“Tell me you intend to put him out of his misery? He’s a right sap when he’s heartbroken.”
Eiley hesitated, her hope renewing. “He’s … heartbroken?”
“Oh, aye. Pathetically.”
Which meant it wasn’t too late to fix it, she decided, already turning to go.
Warren rested his back against the railing of the scaffolding, the stars blinking through fine wisps of cloud above him. Between him and them stretched an almost completed roof. By the new year, he might actually have a home. Or a house, at least.
He offered a sombre smile to the slate roof tiles, imagining the pride his parents would feel to see the farmhouse as something more than ashes again. He’d tried to maintain some of the old structure, to mirror the way it had once looked, with its traditional grey stone masonry and graceful proportions. He tried not to think about the part that would come after the work was all done: wandering the rooms on his own, cooking for only himself. Maybe he’d get a dog or a home gym.
But then what?
In the lowlands, a firework burst into the sky, forming a spiralling constellation of golds, silvers, and pinks. He turned to watch, wondering if Eiley and the kids had enjoyed their night, or whether those silent fireworks were another piss-poor idea he shouldn’t have bothered with. She’d probably had plans with the family.
“Just stop, Warren,” he muttered to himself, and tried to enjoy the display.
Then, instead of another burst of fireworks, headlights broke through the darkness that wrapped around the farmhouse, and he peered in an attempt to identify the driver, or at the very least the car.
When he saw the Clio, he froze. As she got out, he tried to call her name, but his voice cracked.
“Warren!” she yelled into the empty house, oblivious.
“I’m here,” he said as he found his voice and stepped out of the inky dark above her.
She startled, tilting her head to finally see him. Her face was cast in shadows, outline limned by the headlights. “Warren,” she whispered again, reverently this time.
He climbed down the steps, legs weak enough to make the scaffolding feel unsafe.
“What are you doing here?” He wasn’t in the mood to do this again. To find another burst of hope only to later realise there was none.
From the passenger seat, Eiley produced a huge bag of assorted sweets and a couple of sparklers.
“I’m trying to make a romantic grand gesture.”
That word,romantic, felt cruel after all they’d been through. “I don’t know what that means. If this is about the basket, you don’t need to. You don’t owe me anything, okay?”
“Warren, I owe youeverything,” she argued desperately. “I know that I messed most of this up. I know I made it a hundred times more difficult than it needed to be. I know you deserved better. I was so afraid of falling for you that I made it my mission to push you away, and even then, I did a terrible job of it!”
Warren swallowed thickly, shoving his hands into his coat pockets. “You don’t need to—”
“Shush a minute!” she cried, stunning him back into silence. “Thank you. I just need you to listen to me.” She paused, then added: “Please.”
He waited. “All right. Listening.”
Finally, on a shuddering breath, she said, “I didn’t think that I’d ever be able to trust someone again after Finlay. Especially not with the kids. I mean, most lads I’ve met wouldn’t want a sad single mum who can barely support herself. At least, that’s what I thought. And then you came along, and you reminded me that I’m still a person beyondall the chaos. I don’t think I wanted to believe it. I think believing it meant finally accepting that I didn’t deserve the hurt Finlay put me through. That I’d chosen the wrong person to love, and it never had to be that way. It was all for nothing, and worse, it was my fault for accepting it. You make everything that he failed at looksoeasy. I think I wanted you to see the worst parts of me because I didn’t feel like I deserved someone like you.”
It killed him that she’d ever thought that. All he’d ever wanted was for her to see all of the good she deserved. All of the ways she could be loved. He wanted to say as much, but she cast him a warning stare, and he shut his mouth again.
“But it didn’t matter how hard I tried to stop it. I fell for you anyway. Harper said that there’s thisknowingthat comes with love, and I knew. I knew so much that I stood in a window and gawped like a wee moron the first time I saw you across the road.”
“Finally, you admit it,” he teased quietly, but really, his heart was stuttering over the other part. Thelovepart. He’d known, too. His first sighting of her had been all sunlight, and he’d held onto it: a cog that had never turned in time with the rest of his body suddenly clicking into place. He hadn’t minded taking on her anger because he knew he was the only one who really got to see it. In the end, it had only made their hours-long conversations and the gradual reveal of her gentle nature all the more worth it. He’d had to earn it, and he’d been hellbent on doing just that.
“I’m so sorry that I kept making you feel like you were the problem. It was me. I was healing. I still am. But god, ithas been a lot easier to do since you walked into the bookstore with pizza.”
He smiled, throat clogging with emotion. This sense of belonging was what he’d been trying to chase in the bricks and mortar behind him. And as much as he would love the house once it was built, it was Eiley who had filled the cracks in his heart.
“What changed? Why now?” Why not before, when he’d bared his heart to her, told her that this house could be hers, too?
