Page 113 of Myla: The Hawthornes

“You’re exhausting,” I corrected as I sat back down.

“Where do you work?” Saoirse asked.

We made small talk for half an hour more. When Sean started showing signs of losing it, Cian rose from his spot and put his hand out to me.

“Okay, now it’s really time to go.”

“Thank you so much for having me,” I said, looking around the table. “Next time I’ll have you guys over to my house.”

“Say the word,” Aunt Ashley replied.

Cian pulled out his phone and did something that I couldn’t see as each of his sisters gave me a hug and said goodbye.

Sean wasn’t having any of it, so I told him goodbye from a distance. He wasn’t happy that Cian was leaving, and he made that known. Loudly.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Cian said, giving the boy a kiss. “Be good for Mam.”

The air had cooled considerably in the couple of hours we’d been there, and I shivered as Cian and I walked outside.

“Told you it would be fine,” he said smugly as he opened my car door.

“Yeah, yeah.” It had gone even better than I’d expected. Considering the fact that Cian’s family had just gone through something extremely traumatic and lost a member because of it, I’d imagined a much more somber mood than the one we’d walked into. Aoife’s eyes had been shadowed, and she’d clearly lost weight, but they’d all been in pretty good spirits. Maybe it was for Sean. The toddler had to be really confused already, making sure that he felt safe and loved had to be their top priority.

We headed back to my place, and I vaguely noticed someone on a Harley passing us just down the road from Ashley’s house, but I wasn’t really paying attention.

“I love your aunt’s house,” I said, rubbing my hands together before tucking them under my thighs. “I bet you had fun when you were little with so much room to roam.”

“Not until I was fourteen,” Cian replied. “We’d never been out here before then.”

“Ah, darn. Past the pirate stage, then,” I joked. “Unless you were a late bloomer.”

“She bought me axes to throw,” Cian said, grinning. “Every tree within fifty yards of the house has some kind of scar.”

“Of course she did.” I laughed, imagining it.

“When I buy it, I’m gonna put in a big shop,” he said thoughtfully. “Not right away, but eventually. And that tree out back, the big oak? Perfect for a treehouse for Seanie.”

“You want to buy it?” I asked in surprise. It was the first I’d heard about it.

“Already have the papers,” he replied easily. “But now that the girls and Seanie are there, it’ll have to wait. That place is crowded enough already.”

“Wait, what?” I asked, wide-eyed.

“Aunt Ashley came to me a few months ago, askin’ if I wanted to buy it,” he clarified. “Actually shoulda moved in last weekend.”

“And I’m just hearing about it now?” I stared at him in disbelief.

“Are you pissed?” He glanced at me, his brows pulled together in confusion.

“You were just going to buy the property and move without telling me?”

“I’m sure you woulda figured it out.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point?”

“You were buying a house and moving and you didn’t say a word to me about it.”

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