Soaring (26 page)

More baffling.

“Why?” I asked.

“Reverse roles and think of me walkin’ out to a woman who was wearing that dress,” he clipped.

That wasn’t baffling.

“Oh.”

I had a feeling my fourteen-year-old daughter was right.

Mickey Donovan was into me.

“Now are you gonna be cute, which means I’m gonna have to kiss you again, which will maybe be so hot I won’t be able to stop it this time so I’ll have to fuck you against a wall in the hall of a restaurant while my kids are waiting for me to eat my son’s birthday dinner? Or are you gonna get your ass to the table and get that guy outta here?”

I was breathing heavier when I answered, “I’m gonna get that guy outta here.”

“Good call.”

We stared at each other and didn’t move.

This lasted long moments before Mickey noted, “You aren’t leaving.”

“You have to let me go, honey,” I whispered.

“Fuck,’ he whispered back, and the unbearable happened.

His fingers slid out of my hair, his hand glided away from my bottom, and he stepped back.

I felt like a treasure chest full of gold had been bared to me, all mine for the keeping, and then the minute I dug my fingers into the gleaming coins, it disappeared in a blink.

“Go, baby,” he ordered gently.

I held his gaze, licked my lips, rolled them together and nodded.

Then I started to go but stopped when he called a soft, “Amy.”

God, just my name on his lips made me even
wetter
.

I turned to him to see he’d grabbed my forgotten clutch from where it had dropped to the floor and was holding it out to me.

I took it, whispering, “Thanks.”

“Go,” he whispered back.

I took off, wisely going first to the bathroom to fix my hair (it didn’t look near as good when I finished, then again, I didn’t have a lot of time and my hands were shaking).

I also put lipstick on.

But there was no way to hide I looked like I’d been kissed. Thoroughly. My lips were swollen, my cheeks flushed, my eyes dazed. I tried to rectify it but I didn’t have time enough for that either.

This would be to my fortune, though not entirely, for it would make my errand of getting Bradley out of the restaurant easy, it was just that doing it wasn’t pleasant.

He’d noticed Mickey gone.

He noticed my thoroughly kissed mouth and disheveled side bun when I returned.

So when I shared gently we had to leave so we could talk, he threw an acid look Mickey’s way before he tossed his napkin down, pushed his chair back, got out his wallet, flung some bills on the table and stalked away.

He didn’t help me out of my seat.

He didn’t hold my hand as he marched out of the restaurant.

And he went so fast, I had to hurry to keep up so I could only glance and wave at the Donovan table.

Mickey was looking at me, his look was a mix of annoyed and heated.

Cillian waved at me.

Aisling only glanced at me but when she looked away, she smiled a little smile like the cat who just got her cream.

* * * * * *

I was pacing in front of my wall of windows, phone to my ear.

I was also babbling.

To voicemail.

“Okay, so I know I pulled back. I know you tried to keep in touch with me. I know I had a lot of things on my mind but you were one of them and I should have let you know that and not just through texts,” I said to Robin’s mailbox. “But a lot was happening with me,
is
happening with me, and while that happened, I made a lot of mistakes.
Lots
of them.”

I pulled in a deep breath and kept babbling.

“But later tonight, a man is going to ring my doorbell and I know in my heart I won’t be making a mistake opening it to him. But I screwed up so bad picking Conrad, who I knew in my heart was the man for me, I’m scared to death because that man that’s soon arriving and I…it’s been rocky. It’s been…Robin, it’s been
really
rocky.”

I closed my eyes and started winding it down.

“I’m shutting up now. And I’m hoping to all that is holy that you’re not communicating with me because you’re angry with me and not because something has happened with you and nobody’s told me.”

I turned and looked out at the sea.

“Call me,” I finished. “Please, Robin, call me. And if you’re angry with me, then at least text me to tell me you’re okay.”

With that, I ended the call.

I stopped pacing and looked out the windows.

Suffice it to say, while Bradley was wasting no time (and scaring me a little) driving like a madman to get me home and dump me at my house, he didn’t mind at all that I was ending things.

He also didn’t walk me to the door or even wait to reverse out of my drive and take off before I got to it.

This was beyond awkward and it made me feel like a bitchy slut, or a slutty bitch (no, actually, both).

So after I let myself inside and turned on a lamp by the TV, walked to the kitchen and flipped on the pendants over the bar, I put my clutch on the counter and dug out my phone.

Then I texted him,
There’s no excuse for what happened tonight so I won’t try to make one. I’ll only say I’m very sorry. I enjoyed our time together and I’m sad that it ended this way.

I said no more, not telling him he’s a good man and he’ll find someone, which would probably not be something he wanted to read from me. Nor did I tell him I wasn’t leading him on or playing games and that things with Mickey and I were complicated, which was true but would sound banal to him and also something he wouldn’t want to read. Nor did I tell him I hoped he didn’t think badly about me because that was selfish and likely an impossible feat.

I kept it short and offered my apologies. It was the only thing I could do.

I fretted for a while about my behavior but the fretting drifted away and the pacing started when it sunk in completely that Mickey Donovan had kissed me.

Kissed me.

I didn’t know how that could happen. I’d kissed him and he’d pulled away, told me I was…“attractive,” gave no indication he was interested in me, and in fact gave lots of indication he didn’t much like me.

When the fretting about that started to overwhelm me, I’d called Robin.

With that call done, now I had hours before Mickey would show at my door, possibly to kiss me again (which caused such extreme excitement I felt the urge to go straight to the toy in my nightstand drawer and make use of it). He also possibly would ask me out, which was frankly unfathomable (or had been, until he kissed me).

Or he possibly would come over in order to tell me what happened at the restaurant was a huge mistake and he thought it best we never see each other again.

Which would mean I’d lose Mickey even though I didn’t have Mickey and when I did, we were fighting.

Even so, the very idea of that loss was too much to even contemplate.

It would also mean I’d lose Aisling and Cillian.

Something else I couldn’t contemplate.

When these thoughts were about to send me over the edge, I decided to call my brother, who would listen then give it to me straight. And since he was a man, he might know what was in Mickey’s head.

On this decision, my phone in my hand let out a chime.

I looked down at it then quickly slid my finger on the screen to get to the text.

It was from Robin and it read, “
I’m fine. I’m also pissed at you. Give me three days to hold a grudge then I’ll call you. But I reserve the right for the grudge to last less time.

That was it but it gave me relief, made me smile and was a little surprising since a three day grudge for Robin was unheard of—case in point, the grudge she had against her ex lasting five years without cooling.

Before I could send a reply, I got another text from her.

And this guy better be hot. Hot enough to make Conrad lose his mind and consider suicide. Anything less, MeeMee, and I’ll be very disappointed in you.

That made me smile bigger because it was funny and because she would very much approve of Mickey. She might live for revenge against her cheating ex-husband, but that didn’t mean she didn’t appreciate masculine eye candy.

I texted back,
Okay, sweets, and this is the last you’ll hear from me until your grudge is over. But just to put your mind at ease, Mickey is definitely hot.

After sending that, I called my brother.

“Hey, MeeMee,” he greeted.

“Hey, Lawrie. You free?”

“I’m at work but for you I’m always free.”

I was not surprised he was at work, seeing as it was earlier there, not to mention the fact that, since both his boys were old enough to drive and go off and do their own things, my brother stopped working constantly and started working
constantly
in order to escape his wife.

I was also not surprised he would make himself free for me. In my life, after I’d found that Conrad didn’t, Lawr was the only one who loved me demonstrably and unreservedly.

“Listen,” I began. “Conrad called tonight and he asked me to ask you to quit badgering him.”

I heard Lawr hoot before he replied, “Jesus, that guy’s an asshole. I called him twice, MeeMee. The first call lasted two minutes before he hung up on me. The second was right after that where he answered and I shared he was a dick before I hung up on him. That’s not badgering.”

He would know badgering. He was an attorney.

“I figured it was something like that,” I muttered, then clearer, I said, “He’s blaming me, so I appreciate you sticking up for me, but I’d prefer you stopped doing it.”

“He mention the kids?” Lawr asked.

“No. Why?” I asked back, my neck muscles tightening.

“I called them too.”

I stared at my reflection in the window. “I’m sorry?”

“Told them to cut you some slack. Told your son that you don’t have anybody since his father tore apart your family so he was up to bat and had to take care of his mother. Told your daughter she had one good female role model in her life and she was going to blow it if she lost that.”

So
that
was why they spoke to me. Because their Uncle Lawrie, who they both loved, adored and respected, had called them and laid it out.

God, I loved my brother.

“Should have done that years ago,” he murmured.

“They were a lot better at the last visit,” I told him.

“Good,” he said softly.

“Kinda shocking, you being a pain in the behind big brother for twenty years then turning out to be so cool when you’re nearly fifty.”

“Shut up, MeeMee,” he returned, a smile in his voice.

I smiled at my reflection and asked, “Do you have more time?”

“Are you my MeeMee?”

God,
I loved my brother
.

“I am,” I confirmed.

“Sock it to me, sweetheart,” he invited.

That was when I started pacing again because I did. I socked it to him and told him everything—absolutely
everything
—about Mickey.

This took a while. There was a lot of pacing. I was still in my slingbacks and it would be a lot later when I would come to the happy realization I could walk that much in them and they’d still be comfortable even being new shoes I’d never worn.

When I was done telling my brother everything, I stopped, wrapped my free arm around my belly, stared at my toes and asked, “So? Is Pippa right? Is this guy into me?”

At that, I heard Lawr burst out laughing.

My head came up. “What’s funny?”

“Is this guy into you?” Lawr asked my question back to me, his deep voice still vibrating with humor.

“That’s the question and in my current circumstances, I don’t find anything funny,” I snapped.

“Right.” That word sounded kind of strangled, like he was choking back laughter, and he still hadn’t quite done it when he went on, “I’ll confirm a fourteen-year-old girl’s keen perception of the way of things with you and this guy are even though she witnessed you with him for all of five minutes. Amelia, this guy is
into you
.”

I felt shivers trail over my skin at his confirmation
and
his emphasis.

But my voice was an octave higher when I asked, “How can that be? For weeks, we’ve hardly exchanged a pleasant word.”

I barely finished speaking before Lawr launched right in. “First, a guy might see a man in a woman’s face and intervene, but he will not offer to help her around the house unless he likes what he sees.”

“That’s impossible, Lawrie. I hadn’t even had my hair highlighted then,” I informed him.

Lawr ignored that and continued, “He also doesn’t give a shit she’s running herself into the ground doing some house sale, so he certainly doesn’t ask her over for a barbeque to help her relax.”

“When you do something like that with children involved, and you’re interested in the woman you’re inviting, it requires planning,” I shared haughtily. “Mickey’s invitation was near on spur of the moment.”

Lawr kept ignoring me. “And if he’s not interested and his daughter asks for her recipes, or wants her over for dinner, he tells his daughter to go over herself and get them and he finds a way to say she can’t come over for dinner.”

“He doesn’t have full custody of them, Lawrie,” I reminded him. “So she’s not around all the time. And she’s sweet. She’s a hard girl to say no to.”

My brother again ignored me.

“And bottom line, a man does not lose his mind every time another man is anywhere near this woman if he doesn’t want her for his. He doesn’t expend the energy to fight with her because if he doesn’t give a shit, he wouldn’t bother. But in his case, he was fighting with you instead of doing what he really wants to do with you. And he sure as fuck doesn’t shove her into an alcove in a restaurant and kiss her, infuriated she’s out on a date. And I’ll say that also saying I know your age, I know you’ve been married and have kids, but I’m talking about a man shoving my little sister into an alcove and kissing her and I’m doing it under duress.”

I almost smiled at that.

But I didn’t.

Lawr carried on, “I’m also doing it saying that was a bold move, and commendable, if the woman he wants is stubborn and irascible, like you are, he’d reached the end of his control, and the time had come where he needed to make his play.”