Page 19 of Promise Me This

I’ve done everything in my power this week to avoid running into Leo when dropping off and picking up my daughter. And I’ve been doing a damn good job, I’d say. Aside from seeing her short, dark hair swinging to shield her face as she rushed up the stairs on Wednesday morning, I’ve mostly managed to pretend she’s not even here.

My mother won’t stand for that, apparently.

“Listen, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Leo extends her hands palm out like she’s trying to prevent a snarling animal from leaping at her. Shame threatens to take over when I realize that snarling animal is me. I shrink in on myself, utterly crestfallen, when her rose-pink lips turn down at the edges. “I just need a ride.”

Padraig snickers at the same time color fills her cheeks. Realization dawns on her, and she quickly corrects herself. “A lift. I need a lift.”

But it’s too late. Our gazes lock as we both travel back in time, to the first memory we share.

Chapter Nine

Leona

I’m wearing a channel into the rug with my pacing, but I can’t help it. I’ve called the taxi company five times now trying to get a ride to the PPS office in Newbridge. No one’s answering, and at this point a train won’t get me there in time for my appointment. Learning to rely on public transportation is proving to be a real pain in the ass.

My teeth sink into my lower lip as I dial the number once more, hoping the sixth time’s the charm. I have to find a way to get there. These appointments book out months in advance, and I can’t start working to pay the rent until I have an Irish social security number assigned to me.

The door to the communal kitchen swings open, revealing a petite man named Jude who immigrated here from India last spring and always makes enough curry to share. He’s the friendliest of my housemates, and the only one I’ve shared more than a couple words with in the week I’ve been here. There is a set of sisters who pass by without so much as a look offered in my direction and an older gentleman who mostly keeps to himself, but with classes getting underway, they’re all I’ve been able to meet. The entire second floor is lined with doors like a hotel, so I imagine there’s more where they came from.

“Hey, Jude.” I smile at him and hang up the phone call, which has once again landed in hold-music purgatory. Or hell. Definitely hell.

“Nice to see you, Leona.” He passes through the doorway, and another man, younger and unfamiliar, follows in his footsteps. “Callum and I were just talking about ordering lunch. Do you have any plans?”

Wavy locks of golden-blond hair sit like a halo atop the stranger’s head. I do my best to acknowledge Jude’s question, but I can’t force my gaze to meet his. It’s locked on this man, Callum, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to look away.

You know those moments in your life when you become distinctly aware that everything’s changing? Not gradually or in pieces, but all at once, with a clarity and awareness that comes out of nowhere. I felt it for the first time at my favorite uncle's funeral when I was thirteen, and again at my high school graduation. I even felt it when lying in Grant Foster’s bed freshman year of college after losing my virginity to him. The lens I was seeing the world through suddenly zoomed out to include the entirety of my existence, from beginning to end, and then zoomed back in on the moment, leaving me too aware and vulnerable.

This moment, when I’m met with a green-eyed gaze that turns my heart into a hot-air balloon threatening to lift me out of this place, is one of those. I can’t tell you why, but the second Callum enters my line of sight, I’m certain nothing will ever be the same again—least of all me.

“Nice to meet you,” Callum says, his voice dripping from his tongue like molten honey, languid and lyrical. He offers his hand to me. “Leona, is it?”

I’m so busy staring at him that I forget how to be a normal person for a split second. His hand hangs in the balance between us, a question quirking his golden-blond eyebrow.

“Oh, um, yes. I’m Leona.” I wipe my palm on my jeans before clasping his hand. “Leona Granger. Nice to meet you. I just moved in.”

“From America, yeah?”

“Yes! From Tennessee.” I raise my eyebrows at him. “How’d you know?”

He ends the handshake, and I cradle my wrist in front of my stomach, trembling with an anxious energy. His now-free hand draws a circle in the air around his lips as he says, “Your accent.”

Duh, Leona. My God, he must think I’m an idiot.

Jude, meanwhile, is watching the interaction with entirely too much amusement. He’s searching his phone—presumably for takeaway options—but leaves his gaze trained on us all the while.

“Of course. Makes sense.” Heat creeps up my neck steadily until it’s tickling the apples of my cheeks. I clear my throat, sounding like a drowning person getting their first taste of air, before tearing my gaze away from Tall Blond and Handsome. For the greater good, also known as my pride. “Sorry, Jude, I’d love to, but I’ve got to get to the PPS office in”—I check my phone—“fuck, thirty minutes.”

Callum blinks at me, amusement tugging at the corners of his lips. His full, framed-by-stubble lips.

“Shouldn’t you already be going? That’s in Newbridge, no?” Jude says, interrupting my staring contest with Callum’s mouth.

I groan, throwing my hands up in the air. “Yes, but I can’t get ahold of a taxi and it’s too late to get a train or bus. You wouldn’t be able to give me a ride, would you?”

Jude starts to shake his head, but Callum shocks us both by bursting into laughter. Not even minimally contained laughter, either. He’s full-blown dying in the kitchen entrance. Jude and I exchange several confused glances before Callum finally inhales enough oxygen in between guffaws to let us know what’s so funny.

“So sorry, it’s just that, in Ireland, asking someone for a ride has a bit of a different connotation, if you know what I mean.” He scrubs a hand over his jaw, attempting to wipe away his cheeky grin. He’s unsuccessful. “Sorry, I know you meant a lift. I do. It just surprised me, is all.”

His implication finally reaches the last part of my brain firing on any cylinders, and my blush catches flame. If they couldn’t see it before, the heat in my cheeks tells me they certainly can now. I glance from him to Jude, shaking my head in horror.

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