Chapter 37
37
Lis
I haven’t heard from Aidan, but the door is unlocked like he’s waiting for me. I shouldn’t feel nervous walking into our apartment, but my palms are sweating and the hairs are standing up on the back of my neck.
“Aidan?”
He doesn’t answer, but I hear water filling the tub. Could I have totally misread what I saw? Maybe it’s not what I thought. I drop my purse on the counter next to where he left my keys and head down the hall.
The sheets are rumpled on my bed, my candles are lit in the bathroom. And the woman he was with last night walks out of my bedroom with my robe wrapped around her perfectly round pregnant belly.
Nonononono.
“Back already, love? Did you forget your wallet?” Her singsong voice slices through me and I can’t help the gasp that escapes me. Startled, her hand flies to her chest and, “Jaysus wept, ye scared me.”
I have no words. My mouth opens and closes, but nothing. I stand there like an idiot staring at her, my heart trying to decide whether to race—or just stop.
“You’re Lis, then.” She looks me up and down, appraising me. Her tone is not as sweet as when she thought I was Aidan. Her eyes narrow. “He’s not here. He ran out to grab a few things, for the next couple days, just until we go to the city this week.”
“Who—wh-what do you mean?” There they are, those words I’ve been waiting for. And they are absolute gibberish.
“Aidan and I are going to the city. He’s a job there this week and then we’re on to Dublin. Did he not tell you?” Her hand rubs lazy circles on her belly drawing my attention to the baby growing in there.
She knows his schedule. She’s in my house.
Cocking her brow, she jeers, “He didn’t tell you about this then, either? To be fair, it happened just before he left. Aidan didn’t even know about the baby for a few months. He needed to get away and I love him enough to have given him that. But you have to understand, we always planned to raise our kids together. Always. And that didn’t change with Michael’s death.”
Her hands are splayed across her, smoothing my robe. Showing off the innocent child that will kill me.
There is no way in hell that I can come between them. I can’t do it. Aidan was obviously hers first. They have a past.
And that past is growing into Aidan’s future.
Nodding my head, listening to her words, it becomes clear to me. I love him too much for there to be any other choice.
“I-I need to grab some of my things. I?—”
“Of course. I’ll just pop in to take my bath, stay out of your way.” She smiles victoriously.
I won’t keep him away from this baby.
The quiet click of the bathroom door launches me into action. I grab my suitcase and fill it with clothes, throwing shoes on top of my scrubs, clearing out as much as I can jam in there. Shoving my makeup into my computer bag.
With a quick look around the room, my eyes land on the picture on Aidan’s nightstand. It’s from the beach. He’s squinting at me, the bright sunlight glinting off the water. We’re laughing, his arms thrown around me. Arms I thought would keep me safe, give me comfort.
Arms that will soon be holding and loving a new baby.
Willing my tears away, I twist off the beautiful ring he gave me and set it in front of the picture frame. My bags behind me, I rush through the apartment stopping only to grab my purse and keys.
I stumble on the stairs, laden down with my heavy bags, barely catching myself before I fall. I need to go. I need to be gone before Aidan comes back.
I shove everything into my car and drive straight back to Gracyn’s curling up on her couch and losing what’s left of my heart.
Aidan
My love-hate relationship with the pub is strong this morning. Finn insisted on ripping my arse, face to face, and I missed Lis’ text while he was stressing just how badly I’d fucked up with her.
“Fuckin’ watched ’er ’eart break when she walked in the door.”
His fist takes me by surprise, snapping my head back.
“Told ye I’d kick yer arse, if ye fuckin’ dicked ’er ’round.”
As his fist struck my jaw for the second time, it pounded home the fact that what she walked in on may have looked very different from what it was. I thought I would be introducing my best friend and the love of my life, but now I need to do a little crisis management instead.
Busting through the door of the flat, I call out for Lisbeth.
“She’s come and gone already. I was in the bath, but it sounded like she packed a bag and left,” Lorna answers around her cup of tea.
I push past her, striding into the bedroom. The bed is perfectly made, everything looks in order, but her case and computer are gone. Her drawers and closet empty. I pull out my phone and click on her contact. Six rings. Six hundred beats of my heart, and no answer. I try again. And again. I try until my calls are automatically rejected.
I send text after text. I’m on the tenth message when I see they’re not being delivered.
“What happened? What did she say?”
This is so much worse than I ever imagined. I turn, facing Lorna, pleading for her to help me make sense of this. My skin is too tight, and my jaw aches from Finn’s right hook.
Lorna gasps as she feathers her fingers over my swelling cheekbone. “Oh my God, Aidan what happened? Were you attacked?”
I push her hand away, shaking my head.
“Lorna, what happened?”
Tears cloud her eyes. “I’m sorry, Aidan. She said she made a mistake. That you were just a distraction.” She puts her hand on my arm trying to ease the bomb she just dropped on me. “She said if you love her at all, you’ll respect her need for time and a little distance. She suggested you go home, visit your parents while she sorts herself.” Tentatively, she wraps her arms around my waist, hugging me.
Resting a hand on her shoulder, I close my eyes trying to figure out what to do.
How often have I told Lis that I don’t want to be a distraction? That I won’t come between her and school. Maybe I pushed her too hard. Wanted her too fast.
She pulled back after our first dinner out, it took her weeks to come back ’round and talk to me. The time we spent in the garden and then the darkroom. That’s when things really changed. I should have held back, not taken advantage of the heat of that. Fucking hell, I couldn’t even help her study for her class, without having to push things further.
And then pushing her to move in—make this commitment.
I look at the wall above our bed. The picture I took of her in the garden, sunlight filtering all around her. The one of her soaking in the tub, bubbles spilling over the edges. Moments of love captured and frozen in time.
“Can you give me a minute? I need to talk to—” My voice thick with emotion, I realize the only person I want to talk to, is the one who needs space. The one who needs time away from me. I untangle myself from Lorna and wait as she closes the door softly behind her.
I sag down on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees. I shouldn’t have left her last night. She needed me and I left. Finn was fucking right. I failed her when she fucking needed me the most.
I call Gracyn, desperate to know where Lisbeth is, but the call goes nowhere. She must have blocked my number.
The only thing I can do is give her what she’s asked for. All I’ve wanted was to help her, to make things easier for her. To give her the love and support she needed to reach her goal—and I fucked it all up.
I drop my head into my hands making peace with what I know I have to do. The light streaming in through the window glints off the photo Lis took of us at the beach.
I pick up the frame and knock something to the floor. When my fingers meet cold metal, the lump in my throat becomes too hard to swallow around. I clutch her ring over my heart. My arse hits the floor when I slide down off the mattress, my back propped against the side of the bed. I don’t know how long I sit there, the symbol of all I hoped for clutched to the spot Lis always rested her hand. I held it right fucking there yesterday.
Scrubbing the tears from my face, I stand and slide the ring on the little finger of my left hand. Without thinking I reach for Lis’ school bag knowing she keeps a pad of paper in there. My hand drops to my side and with a shuddering breath it hits me again that she’s gone.
I shuffle out to the kitchen and pull my credit card from my wallet, letting it fall to the counter. I slide it to Lorna. “I have to run out, need to let Francie know I’m leaving. Can”—Jesus, I can’t believe I’m doing this—“can you book me a flight home? End of this week, if you can get us on the same flight. I’ll be done with the shoot late Thursday, so—I don’t know, as soon as possible.”
My eyes never leave the counter as the images of eating breakfast—making dinner—with Lis flash through my memory.
Francie opens his door after three raps of my knuckles and zeroes right in on the bruise blossoming on my cheek.
“Looks like Finn talked to you already. Come in and tell me your troubles, then.”
Francie’s little house backs up to the pub and looks like an eighty-year-old grandmother lives here. He straightens a lacy circle on the back of a chair before offering me a seat on the dainty floral couch.
It’s my first time here and I can’t help looking for the twenty-three cats he’s probably collecting.
I perch on the edge of the uncomfortable couch, hating what I came here to say. There’s no reason to put it off any longer. I twirl my key ring around the key to McBride’s.
“I’m leaving.”
He leans back into the uptight chair he’s sitting in, his forehead wrinkled in surprise. “That’s not what I expected. Have ye told Lis?”
“It was her idea, Francie. Said I was a distraction. To go home and see my family while she sorts herself.”
I feel him staring at me, but I can’t face him. I can’t look him in the eye.
“I leave in the morning for a photo shoot in New York City and then we’ll fly out Friday. Don’t know when I’ll be back.”
I pull the key to the pub off the ring and place it on the glass-topped coffee table.
“We?”
“I’m booked on the same flight as Lorna.” My voice catches and I have to swallow back the tears that burn behind my lids. “It just makes sense to travel home with her.”
“Not a thing about this makes sense and ye know it.” He fixes me with the same look he gave me last night.
“Leaving Lisbeth is the last thing I want to do,” I grind out, pain shooting through my bruised face as I work my jaw back and forth.
“Then why are you doin’ it? Stay. Tell ’er how important she is. That you’ll do what she needs, stay out of ’er way, if that’s what she wants. But do it from here.”
He’s spent so much time in the past six months threatening me—pushing me away from her. The change of heart throws me off.
“Why? She doesn’t want me here. Why are you so invested in this now? You’ve been warning me off at almost every turn.”
“Because I love that girl like she’s my own. And I’ve not seen her this happy, this settled in all the time I’ve known her. Let me talk to her, find out her reasoning before you go.”
He’s right. Nothing makes sense anymore.
I pull the envelope from my back pocket, her ring safely tucked inside. “I’m going. I’ll visit my family, then…I don’t know, then I’ll come back if she wants me. Will you give her this, though? Please?”
He makes me wait a lifetime, before he reaches out to take the envelope.
A tight-lipped nod.
A heartfelt hug.
A silent farewell.
And I go back to the flat I shared with Lis for far too little time. Avoiding Lorna, I go straight to the bedroom and pack my bag, only what I need for work and a visit to my parents. The rest of my stuff I box up and move to the storage room off the kitchen.