Page 16 of Fall for Me

“Oh God,” I said, thinking of Cass and the muffin. I wanted to look at Seamus once more, to tell him thank you, but I was suddenly self-conscious. I knew Eli’s eyes were on us now, and I didn’t want to give him anything else to get weird about. So I took one last glance out at the view, and at Seamus’s cabin. There was a whole chicken coop off to the side I hadn’t noticed before, and a couple of Adirondack chairs on the other side of the porch. How I would love to sit back in one of those chairs, closing my eyes, breathing in this air.

With Seamus in the other chair, comfortable, for once, in shared silence.

Without meaning to, that’s what had me looking back at him. His eyes were on mine. They hadn’t left me. My skin prickled, warmed, somehow, by the intensity of his gaze. And embarrassed, knowing Eli’s head would be ticking.

I looked away fast. “Guess I better go.” I hesitated, glancing over at my brother. He was talking to Jude, engaged, for just a moment. “I’m sorry about Eli,” I said quickly. “But I guess you know what he’s like.”

Seamus didn’t smile this time. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Chelsea.”

My stomach flipped. I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just gave an awkward nod. Then I began walking toward my brothers, before I made it worse.

Seamus shoved those workman’s hands in his pockets, looking down as I limped past.

“Beautiful place you have here,” I said over my shoulder. “Peaceful.”

He didn’t say anything. I realized I still had that old thought that I needed to speak up. But Seamus didn’t expect that from me.

“What?” I said to Eli as I reached him. Seamus hadn’t followed.

“What were you two talking about?” Eli demanded.

“You,” I said.

I could see Eli trying to figure out if that was true or if I was just saying it to mess with him, but I didn’t give him time to ask. “Come on, Jude,” I said.

It wasn’t until I climbed carefully back into Jude’s Jeep and we were driving away down the pockmarked dirt road, Seamus’s beautiful white cabin receding in Jude’s rearview and Jude chattering away about nothing—the exact opposite of me—that I realized two things. The first was that I’d forgotten to ask Seamus about the night of the accident. Somehow, that nagging feeling that there was something I was missing from that night had vanished when I was with him. The second was that not only had he not stared in that slightly pitying way at my bruising, the bandage, and now my wildly shorn hair, but Seamus had looked at me like I was just the same as before.

I looked exactly like someone who’d escaped from a hospital, robe and bare feet and everything, and Seamus Reilly hadn’t even blinked.

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