Last Chance to Fall

by Kelsey Kingsley

  I chuckled, resting my head against her thigh. “And I’ve only just started.”

  “Nuh-uh. Your turn,” she said, through panted breaths of air, as one foot slid around my waist and toed at my erection.

  I shook my head slowly, taunting and teasing with one languorous swipe of my tongue. “We have all day,” I said, my voice resonating through her body, and she gasped as her eyes fluttered shut.

  Then, there was that damn door. “Are ya feckin’ kiddin’ me?” I grumbled, eyeing the feckin’ thing with the purest of hate. “Don’t you dare move,” I warned her as she pouted and pulled on her shorts.

  I stood up, and stalked over to throw it open.

  Ryan was on the other side, hair soaked and wearing a grin. “Hey Seanie.”

  “Perfect timin’, arsehole,” I grumbled, stepping aside. “Don’t you know how to use a feckin’ phone?”

  “Why call when I can see your beautiful face?” he asked as he spotted Lindsey on the couch, flushed and still settling her breathing, and he waved to her from the door. “Lindsey, wonderful to see ya haven’t gotten sick of him yet. I came around to ask if the two of ya wanted to stop by Paddy’s later for some dinner and birthday cake.”

  “Oh, yeah! Your niece’s birthday, right?” Lindsey asked, eyes darting between the two of us.

  I nodded and selfishly groaned, because as much as I loved Meghan and wanted to shower her with my affection, my body was in desperate need of some more attention and I wasn’t going to get it at Patrick’s house.

  “Don’t sound so happy about it,” Ryan said, smacking me against the shoulder.

  “Nah, I just—”

  “Ya just wanted to get your dick wet. I get it,” he said with a shrug.

  “Jesus Christ,” I grumbled, as Lindsey clapped her hands over her cheeks.

  I walked into the kitchen, annoyed with myself. Because it was never like me to put sex before family. To forget family for sex. I was the guy always prepared, the one who reminded other people of an impending date of importance. Not the guy too busy getting blowjobs to remember his niece’s birthday.

  Ryan followed and came up close against my ear. “If you let her go, you’re a feckin’ idiot, ya know that?”

  Ah, right. Those things I was too afraid to say. “She can’t stay. She won’t.”

  “And why is that?”

  I shrugged, bringing my shoulders to my ears. “I don’t feckin’ know, Ryan!” I hissed, barely above a whisper. “Oh, maybe because it’s feckin’ insane to tell a woman I met a few feckin’ days ago that I’m in love with her? Or maybe because it’s feckin’ crazy to ask her to live with me when I barely know her? Or, ya know, it could be a thousand other things. I don’t feckin’ know.”

  “Wait a minute,” he said, turning his back and leaning against the counter. “Go back to that first thing.”

  “No.” I stared out the window, watching the rain.

  “Christ, what the hell are you so feckin’ afraid of all the time?”

  Being impulsive. Making a mistake.

  Being like you.

  “I’m not you,” I finally said, settling for those three words. They were kinder.

  “The hell is that supposed to mean?”

  My voice wanted to shout with the magnitude of the emotions that coursed through my veins. They were driving me insane. I craved my calm, my quiet.

  She was making me crazy.

  “I’m not impulsive,” I said, focusing on keeping my voice level, hushed. “I don’t ask a woman I’ve known less than a week to move in with me.”

  “Yeah, and neither did I, before Snow.”

  “But you’ve spent your life doin’ crazy shite, Ryan,” I hissed, using his name as a curse. “That’s expected of you! When we heard about you and Snow, it was, ‘Oh, well, that’s Ryan for ya,’ and nobody thought anythin’ of it. But me? They’d have me stuffed into a straight-jacket.”

  “Yeah, well, when I heard about you packin’ up to spend four months in Ireland, I thought that was pretty insane. And you did that multiple summers in a row.”

  “I was visitin’ family, ya feckin’ idiot.” I rolled my eyes, opening the refrigerator for no particular reason and slammed it shut again.

  “Family you had met only twice before when we were kids,” he said, raising a finger. “And we’re not talkin’ about a week or even two here. Ya went for four months without knowin’ if you’d like them or not, and I’ve always been afraid to leave feckin’ Connecticut.”

  I crossed my arms over my heaving chest, considering the words he had shot at me. “Yeah, well, I—"

  “Or goin’ through eight years of feckin’ college,” and he shook his head, raking a hand through his black hair. “Ya know how stupid ya make me feel sometimes? I can’t ever have an intellectual conversation with ya, that’s for damn sure. You’re too feckin’ smart, and that’s crazy to me. That someone in our family could be feckin’ Valedictorian. I mean, what the hell, man.”

  He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Maybe we’re all feckin’ crazy Sean. Ya ever consider that? Paddy told me, when I first met Snow, that maybe it’s all about findin’ your type of crazy. But maybe, in your case, it’s about findin’ the one that brings the crazy out of ya. All I know is, I like ya better with her. You’re relaxed, you’re happy, and most importantly, you’re feckin’ nuts about her. There aren’t any rules with this shite. Patrick knew when he was feckin’ three years old, for cryin’ out loud, and he didn’t stop until he had her. You have her right now, and you’re actually thinkin’ about lettin’ her go, because it doesn’t play into some set of rules you’ve put on yourself? Forget the feckin’ rules, ya feckin’ idiot.”

  I turned to him and the stern, serious look he was shooting me. “Huh,” I said, scrubbing a hand over my chin.

  “What?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I just … can’t remember when you got so smart,” I said.

  The corner of his mouth quirked as he wrapped his arm around my neck. “Aww, Seanie, are we havin’ a moment?”

  “Don’t push your luck,” I laughed, shoving him off, as I thought about how much more I liked myself better with her too.

  ❧

  She told me she couldn’t stay. She told me this, but what if I asked her? What if I actually come out and told her I wanted her to stay? Would that make her feel trapped? Was it a choice she had to make on her own?

  This was the problem in knowing so little about the person you had fallen in love with. You didn’t know the things they needed or the things they wanted. How could you?

  But every day that passed, I was learning.

  I knew she giggled and squirmed when I licked that sensitive spot behind her knee. I knew she liked her pancakes slathered with butter and drenched in syrup. I knew she drank her coffee bitter and black, and closed her eyes when underneath the shower stream.

  Every little nuance, every little fact, I stored away to hold onto, and now I knew she really loved cake. A lot.

  Her lips closed around the fork. Her eyes fluttered shut as she tipped her head back. She hummed with delight, and as though on cue, Patrick and Ryan both pinned their eyes on me, eyebrows raised and smirking. As though I were up to something, and my cheeks lit on fire.

  “It’s good, isn’t it?” Mam said, stifling a giggle.

  Lindsey opened her eyes, and caught the table staring at her. She laughed through her embarrassment. “Oh, uh … yeah, it’s delicious.”

  “We get all our cakes from Patty’s Cakes in town,” Kinsey chimed in.

  “You say in town like it’s not a thirty-second walk down the street,” Lindsey replied with another laugh.

  Meghan rested her chin in her hand and asked, “Do you like it here?”

  Turning to the red-head, Lindsey said, “Are you kidding me? I love it here! It’s so cute. A lot better than where I come from. It has so much more character, and everybody is so nice.”

  Ryan cocked a brow at me and kicked my leg underneat
h the table. I grunted, and kicked him back. Da shot both of us suspicious glances. “Boys,” he reprimanded, and suddenly I was nine-years-old again as I felt the urge to say, “He started it.”

  “Where do you come from?” Meghan asked, ignoring us entirely, as she raised a suspicious eyebrow.

  Lindsey smiled. “Um … well, North Carolina, but that was a—”

  Patrick sighed. “Lindsey, you don’t have to explain anything. You’ll just have to excuse my daughter. She’s really nosy and can’t help herself.”

  Meghan rolled her eyes at her father. “Ugh, you’ll have to excuse my dad. He’s really lame and doesn’t know how to have a conversation.”

  “He’s supposed to be lame,” Lindsey said with a sure nod. “He’s a dad.”

  “That’s right; he is,” Kinsey grasped the opportunity and chimed in, handing Erin to Patrick’s hands. “And that’s why he’s going to go change this diaper.”

  Mam’s ears pricked up. “Oh, I can do it Kinsey, if Paddy would rather—”

  “Helen,” Da said, a gentle edge to his voice, “the kid never changes his own childrens’ diapers. What kind of example are ya settin’?”

  She nodded apologetically. “Y’know, you’re right. Paddy, you need to be takin’ more responsi—"

  Kinsey laughed, and my older brother glared at her. “What kind of lies are you tellin’ them?” he asked. She shrugged innocently, and he shook his head. “Oh well, excuse me. I guess I haven’t been payin’ the bills on my own house for the past year or anything,” he said with a dramatic eye roll.

  He looked to Lindsey. “Are families like this in North Carolina? Because if the answer is no, I might be relocating.”

  “Well, my parents have plenty of space in their house, if you want to move in,” Lindsey said, her voice quivering with laughter.

  Before Patrick could open his mouth, Kinsey pat him on the arm. “That’s great babe. But before you move out, why don’t you go and change that diaper, huh?”

  He stood up with a sigh, holding Erin to him, and walked out of the room, mumbling, “Ya know Erin, your mam doesn’t mean it when she bosses Daddy around. It’s just the only way she can feel like she has any say in anything. That’s why she has to feed lies to your Granny and Grandad too. It’s all she has.”

  Groaning, Kinsey planted her hands to her hips, shaking her head. “God, he is such an ass.” She looked to Snow, and said, “You’re stuck, sister, but,” she turned to Lindsey, “you still have a chance. Get out while you can before he puts a ring on your finger.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” she laughed. “I’m out of here on Sunday.”

  A thick silence fell on the table.

  That blunt reminder. That dull knife. It slashed upward from my gut to my heart, and there it stayed. A cold ache spread through my bones all the way to my fingers. My tongue felt too big, too dry inside my mouth, and I stood up, pushing away from the table. I asked if anybody needed a refill on their water, milk, whatever the feck they were drinking. They all declined, and I walked into the kitchen, where I leaned my forehead against a cabinet door.

  “You okay?”

  I turned around at the sound of Kinsey’s voice. She stood in the doorway with a stack of dirty dishes in hand, and I walked over to take them from her. “Yeah, I’m fine.” I put them in the sink, and she turned the tap on.

  “No, you’re not, but whatever. I’m not ripping information out of you.” She shrugged in typical Kinsey fashion, playing the nonchalant careless type. But then she added, “Uh … Sean?”

  “What?” I grumbled.

  “Is she really leaving on Sunday?”

  I nodded, crossing my arms over my chest. “Yep, looks like it.”

  “Are you stopping her?”

  I slid my tongue along my dry lips. “I might.”

  “Well,” she said, just as Patrick and the freshly changed Erin walked into the room, “all I know is, you Kinneys are persistent when you want something. I just hope you want her bad enough, because I think she’s worth it.”

  “I’ll kick your arse myself if you don’t at least tell her how ya feel,” Paddy said, shoving Erin into my arms. “Hold your niece while I wash my hands.”

  I grumbled a “yes, sir” as I left the room. Lindsey sat with Mam, Da, Meghan, Snow, and Ryan. Laughing. Sparkling. Her eyes met mine as I came to sit beside her again, and her cheeks radiated with a pink glow.

  “She likes you,” she said, and in front of my family, she leaned in to kiss me softly on the mouth.

  “Babies love Seanie,” Ryan tossed in. “It’s his sensitivity. They think he’s a woman.”

  “Well, you can kindly feck off,” I said with a laugh, bouncing Erin on my knee.

  “Ya should’ve seen him when Meghan was born,” he said, wrapping his arms around our fifteen-year-old niece on one side and his wife on the other. “For a while, he was the only one to make her stop cryin’. Remember that?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I remember. I’m surprised that you do, considerin’ you were never around,” I said, and turned to Meghan. “When ya were only a couple months old, your parents had me stayin’ over, just to rock ya at night so they could sleep.”

  Patrick walked in with a dishrag in hand, laughing. “Christ, that was forever ago. But now, all of ya gotta get out of my feckin’ house.”

  Meghan whined and looked up at him. “Come on Daddy. Just a little while longer.”

  “Nuh-uh. Sorry, Meg. It’s already after nine and you still have to finish your homework.”

  She sighed with a dramatic roll of her big blue eyes. “But it’s my birthday!”

  “Uh, excuse me, pal, but your birthday isn’t until Saturday. You don’t get to play that card until then,” he said, putting his parental foot down.

  “But I won’t be here on Saturday!” she protested. “So, here, it’s my birthday tonight.”

  “If you don’t watch your mouth, I’m tellin’ your mother you’re grounded. Then, there will be no birthday on Saturday,” he snapped back, and Meghan pouted. “Now, say goodnight and get upstairs.”

  “Goodnight,” she mimicked in an obnoxious tone, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing.

  “Meghan,” Kinsey said, chiming in. “Come on.”

  Outnumbered, Meghan sighed and made her way around the table. Hugging her Uncle Ryan and Aunt Snow, hugging her Granny and Grandad, hugging me, and even hugging Lindsey.

  “You didn’t get to show me how to make a fishtail braid,” Meghan said sadly, sticking her bottom lip out even further. “When will you be back?”

  Lindsey shut her eyes, and I willed myself to keep breathing. “I don’t know, sweetie,” she said, her voice tense. I watched her throat bob as the girl hugged her tighter, and when she let go, Lindsey’s long fingers swiftly wiped at the corners of her dark chocolate eyes, to not show anybody the sudden onset of shameful emotion.

  But I noticed.

  ❧

  “Your family is so nice,” she said quietly on the walk home.

  “They’re pretty great,” I agreed.

  We stopped at the bottom of the stairs leading to my apartment, and I was struck with the strangest déjà vu sensation. Those nearby memories of kissing her for the first time, at her request. It was only days ago, and yet, I felt as though she and I had been through two months worth of kisses since.

  I turned to face her, saw the tears glistening on her cheeks, and I found myself staring toward the buzzing of a feckin’ lamppost. I thought about issuing a complaint to the Mayor about it. It was so distracting. Too distracting, when there was obviously a pivotal moment at hand.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, not stepping forward to wrap her in my arms, but still keeping myself open.

  “They just …” She sniffled, wiping a hand over one cheek and then the other. “They just really make me feel like I’m part of something.”

  I tipped my chin to my chest, nodding. “Did ya ever consider that maybe ya are part of … somethin’?�
�

  Lindsey wiped her cheeks again. “Sean, I—”

  Don’t be afraid. “Look, I know you have your plans, but how about this? How about ya be my girlfriend for the next few days?”

  She blinked back a few more tears, stunned by the question. “What?”

  Then, I did step forward. The toes of my boots touched the toes of her sandals. I looked down, searched for her dark eyes in the buzzing lamppost light. Another life-changing moment at the foot of my stairs. “Be my girlfriend, until you’re gone.”

  Her fingers reached forward, brushing against the edge of my t-shirt, unable to resist the urge to touch me. “What’s the point?”

  “Because if this is my last chance to say that I had you—really had you—I want to take it.” She looked up to me, tears still glistening in her eyes. “Even if that means spendin’ all of forever, dyin’ of the worst broken heart I’ll ever know in my life.”

  “God,” she sputtered, a blubbered word surrounded by a burst of bastard tears. “You’re going to write a poem about that too, aren’t you?”

  “A whole feckin’ book.”

  I waited for her to make the move. Because it was scary—we were scary, and I said a silent prayer when her hands slid around my sides, around my back, and she pulled herself against me. I prayed as she pressed her sodden face to my chest, and I hoped she could hear my unspoken words in the beating of my heart.

  “Okay,” she said, nodding against me, and I hugged her shoulders. “I’ll be your temporary girlfriend.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN |

  Rehearsals & Rainchecks

  Friday

  Lindsey stepped out of the bathroom wearing a long flowered dress and high-heel sandals. Her face was done up with a light touch of makeup; not enough to disguise her natural beauty, but just enough to enhance it. She blushed at the sight of me in a button-down shirt and dress pants, and her blush deepened when I stepped forward to bend down and kiss lightly behind her ear.

  “You smell good,” she said, inhaling deeply.

  “Are ya sayin’ I don’t usually?” I asked with a chuckle, my short beard prickling the delicate skin along her neck, and she gasped as I tucked my nose into her hair and took a deep breath. “You’re makin’ it very hard for me to leave this apartment.”