Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Present day…
brIDGET
It's early morning in the kitchen, and light still lingers at the edges.
I'm always awake before Erin, so I put the kettle on.
I'm a light sleeper and have been since I was in the hospital.
It's like my body never really learned to rest. I don't like to examine what that means because I feel like I'm in a constant state of waiting.
Waiting to see if my remission is only temporary. Waiting to see if my sister's going to move, have a baby, or do something that will change her life as we know it because of her loyalty to her husband’s family.
Waiting to see if Declan will come back home.
It’s really time I moved out of Cavin and Erin’s house. Both she and Cavin believe I need to be safe, that I need to be protected, but the truth is, I’m an adult and have been for quite some time. I was an adult before they even married, but now I finally feel like one.
The kitchen is comfortable, welcoming, and lived-in. The kettle is on the stove, and my myriad of coffee cups sit on mug stands, taking up way more cabinet space than a houseguest should. Cavin likes to remind me of that, but he only teases me. He's like a brother to me, and I'm grateful.
Erin's one mug is in the same place as it always is, of course, because she is a creature of habit and doesn't like change.
“Did you turn the heat down again?” Erin says as she walks into the kitchen, shivering. “It's freezing in here.”
“It was damn near boiling. It's not my fault your husband likes you walking around scantily clad.” I wiggle my eyebrows at her, and she teasingly swats at me. I’m not wrong, and she doesn't really mind.
I don't either. She reaches over, turns up the thermostat, and sticks out her tongue.
“I'm paying the bills. You don't need to be the frugal one.”
I’m not really, but I am sitting at the table with my laptop open to a spreadsheet in front of me. I've been working with Erin since our parents were exiled.
I’m good at the work. Very good at it. And if I’m honest, I use it the way some people use drinking—because people lie and betray you, but numbers always tell the truth.
“Did you check out that dossier I sent you?” I ask her.
“Of course I did. It was the first thing I did, and I think you're right. There’s still something brewing in Boston, though it's been a while, hasn't it?”
When our parents betrayed the McCarthy family, it came to our attention that one of their cousins had also betrayed them. He was in league with the Boston Irish, but after our family was exiled and their cousin was suitably punished, the threat from the Boston Irish quieted.
They’re always in the distance, trouble brewing, circling like vultures that smell fresh meat.
Erin waddles over to me, her hand on her growing abdomen. She’s the cutest damn pregnant woman I’ve ever seen in my life. “How are you feeling?”
“I feel great,” Erin says with a smile. “I’ve been researching the optimal time for cord clamping and the hospital’s policy on it, the expected percentile charts for newborns, and whether the car seat we’re looking at has the highest safety rating.”
I snort. “Of course you are.” I give her belly an appreciative rub, like she’s Buddha, a move only a sister could get away with. A husband, too, maybe.
Knowing that my sister’s having a baby, I am genuinely happy about having a niece or nephew. I love my sister, and I love the idea of a new baby coming.
“You're very cute in Cavin's jumper, you know,” I say, rolling my eyes but winking at her. I never imagined Erin Kavanagh would become Erin McCarthy, who steals her husband's clothes and has the audacity to look better in them.
“They fit me better these days, and they…” She smiles bashfully. “They smell like him.”
I sigh and shake my head, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit a tiny part of me is jealous.
She pours herself a cup of tea and takes a look at my computer screen.
We're working together on finance and investing, all under the McCarthy umbrella.
Erin pulled me in when I was well enough, and what started as something to do became something I am genuinely good at.
We have a quarterly report to show at the end of this week, and the specifics matter less than the texture of it.
“This number doesn't look right,” I say to Erin, flagging it.
She nods and agrees. “Let's look deeper into that, shall we? Is this due to Boston?”
“Aye.”
Every time anyone mentions Boston, there's only one thing, one person, I can think of. I’ve barely seen him since Seamus sent him there ages ago.
It's good. It’s fine. He’ll be back, and it’s short-lived. Honestly, I avoid him. It’s better that way. I'm healthy, and I've moved on, and I know that… even our friendship was fleeting. It had to be.
And I’m alright with that.
Cavin enters, his hair all mussed up, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers.
“God above, put some clothes on,” I mutter, because Cavin’s all hard lines and muscles and ink, and a girl needs to concentrate already. Plus, he’s like a brother to me.
He rolls his eyes. “A bloke should wear whatever he wants in his own house. Get your own flat!”
Grump.
“True, but still.” I roll my eyes as he walks over to my sister, wraps an arm around her, and kisses her cheek. Something like jealousy bubbles up inside me, but it isn’t jealousy, not really. I want Erin to be happy. She deserves this.
I get lonely sometimes though.
I remember what Erin was like before Cavin. She was hard to reach sometimes, closed off, but being with Cavin has changed her. She's learned to trust again.
“Coming to dinner at the weekend?” Cavin asks me, pouring himself a cup of tea.
“Aye, sure. It's your mam’s birthday, isn't it?”
He nods.
“Who else will be there?”
“Damn near everyone. Ashland's bringing a new girl, name's Bianca.”
“I still can’t believe the man you all called ‘the Priest’ is in love.”
“Right?”
I make a sound that isn't quite a laugh. Poor Bianca. Though I suppose she knows what she's getting into… or she's about to find out. The McCarthys don't do things the way other people do.
Word on the streets of Ballyhock is that Ashland beat Bianca’s ex-fiancé to death in a fight ring, and the family raised a glass to it. Not exactly something you'd read about in a wedding announcement. Not something most women could sit across a dinner table from and call love, but…
But then again, I'm sitting across from Cavin McCarthy, who was released from prison just before he married my sister and has the ink to prove it, so…
“Well, ’bout time Ashland’s going to propose,” Cavin tells Erin, who nods pragmatically.
“I really never thought Ashland would be one to marry,” she says, then shakes her head. “But you have to in the end, don’t you?”
Cavin’s taking out a plate for his breakfast, so his back’s to us. I can’t read his expression, but I hear the sigh. “Aye. Every one of us. Clan law.”
Clan law, the kind that predates Ballyhock law by a mile.
“Who else will be at the dinner?” I ask absentmindedly, writing notes in the ledger.
“Lots. Kyla and Lorcan. Tiernan, Seamus, Zoya. Bronwyn, my Aunt Aileen and Uncle Cormac, Aunt Sheena and Uncle Nolan. Oh, and Declan’s back.”
The name hits me so hard my pen freezes in midair. I stop breathing.
“Right,” I say, fighting for my life to catch the next breath. “Grand.”
Thank god Cavin’s looking away, and Erin tends to be unaware of microexpressions, because I am confident I just gave myself away. Declan.
I take a sip of tepid coffee and gulp hard. “Declan? He’s back from America?”
I tried to sound casual, but Cavin’s gaze is assessing. “Aye. His job’s done for now.”
Oh god. So it isn’t just a visit… He’s back.
How can I do this? How can I go on with my life, knowing he’s back, socializing with the McCarthys, doing their work for them, and still be anywhere near that man without giving myself away?
You’re an adult, Bridget. Act like it.
Maybe I’ll see him and realize it was just a schoolgirl crush.
It happens. I’ll laugh at myself for ever letting myself fall for him, for replaying the one time he ever kissed me and the one time we ever danced, over and over again until I’d committed every second to memory.
Maybe he won’t have the hold on me he once did.
Maybe I won't read too much into every text we exchanged, or every time he took me out for ice cream or to run errands.
Maybe I won’t even find him hot anymore.
Maybe.
But it wasn’t just that. We were friends. He was the best friend I ever had until Seamus had to send him to America and fuck it up. And god, I miss that so damn much it makes me ache.
“Right,” I say with a nod I hope is convincing. “Been there long enough, I suppose.”
I move a figure, check a formula, move it back. The spreadsheet swims in front of me. I need fresh air or something stronger in my coffee.
Cavin goes up to shower, and Erin follows a few minutes later.
I hear the creak of her feet on the stairs, the distant sound of Cavin’s voice, Erin saying something back, then laughing at whatever he says.
The sounds of a comfortable home filled with people who love each other.
The sounds I’ve fallen asleep to for ages and never taken for granted.
I sit at the table long after they leave, trying not to cry, and hating that I want to. I twist the little rose quartz on my chain, but it doesn’t help this time.
I will cry, I suppose. Later. After everyone’s gone to bed and I can lock my door, sob into my pillow, and not have to face questions about why my eyes are all red and blotchy.
I think about Sunday. About Zoya and Seamus’s little ones. About the table stretched to fit the growing family, the brothers and their wives, the noise, and the particular warmth of being inside something that large, that solid, after you lost almost everything.
I do not think about Declan McCarthy.
I do not think about the way his hand pressed to the small of my back when we danced.
How I skipped his going-away party and ignored his texts for months after, telling myself it was for the best. How he used to bring me food when I was sick and how he promised to look out for me if I went to the club.
My phone buzzes with a text, and I stare at it with growing dread. I have to sort myself out, and now. I roll my eyes at nothing and pick up the phone.
My heart flutters with a thousand butterflies when I see who it’s from.
Declan
Hey, Trouble. Are you behaving?
I place it face down on the table. Maybe if I don’t respond, he’ll go away.
I close my eyes and shove my phone to the other end of the table, but it does no good. I can’t run from him. And what the hell am I running from anyway?
There is no us to worry about. There never was and never could be. I had a crush on him. That’s it. He was a good friend when I needed one, and I’ll forever be grateful to him for that.
So I pick up my phone. Type. Delete it. Type again.
I place my phone face down and go back to the ledger.