by Charish Reid
Aiden propped his chin on his knuckles and stared at her. His forest-green eyes glittered in the pub’s low lights. “Exhausted.”
She nodded. Okay then. His expression shifted from tired to pensive in a flash. He had something else on his mind, she just couldn’t decipher the answer in his eyes.
“Darling, I thank you for being with me during an especially low point,” he said through a forced smile. “But I don’t want to spend any more time on my da when we have other issues.”
Antonia averted her gaze, doing a quick scan of the pub patrons. Everyone had nearly full drinks. The patron who sat before her, required her full attention and she couldn’t bear to give it to him. She finally understood what was bothering him. It was them.
“We have to talk about it at some point,” he said in a soft voice. His fingers grazed the top of his small glass as he stared at her, his expression drawn.
“I liked it much better when we could keep pretending.”
“I did too,” Aiden admitted. “But I’m finding it hard at the moment.”
When she finally met his gaze, she exhaled. “I got an email,” she said. “From another publisher.”
He only nodded.
“They’re buying out my old company and they’d like to interview me for my boss’s old job. I would be running an imprint.”
Aiden swirled the contents in his glass before taking a sip. “When?”
Antonia waited a beat before answering him. “Thursday.”
He looked down at the bar, fiddled with his coaster, and nodded again. What she hadn’t told him was that she’d already searched the flights. She found a way to exchange her return flight for a straight shot from Shannon to Chicago and saved it. She’d held off purchasing it because she was frightened of leaving him. “You should go.”
Her heart stilled.
“If you’ve got a job to return to, I think you should take it,” he continued. His demeanor shifted into something harder. He regarded her like he had his father. The bar became a giant chasm between them.
“I don’t even know if I’ll get it. They need to interview me like anyone else.”
He shook his head. “In my experience, they do that to complete the necessary paperwork. If they’re really in-house hiring for a new division, they’re going to take the most qualified person for the position. You’re it, love.” Aiden tossed back his drink.
Antonia’s heart sank as she listened to his matter-of-fact tone. Where was the talk about her book and how important it was? They’d argued about this very thing not but two or three days ago and now he was tossing back liquor and acquiescing all over the place. He wasn’t going to stop her, he wasn’t even going to throw out a mild objection. “You’re probably right.”
“You have to go back at some time, darling,” he said. “And when you do, you need a job.” Aiden held out his glass.
She regarded him and his glass warily. “Would you like some water?”
“No, love,” he said, shaking his head. “But who knows, maybe you’ll visit?”
Antonia took his glass and filled it with a single shot and handed it back. “I can,” she said carefully. “And you can visit me too.”
He nodded, forcing a smile. “Sure. We’ll just line up our tight schedules, book flights with precision, and spend four days with one another. Easy peasy,” he said. “With the time difference, we’ll just Skype at odd hours of the day, the rest of the time.”
“Aiden...”
“Yes, darling.”
“I don’t have to go now,” she said. “I could stay for the next week like I had planned.”
He nodded. “But that was before you found out you had a second chance.”
Unsure of what to say, Antonia simply stood there and watched the man she had feelings for wall himself from her. When Danny came back from his smoke break, she was still silent and Aiden had continued drinking.
“Ah, the professor is here,” he said, clapping Aiden on the back.
Aiden smiled. “You know I’m a constant presence when I come back to Tully Cross.”
Relieved of her bar duties, Antonia returned to the other side where she belonged. However, she was hesitant to sit with Aiden. His new distant attitude was unsettling after all they went through yesterday. She wasn’t expecting any brash proclamations of love, but she certainly needed him to say something more encouraging than “you should go.”
Danny flipped his towel over his shoulder. “How’d she do?” he asked Aiden.
“She pours fair and kisses even better,” Aiden said, tipping his glass toward the barman. “Beats looking at you while I drink.”
“Are ye sayin’ I ain’t pretty?” Danny asked, fluttering his lashes.
As the men shared a laugh, Antonia’s irritation pushed her to snap. “Can we talk outside?”
Aiden set down his glass. “Of course.”
He took his time getting off his stool and followed her wordlessly out the door into the cool damp air. Anger made her skin itch and her heart thud in her chest. If he wasn’t going to talk about their status, she was prepared to go back to the cottage and purchase her ticket.
* * *
He knew she was angry.
Aiden saw it in the way she held her spine erect and clenched her fists. She shoved the door open and let it swing without regard for him as he followed. Antonia paced the sidewalk, looking down at the ground. Even the cool country night couldn’t stop her steaming. “What would you like to talk about?” Aiden said, leaning against the side of the building.
She stopped her pacing and faced him with hands planted on her hips. “What do you think?”
“Your departure from Ireland?” The thought of her leaving him was ripping his heart into pieces, but he tried to maintain a passive expression.
“Sure, that’s a start,” she said. “I’m not going to pretend that I’m excited about it. I’m scared, actually.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of,” he said, pulling away from the wall, drawing her into his arms. The fear in her eyes gutted him as he squeezed her tight. He nuzzled her hair and inhaled deeply. What he wouldn’t give for more time to embrace her tenderly... But time was escaping them, surely she understood that. “When you get started, you’ll get to show them what you’re made of. If anyone can do this job, it’s you.”
She looked up with a frown. “I’m not... That’s not what worries me.”
He took a deep breath. What she was asking for was damn near impossible. Aiden tried to ignore how her body shook and focus on reality. People leave, and those who are left behind must move on and make the best of it. Antonia needed someone steady in her life, not a man who was still drifting, barely keeping himself afloat. “Darling, I don’t know what else to do but let you go.”
She pulled away from his grasp. “What are you saying?”
Aiden didn’t know where he was going with this conversation. Talking to his stonewalled father was infinitely easier than this. All he knew was that he cared for her. He cared enough to let her go and let her find her way. “Antonia, you have an interview.”
“I do.” She folded her arms across her chest. “But I could stay. I said that in the bar and you didn’t even sound interested. I’m not trying to beg, Aiden, but I need to know if I should stay.”
“I’d love for you to stay, but—”
“Then there’s no ‘but’ about it,” Antonia said, her voice climbing. “If you wanted me to stick around so we can figure out...us, I would.”
Aiden looked up at the night sky and sighed. She spoke from the heart, where he desperately wanted to follow, but he was stuck in his head. Everything she said made sense, he felt it everywhere in his being, and it made his skin itch not to touch her. An invisible rope pulled him to her warmth. The tremble of her bottom lip made his heart fall. She’s not your lighthouse, boyo. She�
��s not here to save you... “I want you to stay, darling. But it would be temporary, wouldn’t it? Holidays have to come to an end eventually, if not today, then two weeks from now. Where will we be then? My life, if you haven’t already noticed, is messy. The last thing I want is to drag you down with it.”
Antonia shook her head. “Why are you still making this about your father, Aiden?”
“It’s not about him,” he protested in anger. He wanted her, badly, but that want warred with an insistent message: People leave, people leave, people leave. Liam left because Aiden wasn’t good enough. Lisa left because he still wasn’t good enough. Antonia would soon wise up. It was best to stop this now before anyone got hurt. “I’m frightened about my future just like you. If I don’t get my shit together and solidify my career, I’m out on my arse. It just wouldn’t be good for you, Antonia. At least you have the chance for something stable.”
“Then just fucking do it,” she said in exasperation. “Stop talking about it and do it. If it helps, pretend you’re baking a cake. Confidence, remember?”
Aiden exhaled a mirthless laughed. “A cake? My dear, this isn’t a cute kitchen experiment based on blind luck and whim. This is real life.”
“Hypocritical and lacking critical thinking skills,” Antonia shot back. “Those are the makings of a pretty terrible teacher.”
Aiden was at the end of his rope. “We don’t have to do this,” he tried. “We don’t have to spend our last hours fighting.”
“Do you even know what we’re fighting about?”
Aiden didn’t answer. Instead, his gaze dropped to the pavement.
He shouldn’t have been surprised when Antonia walked away from the discussion, but the sound of her hard steps against the gravel kicked him in the gut. Aiden understood what self-preservation looked like; he was currently denying his own feelings to make this easier on them both. He meant only half of what he said. Of course he didn’t want her to go back home, but he wasn’t living in a dream world. He wouldn’t allow her to get attached to a dream world either.
But every step she took, pulled the invisible rope around his heart until it threatened to snap. Aiden left the sidewalk and followed her across the street, his chest tightening the closer he got to her.
“Antonia, please.”
“No,” she said, breathing hard. “You don’t want to fight.”
“I don’t,” he said, half-jogging to catch up with her. “I just want to hold you and kiss you.”
She spun around, her eyes blazed with anger. “That’s the problem,” she said.
Aiden stopped short. “I don’t want us to part like this,” he said loudly. “I just want you to be happy.”
“And I’m telling you what it takes, you’re just not listening to me. I’m sick of dealing with men who can’t get their shit together. Between the ones who gaslight me and lie to my face and the ones who can’t figure out what they want, I’m sitting here looking foolish.”
“Don’t compare me to your ex-boyfriend,” Aiden said. “I’ve never lied to you and I’d never cheat on you.”
Her laugh was humorless. “Derek was enough for me,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t need another man wallowing in their pitiful daddy issues while the women in their lives are desperate to just fucking live.”
“Jaysus, can you cut me some slack, Antonia?” he asked. “I’m trying my hardest to make sense of my life and you’ve only been here for a snapshot of it.”
“Everyone is trying to make sense of their lives! How do you think I got here? I was escaping a mental breakdown and my only choice was to run to another country for some peace and quiet.”
“I’m not going to have a pissing contest with you over who’s got it worst, I just want you to give me some credit,” Aiden shouted. “I care for you, Antonia. I really do. I just...”
“You just can’t fight,” she finished. Her shoulders slumped in resignation. “Goodbye, Aiden.”
“Goddamn it,” he said, taking a step toward her. “Please don’t do this.”
“I’m not doing anything that you didn’t do fifteen minutes ago,” Antonia said as she walked away. “You told me how you felt and I should have listened.”
“Antonia!” She unlocked her cottage door and disappeared inside. He stood speechless, an inert spectator of his own life. A life that was quickly spiraling toward a lonesome status quo. It was alarming how his inability to do anything had propelled her out of his life. His idiotic plan to push her away was a success. She may have closed the door on him, but, brick by brick, he’d built the first wall. One excuse after another fell from his lips and killed any possibility for a dream world. He’d helped her make her decision. Antonia was going home and it was possibly the easiest thing he’d fucked up in a long while.
If that was the case, Aiden couldn’t be there when she took off. If he heard her car door slam shut in the morning, he’d lose it. If it was over, he had to quickly move forward. In a state of numbness, he entered his own cottage and began gathering his things. He turned his brain off and worked on autopilot as he put dishes back into cupboards and tossed the contents of the refrigerator into garbage bags. Outside, the lights of Antonia’s cottage were on and music was playing. When Aiden moved back inside, toward his bedroom, he glanced at the wall separating their homes and tried not to imagine what she was doing.
Booking her plane ticket. Because people leave.
He walked to the wall and stood there for a moment, pressing his ear to the smooth surface, and listened for signs of life. Muffled sounds of slow R&B leeched through, hitting his heart with an overwhelming sadness. Yesterday morning, they had shared a bed. Tonight, they were parting ways. It was his fault and the only solution he had was to leave. He would rather leave like a coward in the night, than go over there and tell her the first lie of their relationship: It doesn’t matter, Antonia. We’ll find a way to make it work.
Aiden forced himself to move away from the wall and go back to packing. In less than an hour, he loaded up his car. He turned one last time to Antonia’s cottage. The lights were still on, but he sensed no movement. His feet were frozen as he stood outside in the cold dark. Part of him had just enough energy to bang on her door and tell her to stay, if only for just a week more. He wanted to gather her into his arms and kiss her passionately, hoping he could show her what he couldn’t articulate. The other part of him was the fool who’d ran out of options and had already told her as much. He fell in line with the latter. Aiden left his house key inside the lock and got into his car. Soon, Tully Cross and Antonia were in his rearview mirror.
Chapter Thirty-One
The next morning, Aiden was awoken by his doorbell. The sound traveled upstairs and jarred him from fitful sleep. He rolled over in bed and cracked his eyes against the morning light. He was back in his own bed. In Claddagh. He struggled to remember the night before, but it came back in foggy patches. The pain in his hand was a helpful reminder that he’d done something foolish. The doorbell rang again, pushing him from his bed.
“I’m coming!” he bellowed. He put on a shirt and loped down the stairs. From the stairwell, he could see his mother and niece peering into his living room window. “Fuck me,” he muttered under his breath. What day was it? Aiden was certain that it was only Thursday and he didn’t have to see them until tomorrow. He was also in a state that he didn’t want on display in front of his mother and a twelve-year-old.
He opened the door to a worried-looking Clare. “What are you doing here?” he asked, squinting against the sun.
His mother pursed her lips. “Is that anyway to greet your own mother, Aiden Donagh Byrnes?” She grabbed Soircha by the hand and pushed her way past him. “You smell like a distillery.”
Aiden closed the door behind them and rested his head against it. “I had a rough night,” he said.
“Well you’re about to have a rough morning if you
don’t adjust your attitude,” Clare said in a huff.
“Are you drunk, Uncle Aiden?” Soircha asked. There was concern in her voice.
“Only slightly, love,” he admitted as he carried himself to the couch and plopped down. Soircha sat beside him and laid her head on his chest. Her fluffy blonde curls tickled his nose and obscured the vision of his mother whose fists were planted on her hips.
“Really, Aiden,” Clare admonished.
He reached a weak hand up and ruffled Soircha’s hair. “I’m sorry,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“I tried calling you last night,” Clare said, drifting to the kitchen. Plates clattered and water ran as she put the kettle on the stove. “Of course, you didn’t answer. Too busy to take a phone call. I thought we’d show up early since you have your conference today.”
He wasn’t going to be distracted by his mother’s passive aggressive tone. “What are you really doing here?” he whispered to his niece.
“Nana wanted to meet your girlfriend,” she said softly.
Aiden closed his eyes. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“How did you scare this one off?” Clare asked, breezing back into the living room. She sat on the chair across from him and eyed him suspiciously.
He cracked one eye open and saw that she wasn’t joking. “Mother, don’t.”
“I’m just concerned that one of my sons is incapable of bending to the will of any woman because he’s so bullheaded. What was it this time?”
“What does it matter?” he asked. “It’s not like you were a fan of Lisa “Lace-Curtains” Brennan. How did you get so invested in a woman you’ve never met?”
“Where is your bottle of Jameson?”
He lifted his head from the couch and stared at his mother head-on. She met his gaze with her stern teacher’s glare. “It’s upstairs.”
