I shrug.
“What does hers say?”
“It saysI love his beard,” Casey says, appearing behind me.
“Congratulations. You’re officially both losers.”
“What the fuck is your problem? I like it. And it’s true: I really do love her arse.”
“Do you really have to say that out loud?”
“Everyone already knows, anyway.” Ryan’s voice chimes in. “Come on, give her to me,” he says, taking Jamie from my arms.
“You know she’s not a toy, right?” Ian asks.
Ryan ignores him, sitting on the patio with Jamie, as Casey makes herself comfortable on the lawn. Of course: we have at least ten chairs out here, but she chooses to sit on the grass.
I sit down next to her as she kicks her shoes off, stretching her feet out in the cool grass.
“I really like being here,” she comments, her head tilted up to the sun. “This house, your family. It’s so peaceful.”
“I’m sorry,” I say suddenly.
“For what?”
“For taking all this away from you for so long.”
She turns to look at me.
“You know, sometimes, I think about the things I want…”
“Like what?”
“Have you ever wanted to meet someone again, for a second time? As if you’d never met them before. To start from scratch. That first glance, the first impression. The first time you hold their hand, the first time you kiss them. The first time you hurt them.”
“Are you talking about me?”
I shrug. “Sometimes I really want to go back in time and redo it all. To have acted differently, to never have left…sorry, I’m being stupid. Forget it.”
Casey takes my hand. “Nick. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not fucking okay. If I keep acting like this we’ll never move forward.”
Casey is silent for a few moments.
“You weren’t the only one who left.”
“What…?”
“I went to the airport. The day you left. I ran to the airport because I wanted to tell you how I felt, that night in the pool. I wanted to tell you what I wanted.”
“You came…?”
“But I didn’t have the courage to talk to you, so I left. I saw you. You looked so happy, so proud…you were…”
“I was terrified. And I didn’t want to go.”
“I bumped into your dad.”
