“We shouldallgo!”Rex says, bouncing in his seat.“You, me, Mom, Uncle Liam, Aunt Joss, and Aunt Mae!Auntie Fi too, if she can.”His wide smile stays in place, although his eyes shift out of focus for a moment before returning to mine.“Smurph would love that.”
The comment hits me square in the chest.“Yeah, buddy, he would.”
Rex lunges at me and gives me a long, tight hug.I hold on just as tightly, riding out the wave of emotion his words have stirred up.When he releases me, he gathers his things and hops out of the truck.“Love you, Uncle Nathan.See you soon!”he says, closing the door without waiting for a response.
As I watch him trail up the front walk, another flood of feelings hits me out of nowhere.The kid hasn’t had the easiest life—no father, Thea struggling with alcohol addiction for most of his life, and now losing Murph—and yet he’s happy, well-adjusted, and secure.He knows he’s loved, and he doesn’t hesitate to express that love in return.
Growing up, I heard the words ‘I love you’ more from Mae and Murph than I did from my own mom, even though Iknewshe loved me.The words didn’t come easily to her for whatever reason, and so they were hard for me to say for a long time too.
Thea opens the door as Rex reaches it.She hugs him so tightly his feet leave the ground.I can hear him giggling as she peppers his face with kisses.He squirms out of her grip and darts inside, and Thea straightens, blowing me a kiss before following Rex into the house.
When Rex and I were at the café, Mae invited me for dinner, so I head to the Murphy house next.Liam’s truck is in the driveway when I arrive, and I find him in the kitchen a minute later.
“Hey,” he says from where he’s standing in front of the open fridge.“Mae’s on the phone with Fiona, and she ran upstairs to look something up.Want a beer?”
“Sure, thanks.”I drop into a kitchen chair, letting out an involuntary groan.It’s been a long day.Hell, a longyear, and it’s only May.I’m still not sleeping well.At the end of each day, my body is exhausted and sore, but my brain doesn’t ever seem to shut off.
Liam hands me a beer and taps his against mine before sitting across from me.“That B&B project, man.I love the work, but sometimes I think we should take a step back and let the others handle it.Isn’t that why we hired more people?”
“In theory, yeah.If only we weren’t a pair of control freaks.”
He chuckles and scrubs a hand over his stubbled jaw.“True enough.You still enjoying the work, though?Wecouldtake a step back, you know.The others could handle it.”
“I’m enjoying it,” I assure him.“We used to dream about projects like this.”I take a sip of my beer, thinking about how satisfying it is to see progress every day, to know we’re making the B&B owner’s dreams of expansion come true.“Itisnice knowing the others could take over at any time, though.It was just the two of us for so long.”
I stifle a yawn, and when Liam does the same, I shoot him an apologetic look.He just shakes his head.
“I feel like we haven’t talked properly in the last couple of weeks,” he says.“How are you feeling about everything?”
I huff out a laugh at the question that’s both broad and yet vague at the same time.In the last two weeks, I’ve been expecting Liam to pull me aside for a heart-to-heart.The man isn’t afraid to go deep with his feelings, and he seems to enjoy digging around in mine too, especially since Joss came along and has helped him open up even more.We’ve been working side by side at the B&B nearly every day lately, but our conversations have remained mostly surface-level, and I’m okay with that.
“I’m feeling a lot of things,” I tell him.“Life without Murph is really fucking hard.I know you get that.”
“Reallyfucking hard,” he agrees.When I nod solemnly and don’t say anything else, Liam adds, “And?”
I groan.I guess we’re doing this.“And I miss Fiona.I don’t want to, and I wish I didn’t, but I do.Having her here stirred up all kinds of things, and now I’m figuring out how to…contain them again?”
Despite the last part coming out sounding like a question, Liam nods as if he understands.“Do you love her?”
“I think you know the answer to that,” I say, giving him a sardonic smile.
He lifts one shoulder and makes a sound of acquiescence.“So that’s a yes.Do you want to be with her?”
I release a heavy sigh.“Yes, but nothing has changed.I feel like I’m twenty all over again, watching her leave, having my heart broken, and knowing that’s it for us.”
“It doesn’thaveto be it, though,” Liam says.“I remember telling you back then to ask Fiona to stay, and you being adamant that you wouldn’t.I didn’t understand it at the time, but I do now.It would have been selfish to put that pressure and guilt on her.I think part of you knew it was safer to stay quiet because she was going to go regardless, so you were saving yourself the added layer of heartache.”
“Exactly,” I murmur.As the time drew nearer for Fiona to leave on that first solo trip, I fought with myself on a daily basis not to drop to my knees and beg her to stay.It wouldn’t have been fair to either of us.
“You didn’t ask her to stay, but did she ever ask you to go with her?”Liam asks.
“She did, but I said no.I had no interest in travelling.That was her thing.”
“What about now?”
“Whataboutnow?”
“Travelling is something you’re interested in now, isn’t it?”Liam asks.“You loved Ireland, and you literallyown a homethere.What if Fiona asked you to go with her now?”
