Page 65 of Adrift

Kieran flinches, and then he smiles a little bit as he looks down at his lap. “Yeah.”

“And you wanted one last conquest?”

“No.” Kieran looks up at me so fast that I recoil in surprise. “No,” he repeats himself vehemently, leaning toward me. “Never.”

I take a deep breath and let it out, giving my deepest fears a few moments to settle down. In my heart of hearts, I already knew… but I had to be sure.

“I was just staring down the barrel. I realised that I finally found somewhere that’s really home—or that could be home.” Kieran hesitates, bites his lip, twists his hands together even harder. “Not just somewhere. Someone. I didn’t mean to fall for you—but then I met you, and it was…”

He trails off, like he’s trying to find the word, and I know exactly what he means. “Inevitable,” I murmur.

I knew that I had to sit up and pay attention when I first saw him there in the bar… and I think he felt that, too. But he didn’t think it could continue this way—or grow like a weed in spring.

“Inevitable,” Kieran echoes me in a whisper. “It was too lateandtoo soon to tell you.”

As my anger slowly subsides, I start to feel its true shape: frustration. I close my eyes for a moment and shake my head. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I looked up all the options. There’s nothing,” Kieran says, sharp with frustration and pain.

I just wish he hadn’t been keeping all that pain to himself these last few weeks.

“Why tell you when there’s nothing?” Kieran continues. It’s weird to see his lips downturned all of a sudden, and the light go out in his eyes. He looks away, gazing at the map hanging over the fireplace. “We’re both just as helpless in all of this. You belong here, and… I can’t stay.”

But there’s something turning over in my brain. “There’s nothing?”

Kieran puffs out a little frustrated sigh. “I looked up all the routes. I can’t afford to go back to school, and it would take months. You can’t hire me. Not even entrepreneurship, unless we’re freaking millionaires already. There’s a freaking farm worker program, but it doesn’t cover orchards.”

But that’s not what I mean. “There’s always one route, isn’t there?”

“Huh?” Kieran blinks at me, and then he frowns. “I mean, if you’re thinking what I’m thinking…”

“You could marry me.” I rest one arm along the back of the couch as I turn toward him, chewing my lip.

It just makes sense. Don’t get me wrong: three weeks ago, I would have saidhell, no. Two weeks ago, I would hesitantly said no. A week ago, I wouldn’t have known what to say.

But after coming face-to-face with the reality of life without Kieran, even briefly…

I don’t want to lose him.

But Kieran’s jumping to his feet, glaring down at me with all the fury of a storm cloud I didn’t see coming.

I stare blankly up at him, shaking my head. “Kieran?”

“Gage Russell,” he snaps. “This is one crazy plan you don’t get to make without my say-so. You’re not throwing away your future like this.”

“But—but I’m not. I want to do this. I thought…” I trail off, blinking up at him in confusion as the heartache wakes up from its brief slumber, crawling to the back of my throat again.

I thought he’d see this the same way I do: as the best way of securing our future. I thought it was a shared vision, too—it’s the only future I’ve been able to envision since I arrived here. Not a future for him, but forus.

I thought he’d be happy.I thought… I thought he loved me, too.

“I told you before,” Kieran snaps at me as he strides to the front door and jams his shoes back on. “Bloody hell, Gage. If you expect me to believe it, you’vegotto learn to ask properly.”

My jaw hanging open, I stare at his retreating back as he pulls open the door and rushes out through it. It slams shut behind him, and then I’m left with the fading echo of his footsteps on the porch stairs.

Then, I’m left alone in the silence.

What the hell went wrong?

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