“Oh, it wasn’t just your school friends and Sophie, your dad tells me that you didn’t go down here for over a year.” He grinned and gestured around the dim room.
“That’s a lie,” Caitlin said, and crossed her arms around her waist, “However, I was scared of the lake for a long time after the drowned bride story you told time and time again, claiming she came to you while you were camping and tried to lure you to a watery grave.” Caitlin scoffed at the idea. “And nine-year-old me was so scared by that story that I didn’t go out on my uncle’s boat that summer,” she said, poking at Daniel’s arm as she looked up at him.
“Oh,” he nodded with understanding before he smiled down at her. “Are you saying this was my doing? Some sort of evil plan I concocted at… what, twelve?” He briefly lifted his eyes to the ceiling to count the years in his mind.
“My impending doom was more than a suggestion,” Caitlin countered, and her heart squeezed inside of her at the way he smiled at her now, all awkwardness between them gone. It soothed the part of her that had transformed into a ball of anxiety ever since the night they’d spent together—it was the same part of her that continued to tell her that night had been a fluke. Or worse, a challenge. “What was the drowned bride’s whole thing again?”
Daniel perked up, lifting his finger to announce the information as if he was on a game show and money was on the line. “She longed to peel flesh from bone, especially little girls with pigtails.”
“Little girls with pigtails?” Caitlin asked, crossing her arms. “Oddly specific to my fashion choices at nine.” She started absentmindedly picking at the loose splinters of wood on top of the crate, flicking them away with her other fingers.
Daniel lifted his hand to the top of the third crate as he laughed again. When he turned, Caitlin could see the light from upstairs glinting off his teeth. Her eyes lifted from his lips when he turned his attention back to her. “I didn’t come up with that story, you know, I might’ve just added that part because I knew you wore pigtails, and it was surprisingly fun to mess with you…” There was a soft note of guilt in his voice. He lowered his eyes to his hands, pulling his mouth to the side to hide his smile.
She started shaking her head, a victorious smile spreading across her face as she sent a hand out to push on the front of Daniel’s chest. “I knew it!” He hardly moved, but laughed at her soft push.
He reached forward, suddenly closing the space between them. Caitlin’s heart pounded harder in her chest, and as much as she wanted to avert her gaze, there was a seriousness in his eyes that she couldn’t look away from. His fingers landed somewhere in her hair, and she closed her eyes expectantly as his hand rested higher than her cheek, where she’d anticipated the touch—there was the faintest, disappointed tingle on her skin.
As she opened her eyes, he pulled back a piece of web, tickling it away in three precise wipes of his fingers. His eyes dropped from hers. She watched, shocked by a quick flicker of sadness that tugged at his features. Before she could ask, he spoke.
“Earlier, when Kilian mentioned that American, about your possible dinner date…” he hesitated. Even though he stood in place, Caitlin could sense a part of him that didn’t want to pry. It was the part of him that forced him to look at the floor in between their boots instead of directly into her face. Almost as if he’d heard her think this, Daniel lifted his eyes. “Why didn’t you answer him?”
Caitlin’s eyebrows laced together for a moment, confused why he felt his brother had a right to know anything about her dating life. “Because it isn’t any of his business, like I said.”
“It isn’t.” Daniel admitted quickly. “But shouldn’t it be mine?” He turned to look over his shoulder, turning his head back to finish his hushed whisper. “After the other night—it meant something to me,” Daniel confessed. There was a sharpness to his brow, a fierceness in his features that delighted Caitlin. She tried to silence the quick breath that she pulled in, but she was certain he’d noticed the way she braced herself.
“Do you want it to be your business? It didn’t seem like you did earlier,” Caitlin countered. “You were all ‘que sera, sera like old American tourists.’”
Daniel hesitated again, trying to search her face for some hint at where she wanted their relationship to go. His eyes shifted back and forth between hers fruitlessly—he was frustrated by her even, unreadable expression.
She wondered if she needed to voice what she was thinking, or it was clear to him that he’d given her the finest mixture of signals imaginable in the dating world. “Last time we talked about that,” Caitlin said as she threaded her arms over herself, “You told me that you wanted to see where we went—” She tried to hide the disappointment in her voice when she spoke these words, but she was certain it was evident in the very way she breathed. “And now you’re… jealous of Jacob?” she guessed with a hint of a smile on her face.
Caitlin had no genuine interest in reconnecting with the American—she even had to double-check with herself that she’d used the correct name—but she couldn’t let go of the opportunity before her. Never in her life had she seen Daniel Kelly so intensely vulnerable, and even though there was a large portion of her that reveled in the sight, there was an intense crushing feeling on her chest that dampened her mood.
“Yes,” he admitted so plainly that it wiped the smile from Caitlin’s face.
Caitlin fought against the surprise she felt, but ultimately lost. She began to pull at her fingers, feeling the small bones pop as she massaged them nervously.
“He’s wrong for you,” Daniel stepped closer to her as he spoke. He lifted his hand to her chin, tilting her face ever-so-slightly to catch the oil light that bled out from the top floor of the building. “You should be with someone who knows you better—your history, your life, your connection to this pub.”
Caitlin scoffed, trying to keep a semblance of structure around her. “Easier to muse about than to find…” there was an unsuspecting softness to her voice that caught Daniel’s attention.
His hand slid up the side of her leg and wrapped around the width of her hip, leaning her away from the crates and closer to him. She placed her hands on his chest when he pulled her to his body; the rich smell of his cologne replaced the staleness of the cellar.
“Let me take you out then,” Daniel said finally, pressing his fingers into her hip softly as she breathed in.
Caitlin’s eyes widened in surprise and she thought of her father—how he’d been eager to push the two of them together from the very beginning. She’d never been one to follow in the footsteps that her father had laid out for her, and maybe that was why Daniel had bothered her so much growing up—he was everything she refused to be. Yet, somehow, she’d ended up playing right into the will of her father anyway. “I just have one condition,” she said, lifting her eyes to meet him.
A smile formed on Daniel’s face as he looked down at her. He smoothed a large curl behind her ear. “Of course.”
“We don’t tell my dad.”
Daniel looked at her for a long moment. His amused smiled faltered on his lips, opening for a brief moment before closing again. He smiled at her sadly before speaking again. “We won’t tell him anything until you want to.”
Caitlin’s shoulder relaxed when he said this. Stepping into him, Caitlin wrapped her arms around him tightly, burying her head into his collarbone. She shut her eyes, letting herself enjoy the brief moment of contact with him before they went back upstairs—back to where everyone watched them with intense curiosity. She was so content in his embrace, she barely heard Daniel when he confirmed a time for their date tonight.
“I’ll meet you upstairs tonight after closing.”
15
