“Because we’re going to the local pub and if I end up seeing someone I know I don’t want to look all washed out. All it takes is one person to say to Marie that I look under the weather and she’ll be shipping me iron supplements and making appointments with a specialist,” I said, only semi-joking about the supplements.
“Are you nervous?”
“About seeing someone I know?” I enjoyed being deliberately obtuse sometimes. “Not really.”
“Claire!” she said. “You’re clearly making an effort and the way you kept looking at each other while you were both holding his nieces…”
“You noticed?” I put my flat irons down, alarmed. “I wasn’t staring really badly, was I?”
She smiled knowingly. “Yes, you were, but so was he, and none of your brothers noticed. In fact, Jackson’s response to you going out with him for dinner was along the lines of ‘why do they have to talk work when we’re here?’. I didn’t correct him.”
“Thank you,” I said, remembering that this time it was different; I didn’t have to hide away a relationship if it turned out to be that. Nerves bit me like a mosquito, the continually itching perpetrated by the secret I hadn’t divulged.Not yet, my heart screamed.Don’t tell him yet. See where it goes; wait until you know what his reaction will be.
“He kept watching you too,” she said, softly now. “He has done since I’ve known him. Even when you’ve been tormenting him he’s stayed nearby and when you’ve spoken to another bloke he’s usually disappeared. I think he was jealous.”
“I doubt it.”
“I don’t. How serious were you?”
I had known Vanessa since before she became a couple with my brother. She was a good friend and I trusted her as much as I trusted anyone outside of my own family, a family that she would soon be part of. “Very. For our age. But circumstances got in the way.”
“Like what?”
“He was joining the marines.”
“But that’s not why you split, is it?”
“No.” I couldn’t lie. And I found I didn’t want to.
“Did he cheat on you?”
“No. He was perfect.”
“So why did it end?”
I blended my foundation into my skin and stared into the mirror, seeing the girl who had been nineteen and pregnant.
“I ended it,” I said. “I did something. I did it for the right reasons but it should’ve been his decision as well.”
“You were pregnant?” she said after more than a few seconds.
I nodded, watching her expression through the mirror. Her eyes went soft, expression understanding, not judging.
“What a difficult decision to make but given your age and position I understand. I think I would’ve done the same,” she said. “I’m not trying to tell you not to feel guilty because I think that’s part of the process but I don’t think you should be punishing yourself. He doesn’t know?”
“No. I never told him.”
“Are you going to?”
“At some point.” I turned towards her. “I don’t know when that point will be and I don’t know how he will take it.”
“Knowing Killian, he’ll take a moment to think about it and then understand. He’s a good man, Claire.” She stood up, opening my wardrobe and pulling out a sleeveless top with a tiny repeated print. “Wear this. It suits you.”
I took the top and smiled, glad she had said that instead of ‘he’ll love you in it’ or something equally objectifying. “I don’t know how to process all of this.”
“Then don’t try. Just go and enjoy whatever it is between you and that hot blonde Viking,” Vanessa said. “I’ll break the news to your second eldest brother that it wasn’t a work meeting.”
The groan that I expelled was loud. “He’ll have comedy material for the next year. They’ll be no second date because between the four of them, Killian will be so mortified he won’t ever be in the same room as me again.”
