A pulse thudded in her ears, a repetitive reminder of what she was about to lose. Something she’d never had, something she shouldn’t want, and yet when was the last time she’d felt so alive?
“But it still happened anyway,” Warren said. “If that’s true, why did it happen anyway? Because I don’t think I was the only one who wanted it. Was I?”
The world slowed around them. She opened her mouth to reply, but the answer was lost in this new in-between, with the streetlights flickering and rush-hour traffic lagging – as though everything, everyone, was waiting for the answer.
She couldn’t lie again. She also couldn’t tell him the truth: of course she’d wanted it, too. She could have stopped, but she’d been too wrapped up in him, too wrapped around him, to even think of it.
After what felt like an eternity, Warren gave an impassive nod. “Okay, Eiley. That’s fine.”
And then he became a small, distant dot in her life as he crossed the road and disappeared.
Just like she’d wanted.
Except she didn’t feel glad. As she returned to the bookstore, all that followed was more of the emptiness she’d been warring with on and off for years.
Eiley expected the onslaught of questions when she returned to the store, but it didn’t mean she was any better prepared to answer them. Her brother leaned against the counter, waiting for her like a disappointed father whose child had broken their curfew. She ignored him, picking up Saffron before her excitable hands tore apart one of the few books that were still in one piece.
“Harper, please tell your boyfriend to stop staring at me like that,” she said tersely.
“Believe me, I’ve tried.” Harper prodded Fraser’s stomach, which had grown much softer in recent months – from less time spent working and more time actually enjoying his life with Harper, which surely made him a hypocrite of the highest order.Hecould have romantic relations but Eiley couldn’t?
He yelped out an “Ow!” and batted Harper’s hand away, then resumed his glower. Harper rolled her eyes and reached out a hand to Brook. “C’mon, Brook. Let’s go and get ice cream while Uncle Fraser blows everything way out of proportion again.”
“Thanks a bunch,” Eiley muttered.
Eiley ruffled Brook’s hair and warned him to be good for his auntie. He rushed out with another book about firefighters clutched in his hands while he asked Harper if he could take something home for Sky, too. God, she hoped he wasn’t also bringing that book home. Watching him and Warren read together had left her all … jittery and full, insides seconds away from spilling through her ribs. Most men would have been frightened off when two children appeared moments after he’d kissed their mother. She’d expected him to scuttleaway like a deer in headlights – Finlay certainly had, and they were his bloody children. Instead, he’d patiently, openly, told Brook about having dyslexia, which made Eiley feel even worse for her comments in the pub.
She wondered what those low expectations said about her. Wondered what Warren exceeding them each time said abouthim.
“Out with it,” she ordered Fraser once the two had gone.
“He’s no good for you,” he stated immediately. “You said so yourself.”
“Yes, I did, which is why nothing happened.”
“That would be more convincing if you didn’t have a bloody hickey on your neck. Do you think I was born yesterday?”
“I think you’re acting like you were born about one hundred years ago, when women needed permission from their brothers to do literally anything.”
He gaped at her, speechless, as she raised an accusatory brow. She knew her brother. Knew that he hadn’t deserved that jab because he was likely just afraid of seeing her broken-hearted again. He was the most open-minded person she knew, and implying otherwise was cruel.
“That’s not fair,” he decided quietly. “I’m trying to look out for you.”
“I don’tneedyou to look out for me, Fraser.” Hurt crossed his features, but she couldn’t regret saying it. What had happened in that stockroom hadn’t been for him or for anyone else. It had been hers.Theirs. And yes, it had been a mistake. Yes, it had terrified her to get so close to another personagain, especially one she wasn’t sure she trusted, but she was more than capable of deciding whether it should happen without Fraser’s input. Sometimes, his care made her feel like a naive, incompetent nitwit, and she spent enough time thinking that about herself without his help.
“Just like you didn’t need me to look out for you when I tried to tell you that Finlay was a piece of shite?” he asked through clenched teeth.
Eiley flinched against the barbs in his voice, ones she’d never heard from him before.Camwas the harsh one. Fraser took on all her problems without complaint, even when she begged him not to. Even when it only made her feel like more of a burden.
But hehadwarned her a long, long time ago that she could do better than Finlay. Before Saffron and Sky had been born. Maybe even before Brook. It had only been little red flags then: fights where she’d always ended up being the one to apologise; money missing from their savings account for reasons never explained; no birthday or Christmas cards, even when he stopped at the paper shop every day. She’d thought that, over time, things would be different, and then, when Brook had come along, had learned to accept his shortcomings, because what mattered was that he was there. As long as that stayed true, she could convince herself he just loved her in his own way.
Needless to say, she hadn’t listened to Fraser’s advice, afraid that asking Finlay for any extra effort would push him away and she’d be left alone. She’d loved him enough that the thought of losing him was worse than the thought of settlingfor the bare minimum. She regretted that now, but she hadn’t known back then that she’d deserved somebody who would consider her. That a man who couldn’t love her properly certainly didn’t have the heart for fatherhood.
That suggestion thatshe’dbeen the fool to hope for more still haunted her, and to hear it from Fraser felt like a physical blow. He might not say it outright, but he, along with everyone else, thought she was a fool for staying so long. For loving Finlay even when he hadn’t deserved it. She was clearly incapable of choosing someone decent, and maybe that meant she deserved to be hurt.
Well, never again.
She felt herself shrink, anger ebbing into acceptance. Maybe she did still need a reminder from the person who knew her best. What good was arguing with him when she clearly wasn’t capable of doing anything right?
