Page 97 of Shipwrecked

His breath huffs out of him, and he mutters, “Thank God.”

“What is it?”

“Mathieu’s getting on a plane. He’ll be landing in Dublin in a few hours.” Cillian rolls out of bed and flicks on the bedside light. He pulls on the clothes he peeled off only an hour ago. “I’ll go get him.”

Relief washes through me. I sit up, the tension sinking from my body. Cillian hesitates in the doorway, glancing over his shoulder.

“He can stay here?”

I give him a look. He smiles. “Thought so. Be back soon.”

Cillian goes, and though I’m relieved that Mathieu’s on his way, the same tension I felt when Cillian went across the road for food fills me. I pace the apartment several times, and my chest is tight even when I attempt to take deep breaths.

“They’re coming,” I tell myself.

I march to the laptop and open it. All that hubbub about my phone surviving the crash and just needing a charge—that little bit of satisfaction I had at saving it—went to waste in the end. It burnt up with the rest of our things. So did the window I risked my life for.

I can’t get a hold of anyone with the phone company over the internet at this hour, but I put in a request for a replacement phone and SIM and ask for next-day delivery. Then I start planning. Cillian works in Wicklow. Mathieu lives in France. I have jobs I applied and interviewed for all across the country. Cork, Limerick, Galway and Dublin were the ones I had earmarked.

I had fully intended to jump into work the moment I was back from the trip and start building that safety net I wanted so badly. But I think I might have stumbled upon it already, and I don’t mean just Cillian and Mathieu. Friends from as far back as primary school have reached out.

I check my bank balance. I have a healthy savings account. There’s breathing room here. There’s time to take it slow. When I had to delay starting college, I catastrophised for months. I already know I won’t feel like that this time.

Cillian and Mathieu arrive hours later.

Mathieu kisses me on the mouth, hugs me very carefully, and says, “Bed, right now.”

The urgency has nothing to do with anything sexual. We get into bed, and I stay awake long enough to hear Cillian and Mathieu pass out. Mathieu makes Cillian lie in the middle—because of my arm, it’s more comfortable for me to be on the edge—and he’s solid and warm next to me. Mathieu’s arm is thrown over Cillian’s waist, his fingers hooked into my shorts.

I lay my bandaged hand over his.

I sleep.

Epilogue: Part One

Mathieu

8 months later

“I love it,” I say.

“You said that by the gate,” Cillian says. “And by the front door. And in the entrance hall.”

We step into a living room with towering glass windows letting in all the daylight you could possibly want. The colour scheme is beige, cream and deep browns. My parents will cry in outrage at the lack of colour, so I’ll need to splash some paint before they visit. The house is nestled into a hillside dominated by an old forest, and our nearest neighbour is an old equestrian estate that spans most of the hill.

Jules calls from another room. “This is your room, Mathieu, and that one is Cillian’s. He has the en suite, sorry.” He leans out of one of the doorways. Behind him is a room with cream walls and a dark mahogany bed frame. The polished wood gleams. Jules continues, “He comes in covered in muck, so he needs his own. I did want that place with the mudroom, but it’s kind of out of the way for us. We’d have an extra hour’s drive to Dublin. And since you’re doing library hours before class, you’d have to leave ridiculously early.”

If I didn’t love the library shifts, I would have abandoned the job on principle because getting up so early is not for me. But as it turns out, quiet shelving interspersed with helping students find their way suits me very well. I’m halfway through my master’s in Library Studies and still haven’t figured out how to combine it with horses yet.

“I shower before I leave work,” Cillian says dryly. I’m still getting used to seeing him in anything but a tattered shirt and shorts. He’s wearing jeans and a terribly well-fitted V-neck. The sleeves are folded up, showing off his tattoos. There are two scarred puncture marks marring the triskele on his left forearm. His hair is trimmed, but he never styles it, so it always looks somewhat wild. Not as wild as he looked on the island, mind you, but he has a roguish quality to him.

Cillian notices my gaze. “What?”

“You’re like a Viking.” My parents, having spent some time with Cillian, think him a great choice for a partner. Capable and reliable, they said. But, mistakenly, they also got the impression that he’s calm, which he most certainly is not—except when it’s infuriating and can be wielded as a weapon.

Jules chuckles. “I agree.”

Jules is Cillian’s opposite, and he hit it off best with my siblings—if I hadn’t intervened, Jules would have ended up in business with my sister. After one conversation, she was trying to convince him to move to France and work with her.