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“He certainly will with that attitude.”

“What d’you want from me, Colin?” Niall snapped, standing. “Just get off my back for one fucking second, would ya.”

He drained his glass and stormed out of the living room. Cordelia heard a door slam.

Colin sighed. “You saw the paper?” he said to Alison, who nodded.

“What paper?” Cordelia asked, but then Fiona and Róisín emerged from the kitchen.

“Right, you all better get seated, it’s time to eat,” Fiona said. “Owen’s bringing the roast. Where’s Niall?”

“Just stepped out for some air,” Colin lied smoothly.

Cordelia stood. “Fiona, could I use your bathroom?”

“Course, dear. It’s down the hall to the left.” She pointed and Cordelia scurried out of the living room.

The hallway was dim and quiet. She could hear Owen rattling around in the kitchen. Cordelia pressed her forehead against the wall and squeezed her eyes closed. She wished she were back in New York, snuggled on Liz’s couch while they watched some cheesy romantic comedy and gorged themselves on Jiffy Pop. She wanted city streets and sunshine. She wanted to wear a tank top and sit outside at Oxomoco with Toby and Nikki and stuff her face with guacamole.

It wasn’t that these people weren’t friendly—well, Colin and Alison and Fiona were. But Cordelia felt like a weird extra appendage, flapping about uselessly, unsure of what she was even doing here. She’d yelled at an old lady. She’d made an enemy out of a man she barely knew.

Get up, get out there, and enjoy the day!

She wrapped her arms around her ribs in an attempt to keep herself together. I’m trying, Dad. With a heavy sigh, she unstuck her forehead from the wallpaper.

That’s when she noticed the framed photographs hanging on the wall. There was one of Fiona and Owen on their wedding day, with eighties hair, Fiona wearing a dress with big puffy sleeves, Owen sporting a mustache. The next few photos documented the early days of their marriage. Then Cordelia recognized Niall; first as a boy with chubby cheeks and black curls standing in front of a church and then as a teen, in some kind of sleek canoe, rowing along with two other young men. The last one was of him laughing happily with his arm around his mother at a party—white lights were twinkling in the trees overhead and they were both dressed in nice clothes, champagne flutes in hand. The change in Niall was startling; it was like looking at a completely different person. When he smiled, a dimple popped in his left cheek. His eyes glowed. With his jaw not clenched so tight, there was something alluring in the lines of his face.

“She should have taken that down.”

Cordelia whirled around. Niall stood in the bathroom doorway, silhouetted against the bright light. He strode forward and snatched the frame off the wall.

“It was from my engagement party,” he said, not looking at her, his voice strained. The line of his jaw stood out with tension. His breath hitched.

It hit Cordelia then that this was a man in deep pain. That his story wasn’t fodder for gossip, but real, and awful, and something he was living with every day. She suddenly felt ashamed. Here she was, snipping and picking fights, still blaming him for the camera even though it was fixable. It wasn’t Niall’s fault she had chosen to come to this island.

“I’m sorry,” she said, the words tumbling out before she could think too hard about them. “I—I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that before. And called you an asshole. I didn’t … know. Your situation, I mean.”

“So if you’d known my fiancée was a lying cheat you would have been nicer to me?” Niall said acidly. “Grand. I’ll make sure to spill my heart out in the future to ensure the kindness of strangers.”

“That’s not what I—” Cordelia threw her hands in the air. “You know what, forget it.” She didn’t know why she was even trying. If he was so determined to be a prickly, defensive jerk, there wasn’t much she could do about it except stay the hell away from him.

Niall sighed. “Fuck, no, I’m sorry. I got some … bad news before you came tonight.” He looked at the photograph and his mouth quirked. “I wasn’t always such an angry asshole. I used to be quite pleasant, you know.”

Cordelia didn’t know what came over her, but something about the way he was looking at that picture, the utter desolation in his eyes, like he didn’t recognize that version of himself either … it tweaked her heart and she found herself blurting out, “I could take another one, you know. Picture, I mean. Of you and your mom. To replace this one. If you wanted.”

Niall blinked at her.

“I am a photographer,” she kept going. “A professional one. Well, street photographer, but it’s really all about people. Or sometimes not, I guess, but … candids. That’s what I do. Candid photos. I could take a few if you wanted. When I get my new camera.”

Niall frowned and opened his mouth.

“Or not,” Cordelia said quickly. “Never mind.”

“No, that … that’d be sound,” Niall said. “I’m sure she’d love that.”

Cordelia didn’t miss that he said she and not we. She felt foolish and wished she’d never made the offer in the first place.

“Okay. Great. Well, I’ve got to pee!” She pushed past him, ran into the bathroom, and slammed the door behind her.