When Gavin went home after we spoke, I was so drained from the day’s events that I didn’t go back to Bronagh’s house as I had initially intended to. I had planned to send her a text and tell her I’d swing by the next day instead, but I couldn’t find my phone. I thought of the last time I had it: after I spoke to Gavin and drove home from Bronagh’s house. When I realised where it was, I groaned in annoyance.
I left my apartment and made my way to the lobby of the building, waving at Joseph, the night guard as I passed by. When I retrieved my phone from my car and locked it, I heard a soft cry. A cry that was dangerously close to that of a baby. With my heart pounding, and all my senses on high alert, I spun around, and squinted my eyes, hoping it’d help me see better.
It didn’t.
I jumped when I heard the cry again, and walked briskly in the direction it came from. All sorts of scenarios were flooding through my mind. I had seen on the news plenty of times about people abandoning newborn babies and leaving them out in the open with no protection. I prayed to God that wasn’t the case, but when I came across a cardboard box in-between two parked cars, my entire body tensed, and I just about died on the spot. I crept forward, and when I found the courage to peek inside the box, I nearly deflated with relief when I saw it wasn’t a baby … but then sympathy flooded me when I realised what I’d stumbled upon.
Someone had abandoned a helpless, tiny kitten.
“Oh, baby,” I uttered, my hands clutched to my chest.
When the kitten cried again, I was horrified to discover how much it sounded like an infant. The poor thing looked terrified, so I carefully reached into the box and picked it up. I held it against my chest, wincing when its nails dug into my skin as it held on for dear life. I hurried back into my apartment building, walking at an angle towards the elevator so Joseph couldn’t see the kitten. There was a strict no animal policy in the building, but I couldn’t leave the kitten out in the cold to fend for itself.
I simply couldn’t.
When I made it up to my apartment, I grabbed a smaller throwover blanket from my settee and wrapped the kitten inside it. I set it down on the settee and stepped away. I was relieved to see the kitten didn’t try to escape; it simply stayed snuggled inside the safety and warmth of the blanket. I got out my phone and phoned Alec. He worked in an animal shelter and was the only person I could think of to call.
“Alannah,” he answered on the fifth ring. “Is everything okay?”
I rarely called him, and it was closing in on eight p.m., so he probably figured something was up.
“Kind of,” I answered. “I found a kitten.”
“You found a kitten?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “Some bastard left it in a cardboard box in the car park of me buildin’.”
“Is it alive?”
“Yeah.” I nodded, though he couldn’t see the action.
“Do you want me to come and get it?” he questioned. “I can keep it and bring it to the shelter tomorrow.”
I paused. When I rang Alec, it was for help for the kitten, but at that moment, I realised I had only called him for advice. I didn’t want him to take the kitten. I wasn’t sure when I made the decision, but I wanted to keep the kitten myself.
“No,” I answered. “I’m keepin’ it.”
Alec was silent.
“What?” I pressed. “What’re you all quiet for?”
Alec was never quiet, so his silence spoke volumes.
“You … you aren’t very good at taking care of animals.”
My lips parted in outrage. “I am too!”
“You step on Storm a lot when you come over to our house, and he is bigger than you. I still don’t understand how you don’t see him.”
I would never admit it to my friends, but my eyesight wasn’t the best, and with each passing year, it was obvious to me that I was going to have to bite the bullet and make an eye test appointment to get the glasses I knew I needed. It didn’t help that I didn’t exactly watch where I was walking when I was distracted either.
“I don’t watch where I place me feet, so feckin’ sue me.”
“Tyson growls at you whenever he sees you because you stepped on him one too many times. He just watches you whenever you’re around him now.”
That bloody dog couldn’t forgive and forget like Storm could.
“Listen,” I stated, “every time it happened was a total accident.”
Alec laughed.
“I’m keepin’ the kitten, and that’s that,” I said with a huff. “Can you just tell me what I need to buy? I’m clueless.”
“I can do you one better,” he chirped. “I can go to Maxi Zoo before it closes and bring what you need to you since you shouldn’t leave the kitten alone.”
My heart warmed, and my shoulders sagged with relief.
“Thank you, Alec.” I gushed. “I don’t know how old it is until I bring it to a vet tomorrow, but it looks really young, so get kitten food. Bring the receipt when you come over, and I’ll pay you back when you get ’ere.”
After we hung up, I went and sat next to my new roommate, peeking into the blanket. The cat’s fur was completely white, and from what I could see, it had one green eye and one blue eye.
“You’re so gorgeous,” I cooed.
The cat didn’t move a muscle, so I carefully picked up the blanket and cuddled it against my chest. When the kitten eventually wriggled around, I reached in and picked it up. Quickly, I checked between its legs and discovered the kitten was a girl. I put her back inside the blanket and let her get used to whatever it was that she was sniffing and scratching.
“What, baby?” I asked when she began meowing and didn’t stop.
I wondered if she was hungry, and then I wondered how old she was once more.
“You should have a cool name,” I said when the kitten popped her head out of the blanket and stared at me, then looked around the room. “Oh, what about Nala? She was a cool lioness in The Lion King.”
The kitten looked back at me and stared at me, unblinking.
“I’m takin’ your silence as a no.”
I pondered on a couple of unique names that sounded cool in my head, but when I said them out loud, none of them suited her. Her bored expression told me they all sucked, too. I switched on the television and selected my YouTube app. I scrolled through the videos, and when one of Barbra Streisand’s music videos was suggested, I stared at her name, then looked down at the kitten.
“What about Barbara?”
The kitten meowed as if replying to me. I stared at her, took the meow as a resounding yes, then chuckled. My ma’s middle name was Barbara, so I was sticking with that spelling because I knew she’d get a kick out of it.
“Barbara, it is.”
I picked up my phone when it began to vibrate and answered it without looking at the screen.
“Alec said you found a kitten.”
I smiled. “Hey, Bee.”
“Where did you find a kitten?” She continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “I saw Alec get into his car when I was puttin’ Branna’s wheelie bin out. He said you found a kitten, and he was goin’ to get you some stuff for it.”
I filled her in on when, where, and how I found the kitten, and she grunted. “Evil bastard whoever left it.”
“Her.”
Bronagh snorted. “Have you named ’er?”
“Yup.”
“Let’s hear it.”
I grinned. “Barbara.”
Like I knew she would, Bronagh burst into laughter.
“I’m not the least bit surprised,” she said, amused. “If you said a trendy name, I wouldn’t have believed you.”
“What’s funny?” I heard Nico ask in the background.
“Alannah found a kitten, and she called ‘er Barbara.”
I smiled when he laughed and said, “I love that woman.”
Bronagh and I chatted for a while, and luckily, she didn’t mention anything about Gavin, which I secretly thanked God for. I was hoping that Alec would keep my phone call with Gavin to himself because if Bronagh confronted me about it, I was scared I would break my promise to Gavin and tell her everything about him becoming a father.
We had just hung up when my apartment buzzer rang. I walked over to the door and pressed the button for Alec to enter the building. I didn’t glance at the monitor to make sure it was him because Barbara was meowing like a banshee. When I eventually turned, and looked at the monitor, the entryway was empty, so I figured Alec had already entered the building. I unlocked my door for him, and went back over to the settee and gently stroked Barbara. She moved away from me when my hand initially touched her, then she seemed to relax and didn’t mind me scratching her ears.
My doorbell rang, so I shouted, “It’s open.”
I continued to rub Barbara, and when she moved back into the safety of the blanket, I turned to greet Alec and help him with the items he brought for me. Only it wasn’t Alec in my apartment, it was Damien, and he had two large carrier bags in his hands. I paused and stared at him with my lips parted in surprise.
What is he doing here?
“Where should I put these?”
I didn’t know what was in the bags, but I managed to say, “Kitchen, please.”
He went into the kitchen without a word, leaving me to stare after him. When he returned, he closed the front door and came into the sitting room, eyeing the blanket beside me.
“So, you found a cat?”
I nodded dumbly. “She was in a box between two cars in the car park, and I decided that we could keep one another company.”
“You rescued her,” Damien concluded.
“I guess so.”
“That’s admirable.”
Blood made its way to my cheeks at his praise.
“Where is Alec?” I asked, changing the subject.
“He called me and said he needed help getting some things for you, then he dropped me off with all the stuff.” He lifted his hand and scratched his neck. “I thought we could have that talk you mentioned earlier at Dominic’s place.”
My heart thrummed in my chest when I realised I had completely forgotten about asking him that. When Gavin phoned me, everything took a back seat in my mind, and I focused on my friend and his problem.
“O-okay.”
Damien’s eyes dropped to the blanket when it moved. “Did you name it?”
“Her.”
His lips twitched. “Sorry. Did you name her?”
“I picked Barbara.”
The smile that stretched across Damien’s face was transfixing.
“Does it suit her?”
“It does … I probably should have called her snowflake, like I call you.”
“Why?”
“She’s white all over, just like your hair.”
I reached into the blanket and removed Barbara, tugging the blanket away from her paws as the fabric got snagged on her nails. I held her on my chest, careful to place her slowly against me so her nails didn’t prick me like the needles they clearly were.
“Cool eyes,” Damien murmured as he leaned closer to get a look at her. “One blue and one green.”
I stilled as he hovered close by without any indication that he would move.
I blurted, “You’re makin’ me nervous.”
“By being here?”
I bobbed my head.
“You said you wanted to talk to me.”
“I-I do,” I stammered. “I’m just … just …”
“Scared?” he finished.
I exhaled a deep breath. “Immensely.”
“Do you want me to go?” he asked, frowning. “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
That was exactly why I was nervous—because he didn’t make me feel uncomfortable, he made me feel … whole.
“Would you believe me if I said no?”
Damien’s lips parted with surprise, but nothing came out.
“Sit down,” I said to him. “It’s high time that I get this off me chest.”
Damien sat down on the settee across from me, and when he rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together, I knew he was as nervous as I felt, which allowed me to relax a little. I put the kitten back into the blanket on the settee next to me just to busy myself for a second or so. When I looked back at Damien, I spent a moment taking him in.
He was so handsome; it seemed unfair that someone could be born that beautiful. His hair, as always, was perfectly styled. It was tightly trimmed on the sides with a sick fade blending to his neck. His hair was thick; I knew from experience of touching it. It had a little length to it, not that anyone would know because he used hair gel and a hair dryer to get that perfect blown back comb over taper.
I focused on his face, his clear skin, and the stubble that had clearly grown a little from his last shave. His eyebrows had a tinge of darkness to them. They were light but nowhere near as light as his hair, which made sense to me. My hair was black, but my brows were naturally light brown. Unlike my brows, Damien’s were thick and nicely shaped. No doubt thanks to Bronagh getting her hands on them. His lashes were light and long, and they framed his stunning grey eyes that seemed to penetrate my very soul with one glance.
I knew every curve of his face, every flick of his hair, and every possible way he could smile. I saw him every single night in my dreams. I could draw him from memory alone … I had done so enough times. This man was under my skin and had been for a long time. This conversation between us was overdue, and I could only hope I could do it justice and give him the respect he deserved.
“I want to try.”
Damien tilted his head. “Try what?”
What’s meant to be will be.
I exhaled a breath. “I want to try bein’ with you … if you’ll have me, that is.”
Silence.
Oh, God.
A long period of deafening silence.
“Damien?”
He was staring at me, long and hard, and I found, at that moment, I would have paid any price and done anything to know what was going through his mind.
“Okay,” I said, rubbing my now sweaty palms on my leggings. “Now you’re freakin’ me out.”
“Sorry,” he said, unblinking. “I feel like this isn’t real.”
I looked down at Barbara when she meowed, then flicked my gaze back up to Damien. “It’s very real.”
“Are you saying … that you want to date me?”
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
“I am.” I swallowed. “But this is where things get complicated because I’m not ready to just be your girlfriend. I’ve so much goin’ on right now, but I don’t want that to be another excuse as to why I should shut you out any more than I’ve already done for the past year. I’m takin’ initiative ’ere, and followin’ advice given to me by seemingly everyone. That bein’ said, I want to go slow.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that we go on dates and we get to know each other because, let’s be honest, we’re different people than when we were eighteen. I want us to build up a trust, a better connection than we have now … I want everythin’ that couples do before intimacy happens.”
Damien licked his lips. “You mean everything we should have done before we had sex when we were kids?”
Exactly.
“Is that okay?”
“Are you kidding?” he exclaimed. “You bet your ass it’s okay … but …”
My stomach tightened. “But?”
“I want to know why you want this.”
I flushed. “What kind of question is that?”
“A valid one,” Damien challenged. “You’ve been ditching me all year, keeping me at arm’s length since I came home. You’ve been guarded, but now, suddenly, you want to try with me. I want to know why.”
I thought about that. Hard. Simply saying I was incredibly attracted to him didn’t seem a good enough answer. Not to me. I looked at Damien and repeated his question in my mind. Why did I want to be with this man? And just like that, the answer came to me.
“Because I’m tired of bein’ scared to accept that you could be it for me. I’m tired of worryin’ what could go wrong if I accepted you back into me life,” I answered, my voice tight with emotion. “I convinced meself that everythin’ that happened between us was your fault … and it wasn’t, Dame. I’m sorry for never admittin’ that before now.”
Surprise lit up his features.
“It wasn’t my fault?”
“No, not entirely, like I’ve always said it was.” I answered. “You were upfront and honest the whole time, and I shouldn’t have used what you said during sex against you. I seduced you, even when you told me it wasn’t a good idea. You told me what would happen. You said I wasn’t a sex only type of girl, and you were dead right, but I didn’t listen. I saw how you looked at me that night, and I used your attraction for me against you because I wanted you so badly. I was aware of what could happen, of what evidently did happen … but I thought I could deal with it if it came to that.”
“But you couldn’t?”
“No, I couldn’t.” I cleared my throat. “I wanted to hate you; you have no idea how much I wanted to. I tried to tell meself that I did; I made it clear to everyone else that I despised you … but I didn’t. I just hated what happened between us because it hurt me so bad. But just know that it wasn’t all your fault. I was more to blame, but I didn’t want to admit that to anyone. Especially meself.”
“Alannah,” Damien murmured as he scrubbed his face with his hands. “It’s hard hearing you say all this.”
“Does it hurt?” I asked softly. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
The look on his face when I told him about Dante flashed through my mind, and it cut me to the bone.
“Hurt me?” He blinked. “Baby, you look so sad telling me this, it’s tearing me up inside.”
Baby.
“I’m fine.” I smiled, sadly. “It’s just been a tryin’ week.”
“You’ll come out on top,” Damien assured me. “You always do.”
“I’m not so sure,” I whispered.
“What?”
“I’m not a brave person,” I said, my lower lip wobbling. “When someone or somethin’ hurts me, I’m not very good at standin’ tall and facin’ it again because I’m scared of bein’ hurt worse than before.” I looked down. “I have this fear in me, Damien. It ruins everythin’.”
“Alannah.”
“Please,” I said with a shake of my head. “Don’t say I’m brave because I’m not. I’m a good-for-nothin’ coward.”
Damien inhaled sharply.
“I am,” I continued. “I was a coward with you, makin’ you believe what happened between us was all down to you when I knew bloody well it wasn’t. I’m a coward with me friends; they were the voice of reason where you were concerned for a long time, and I brushed their opinions aside. I automatically assumed they were wrong, just because they disagreed with me. I’m a coward with me parents; me da has been cheatin’ on me ma for God only knows how long, and I haven’t even tried to tell ’er because it’ll hurt me if she can’t handle it. The woman has breast cancer … she has cancer, not me. She is the one who must fight this evil in ’er body, and all I can fuckin’ think about is that I don’t want ’er to die, because I couldn’t cope without ’er … I make everythin’ about me, and I can’t stand it.”
“Alannah.”
“I’m spineless,” I stated, angrily wiping away the tears that welled in my eyes before they had a chance to fall. “I’m a coward with no courage.”
I jerked back with alarm when Damien moved, and before I knew what was happening, he kneeled before me. His hands went to either side of my face, and his face moved as close as could be without touching his nose to mine.
“You listen to me, Alannah Ryan,” he almost growled. “You are neither of those things, and you have plenty of courage!”
I turned my eyes away from Damien, not allowing myself to believe his words.
“How can you say that, let alone believe it? I’m scared of what is goin’ to happen to me ma, to ’er and me da’s marriage. I’m scared me business is goin’ to up and fail, and I’m absolutely terrified that things will end worse with you than they did the last time.”
“And you say you have no courage?” Damien asked, his thumbs stroking my cheeks. “Real courage is acting when your terrified. You are brave.”
“Why are you bein’ so nice to me?” I whispered. “I’ve made your life hard.”
“Don’t,” he warned.
“You left because of me.” I snivelled. “You said so last week in Branna’s kitchen.”
“I said I left for you, not because of you. I left for me too. I had so much shit to work through, things that I could only figure out by myself. If I thought you did anything to wrong me, Lana, I wouldn’t have tried so hard to win your trust. I wouldn’t have come back at all.”
I looked deep into his eyes.
“How do you manage to make me feel better over somethin’ that’s been plaguin’ me for as long as I can remember?”
“It’s a talent,” he said, his lips twitching. “I learned it in school.”
“With other girls?”
He snorted. “None that were important. They all just wanted my attention.”
“I remember.”
“Everyone wanted something from me,” Damien said.
I remained silent.
He roamed his eyes over my face. “Everyone wanted something ... so what did you want from me, Alannah?”
What did I want from Damien Slater?
“I want what I’ve always wanted, what I still want.”
“Which is what?” he asked, leaning towards me as if he needed to hear my answer.
“Your time.”
“What?” Damien pulled back and looked at me with confusion.
“Havin’ a single moment of your time was the best part of me day back in school, d’ye know that? Everyone always wanted your attention, your looks, to be on your arm ... but I just wanted to be around you. Nothin’ more, nothin’ less. I just wanted to talk to you … I just wanted your time.”
“You have it,” he said, placing his forehead on mine. “You have every minute of it, every millisecond. It’s yours.”
I closed my eyes and placed my hands on his arms.
“Kiss me.”
Damien made a sound, deep in his throat.
“You said we have to go slow,” he murmured. “We have to. I’m not ruining this.”
“One little kiss won’t ruin anythin’, snowflake.”
“One of your kisses ruined me a long time ago, freckles.”
When I opened my eyes, and smiled at Damien, his breath caught, and that was the only warning I got before he covered his mouth with mine. My hands, as I knew they would, slid straight up to Damien’s hair, and my fingers tangled around the thick strands. I parted my lips, and when his tongue slid against mine, a pulse began to throb between my thighs.
Instantly, I broke the kiss.
“Trouble,” I rasped. “Stop. We’ll get in trouble.”
Damien tensed, but he didn’t attempt to kiss me again, though I knew he wanted to. I could almost feel how much he wanted to.
“Do you want me to go?” he asked, his eyes still on my lips.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t.”
“You don’t want me to leave at all?”
“No,” I answered shyly.
“You’re trying to kill me.” Damien groaned. “I know you are.”
“I promise to be good.”
He grunted.
“I’ll be good,” I continued. “I won’t tease.”
“You’ll be a good girlfriend?”
My stomach flip flopped at the mention of the word.
“Am I your girlfriend?”
“Yes,” Damien answered instantly. “I don’t want to play games. We’ll be dating and dating only each other. What’s the point in not being the other’s partner when we know that’s what we’ll be to each other? I’m not doing that no label bullshit. I’ve seen some of my brothers go down that route, and it was pointless for them. I know who I want, and that is you.”
My stomach erupted with butterflies.
“No games?” I repeated.
Damien nodded. “No games.”
“We’ll have to communicate,” I urged. “We lacked severely in that department before, so it has to be a priority if we’re goin’ to really be doin’ this.”
“We are doing this,” Damien said, licking his lips. “You’re my girlfriend.”
The schoolgirl in me wanted to scream, “I’m Damien Slater’s girlfriend!”, and for once, the woman in me was on the same wavelength.
“I’ll be the best girlfriend,” I assured Damien. “I promise.”
He smiled, leaned in, and brushed his lips gently against mine.
“I can’t fucking believe you’re my girlfriend.”
Neither could I … my friends were going to die.