a bad kisser? I might pass out if my heart races any faster.”
I jump when my window suddenly slides down. Nathan has turned the ignition to open the window, and is scrolling through the music app on his phone. The opening bars of “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran start, and he leans forward to turn up the music.
The kids startle and whip toward the truck. Nathan leans across me to wave out the window. “Just me, Rory.”
“Hi, Rory,” I call, because why not make this moment even weirder? “Hi, Rory’s friend. I’m Fiona.”
“Umm…hi, Nathan,” Rory says in a wavering voice. “A-and Fiona. This is Imelda.”
Nathan lifts a hand in greeting. “Hi, Imelda. This is the perfect song to dance to, don’t you think?”
Imelda says something to Rory that I can’t hear.
They stare at each other for a moment before he laughs, and she lets out a delighted giggle.
Her arms lift to wrap around his neck while his hands settle on her hips, and they begin to sway to the music.
My heart could burst from how adorable the scene is.
As the song continues, the pair loosen up, inching closer to each other and occasionally speaking.
Nathan cues up another slow song to start when the first ends, and the kids keep dancing.
I think of myself at that age, and how a moment like this—dancing with a boy I liked on a beautiful spring night while the moon reflected off the water—was the stuff of fantasies, and would have lived rent-free in my mind forever.
Whatever happens between these two, I hope this is a special memory for them.
Nathan turns the music down at the end of the second song. Rory and Imelda slowly release each other, and Rory catches her hand, linking their fingers. He calls his thanks to Nathan, and the two of them wave before heading down the path toward a car I hadn’t noticed before.
“I know they’re young and nothing may come of it, but…we could have just witnessed the beginning of an epic love story,” I say. “They could tell that story to their kids and grandkids someday.”
Nathan lets out a short, soft laugh. He puts the windows up and then drums his fingers against the steering wheel, looking straight ahead. “Do you ever wonder...”
I wait, but he doesn’t finish the question.
His expression is somehow both wistful and guarded, so I can guess what he was going to ask.
Something along the lines of: Do I ever wonder if we’d still be together if I’d stayed or come back to Honeywell?
Do I ever wonder if we’d be married by now?
Do I ever wonder if we’d have broken each other’s hearts instead of just me breaking his?
“Yes,” I whisper.
He nods, swallowing audibly. The levity from when we were watching the kids dance has fled, replaced by a tense heaviness. I expect Nathan to start the truck and take me home, but instead we sit in the dark, quiet cab.
After a few minutes, Nathan eases back in his seat with a sigh, letting his hands drop from the wheel into his lap.
His relaxed posture encourages my tight muscles to loosen, although for some reason, I can’t bring myself to look at him.
I stare out at the water instead, watching the moonlight glisten off the calm surface of the lake.
We used to hang out like this all the time, talking, listening to music, stargazing, making out.
One of our first sexual encounters was on a night just like this.
I’d straddled Nathan’s lap and had been in the middle of a graceless, fumbling hand job when I sat on the horn and scared us both half to death.
We’d laughed ourselves silly, and suddenly it wasn’t so awkward anymore.
That experience showed us that sex could be fun.
We learned that the fiery urgency we felt for each other could also be playful.
Nathan shifts beside me, draping his arm along the bench seat.
I’m not sure if it’s an invitation, but that’s how I choose to interpret it.
He watches me with hooded eyes as I inch closer to him before turning and scooting back until my back rests against his side.
His arm slides around me, his hand settling on my thigh.
“Will you show me your tattoo?” he whispers.
I hesitate for a moment. I left out a detail when I told him about it earlier.
It’s in a place I thought he’d never see, so I didn’t think it would matter.
During the night we spent together last December, the hotel room had been dark, and there hadn’t been a whole lot of foreplay since we were both so focused on the main act.
“You don’t have to—” Nathan starts to say, but I cut him off with a shake of my head. I turn on the overhead light and face him, lifting my pajama top to expose the tattoo under my left breast.
Nathan is silent and completely still as he studies the inked markings. His eyebrows are slightly pinched, but I can’t read his expression. Finally, he lifts a hand and brushes the pad of his thumb over the tattoo, his feather-light touch causing goosebumps to erupt across my skin.
“Fireflies,” he says, his thumb lingering over the tiny bugs around the bottom curve of the compass.
I don’t know what to say. Do I tell him it was an impulsive decision I made at the last minute when the tattoo artist was drawing the design?
Do I admit I wanted a small piece of our shared history permanently etched on my body, and it made me feel oddly closer to him when there were thousands of kilometres between us, both physically and emotionally?