Chapter Twenty-One
Aidan
“This should do it.” June holds out a basket with quite an impressive haul. Crisps. Red licorice. Peperami. Soft drinks. Cheese strings. Haribo.
“Christ.”
“What?”
“You shop like a sugar-deprived five-year-old.”
“We’re rationing these for today and tomorrow,” she explains, with the cutest hint of bashfulness. “Besides, this is classic road-trip food. We need the essentials.”
Content to accept defeat, I take the shopping basket. She throws in one more item—a chocolate bar she claims is also necessary—and we check out.
At least her mood has lifted since last night. Throughout the wedding and reception, I never stopped noticing her and how she looked cheerful and sorrowful at the same time. In the back room, I didn’t need her to tell me anything more. She’s grappling with something dark and painful, something she tried to use as an excuse to push me away—to push everyone away.
So I held her hand as we lined up for the grand exit, waving sparklers to the lucky brides as they boarded their getaway car. Just like their honeymoon, or minimoon, or whatever it’s called, this trip with June could be a onetime thing. It might be all we get for a while, or forever. We haven’t talked about anything beyond these next few days, so I’m going to savor them.
“Now,” I announce once we’ve both settled into the car. June’s already opened a stick of Peperami. “I thought today we’d travel around the Ring of Kerry and explore one of my favorite scenic drives. How’s that sound?”
I’ve mapped out a route that gives June some highlights of the South-West, like Killarney National Park this afternoon, a sunset by the western coast tonight, and then a drive up the coast tomorrow morning. We’ve enough room left for spontaneity, but hopefully I planned the road trip of a lifetime for her.
“I’m intrigued. I expect full commentary on the history of the country and landscape as we ride.”
“Please review me on Tripadvisor. Five stars.”
June hasn’t cracked a smile yet today, but this elicits a honey-sweet laugh from her. It’s like the first peek of sunshine on a gloomy day. “I will.”
I admire the little glint of gold in her irises before putting the car in reverse. After twenty minutes of driving, every rolling hill we ascend or tight curve we round has June craning her neck left and right to take in all the views. Large looming mountains are on either side of us, and just as we reach the top, the landscape bursts wide open with fields and rivers and stone bridges.
“This,” I explain as we get out of the car, “is the top of the Gap of Dunloe. These ranges on either side of us are MacGillycuddy’s Reeks and Purple Mountain.”
June types into her phone, her thumbs flying across the screen, but her attention doesn’t once veer from the view. “Aidan.” I could bathe in the sound of her saying my name. “This is incredible. Like the most amazing place I’ve ever been. Do you come here all the time? Because I’m pretty sure if I lived here, I would visit this exact spot every day.”
“You’re a country girl now?”
“With views like this, I’d manage.” She pauses, smiling at our surroundings as she tucks her phone away. “I’ve kind of always viewed living in New York City as a badge of honor. I could look back on my upbringing and say my childhood was worth the pain because I ended up succeeding in the hardest city there is to succeed in. Leaving almost feels like failure or something.”
“People change. Lives change.”
“I’d miss New York if I left, though. Subway commutes and teensy apartments and all.”
“The good old American dream.”
“Yup,” she snorts. “But if I moved somewhere else, I’d be starting at square one with finding a job. I keep holding out, hoping for a promotion from my boss. And I’m close. Or I was, I guess.”
“Why are you so loyal to that place? Your editor sounds like a piece of work.”
While I don’t know the man well, I’ve heard enough about him to know I don’t like him. Anytime June mentions the assignment, she seems stressed out. I’ve overheard some of her conversations with this man too, and she turns into someone who speaks in stilted sentences and apologies. That’s not June.
“I need the job whether I like Ethan or not. And at The Edge , I’ve got some seniority. Sometimes interns get bumped up to some of the more exciting positions, and I don’t cover what I’d like to all the time, or much at all, but it’s consistent work.” She kicks some chunks of gravel. “Okay, I guess it’s not the best job ever.”
“Work for someone else. Anyone else,” I suggest, practically begging. “Or go freelance, like you were telling me. Travel the world while you work.”
“Like I’d hop on flights to different cities around the globe and report back?”
“Why not?”
She seems to flip this idea over and over in her head. My chest seizes at the thought of her globe-trotting every week and living a full life while I stay put at the pub. Not that I’ve any right to concern myself with that. We’re only ever bound to catch each other at the occasional O’Shea family get-together.
“What about you?” She turns to me as we stroll back to the car on the side of the road. “Think you’ll leave Ballygrá?”
“Christ, I hope so. But not in a go-and-never-look-back kind of way. I’d come back for my mam and da, for Cara. But I want to make a life, and it won’t happen there.”
She opens the passenger door and uses the car frame to prop herself up, leaning her elbows on the roof. A gust of wind dances through her hair, and she attempts to brush some strands out of her eyesight.
“That was the plan once, with Dublin.” I meet June’s face, and something as simple as her gaze makes my pulse quicken. “My ex put such urgency into making it happen that I had to stop and think about what I wanted.”
“You want to do things on your own time.”
“I do,” I say with a nod. “And Dublin wasn’t my dream to begin with.”
“What is your dream, Aidan McCarthy?”
“Know that my parents are in a stable spot. Then take the camera on the road.”
“Well,” she says, standing a bit straighter. “Maybe I’ll see you there.”
“Maybe.”
“I’ve only met your parents a couple times, and they give you a hard time, especially your dad, but I can tell they love you. They would hate to have you stay and be unhappy.”
I tuck my hands into my pockets. While I’ve not much choice now, for the next few days, I get to live a different life. A kind of dream where June doesn’t have a flight back to New York, and I’m not tied to Ballygrá indefinitely.
“That said, I’m glad you didn’t move to Dublin.” She speaks with a quiet tenderness. “At least long enough so I could meet you.”
“Me too.”
She flashes another one of those smiles that makes me forget how to breathe.
I nod at the expansive route of greenery in front of us and say, “Let’s get going.”
Driving around with June almost makes me forget that she’ll leave a few days from now.
I try not to think about that.
Instead, I focus on the road and on our journey. I know the routes well enough to drive them backward and blindfolded, but we’re moving slower than I anticipated. June requests that we stop at every outlook along the way. I don’t mind, though, and quite like hearing the awestruck gasps she makes. Once, when she thought I wouldn’t pull over, she reached out to rest her hand on my arm, almost begging me to park.
From that point onward, I pretend not to notice each outcropping on the roads I’d driven thousands of times before.
During another one of our hundreds of stops, we stand on a cobblestone bridge over a trickling creek, and June snaps a photo. She examines the screen more closely and shakes her head. “There’s no way to capture this. Even when the photo looks amazing, I can’t compare what’s on my phone to the real thing.” She turns to me, failing to suppress a girlish grin. “I really appreciate you driving me around. I’m having a horrible time, obviously.”
“Me too. Downright horrendous.”
We both laugh. She takes in the hills surrounding us, and her eyes land on mine. They linger there for one, two, three seconds, until she breaks contact and holds up her phone.
“Here,” she says. “We should get a photo together.” And just like that, June wraps her arm around my shoulders as if we’ve taken selfies dozens of times before. She fits next to me, and her head nestles into the space below my jaw and collarbone as she squeezes my shoulder. Daring to indulge in as many of these moments as possible, I reach around her waist to tuck her in closer.
After the photo, she blindsides me with a kiss—her mouth meets mine while she clutches the collar of my jacket with one fist. Before I register her delicate lips, her playful tongue, or her chest pressed up against my body, she pulls back with stitched brows. “You’re going to make us miss the sunset.”
We dash down the road in fits of laughter, chasing each other and sneaking in kisses, oblivious to the confused sheep on the side of the road.
When we get to the car, one of the right tires looks saggy. The vehicle leans to the side like it’s had one too many drinks, and a quick investigation reveals a constellation of glass shards firmly embedded in the tire.
Shite.
In an ordinary world, I’d pull a spare tire from the boot, which has just enough room for a spare, and twenty minutes later, we could head out. Except earlier this year, I’d used the spare and never quite got around to buying a spare spare tire.
“Minor problem.” I explain the issue, hoping June won’t find me a complete imbecile for not handling this before a road trip.
“Is there a cab company we can call?”
“Sunday night’ll be tough, all the same.” We’re in the middle of the countryside, with not another car in sight in either direction, and calling someone back home to pick us up would take a couple hours both ways. “We’ll have better luck finding a place nearby to ring from. There’s a bed-and-breakfast roughly a kilometer and a half that way.”
I’d hoped we’d have time to get to the coast for a sunset in all its glory, with rusty oranges and reds bleeding into the land and sea. I can wave my original plan goodbye, but I quickly realize that’s the least of our worries. A low rumble roars in the distance, and I scan the horizon to see angry, ominous clouds.
More thunder churns through the air, this time louder and longer. “That weather’s turning bad fast.”
June grabs her purse and slams the door shut as she shoots me a devilish grin. “Guess we’ll have to move faster then.”
We get a steady jog going, but right when going back to the car proves a bit more hassle than forging ahead, buckets of rain pour from the sky. Raindrops pelt us like tiny bullets, and those monochrome clouds have swept in with a vengeance. After another bend in the road, I spy a row of oak trees with yellowed leaves. One’s tall enough to offer some protection from the downpour, although the damage has been done—with each step, my socks squish in my boots, and cool water drips from my hair down my neck.
June runs underneath the tree behind me while using her handbag as a shield from the elements. I’d planned for this to be the trip of a lifetime—instead, I’ve just about ruined the day, all because I preferred to use my car’s boot as camera gear storage.
“I’m so sorry,” I yell over the rainfall. “This was not what I had in mind.”
She uses my arm to steady herself as she’s overcome with fits of laughter. Our situation has played out like a comedy of errors. We’ve had our sunset plans interrupted, discovered a flat tire with no help in sight, and gotten caught in a rainstorm that’s penetrated every article of clothing on our bodies. I shove the idea of a flawless getaway aside and instead enjoy June’s laugh, which is so hearty her cheeks become plump and pink. Her joy fills me up, and I have to laugh along with her.
Thunder cracks again, causing her to jump, let out a shriek-laugh, and then cozy up toe-to-toe with me. Desire growls inside my chest, a visceral part of me I can’t keep at bay anymore.
Our laughter subsides, and we’re breathless and sopping wet and grinning like fools. The scenery around me blurs out of focus. No more thrum of the rain, no narrow road, and no biting wind. My world shrinks to me and June and the air between us. My best friend’s sister. Someone I can’t stop thinking of. Someone who won’t be visiting for much longer.
I try not to think about that.
Reaching up, I wipe away a thick clump of hair that has glued itself to her smooth cheek and trace her jawline. The simple gesture is happiness and heartache in one.
June nuzzles her head into my palm, and I know she feels this too. I’m not dreaming. Whatever’s going on between us, it could be more than some fun, more than a good time. It promises to be confusing and messy and imperfect, but it will be ours.
“I want you,” she whispers, and those three words race through me. Her eyelashes flutter open to reveal two brown universes, laser-focused on my lips.
Lifting her chin, I press my mouth to hers and melt into the ground. The kiss goes slow and careful at first, but after one, two, three, the desire becomes palpable between us. She clasps the nape of my neck. My arm slinks around her, bringing those delicate curves closer into me.
She tastes like red licorice and hope.
As our noses and cheeks and chins mesh together, I know nothing else except wanting her.