CHAPTER 15 |

Patchwork Hearts & Leprechauns

We had changed positions, with our plates of food slowly being emptied. Sitting close, we found ourselves with our feet outstretched on the coffee table, thighs touching.

“So, why’d you come back?”

“My dad had a heart attack. You know that.”

“But your parents have Kate and her husband—what’s his name? Evan?”

“How do you not know that?” I laughed, shaking my head.

“Selective memory,” he said with a shrug.

“Ethan.”

He nodded slowly. “That’s right—Ethan. Guess you liked that they got married in the Bahamas, huh?” He winked.

“You’re an idiot,” and I laughed again.

He chuckled, spooning mashed potatoes into his mouth. “They have them, so why did it fall on you?”

The short answer: It didn’t.

The long answer: “They didn’t need me to stay. They didn’t even ask, but after the heart attack, we knew he wouldn’t be going back to work, and then what? The deli would have been gone and out of our family. They were willing to give it up, but I wasn’t.”

“You never cared much about it when you were workin’ there after school,” he pointed out.

I shrugged. “Yeah, well, I didn’t think I cared so much about the place until the possibility of it being gone became a reality, you know?”

“I do.”

Those two little words—I do—sparked a little mental movie: A little blonde boy with deep dimples, clutching my hand. Cool as a cucumber.

Those two little words—I do—sparked another: A tall blonde man with stubble, unable to hide his dimples, clutching my hand. Cool as a cucumber.

“And where did I come into play?”

“You didn’t.”

He laughed through a mouthful of food. “Oh, come on. Our parents still live next door to each other, and you knew I still lived here. You’re tellin’ me that when you decided to come back, I didn’t cross your mind once?”

“Oh no, Patrick. You crossed my mind a lot, but you were my number one reason for staying away. I thought you were living the good life over here. Nobody ever talked to me about you, so what the hell did I know? I didn’t want to come back and see you parading your little family around town. But, when my dad had his heart attack, I had to suck it up.”

He chewed slowly on his roast beef, eyeing me with loving clarity. “So, the evidence I’ve gathered tonight is that, you felt guilty for years, as well as jealous of what turned out to be nothing. Huh.”

“What’s your point?”

He shrugged, a smug little smirk crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I don’t know why you won’t just say it.”

“Say, what?” I knew what. 

“That you’re in love with me.”

I snapped a bite off a green bean. “I’m not falling in love with you again.”

“Hey, I never said anything about ‘again.’” I turned my head to find those eyes looking straight at me. Always those eyes. “You can’t fall back in, if you never got out.”

He had set his now-empty plate aside on the coffee table, and although he saw mine still had a few scattered bits of food, he took it away. I didn’t resist, just scowled and crossed my arms, but really, I was done. Literally, and figuratively.

This push and pull between us, it was crazy and redundant, but it was necessary to our homecoming. It was necessary to our healing. We had to fight, because we never had. We had to talk, because we never had. We had to sort things out, because we never had. And with every retreat, and every return, I felt the fragmented pieces of our conjoined heart gluing themselves back together.

“Okay,” he said with a single clap of his hands, “there’s one more place I want to go.”

“There’s more?”

He took my hand and watched as our fingers slid together. “Yes.”

His voice was low, husky, and he pulled my hand to his lips. I closed my eyes.

“Where are we going?”

He feathered light kisses along my knuckles and over my thumb. He turned my hand, placed his open mouth against my palm and licked slowly. My breath tripped with a ragged gasp, and I watched through lustful eyes as he travelled down further to my inner wrist. A slow open-mouthed kiss sent a rush of warmth through my veins, straight to my heart, and his lips lingered before he pulled himself from the couch, tugging me onto my feet.

“You know what I always loved about you, Kins?” he asked, wrapping his arm around my waist, pulling me into him.

My knees wobbled from the sensual torment to my hand, and I swallowed. “What?”

“I didn’t realize it until later on, but I loved that you just loved me. You never tried to change me, you just … wanted me, even when I was being an arse.” I knew he was referring to Christine, and I didn’t need to bother asking for confirmation. “Ya know what she hated most?”

“What?”

He leaned closer, and whispered, as though he were telling me a secret. “The accent.”

My eyes widened with a genuine gasp. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“Honest to God. She’d get so irritated any time it really came out. She couldn’t understand how it was I grew up here and never totally Americanized.” He shook his head with a mischievous grin. “I’d sound like a feckin’ Leprechaun, chasin’ after me Lucky Charms, jus’ t’piss her off.”

I laughed. Oh God, did I laugh, and I pressed my hands and forehead against his chest, falling into him. Falling into the only home I really knew, and ever really wanted. And as I fell, I wondered if …

“You’re wonderin’ if I still do it in bed.”

Mind-reading Irish bastard.

I raised my head to find his eyes, darkened with unraveling passion. He tightened his grip on my waist, pressing my body into his and the obvious proof that he needed me just as much as I needed him.  

“I’m willin’ to let ya find out.”

He loosened his grip from my waist, and pulled me toward his bedroom. I eyed him with a slow shake of my head.

“Patrick …”

“Your feet are movin’, Kins,” he pointed out.

They were. Traitors.

He hummed.