Out of nowhere, she pulled me in for a crushing hug. I hugged her back with the same enthusiasm. It felt good. It felt like we were okay. When we pulled apart, I invited her inside. She wiped my eyes and then hers, and it seemed like she couldn’t wait to see our house. As we toured the downstairs, we made small talk about how Cian told me I could redecorate it.
“Why?” She peeked into the kitchen. “It’s damn near perfect!”
“That’s what I said!”
She headed deeper into the kitchen, and I took a seat at the long bar. She started rummaging through cabinets and found tea. She lifted the container.
“Wooo! The good stuff. Straight from Ireland. Want a cup?”
She made us each a cup and poured a lot of whiskey in each one. She took a seat next to me, and we swiveled on our stools to face each other some.
“Hot toddies are so good on a day like this one.” She motioned outside.
I hadn’t noticed, but she was right. The weather was crisp, and the leaves had started to turn. Fall in Boston was a sight, and I couldn’t wait to experience one with Cian.
She slapped me on the knee. “Fill me in on Ireland and all you’ve been doing.”
“Oh!” I jumped off the stool. “I’ll be right back!”
I ran upstairs, digging in the bags with all the gifts I’d bought for her. On my way back down, I stopped in the darkness of the hallway, right before the light from Cian’s office could reach it. I heard Keenan talking.
“You can’t take over from that fuckin’ seat, lad. Maybe afterward, you’ll get more inside time, but for now, we must fight.”
I shook my head and ran back downstairs, almost tripping on my way down. Delaney was gazing out the window when I came back in.
“What’s wrong?” she said after she took in my face.
“Nothing.” I forced a smile. “Except I almost bit it on the way down.”
“That’ll do it.”
“Here.” I set the gifts in front of her. “These are yours.”
For the next hour or so, she opened the gifts and we talked about my wedding and my honeymoon in Ireland. When I realized how I had taken over the conversation, I turned it toward her.
“How’s the bookshop? Robert? Tell me all the things!”
She sighed and played with her cup. “The bookstore is excellent. As grand as ever. Robert is…good too, but without me.”
The cup came down from my mouth slowly. “What do you mean?Good without you?”
“He’s going through something. Maybe it’s…oh…what do they call it? A midlife crisis or something.” She waved a hand.
I grabbed it before she could put it down. “Talk to me, Del.”
We entwined our fingers and held on tight.
Sighing, she reached over and filled her cup with whiskey. She refilled mine too. At this point, we were only drinking alcohol.
“I don’t know. Things were great. Excellent in fact. Life was moving forward.” She pointed straight, like she was giving me directions. “We were together. Enjoying life. Then—BAM. He did something I never expected. When I told him I wasn’t sure if I could…agree, or maybe live with it, I said we should take a break. Or maybe he did. Point is. We both agreed it was for the best.”
I set my feet down, freed our linked hands, and pulled her in as tightly as I could. “I’m so sorry, Del.” I closed my eyes and breathed her in. She always smelled like a romantic story to me. Roses and paper and ink. I just couldn’t believe Robert would do this to her. They were the couple who made everyone believe love existed. Me included.
They had been together for so long… Maybe he was needing more? Maybe he had cheated on her? It felt insensitive to come right out and ask, but I could only assume. She’d said he done something she never expected, and she couldn’t live with it.
“This is why men need to just get it out of their systems early, you know? I mean, why wait until half your life is over to do something like this?”
I nodded, but I was having a hard time keeping up. I kept thinking about Cian and how he never really got to get anything out of his system except for vengeance. I was the first woman he’d ever slept with, and forever was a long time. What if someday I wasn’t enough? He turned every head in the room. Soon, he would rule Boston and have enough power that I’d never know if he had affairs.
