Page 53 of Wicked Ruin

I don’t elaborate.

“Well, is it?”

“It’s clean. The second payment was laundered, but through McCarthy enterprises.”

“Oh.” Disappointment stabs through me. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.

“Right. Was just checking in on you. Talk soon?”

“Love you.”

I consider refreshing my feed, but instead go back to eating bland crackers while staring at the ceiling, googling what Bronwyn told me her da has. Because if I google mine, I know exactly what I’ll find, and it might be nice if the focus was on someone else for a minute.

I know this nausea. I've had this nausea. It's the kind my body likes to produce when things aren't going the way they're supposed to, and I'm not going to think about that now. I'm going to eat another cracker and think about something else—not the glossy wedding invitation Erin has pinned to her refrigerator with a magnet, or the way Declan insists on texting me, as if nothing’s changed even though everything has.

I mean, he just met her, and I know he'll try because that's who he is—a McCarthy who’s ruthless and scary when he needs to be, but still holds doors open and means it, raised by a woman who wouldn't have it any other way.

But will she ever know him? Actually know him?

The way I do?

Will she know that he graduated late from school because no one figured out until third class that he needed help with his reading? That he never once talked about it as something that happened to him but as something he sorted?

Will she know about the cakes? The truly appalling, deeply committed relationship he has with cheap, packaged shite, which he eats without shame in the front seat of a very expensive car and stuffs the cellophane wrapping by fistfuls in his pockets like a child? And that it’s… adorable?

Will she know he kayaks, that it's the one thing he does entirely alone, and that I think is the only time he stops performing? He says he can think and breathe when he’s alone, surrounded by water and lapping waves.

Will she know that when he laughs, it starts in his chest before it reaches his face, and that there's about a half second when you can see it arriving, and it's the best half second in any room he's ever been in? And that it’s literally impossible to hear Declan McCarthy laugh and not join in?

Probably not. She'll get the suit and the charm and the McCarthy name. The rest of it takes years. It took me years.

I've had the years. That's the problem.

Will she know how he kisses? Like the kiss is the destination, not the preamble. Like he's been thinking about exactly this, and he's in absolutely no rush to be anywhere else.

Will she know that he knows how to braid hair? That he learned because his sister kept asking and he kept saying no. Then one afternoon, he just learned because that's how he does everything he decides to do. Will she know he'll sit behind you on the sofa with his big hands in your hair, completely focused, like it's the most important job in the room?

Will she know that if you're on your period and cramping, trying to pretend you're fine, he'll cook you a steak seared in butter, exactly right, with the good crusty bread, and set it in front of you without a word, without making it a thing, without asking for any credit for it?

And will she ever know that his… that his hands are impossibly warm, and when you have cramps, he'll press them to your lower back or belly without being asked, without hesitation, with the particular steadiness of someone who has decided you're not going to be in pain if he has anything to say about it?

She might find out, and I'll be the one who already knows, and there is absolutely nothing I can do with that information except lie here on this sofa, eating crackers.

Oh, Declan.

And then I’m pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes because I will not cry, not again. I can’t have Declan, and I’ve always known that.

My phone vibrates on the cushion next to me. I don't look at it immediately. I'm very mature… I'm very reserved… I'm very… reaching for the phone as soon as it buzzes again to see if it's him.

Declan

How are you getting on?

Sigh.

Grand. You?

Declan