Chapter Forty-Four
Rory
While Amelia was meeting the girls for dinner and drinks, Tommy, Scarlet, and I ordered in takeaway and planned out the next few weeks of treks. The whole time, I was braced for her to say something about me getting together with Amelia. She hadn’t seemed too upset when she asked if I was going to drive Amelia to the airport, but now that it was just us, she kept looking at me with an unreadable expression in her eyes.
When we were done with what we had to do, I told Tommy I’d meet him out front, and I turned to her. “Just say it, Scar.”
She raised her eyebrows. “What should I be saying?”
“That I shouldn’t have hooked up with Amelia, a client. I’ve known you a long time, and I can tell that you’re not thrilled about it.”
“You’re right, we have known each other a long time. And I’m not thrilled about it, though not for the reason you think.”
When I just stared at her, she sighed. “I could see from the way the two of you were acting around each other that this isn’t just some ‘hookup,’ to use your phrasing. The way you gazed at each other, the small touches, all of it. You looked happy. And for as long as I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you look happy, and God knows you deserve to be.”
I didn’t know what to say. She’d never spoken to me this way before—we were friends in the way of colleagues who’ve worked together for a long time, but she and I weren’t confidantes like Tommy and I were. And now she was talking to me like a big sister might, and it totally left me speechless.
But she wasn’t speechless. She laid her hand on mine. “But Rory, she’s going back to the States. And that’s why I’m not jumping for joy to see you guys together. She’s going to break your heart—and you’re going to break hers. How can I be happy about that?”
I swallowed hard. “I’m not sorry,” I said hoarsely. “For a few minutes the other day, I was sorry. I regretted ever agreeing to a casual fling with Amelia, knowing it was going to kill me to say goodbye to her. But now? I can’t regret even one minute I’ve spent with her. She brought me out of the darkness, Scar. And it is going to be awful to say goodbye to her, but it’s not going to kill me. I’ve survived some pretty bad shit, and I’ll survive this, too.”
I got up to leave, not wanting to waste any more of these last few hours I’d have with Amelia.
Scarlet got up, too, looking almost as miserable as I felt. Impulsively, I wrapped my arms around her, and after a startled moment, she hugged me back.
“Thank you for caring. It means more to me than you can imagine.”
She pulled back, a sad smile on her face. “You’d better go find Amelia before those troublemakers get her utterly pissed. They looked pretty determined earlier.”
I grinned. “This could be amusing to see.”
We said goodbye, and I met Tommy outside. “All good with Scar?” he asked.
“Aye, it’s fine.” Maybe I’d tell him about our conversation, but not tonight. We headed up the street to the pub.
We were not prepared for the scene that awaited us there.
The table was strewn with—was that five?—empty bottles of wine, wine glasses, and half-full water glasses. There was a mostly-empty basket of chips and some picked-clean dinner plates—at least they’d eaten—and the five of them were giggling like schoolgirls.
The door closed behind us, and as one, they turned to look, their eyes glassy, their cheeks red. There was a chorus of overly loud hellos.
“Holy shite, they’re all sloshed!” exclaimed Tommy.
“Aye, they are,” said Liam, the bartender, with a grin. “But I’ve seen worse. I kept their water glasses topped off and brought out the extra chips a little while ago.”
“Cheers for that, mate,” I said, grateful he’d kept an eye on them.
Pat’s and Linda’s husbands arrived a few minutes later, and then it was time for the goodbyes, which were soggier than they might otherwise have been.
Email addresses were confirmed. There were promises to share photos and stay in touch, with the possibility of a reunion trip somewhere down the line. There was another round of hugs and tears. And all of them told Amelia to “have fun tonight,” accompanied by giggles and winks. What was that about?
Tommy insisted on walking Molly and Megan to their B&B, and the husbands were seeing to Pat and Linda. And then, finally, Amelia and I were alone. I handed her the trekking pole she was using as a cane, tucked her hand into my elbow, and we walked to the B&B.
“So, did you give them all the juicy details?” I asked.
She giggled. Again. “I mean, not all. I tried not to kiss and tell, but they were really persuasive.”
“I’ll bet they were.” We headed up the stairs to the room. She squinted at the key as if she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it, so I took it from her and unlocked the door.
She flopped across the foot of the bed. “The room is a little spinny. I think maybe I should have stopped like one glass of wine sooner. But it felt good to be silly for a little while, you know?”
I sat at the edge of the bed. “I do know. You’ve had a lot on your mind, and sometimes you need to set everything aside for a bit, give yourself a break. We do have to get an early start tomorrow, so I think we should head to bed soon, okay?”
She didn’t answer, and when I looked down at her, she was sound asleep, which I should have predicted. I took off her shoes and jeans so she’d be comfortable and lifted her in my arms, laying her down properly with her head on the pillow. Without waking, she curled on her side, and I tucked the blanket around her.
I set a glass of water on the nightstand in case she woke up in the middle of the night, then climbed into bed and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close.
The evening hadn’t gone quite the way I’d anticipated. But when she murmured my name in her sleep and pulled my arm more tightly around her waist, I decided it was pretty perfect after all.