by Sienna Blake
“Thanks, guys,” I said to my brothers as my door swung open.
I stepped forward to gain my freedom but Niall didn’t move aside from the doorway. “I don’t always agree, you know,” he said in a soft voice. “That girl needs protecting. But try to keep your nose clean, okay? Don’t want to see you back here anytime soon.” He stepped back to let me walk through.
“Thank you,” I said as I passed him.
“Yeah, yeah, get the fuck out.”
The metal-on-metal crash of the door closing made me jump, the echo sounding in my ears like a warning clang.
My brothers dropped me off at my place.
They had all asked about Aubrey in the car. The truth was, even I didn’t know. She had been shutting me out more and more since it happened. I thought that her coming to The Jar was a sign that things were turning a corner.
But what happened tonight… The hopeless look on her face as I was taken away by the Garda scared me.
I ran up the stairs two at a time towards my door, my heart banging against my ribs. I needed Aubrey, needed to feel her in my arms, to tell her that everything would be okay, to promise her it would be. I didn’t know how I would keep that promise, but I would find a way.
Where there was love, there was hope.
I unlocked my door and barreled in, my eyes seeking the face of the woman I loved.
Aubrey and Candace were sitting close together on my couch, talking. As soon as they spotted me, their voices dropped. Aubrey looked at me. But the way she was looking at me was hollow, like she wasn’t really here.
I glanced at Candace and found pity there, a sad smile flashed then disappeared, a brief sorry.
My guts twisted.
“I’ll wait outside,” Candace said to Aubrey so softly I almost missed the words. Candace refused to look at me as she walked past me.
The door closed behind me with a heavy resigned click. That sound propelled me into action.
I moved towards her. “Aubrey, I—”
“Please, don’t come any closer.” She stood, holding her hands out towards me like she was trying to hold me back.
I skidded to a halt several feet away from her, but it might have well been a mile.
“If you do, I might not have the strength to…” She trailed off.
The emptiness left behind in the silence began to buzz in my ears. I swallowed hard. “Strength to…?”
She shook her head, her hair falling about her face partly hiding her eyes from me. “I can’t stay here anymore.”
“In this apartment? Rey, you know I don’t care about rent or—”
“No. I mean here…in Ireland.”
Her words, so deceptively soft, yet they hit me with the force of a cannonball to the chest. I must have misheard her. Misunderstood.
“I’m moving back to the US,” she whispered, drawing in a deep breath as fresh tears filled her eyes.
“No.” She couldn’t. I waited four years for her. I couldn’t lose her. Now that I’d had a taste of life with her. I needed her like I needed air.
Her eyes travelled my face, hesitating at my busted lip before scanning the rest of me. “What happened last night will keep happening,” she said softly, nodding at my mouth before looking up into my eyes. “You won’t always be around to protect me.”
Her words felt like spears of failure. She was right. I couldn’t be her bodyguard every single second of the day. She couldn’t live her life in this apartment, hiding from the world.
“Even if I had the strength to ignore the public backlash,” she continued, “sooner or later, someone will put two and two together. You and your brothers will be exposed.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do. I won’t risk you or your brothers.” Her lips curved a tiny bit in a brave smile that didn’t reach her eyes or ease the pain in her expression.
She was doing this to protect me. I was the one who was supposed to protect her. I failed.
She was right.
She had to leave.
We had to leave.
I nodded. “Okay, so we leave. We move to the States.”
Her eyes widened. “W-We?”
“I’m coming with you.”
She blinked at me, fresh tears brimming her lids. “Oh, Noah,” she breathed the words out. She shook her head. “You have the bar here—”
“I’ll sell it.”
She looked stunned. “But you love The Jar.”
“It’s just a damn bar.” I would sell it in a heartbeat if it meant not losing her. There was nowhere she would go that I wouldn’t follow.
“Your brothers are here. Darren, Eoin, Michael…”
I stepped closer to her. “They are not my future; you are.”
I felt like I was fighting the hardest battle I’d ever fought, yet it was without violence or raised voices. This exchange of words was more terrifying than anything I’d experienced before, and the stakes—losing her—were the highest I’d ever known.
“Your ma is here, and she needs you. She needs you,” she repeated with more force.
I opened my mouth. Then shut it. What could I counter with? That my ma didn’t need me? My chest squeezed.
I cursed every God and deity under the sun for making me choose to have only one of the two women I loved.
“I could come back to visit…” My voice was quiet, low, almost resigned.
Aubrey shot me a small smile. “Your life is here, Noah.”
“So is yours.”
She shook her head.
I wanted more than anything to pull her into my arms. But I couldn’t move, feeling like I was sinking into the quicksand.
“Goodbye, Noah. Thank you for everything.” She tried to move past me.
The threat of her leaving was enough to unfreeze me. I stepped in front of her, blocking her path. “Don’t do this.”
“I’m sorry, Noah.”
“We can figure something out. I’ll fix this.”
“You can’t,” she said, her voice choking up a bit like she was holding back tears.
“Do you love me?”
“It’s not about love.”
“It’s a simple question, Rey. Do you love me?”
“With all my heart.”
I grabbed her hands in mine. “Where there’s love, there’s hope. Remember? That’s what you taught me.”
Her eyes filled with tears as she tugged her hands from me and pressed them to her face. “Please, Noah. I can’t—I just can’t…”
“But there’s hope,” I begged, feeling like I was hanging desperately onto a sinking lifeboat.
There was hope.
Right?
Aubrey let out a huge sob, the sound of her pain tearing my heart into pieces. She pushed past me and flung open the door.
I couldn’t move to stop her.
The love of my life just walked—ran—out of my life.
Aubrey
On the sidewalk, I collapsed into Candace’s arms. She began to speak quietly to me in Portuguese, the words comforting even though I had no idea what she was saying.
He’d come out after me, wouldn’t he?
I mean, I know I ran out, but that was because I had no choice. Our situation was hopeless.
Right?
“Where there is love, there’s hope.” Noah’s voice echoed in my head.
But the door didn’t open. He didn’t come after me.
Candace slipped an arm under my shoulder and guided me to her car, my knees trembling, threatening to give out. A burning ache crept up my chest and settled into the back of my throat.
In the car, Candace paused, her hands on the steering wheel. “Amiga, are you sure you’re doing the right thing?”
No one had figured out I was hiding out here. There were no microphones shoved in my face, no one screaming personal questions at me or banging on the car windows.
The vultures hadn’t found out…yet.
But they would. I had to leave to protect the man I l
oved. It was the right thing to do. Even if it meant that Noah would hate me forever.
I nodded. I was doing the right thing. I was doing the right thing. I just had to say it over and over again until I believed it. Even if it felt like I couldn’t breathe around the words.
As Candace pulled the car away from the curb, I lifted my head to Noah’s apartment. I don’t know what I was expecting. Hoping. Maybe to see his face one last time, watching me from the window.
His blank windows stared back at me, curtains drawn.
Silent and devoid of hope.
Noah
Eoin was the last of my brothers to show up at my apartment, pink-faced and dripping sweat. I stared at him as he stood outside my door. There was already a small lake collecting at his sneakers.
“What?” he asked.
I raised an eyebrow at him.
“I was at the gym.”
The other eyebrow went up.
“You said it was an emergency,” Eoin said with a huff.
I stepped aside to let him in. “Fine. Come in, just…don’t sit on anything. Or touch anything. Or drip on—”
“Yeah alright, asshole,” he grumbled, making a point to brush past me with his shoulder, wiping sweat off onto me.
“Jaysus, boy,” Darren piped up from my couch, “did you forget to dry off after your shower?”
“You know,” Michael said, “there is this thing called a towel.”
“Fuck all of you. I’m going back to the gym.” Eoin turned on his heel.
“Stay. Please. I need your help.”
My words stopped him dead in his tracks.
I looked across at the faces of all my brothers. “All of you.” I closed the front door and turned to face my brothers again.
Darren and Michael were sitting on my couch.
Eoin was standing at their side.
These three men would walk into hell beside me. And I for them. For the first time since Aubrey walked out of my life, I felt hope. “She’s leaving,” I said in the suddenly quiet room. I didn’t even have to say who she was. They knew. “She broke up with me and is moving back to the States. Forever.” There it was. The truth hung out to dry between us.
For a second, they all just stared at me, unmoving.
“She can’t,” Eoin cried. “But you and she…”
“Can you blame her for leaving?” I replied. “With everything that has happened.”
“You could go with her,” Michael said quietly. “Ma would understand.”
I shook my head. “She doesn’t want me to.”
“You can’t give her up without a fight,” Darren said.
Both Eoin and Michael agreed with a murmur and nod of their heads.
“I’m not planning to. That’s why I called a meeting. I need a plan. To fix this. To get her back. Please. Help me.”
Aubrey
It had been two days since I split up with Noah. I could hardly find the energy to get out of bed. Out of bed being a cute term when I really meant off Candace’s couch. Candace had been kind enough to let me stay with her for the time being until I could book my flight back to Austin.
My suitcases were packed already, crammed into a corner of her living room, ready to be shipped off with me to a home that didn’t feel like home anymore.
I’d given notice to my landlord. Candace and another girl from the bar had been kind enough to go back to my place and pack everything up for me. When they’d gotten back, Candace had confided in me that the media was still camped out there. It made me sick to think they were practically living outside my old apartment waiting to tear me up.
I had to leave.
I sat on the couch, my laptop in my lap, staring at the flight booking web page. I had to leave. I couldn’t keep living like this, cooped up in someone else’s house, unable to even leave for fear of being spotted. I couldn’t keep living out of suitcases and waiting for the inevitable to happen. Eventually, someone would figure out where I was. Candace didn’t deserve for me to mess up her life too.
I needed to book my flight. I needed to bite the bullet and get it done. My cursor hovered over the confirm button. Noah’s face sprang into mind, his voice in my ear.
“Don’t do this.”
“I’m sorry, Noah.”
I closed my laptop and slipped it back on the coffee table before curling myself into a ball. Tomorrow, I’d book the flight and leave this life behind forever. Tomorrow, it would be easier.
“We can figure something out. I’ll fix this.”
“You can’t.”
Tears stung in my eyes, blurring my vision, as agony rippled through my chest. I sucked in a deep breath through my nose and let it out slowly. Would this pain ever lessen?
“Do you love me?”
“It’s not about love.”
“It’s a simple question, Rey. Do you love me?”
“With all my heart.”
“Where there’s love, there’s hope. Remember? That’s what you taught me.”
They said that time heals all wounds. So why did my pain grow as the minutes ticked by?
Noah
My pulse was thundering in my ears. It might work. It had to work.
It was a good idea, one that took all our brainpower and days of talking and thinking and strategizing to reach.
We were back at my place, my brothers and me. We all knew the parts we had to play. Eoin and Michael were making calls, pulling all the strings that they had access to. Darren, on his laptop, was typing away like mad, his expression taut like he knew exactly what was riding on him.
A calling tone sounded in my ear. Come on, pick up.
“Noah,” Danny said when he answered. “Man, I’m sorry for what the media is doing to Aubrey. I wanted to call, but I figured you needed space and time.”
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it.
“How is she coping?”
“Not good, Danny. Not fucking good. I need your help again.”
“Anything.”
I took a moment to thank my lucky stars for people like this in my life, the ones who backed me without hesitation, without question, and without expecting anything in return. These were my people. The ones who mattered, anyway.
I let him in on the plan and he agreed, promising to make calls himself and rope some other people into it too, before we said our goodbyes.
I had another call to make. One I felt less sure of. This was the tricky one, the one that could fall apart or go wrong very quickly. I had to put aside my feelings for the man to ask him for a favor—not my favorite spot to be put in. But it would be worth it. All of it was worth it if I could get this to work.
I dialed the number and only had to wait half a ring for a response.
“Jason Reilly speaking.” He sounded a bit preoccupied…until I spoke.
“It’s Noah O’Sullivan. From the fundraiser.”
“Who?”
“Aubrey Campbell’s boyfriend,” I lied just a little.
Silence.
Then a cautious, “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to give you an exclusive scoop about Aubrey. But there’s a catch,” I said.
There was a shorter pause this time.
“I’m listening,” he said.
Aubrey
Knock, knock.
Oh God. They’d finally found me.
I stared at Candace’s apartment front door, imagining a horde of reporters on the other side.
Candace and her housemates weren’t home. I was here alone. I couldn’t send them to deal with whoever was knocking.
Maybe they’d go away.
The door banged again.
Fuck.
I slipped off the couch and crept to the front door in my socks. Placed my eye at the peephole, my breath stuck in my lungs.
Noah’s face stared back at me.
My heart squeezed painfully. I snatched my eye off the peephole and leaned my back against the door. What was he doing here?
My
mouth went dry, my heart thundering in my chest. I couldn’t open the door to him. If I did, I’d give in. I hadn’t even worked up the strength to book my tickets. I’d have no chance of convincing him that I didn’t want to be with him if I opened that door.
“Aubrey?” His beautiful deep voice came muffled through the wood panel. “I know you’re there.”
I let out an eep and slapped my hand over my mouth.
“Please open the door.”
I wanted to. So badly. But I was terrified to. I wasn’t strong enough to walk away from Noah again. Doing it the first time almost killed me.
“I just want to talk. To say goodbye, if you’re set on leaving.”
My heart cracked. How could I deny him—deny either of us—this final farewell? He had been so much a part of my life these last four years. He’d continue to be part of me forever.
Maybe saying goodbye to Noah would give me the strength to close this chapter of my life.
With shaking hands, I unlocked the door and opened it.
Noah was as gorgeous as ever, not just through my eyes, but through my heart. Even with the dark circles under his eyes, the worried press to his lips, the hollowness to his cheeks. I wanted to pull him into my arms, to kiss his eyelids. To rest my head on his chest and listen to him breathing.
I still loved him so much. Opening the door was a mistake.
“Hey,” he said, that single word so full of longing, his eyes drinking me in.
“Hey,” I breathed, my hand dropping from the door. There was no way I could shut the door in his face.
No way.
“This might be too much for me to ask of you but…”
Anything. Noah, you know you can ask me for anything.
“Will you come with me one last time before you leave Ireland?”
Anywhere. I’d go anywhere with him. I wanted to step into his arms, have him wrap me up and take me away. Wherever he wanted to go.
I swallowed, trying to keep myself from leaping at him to close the distance. “I don’t know, Noah.”
“Please. I want to show you something.” The look on his face was filled with desperate longing.
