Page 99 of The Love Destroyers

“Oh, a few well-known experts.”

He lists off a couple of names, and I burst out laughing. “You got those names off billboards around town, didn’t you?”

He shrugs self-consciously. “I found their names online and thought they sounded familiar.”

Which is exactly why they shell out for the billboards.

“I’ll refer you to someone else,” I say. “Someone who’s not going to give you the runaround. This is a simple case. You don’t need to empty your bank account over it.”

He thanks me and then says, “You know, before I came over, I wasn’t convinced this was really a date. But your mother said enough that I had reason to hope, and hope isn’t something I’ve felt in a long time.”

I think of Seamus propped up in bed, murmuring my name.

I swallow the memory down and ask, “If you weren’t fleeing the scene of the crime, what were you doing?”

He scratches his head. “Well…dessert didn’t exactly go as planned last night. It felt like everything that could go wrong did…”

I find myself thinking of Sophie and the full moon Leap Day, but I shake it off.

“I saw a bunch of carafes in the fridge.”

His face creases into an approximation of a frown. “It felt wasteful to just throw them away.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t think it was a sign,” I comment before I can think it through. Crap. I don’t want to give him ideas. He and my mother clearly like each other, a lot. “Not that I believe in signs,” I add.

“I do,” he says. “But last night, I think it was only a sign of us being too interested in our conversation and in each other to pay much attention to what we were doing. I thought I’d make up for it by fixing her a nice breakfast. Some cinnamon rolls. But I came in here, and there wasn’t much to work with other than the stufffor dessert last night, so I was going to make a quick trip to an all-night-grocery store in Asheville to pick up supplies.”

I take a moment to process this. First, that he got up in the middle of the night to make cinnamon rolls for my mother. Second, that he thought a normal household would have all of the ingredients for cinnamon rolls on hand. Thirdly, that he was so into his plan that he tried to go to the grocery store in the middle of the night.

“Why’d you go around the back?” I ask.

“I didn’t want to risk waking your mother up, of course. We fell asleep on the couch, watchingMary Tyler Moorereruns.”

I bite my bottom lip to keep from laughing. I’d thought they’d had some torrid sexcapade all through the house, and all this time, the only thing he’d walked away from was an episode ofMary Tyler Moore.

God, I’m desperate to tell Seamus about all of this—but that thought instantly dries up my laughter. Because I really did run out on him.

“Of course,” I manage to say. “I’m sorry again for the misunderstanding. But you don’t need to go to such trouble to let her know you’re interested. Why don’t you just tuck a blanket around her and call it a night?”

He raps the counter top with his knuckles. “It was too much wasn’t it? Darn it. I’m going to keep messing up. I’m out of practice.”

Yawning, I say, “Honestly, my mother is exactly the kind of person who would love it if someone wasted five hours of sleep putting together a surprise for her, but you might want to save it for a special occasion. Before you can take care of anyone else, you have to take care of yourself.”

He winks at me. “But there’s the kicker, isn’t it? What if you can take care of yourself and someone else at the same time? It just so happens that I had a hankering for some cinnamon rolls.”

This is another chestnut of wisdom I’ll have to work through my brain a few times. But that’ll happen later.

I’ll be damned if I don’t find myself offering to take the man I just maced to the store for some cinnamon. There’s a feeling in my chest that’s a lot like hope.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

SEAMUS

The bed is empty when I wake up at dawn, propped up on pillows like a broken marionette.

I already know she’s not there before I reach out for her, because I’ve spent a lot of nights alone and know what it feels like. While I haven’t lived as a monk, I’m not used to sleepovers. I didn’t usually bring women back to my place in New York. I’d go home with them, but I wouldn’t stay.

I wantedherto stay, dammit. Last night was…

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