Page 212 of Dirty Padraig: Dirty Dusters

I close my eyes as I’m sucker-punched by a barrel of emotions.

Love. Desperation. Resignation.

How the fuck will I ever be able to move on from her? I won’t. She’s my everything. Why the fuck couldn’t I have been her everything too? I close my eyes to try to stop the tears from running down my face.

She’s it for me. Doesn’t she fucking realize that?

I wipe my face. She’ll be here soon. I don’t want her to feel guilty on my account. I don’t want her to feel like she has to choose me. She’s been through enough. She deserves happiness.

I want her happy, whether or not it’s with me.

Raising my face to the sun, I close my eyes, appreciating the warmth as I inhale the smell of freshly cut grass.

She’s here.

As I did years before, I lower my face, then open my eyes, so I can blatantly admire her. A smile crosses my face when her cheeks flush pink as they did back then. My gaze drifts over her.

My straight up and down Jaine Jones. A few more battle scars and a little bit older and wiser, but still the same girl I gave my heart to twelve years ago.

A heart that she never gave back.

She’s wearing white jean shorts and a tank top, her beat-up high-tops finishing off the same look she wore back when she was nineteen.

I close my eyes and lift my face back up to the sun. I’m sure this time around, she won’t bother blatantly admiring me in return. Why would she?

I swallow the lump in my throat just as the seat shifts, and she sits down.

“Penny for them.”

I smirk at the same opening line. “Would you go back and change things if you could, darlin’?”

We sit in amicable silence listening to birdsong as she considers her response.

“What I think is that Fate meant for us to be on this very bench at this very time, Irish. I think this is all part of the great masterplan he had in store for us all along.”

“Do you think he’d let us change his plans?”

“Probably not. I think all we can do is hope that our plans align.”

I turn to face her. Reaching out my hand, I gently cup the side of her face, my gaze dropping to her lips. She knows I’m going to do what I did twelve years ago. I lean toward her until she’s breathing me in, and I’m breathing her in.

She may not be my end game in this lifetime, but I pray to God she is in the next.

I slowly press my lips to hers. It’s a chaste kiss, nothing more. Resting my forehead against hers, I stare into her eyes. “In the absence of a bed or a sectional, I brought a blanket.”

And that’s what we do. We lie side by side on a blanket on the grass, and with her head resting on my chest, we put the world to rights, talking until we eventually drift off to sleep. It’s the drop in temperature that wakes me in the end.

I lie with my Jaine Jones in my arms, comforted by her heart beating against mine and her steady breathing as she soundly sleeps. “I love you so fucking much, darlin’.” I sob the words against her hair.

I then watch as day turns to night until we’re blanketed under a million stars, and when one shoots across the sky, I pray that tomorrow never comes and for this day never to end because right here, right now?

It’s perfect.

CHAPTERSEVENTY-ONE

JAINE

Jaine’s Apartment, Upper East Side, New York

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