Page 24

I patted my pockets and realized I’d left my wallet in the car. “Shit.”

She gave me another kind smile. “If your husband has his, that would work, too.”

“My—” I followed her line of sight to Kieran. My heart fluttered and my stomach did a somersault at the same time. “Oh, we’re not… I mean, he’s not… he’s just a friend.”

The cashier’s smile faltered. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed. Well, I can take your friend’s ID, if he has it.”

“Kier?” I called.

He glanced up from where he’d been studying the magazines. “Yeah?”

“I need your license. For the beer.”

“Oh,” he said, shoving his hand into his back pocket. “Sure.” He passed his driver’s license over to me—our fingers touching yet again—and I handed it to the cashier, who inspected it before nodding.

“Perfect.” She passed it back and keyed something into her register, presumably his birth date. As I handed the ID back to Kieran, I was careful just to hold it by the edges. Something about those accidental brushes of fingers was keying me up and my shoulders were tight from the intensity of it all.

A few minutes later, Kieran had paid for the groceries, thanks to my leaving my wallet in the car, and we were headed out into the parking lot. My phone chimed again with another incoming text. I sighed irritably, sure it was another message from Eva, and pulled my phone out of my pocket.

I had two missed texts. The most recent message was from a client I had for the next day asking if we could reschedule. I fired off a quick response that I’d need to check my calendar for a new date, but that it would be fine to reschedule. The older message was from Eva. I gritted my teeth and chose to ignore the message for another few minutes.

“Everything okay?” Kieran asked.

I nodded. “Eva. Again.”

“Oh. I’ll just…” He gestured to the car. “I’ll wait in here. No need to hurry.”

I shook my head and slid into the driver’s seat. “It’s fine. I can read it when we get home.”

“Yeah.” Kieran was quiet for a few minutes as I drove, awkward silence blanketing us, until eventually he cleared his throat to speak. “So… what’s up with you and Eva, anyway?”

I looked at him sharply. “Nothing. We’re divorced.”

“You just seem really annoyed that she called earlier. And then she texted, too.”

“I am annoyed,” I conceded.

With a slow nod, he glanced at me before training his gaze back on the road. “Everything okay?” he repeated. He waved a hand to dismiss his questioning. “Never mind. It’s none of my business. I know that. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have even asked.”

That softened me a bit. “No, it’s fine. You’re allowed to be curious.” I found that the words rang true. I didn’t mind that he’d asked. It was almost a relief, the same way it felt to tell someone else about your terrible day or something weighing heavy on your mind. Even though I didn’t really want to talk about her, a part of me did, too. Not about the divorce, but about Eva’s call, about the fact that she was asking for some unknown favor, the fact that she still seemed to want me in her life. Her desire to keep me around was probably coming from her own guilt about how the divorce had played out, I knew that much, but that was the part I wanted to tell someone. Regardless, when it came to Eva, my walls were up and I didn’t know if I could trust Kieran, or even if I should bother trying to. I swallowed hard and nodded, still undecided.

“You don’t have to talk about it, but if you want to, I’m happy to listen.” His tone was so soft, so gentle and sincere that I couldn’t help but accept it as the truth.

“I don’t know what she wants. When she called earlier, I was so…” Flustered by you, I chose not to say. “Anyway, I didn’t really listen to what she was saying. She said she needed a favor but didn’t tell me what it was, and I just… cut her off and told her to text it to me. I haven’t read her text yet, though.”

“Why not?”

My throat tightened. “Because I don’t want to do her a favor. We’re divorced. We agreed on a clean break. I’m done with that part of my life.”

“I wonder if she might really need you in particular for something, whatever it is. Or is she just asking you because it’s convenient?”

I sighed. That was at the core of my annoyance, wasn’t it? “Convenient, probably. I can’t imagine she’d need me for anything specific. We don’t share property, all of my things are out of her house, and we didn’t have kids or pets to deal with.”

“That makes sense. I’d be annoyed by that, too.”

Somehow, hearing him validate my irritation relaxed me a bit. I nodded. “Thanks.”

“You want me to reply for you? Tell her you’re too busy to help her with whatever it is?”