Chapter 3
“Hi.” The word comes out as a high-pitched noise but it’s all I can manage in my surprise.
He cracks a smile. “Hello.”
“I’m okay,” I continue, thinking maybe he’s checking up on me.
“Glad to hear it. I brought a cheesecake.”
My eyes drop to the tin foil–covered package he’s holding. “Oh.” Weird. It doesn’t diminish his hotness but still weird. “You didn’t need to do that.”
He’s grinning now. “Ah, you know. I didn’t want to appear rude.”
“Abby?” Louise’s voice calls from the kitchen as my mind struggles to piece together what is happening and what should be happening.
“Thank you,” I say. “That’s really kind. I’d invite you in but—”
“There she is now.” Pat Bailey climbs the porch steps, his voice booming. “Abigail Reynolds, you haven’t changed a bit.”
“I’ve changed a little bit,” I say, my eyes flicking between them. “Pat, this is—”
“It will be nice for you two to catch up,” he interrupts, stepping past me into the house.
Catch up?
“He didn’t believe you were coming back,” Pat continues, slapping me on the shoulder as he heads to the kitchen. And then it hits me.
It’s less like two pieces of a puzzle fitting together and more like two cars crashing into each other as I look back at the man on my porch.
The gorgeous, sex-on-legs man holding a cheesecake is not some anonymous newcomer to town. He is not some mysterious horny fever dream I created in my mind. He is…
He’s…
“Luke?” Louise appears behind me. “Did you bring the hedge clippers?”
“I did,” Luke says. “Left them in the garden. Do you want me to make a start?”
“No, I can do it. We’ve got a stepladder in the shed. Abby?” Louise frowns at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say, my voice faint to my ears.
He’s Luke Bailey.
Wimpy, weedy, next-door neighbor Luke Bailey.
Luke Bailey who I used to play in the mud with, who I went trick-or-treating with, who I’m pretty sure I shared baths with.
Luke Bailey who was by default my best friend growing up until I grew breasts and learned how to use eyeliner and he remained looking like he was twelve years old.
He no longer looks like he’s twelve years old.
“Abby!” Susan’s here. His mother. The whole Bailey family. They’re all here, crowding me and confusing me. “Louise said you were visiting. Now, aren’t you glad you came?” she adds to Luke. “You wouldn’t have seen her otherwise.”
“I saw her last night,” he says, handing me the cheesecake. “Brought her home.”
Louise turns to me. “You didn’t tell me Luke was the one who dropped you back.”
“I didn’t?” I glance around the curious faces. “I thought I did.”
She’s instantly suspicious but before she can say anything else Susan steps in, kissing me on the cheek.
“Look at you,” she says. “I’d barely recognize you if it weren’t for that hair.”
“Dad says she looks the same,” Luke says, shrugging off his jacket.
“Did he? What do you think?”
I freeze as his attention flicks to me but Luke only smiles.
“Come in before you freeze,” Louise calls, and Susan closes the front door, following my sister into the kitchen.
For a moment we’re alone. Luke’s still looking at me with a glimmer of amusement and I’m hovering like a weirdo clutching his cheesecake.
“I…” It’s as far as I get. I don’t know what else to say. Thankfully he doesn’t seem to mind.
“Come on,” he says, taking pity on me. “I’m starving.”
He walks in ahead of me and my eyes stray to the way his jeans cling to him before I realize what I’m doing.
Luke Bailey?!
I force my feet to move under me, my thoughts scrambled as I follow him into the now cramped kitchen.
Louise has pulled the table into the center of the room and the chairs are set so that she and Tomasz are at either end while Pat and Susan sit opposite.
Luke sits in the chair beside mine.
Luke Bailey who knew who I was this entire time.
I’m Luke, by the way.
He was probably waiting for me to recognize him. But I didn’t. Because who in their right mind would? I picture him as the kid I once knew, pale and skinny, all elbows and knees as we chased each other around the playground.
There should be an automatic report when you visit home, some kind of newsletter detailing all the changes you need to know about. All the marriages and all the glow-ups, so situations like this don’t happen.
Louise is still looking at me like I’ve lost my mind and maybe I have because when Luke pulls out my chair it takes all my willpower not to simply stare at him.
“This looks delicious,” Pat says, pulling the butter dish toward him.
“It’s nothing. Just some leftovers.” Louise motions for us to start eating and I sit, tucking my chair in as Luke does the same.
I wonder if it’s too early to ask for wine.
Susan smiles kindly at me from across the table, her face more lined than I remember.
Her hair is no longer honey blond but a light silver that she still wears down to her shoulders.
A good soul, Mam used to say. I spent my childhood in her house while my parents worked.
Some weeks I had dinner in her kitchen more often than my own.
How funny to think one day I left it for the last time and didn’t realize it.
How funny her son turned into a freaking Adonis.
The Baileys dig into their food while Louise, Tomasz, and I pick at ours, still full from our pancakes.
“How did you two meet yesterday?” Susan asks. “I thought you had your course, Luke?”
“I did. I found her on the way back, waiting for a bus.”
“What bus?”
“Exactly,” he says, and I force a smile as they laugh.
“That was lucky.” Susan watches us for a moment, her chin propped on her fist, before turning to Louise. “When’s that new couch of yours coming?”
“Not for another few weeks,” she sighs. “They keep pushing the delivery date back. I’m starting to think it would just be quicker to cancel and order from somewhere else.”
“Did you try that new Danish place in Sligo?” Pat asks. “Cliona Mitchell got hers from there.”
Susan frowns. “I thought it was Norwegian?”
“I’m sorry,” Luke says quietly as the others talk around us. “I couldn’t resist when I knew you didn’t recognize me.”
The sound of his voice makes my stomach dip and I concentrate on pushing a piece of chicken from one side of my plate to the other.
“It’s okay,” I say. “It’s funny. If not deeply humiliating.”
“It was dark. And you were exhausted.”
And you look like a completely different person , I want to add, but don’t.
“I haven’t changed at all?” I ask instead.
“Well, your eyebrows have grown back.”
I glance over to find him smiling at me. “Shut up. I overplucked one time.”
“You walked around in a beanie hat for a whole summer.”
“See, this is why I don’t visit. Everyone knows me before I was incredibly glamorous.”
“Is that what you are now?”
“Could you not tell when I was lurking by an abandoned bus stop?”
“It’s not abandoned on Wednesdays.”
Susan’s eyes flick to me as I laugh but otherwise she doesn’t falter as she describes her sister’s new curtains.
“I am sorry though,” I say to him. “I was in a bit of a weird mood last night.”
“You mean a flirting mood?”
“I wasn’t flirting,” I whisper, embarrassed. “I was delirious from traveling. And if I was, you were flirting too.”
“Hmm. No, I don’t think so.”
“Oh really? Then why did you—”
I break off as his knee touches mine under the table. Luke picks up his water glass, the innocent expression back on his face.
“Now I’m flirting,” he murmurs, taking a sip. He doesn’t move away and it’s like all the heat in my body focuses in on that one spot. “It’s much more fun when you know who I am.”
“You’re never going to let this go.”
“Nope.”
I turn my gaze to my plate. It’s impossible to keep the smile from my face. “You live in the village?” I ask in normal tones because this is a normal conversation.
“I do. But I’m usually at college. I’m not here a lot.”
“Oh.” I grimace inwardly at the obvious disappointment in my voice.
“I’m thinking about moving to Sligo full time,” he continues.
“By yourself?”
“With Sean.”
Sean. Sean… Sean Higgins? I have a faint memory of a tiny, dour boy doodling in the back of the classroom. “You two are friends?”
A faint smile appears on his face. “We’ve been best friends since we were kids.”
“Right,” I say quickly. “Duh.”
“Don’t worry. You didn’t pay much attention to us back then. I wouldn’t expect you to remember.”
“I paid attention,” I protest even though I know it’s a lie. There’s a reason I didn’t recognize Luke last night. It’s because even though we went to the same school, even though we were neighbors, I barely gave him a second thought for most of my teenage years.
It wasn’t personal. I barely thought about anyone but myself back then.
“Hey.” Luke frowns as though sensing the direction of my thoughts. “I mean it, Abby. Don’t worry about it.”
“Yeah.” I spear a green bean with my fork but can’t bring myself to eat it. “Sean’s still around then?”
He nods. “A couple of people are. Or they come back to visit during the summer when everything’s open.”
Unlike me. Would I recognize anyone if I saw them again? Would they recognize me? Or was I forgotten about as quickly as I forgot them?
“Rory comes back now and then,” he continues, and I start at the mention of my old friend’s name. Rory and I were stuck together like glue. I haven’t thought about him in years. “You should tell him you’re visiting.”
“I should,” I say, even though I have no idea how to contact him. Luke must realize this the same time I do because he swiftly changes the subject as he adds more salad to his plate.
“Of course, the most important thing you should know about is the new doughnut counter in Dessie’s place.”
“Now you’re lying to me.”
“I’m serious. He has three different kinds. Sugared, plain, and red.”
“Red?”
“That’s what he calls it. I’ll bring you down tomorrow,” he adds casually. “Or maybe we could—”
“I was sorry to hear about the job, Abby.”
I jerk back in my seat as Pat speaks. I hadn’t realized how close Luke and I had been leaning into each other.