“Isn’t he?” Jac says as they wrap an autumn leaf garland around my light fixture. “At this point, I don’t think I’ll survive without a chef in my life.”
“Spoiled,” Finn teases.
As expected, I don’t know anyone who walks in my front door throughout the afternoon. They arrive with food and wine and booze and games. My record collection serves as the soundtrack of the day, people excitedly taking turns picking the next album. By the time everyone leaves later that night, my heart and my belly are full in ways I didn’t know I needed.
I settle on my couch, the echoes of laughter and Jac’s ridiculous decorations still clinging to the walls around me.
For all the jokes that had been made about a pros and cons list over the last several months, I hadn’t actually made one. I flip open my big sketch book to a blank page and begin writing. When I’m done, one side is significantly longer than the other.
The pros column is brimming with many things Cillian had a hand in, but my choice to stay or go never could have been determined by him alone. No matter how much I cared for him, the truth was I’d been using him as an excuse to put off this decision that was mine alone to make. I couldn’t stay for him just like I couldn’t—shouldn’t—wait for life to force my hand as it had so many times in my past.
It was time to choose whether I would build a life that was full and vibrant. One that I could be proud of—just for me.
I set the sketchbook aside and grab my laptop, opening the lease agreement my landlord sent me weeks ago.
CHAPTER 29
Cillian
The familiar scentsof Rosado’s Gym—leather, bleach, and decades of sweaty bodies—cocoon me. They blot out the scent memory of Joey’s house and Toni’s perfume.
Music blares in my headphones. Loud enough to drown out the echoes of my aunt’s grief and Toni’s laugh.
Sweat drenches my body, stinging my eyes. I don’t wipe it off, hoping the salt will burn away my final image of Joey and how radiant Toni looked that last morning at the cabin.
Each hit sends the bag swaying, the impact reverberating up my arms. Easier to focus on that than what it felt like to comfort Ginelle at the funeral or to cradle Toni against me at the end of a long day.
My muscles are tired.
My leg is screaming.
I keep going. I need to keep going. I need there only to be this, not a past filled with mistakes and bad calls. Not the compounding heartbreak of the last few weeks.
Just one hit after another after another after...
I stumble forward half a step when, for some reason,the bag isn’t in range of my next swing. Confused, I finally wipe the sweat from my eyes.
Oliver’s annoyed face appears from behind the bag. He gestures for me to pull out my earbuds with his free hand, the other keeping the bag pulled back.
I oblige. “What?”
“You trying to break your knuckles or just bloody my bag?” He asks.
My hands flex in response, pain registering for the first time. I look down, my wrappings red-stained, gloves abandoned on the floor beside me.
“Both.”
“Nice.” He pushes the bag back at me with jarring force.
“Oh wow, he is alive,” Lucy snarks.
“Looks like it,” Oliver says. He tosses his button down over the ropes, picking up my roll of tape to wrap his own knuckles.
“Did you forget how to use your phone or something?” she asks.
“I’ve been busy.” It’s not a lie.
With Ginelle focused on helping with Joey’s arrangements, we’d been down a manager, making things tough, even with the two new people we brought on. This meant I’d been spending almost every day and night at the bar. And that wasn’t looking like it was going to change anytime soon.
