Page 20 of Resilient Rhythms
She lifts her eyebrows, waiting.
“I won’t even kiss you until you ask me to,” I vow, even though I could throat punch myself for the blue balls I’m knowingly giving myself.
Mckenna pauses, her hand stilling on her Coke. “You promise?”
“Against my own self-preservation, yes.”
She chuckles.
“I want you to feel safe with me, Mckenna. I want you to want whatever comes next between us. And I want you to be sure if we ever cross that line again. Because, beauty, I can’t lose you a second time. I won’t. So, if at any moment, this isn’t working for you, tell me straight up. Deal?”
She nods, her expression earnest. “Deal. Same for you, Mav.”
“Swear it,” I promise.
“All right then.” She lifts her Coke again. “To trying.”
I grin. “Third time’s a charm.”
She snickers as our server appears with our appetizers and Mckenna and I relax, falling into easy conversation. Now that I know there’s a chance—a fucking glimmer of hope after days of darkness—a weight lifts off my chest.
It feels like I can breathe again after being underwater for too damn long.
Even though I returned to Boston for Jameson, I’m staying for an entirely different reason. Mckenna Byrne. Maybe she’ll always be my why. My guiding light. My redemption arc.
All I know is now that I’m back, I’m here to stay. I will prove to my beauty that we belong together. That our marriage mattered. That she is it for me and I will fight for her. For us.
When I get home that night, Jameson is waiting for me at his kitchen table.
“House seems bare without Amelia’s shit,” I comment as I plop down across from him.
He looks around the kitchen, as if noting for the first time that the artwork, the tea kettle that once sat on the stove, and the curtains over the little window by the sink are gone. “Yeah, you’re right.”
I sigh. I hate seeing my brother like this. He put on a good show at Mckenna’s graduation, and he does all right when he’s with the guys from the band, but in the privacy of his home, in the quiet hours between dusk and dawn, he’s drowning.
And it’s a feeling I know well.
“We gotta get you out of this slump, man.”
He snorts and takes a sip of his tumbler of scotch. “How do you suggest we go about doing that, Maverick?”
“Well, it is an area I excel at.”
He meets my gaze, waiting.
“Pulling myself out of the holes I’ve dug,” I offer.
Jameson cracks a grin. “Yeah, I guess you do have a knack for that. How was your date?”
I dip my chin in a nod. “How’d you know? I know Mom didn’t spill the beans.”
“You put on cologne.”
I laugh. “Yeah well, I guess that was a dead giveaway.”
Jameson arches an eyebrow. “You told Mom?”
“We’ve been talking a lot more since things with Mckenna went south.”
