CHAPTER 8 |

One Night & Negotiations

 

 

“I asked for the divorce, y’know.”

I was surprised I hadn’t heard about that. I just always assumed she had asked him for one, when she finally admitted she could never touch the part of him I could control just by walking back into a small town on the south shore of Connecticut.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because, Kinsey, you need to know.” He dropped his hands to his sides, looking over at me sideways. He had aged another five years in those few minutes. “I spent ten years of my life holdin’ on to something that was doomed for failure the second I …” He wiped a hand over his face, scrubbing at the scruff on his cheeks and chin. “I don’t regret it. Sometimes I want to regret it, but then, I’d have to regret Meghan too, and what kind of selfish arsehole would that make me?”

Meghan. His daughter. His eleven-year-old red-haired, blue-eyed daughter. I didn’t answer his question, because in that moment of bitter hatred toward—what, I don’t know, I wanted him to regret his daughter. I wanted nothing more than to hear him regret the life he helped to create. And what kind of selfish “arsehole” did that make me?

“You can want me to regret it,” he said, reading my mind. “I won’t hate you for that, but just don’t hold anything against her.”

“You know I don’t.”

He nodded once, and I stared with blank eyes into the backyard. How many times did I have to be reminded of his daughter, of him being a father before it sank in? How many times would it take before I accepted that he had procreated with a woman that wasn’t me? That there was a part of him in the world that I had absolutely nothing to do with?

That I was the reason she existed in the first place?

My hands covered my face, hoping to stem the call of my constant hurt.

“Okay,” he said, standing from the swing. “Come on. We need to go.”

“Why?” I asked, as though I wanted to stay in that sea of fireflies and misery.

“Because this is gettin’ heavy, and it can’t go there. Not yet. We gotta move.”

I dropped my hands from my face. “To where?”

Before he could answer, his hand was enveloping mine again, pulling me to my feet and leading me across the yard, and through the gate.

“Where are we going?” I asked again, approaching the truck.

“Next stop in the plan.”

“Oh my God, fuck your plan, Patrick! Christ, what do you think is going to happen here? Do you think I’m going to fall in love with you? Do you expect me to forget everything? You think everything is going to be better, and just, just … What?”

I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it was the recent discussion of his fatherhood, or the reminder that he was married for ten years, or that constant never-ending, nagging anger toward myself. But rage bubbled in my veins, and my voice rang through the quiet neighborhood.

He shook his head, his eyes displaying the visible hurt I had caused. “I don’t expect you to forget anything, Kins. But I suspect you’ll remember the things you’ve tried to forget, all the things you loved about me, and then, I think—I hope—you’ll remember that you do love me.”

“So, your plan is to manipulate me? Wow,” I snickered.

He sniffed a laugh, shaking his head again. “Get in the truck, Kinsey.”

I all but stomped my foot against the sidewalk. “Don’t tell me what to—”

“Jesus Christ, always so goddamn stubborn. Stop actin’ like a feckin’ child and get in.”

Patrick reached around me to pull at the handle, holding the door open until I begrudgingly got inside the cab, and he slammed it shut. I sat there, biting my lip, while I waited for him to get in. The key slipped into the ignition, and he held it there for a moment before turning to me.

“Okay, listen. I have a proposal to make.”

I slowly turned my head against the headrest to find him looking at me with … With, what? Longing? Desperation? Guilt?

“I’m not marrying you, Patrick.” I sounded exhausted. I was always so exhausted, waking up at five every morning. Making sandwiches. Swimming in my regret. Running my heart away from him. So exhausted.

He laughed. God, that laugh—throaty, deep, as though it came from his soul. “I’m not askin’ ya to marry me again, Kinsey,” he said, shaking his head. “Yet.”

Cocky Irish bastard.

“Then, what?”

“I’m askin’ ya to give me tonight.”

“Give you … tonight?”

He nodded confirmation. “Tonight.”

“I don’t get it.”

The first time Patrick Kinney had held my hand, he made a real show of it. The whole inch-by-inch thing until his pinkie rested tensely over mine, before he nervously swallowed my palm in his. But this time, he snatched my hand from my lap, surprising my eyes to snap wide open as he pulled it to his chest, holding it over his heart. I wondered when his muscles had gotten so hard. I wondered when I had stopped breathing.

“This might be stupid, but hear me out.”

“If it’s coming from you, it’s automatically stupid.”

But I didn’t attempt to pull my hand away, as his thumb began drawing little circles into my palm. He smiled, sensing that my walls were going to eventually crumble.

“I have the day off tomorrow, and I know you do, too; I asked your mom earlier.”

“What else did you say to my mom?”

He raised his hand and pressed a finger to my lips, shushing me. “Stay with me tonight. The whole night.”

He removed the finger, and my mouth fell open. I was never naive, but I had certainly fallen face first into that trap. The dinner, the swings … Suddenly, I saw where his plan was headed, and I could feel the old blanket against my back.

“Patrick, I’m not sleeping with—”

Those eyes widened in shock at the insinuation, but I didn’t miss the hopeful sparkle dancing in the blue-green mosaic of his irises. “I’m not askin’ for sex, Kinsey, and when we get to my place, I’ll sleep on the couch or in Meghan’s room. That’s fine. I just—"

“Your place?” My voice rang in my ears.

“God, Kinsey.” He pinched his eyes shut. “I just need one night, okay? Please.”

“One night for what?” Christ almighty, talking to him was tiring.

Eyes still closed, he said, “I need one night to turn this around, to make shite better between us. If I can’t do that, then I’ll be out of your hair. I’ll leave.”

“You’ll … leave? Like, you’ll leave me alone?”

He opened his eyes again, but they stared sidelong at the glowing dashboard. “No, I mean, I’ll leave River Canyon.”

Leave River Canyon.

I found my heartbeat thumping a death march somewhere in my throat. “Why would you do that?”

“Because Christine is taking Meghan to Jersey, and if I can’t have you, there’s nothin’ for me here.”

And then, my heart came to an abrupt halt, and my eyes stared forward—unblinking, glazing over.

He would run from me, as I had run from him. A gift in the form of his permanent absence.

A life without Patrick. Without Patrickinney.

My tongue scraped between my teeth, biting at the tip. I focused on his warm hand wrapped around mine, and the beating of his heart through my fingers. In that moment, I felt that I truly held that heart in my hand, and one little word could squeeze the life right out of it.

One little word could keep it pumping, keep it beating my name.

“Okay,” I said on a sigh. “One night.”

That was when he looked up at me, locking his eyes with mine. His heartbeat had quickened, vibrating all the way to my fingertips. He hadn’t expected to get this far. I saw it in his eyes, and there was that boyish grin that encompassed the lower half of his face. Two dimples.

“You’re serious?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“And you’ll stop fightin’ me every step of the way?”

“You’re really asking a lot of me, but fine.”

“Ah, Kinsey Kinney, I knew ya loved me.”

“No, I don’t.”

Yes, you do.

“You will.”

He started the truck, and he hummed.