Page 54 of Promise Me This

The mental image sends a thrill down my spine.

Padraig and Niamh are sitting crisscross on the floor in front of the fire, contemplating whether her double skip was in fact legal, when we enter the room. They don’t even notice our presence. They don’t even notice the oxygen has left this space.

Callum presses his hand to my lower back, guiding me toward the couch where we sat during the storm. How has it been only a week?

His words on that night drift back to me on the tendrils of heat wafting out of the hearth. We’re not finished here. Glancing over at him, across the polite amount of space he left between us when we sat, I can’t help but hope he was right.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Callum

It takes every bit of willpower imaginable for me to leave Leo the hell alone. For days, every time I see her, I’m nearly drowned in the desire to touch her in any way possible. I feel like I’m in secondary school again, where just the brush of Aisling Murphy’s hand against mine could get me hard. When Leo glances at me from across the kitchen or greets me while bent over to tuck sheets onto a bed when I pass the open doorway, it’s nearly impossible not to march into that room and ruin the pretty bed she’s made ourselves.

But I’m taking things slow, I remind myself. Even if it’s excruciating.

When I’ve just about hit my limit on self-restraint, the universe intervenes. A shipment gets misplaced somewhere between China and Ireland, and Uncle Darren tasks me with solving the problem. I’m up to my eyeballs in middle-of-the-night phone calls to make up for the time difference and hours-long computer work that makes my head feel like it’s about to explode. After a few days I finally locate the misplaced shipment in Turkey and get it rerouted to its rightful destination in Dublin. Darren sends me a curt “Well done, lad” email, which is the highest praise I’ll get from my mother’s stern older brother.

I stand from my desk, every bone in my body crying out in relief, and slam my laptop shut. With the amount of overtime I’ve already worked this week, I’ve more than earned the right to knock off a bit early today. I’m just about to grab my keys and drive over to get Niamh when, for reasons I won’t even admit to myself, I reroute to the shower. After a quick refresh, I retrieve styling gel from where it’s rotting in the back of my medicine cabinet. A few globs make my hair look slightly more tamed. My hand hovers over the contact lenses I rarely if ever use anymore, but I think better of it, instead swiping an unopened bottle of cologne that Mam bought me for Christmas last year off the counter and misting the air to walk through.

It's probably the most ridiculous twenty minutes I’ve ever spent in my adult life, but when I load into the car and pull away, I feel a giddiness of anticipation that wipes away any embarrassment.

Bridge Street Bed-and-Breakfast is bustling with activity when I arrive. Guests loiter in the halls, chatting with one another and nursing drinks. The door to the living room is flung open, and more couples and families are scattered about, some reading various titles sourced from the bookshelves and others taking a note from Niamh’s book and dominating their friends in checkers. I scan the room but come up empty, so I continue down the hall.

In the kitchen Mam and Leo are playing bartender for two women with easy smiles and friendly brown gazes so similar they have to be related somehow. They all glance over at me and then quickly go back to the task at hand, except for Leo. Her gaze remains with me, crackling with the same tension I’ve been suppressing all week. Hot licks of pride stroke my spine, making me stand taller under the spotlight of her gaze.

“Not going to greet your mam, huh, son?” Mam rolls her eyes in commiseration with the woman she’s handing a margarita to, complete with the sloppiest salt rim I’ve ever laid eyes on. “I swear, we raise them, and then they wipe their hands of us, content to forget we changed their nappies all those years.”

The woman grabs the drink from Mam’s outstretched hand and clucks her tongue. “Don’t I know it. My children will sooner put me in a home than change mine when the time comes.” She turns to me, shakes her head, and waggles an outstretched finger at me. Her wrist is laden with silver bangles that make her chastisement sound more like music. “You be nice to your mam,” she says with a thick Northern accent. “You put her through hell that you can’t even remember.”

Her sister? Cousin? takes a simple Jameson and ginger ale from Leo, who has ducked her head, though I can see the round swells of her cheeks from the grin she’s trying to hide. The friend links arms with my admonisher and raises her glass to me. “Don’t let Naomi beat you down. She’s only bitter that her son forgot her birthday.”

Naomi softens, leaning on the other woman for support, and then pretends to wail. “I’m all but dead to him. I’ll just wither away to nothing!”

“See,” the woman says. “Dramatic.”

They continue tittering at one another as they exit the kitchen, joining the other guests in the living room.

“What’s all this anyway?” I ask before hooking an arm around Mam’s neck and planting a kiss on her head. Leo peeks up at me, her gaze roving over my gelled hair before meeting mine and raising her eyebrows. I shrug and then release my mother. “And where’s my kid? Don’t tell me she’s after forgetting me or I’ll wither away to nothing!”

“Leona had the lovely idea to host a cocktail hour for our guests to start the weekend a bit early.” Mam pinches Leo’s side affectionately. “And she’s off somewhere playing with one of the guests’ children.” She waves her hand dismissively at the ether.

“You came up with all this?” I right the frames of my glasses as if it will bring Leo into focus. But she already is, sharper than anything else in this room. It’s disorienting, and yet I can’t look away.

She presses her lips together in a polite smile. “Just thought it’d be nice for our guests.”

“Your guests?” I ask, my heart skipping a beat. “Spoken like someone who plans on sticking around awhile.”

Her gaze flickers from me to Mam like she’s going to get in trouble for what she said, but Mam looks as thrilled as I feel. She loops an arm around Leo’s waist and hugs her close, smiling as she tips her head against Leo’s. “You stay as long as you like, Leona.”

She melts into my mother for just a moment before stepping away abruptly and sweeping margarita salt off the counter with a broad stroke. “I’m just glad they seem to like it.”

I’m tempted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her, to tell her it’s okay to let go of whatever it is that’s holding her back. I have to remind myself that it takes time to let yourself be vulnerable. Something I know better than most. So instead I just offer her a genuine smile when she meets my eyes once more, and hope it’s another drop to refill her well.

Shrieking that I’ve become numb to over the years pierces the silence as Niamh comes storming into the kitchen, followed by a little boy around her age with vibrant red hair and skin that burns at the thought of the sun. He tags her just before she can cut outside to the garden, and then bolts away now that it’s Niamh’s turn to give chase.

“No, you don’t,” I say, hooking an arm around her waist and scooping her into the air. “Time to go.”

She continues running—which looks more like swimming with the way she’s flapping—for a few seconds before collapsing dramatically into a rag doll. “I was winning!”

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