Great, just what I need.
Arthur reached for my hand. “We’re leaving now,” he yelled over the Irish band caterwauling in the corner. “Corbin wants us all to pack our bags in case we can get on a train tonight.”
Jane and Flynn both avoided looking at me as we filed out of the pub. I walked back to the apartment on Arthur’s arm, fuming in silence as I stared at the back of Kelly’s head while she chatted to Flynn.
Jane’s ugly words rattled around in my head.She thinks you’re cheating on Arthur. Just because she’s not in the hospital and has her pink backpack doesn’t mean she doesn’t need you.
I’d prove her wrong. Jane didn’t know my sister like I did. Kelly wasfine. She was better than I was. She always bounced back from anything. That was her – the great bouncing Kelly.
I’ll prove it. I’ll talk to her, tonight.
As I waited for the others to enter the apartment ahead of me, Flynn grabbed my hand and yanked me down the street.
“What are you doing?” I hissed. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see Kelly’s head poking out the apartment window, watching us. She jerked her head inside as soon as she saw me.Great.
“The other guys have all had a little bit of Maeve time. I wanted to get my fix,” he smiled.
My fingers itched to slap that smile off his face. I used to find Flynn’s cheeky grin a comfort, now it burned my flesh like a knife. “I’ve tried to be alone with you several times. You always avoid me or drag one of the others along.” I shrugged. “I get it. This is a bit of fun for you. It never meant anything. You don’t have to rub it in my face.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing, Einstein?”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped. “Only Kelly’s allowed to use that name.”
“You never had a problem with it before.”
“That was because I thought you cared about me.”
Flynn looked away. I seethed. I’d given him the opportunity to tell me otherwise, but he’d ignored it because I was right. I wanted to go back and find Kelly, but curiosity kept me beside him. He was a member of the coven. He might be showing me something important, something that could actually help. It would be the first time Flynn had ever done something helpful.
Flynn led me down a narrow cobbled lane to a tiny jetty where a line of tiny rowboats were tied up, the water slapping against their wooden sides. He sat down on the end of the jetty, the toes of his sneakers digging into the water, and patted the wood beside him.
I remained standing, my arms folded. “What are we doing here, Flynn?”
“I needed to be by the water,” he said. “Things like this are always better said by the water.”
“Things like?”
Flynn kept staring across the idyllic river. “I love you, Maeve.”
The words sucked the breath from my lungs. They pulsed in my head like a radio wave. My first thought was that he was mocking me. “If this is a joke, it’s a cruel one.”
“No joke. I love you, Maeve Moore, and I’m terrified of it.”
“Why?”
He sucked in a breath, and his shoulder shuddered. “Every person I ever tried to love in my fecking sorry life has left me. My pa left me in the coven’s ritual, another victim of the fae. Ma left me for drugs and horrible men because she couldn’t handle his death or…or maybe the guilt of what they did that night. My uncle never cared about me. He was too busy running his criminal empire. I never had a friend I could count on until the coven. When Corbin found me and asked me if I wanted to come live at Briarwood, I up and left the next day. No one came after me. No one reported me missing or stuck my face on a milk carton.” Flynn laughed bitterly. “That shows you how much value I have in this world. I’m nothing. I’ve always been nothing.”
I sat down beside him. “Why couldn’t you say all this to me? Why couldn’t you be alone with me?”
“Because I’ve felt something for you ever since I first laid eyes on you, all those years ago in an Arizona classroom. But I was afraid, afraid I’d fall for you and you’d think I was nothing or worse, that I’d fall for you and you’d tell me you loved me but then you’d leave. I figured it was better to do what I always did.” he flashed me his signature grin, his smile wavering at the edges. “I played the fool. I smiled. I told jokes. It’s the only thing I’m good at. Well, that, and bollocksing everything up.”
“You’re very definitely not nothing. I mean…” I struggled through the double negative. “You are special. Your smile has kept this coven together more than you ever realise. If it wasn’t for you, Corbin, Rowan, and Arthur would have drowned in their sorrow years ago. You make us remember that there are good things in the world worth fighting for.”
“You sound like a bloody Hallmark card.” Flynn rested his head on my shoulder.
“I know, but it’s all true. I never told you before because I was embarrassed, but I remember you from when you were in Arizona. I thought you were so hot, but I knew that in a million years someone popular like you would never be interested in a nerd like me. You think you’re not worthy of me? I didn’t think I was worthy of you. But it’s allbollocks. We get to be together and love each other and screw the whole world if they try to stop us. You don’t have to push me away. It’s okay to be scared, but we can get through it together. The coven needs you, Flynn.Ineed you. More than that, Iwantyou. I love you.”
I rested my head against his shoulder. Across the water, couples strolled along a path lit by fairy lights, laughing as they shared ice cream cones and made up silly dance moves to music playing only in their heads. I wondered if I’d ever get to have a normal date with Flynn or any of my guys.
