Chapter Seventeen
Kristin moved into a one-bedroom apartment in the University-run housing complex for married and grad students. It felt odd not having a roommate, but being alone would give her the time she needed to work on her thesis and to work on mending her broken and battered heart. It would never be as whole as it was before Sean, Zoe, and Randy had their way with it, but it could be better than it was now, which was full of cracks and eaten away by the acid of grief.
There were days when all she did was go to class, come home, and cry. Sean was the last thing she thought about before going to sleep and the first thing she thought of when she woke. He filled her dreams almost every night.
She planned out every word she would say if he called and asked her to forgive him and take him back. When the break up was new, her response was a desperate and immediate yes. As she got used to being alone, her response was an angrier, “how can I trust you again.” After almost a week had passed since she confronted him, with no word from him, she no longer thought about what she would say because she was sure the call would never come.
They were truly over, and it was time she took his advice and began the painful first steps of moving on.
****
Sean’s finger hovered over Kristin’s name in his phone list. Call her, you coward, he taunted. Apologize. Beg her to forgive you and take you back. He pulled in a shaky breath, released it, and hit send. It rang and went straight to voice mail.
Even though he had rehearsed what he would say when he talked to her, had a response for just about every argument she might come up with to not see him, when the tone to leave a message sounded, he suddenly couldn’t remember one word of it.
“Kri…” His voice died on her name, his throat so dry he couldn’t swallow. He covered the phone and cleared his throat, trying again. “Kristin, it’s Sean. We should talk—I mean, I’d like to talk to you about…us. Meet me tomorrow after your class at that coffee shop in the library…you know, the one we went to after our walk.”
****
Kristin’s heart beat so fast it propelled her feet forward faster than her brain could command her to turn and run away. Her stomach spun as her eyes searched frantically for Sean’s face in the crowd of coffee addicts occupying the dozen or so tables in the small shop. She heard her name and looked toward the area in the back, where several couches and coffee tables offered space for more leisurely sipping and conversation.
When her eyes found his, the breath left her lungs in one whoosh. The welcoming look in his gaze brought it back and lifted the corners of her mouth into a tentative half-smile, though she didn’t quite have the confidence to make it a real one. She dug her thumbnail into the flesh of her finger, the pain ensuring her this was no dream. Her pulse buzzed in her ears and in her head, rejoicing but scared shitless in the moment.
Sean moved toward her, and she toward him. They met in the middle of the room and stopped, facing each other, trying to read the emotions hidden behind eyes locked tight.
“Hi,” he said.
He looked happy to see her. “Hi,” she responded, cautious but happy.
“How are you, darlin’?”
He called her darlin’! But could she trust him? “Fine. You?”
“Better now that you’re here.”
His hand cupped her face. Joy rushed through her at his touch and sped up her heart. She breathed in sharply and whispered his name.
As if that were the signal, they rushed into each other’s arms, their mouths fitting and mating, pouring out the love—the hunger—they had stored up since being apart.
When someone bumped them and muttered, “Get a room,” they parted. Smiling, his eyes shining, he took her hand and led her back to the spot he’d claimed on the couch for them. They settled down onto the worn cushions next to each other and kissed again.
Realizing they had an audience, they pulled back, but he kept his arm around her shoulders, keeping her close, and she held onto his other hand.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” he said, his voice soft.
“I almost didn’t. I was afraid it was just some kind of a cruel joke.”
He brushed a strand of hair from her face and cupped her jaw. “I’m glad you did.”
“Me, too.” She put her hand on top of his and kissed his palm.
“Kristin, I was an arse. I hurt you, and I’m sorry for that and for not trusting you.”
She caressed his face, stared into his eyes. “I didn’t understand how you could say you loved me, but then so easily throw away what we had.”
“For the rest of my life, I’ll be sorry for causing you that pain. But now that I know the truth, we can get back to where we belong—together.”
She felt a cold fog slip between them and wrap around her neck in a choking grip. “Now that you know the truth?”
“Yeah, darlin’. I know what happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“Zoe confessed everything—her plan to break us up, her making and posting the video and having Randy tell me about it, her admission that you stopped sleeping with her even before our first date. Everything.”
Kristin’s stomach clenched, and her heart tumbled to her knees. The euphoric haze she had stepped into when she’d arrived burned away, leaving her more disheartened than ever. Her smile faded and she pulled back from him, her hands gripping the strap of her purse.
Sean must have noticed something in her reaction because his smile faded and his face froze into a mask of confusion. “Are you okay?”
She swallowed hard, struggling to pull the words from her battered heart. “You believed her. Not me.”
He shook his head, confusion in his eyes and not understanding her point. “What?”
“You loved me, but you didn’t trust me enough to believe that I’d never hurt you like that. You hate Zoe, but you believed her. Explain that to me.”
“I was hurt and pissed off. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
She kept talking as if he hadn’t spoken. “Until someone else gave you proof that what I said was the truth, you couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe me.”
“Dammit, I love you. I was wrong not to believe you. I’m sorry, and I’ll never make that mistake again.”
“Neither will I.” She grabbed her purse, her knuckles almost white from the tight grip she had not only on her purse but on her emotions.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I accept your apology, but I can’t be with someone who has so little faith in me or our love that he’ll believe everyone but me.” She turned away from him and ran out of the coffee shop. And he didn’t try to stop her.
****
Stunned by Kristin’s reaction, Sean sat glued to the couch after she ran out. He thought they’d be celebrating their reunion by now, maybe headed to his room or hers, but instead he was left trying to figure out what the hell happened. Feeling curious eyes on him, he left the coffee shop and started home, going over everything they’d said, trying to pinpoint where it all went wrong and why she was so mad, so disappointed, with him.
He stewed for days over Kristin’s words, finally coming to the decision that he was better off without her. He went to the bar with some of the guys from the archaeology department several nights a week, trying to drink her out of his mind. But even the stoutest drinks couldn’t erase the memory of her face, her voice, her touch.
“Fuck her, man,” slurred his officemate, Mark, and patted his back. “You gave her your heart, and what did she do? She kicked it to the curb and stomped on it. You’re better off without her.”
Kurt, who rounded out their trio, nodded, grunting his agreement.
But Sean knew he’d never believe that. He took out his phone. “No, I can make it right again.”
A chorus of unasked-for advice roared from the table.
“She won’t even talk to you, man.”
“Don’t do it. Never a good idea to drunk-dial your ex.”
“No, really. She’ll listen this time.” Sean stood, staggered a bit, then righted himself. “She loves me.”
The guys tried to get him to sit down, but he refused and made his way to the door. He stepped out into the cool, March night. The chill in the air acted like a slap in the face to rouse his senses. He thought of home.
The St. Patrick’s Festival would have started today. Were he home, he’d be in the local pub with his best mate, Ian, and others from the dig team, playing trad and dancing and drinking real beer. He for damn sure wouldn’t be in this lifeless bar drinking piss for beer with guys who didn’t understand the depth of love in an Irishman’s soul.
But if he were home, he’d be even farther away from Kristin. And he was already as far away from her as he could handle.
He scrolled through his phone, stopping on the picture he’d taken of them together the night they’d made love. They were in his bed, wrapped around each other so tight they were a part of each other, their faces glowing and glistening, smiling and facing each other instead of the eye of the phone’s camera he held above them.
“You love me. You can’t stop loving that fast.”
He stared at the picture until it swam before his eyes, then he dialed her number. She answered on the second ring, and not with the warm hello he’d hoped to hear.
“I asked you not to call me anymore.”
“Hello, darlin’. It’s me, the man you love more than your next breath.”
“Don’t use my words against me, especially when you’re drunk.”
“I’m Irish. I’m incapable of getting drunk.”
“Goodbye.”
“Kristin, wait.”
Silence.
“Kristin?”
Silence.
“Kristin!”
“What?”
The panic slid away when he heard her voice.
“Ah, Kristin,” he exhaled her name on a sigh. He leaned back against the wall of the bar and stared into the blanket of stars overhead. “Darlin’, I need to see your eyes…touch your face…smell your skin…taste your mouth. Let me come over. We’ll talk all night, shout at each other, cry on each other, wrap our bodies together in a knot so tight nothing can break us again. We’ll watch the sun come up in each other’s arms and, in the morning light, you’ll see the proof of how right our love is, no matter what idiotic things we’ve done to each other. Say yes. Let me take you back to our Honahlee.”
He paused, waiting for her answer, for the yes he needed to hear. He only got her whispered voice saying his name. He heard the tears in the spaces between her breaths. Heard the dead silence that told him she had hung up. Felt the knife in his heart that told him her answer was no.
He shoved the phone into his pocket and held up the wall until the cold froze the alcohol warming him and seeped into his bones. Then he started the walk home, his foggy brain sloshing ideas around for getting her back.
Spring break, which was a few short days away, would give him time to get her to come to her senses like he’d come to his.
****
Kristin dropped the bag of cherries into her cart, not taking time to check her list. With spring break in full force, and nothing to distract her from thoughts of Sean, she lived on automatic. She had once bought cherries from this store, so she was buying them today.
Sean’s latest words replayed in her mind constantly. She had never heard such passionate, genuine-sounding words from any man who claimed to love her. Everything about him screamed his love for her. So why couldn’t she take that small step and open her heart to him again?
It came down to fear. She was afraid to care that deeply again. Afraid that if he hurt her again, she wouldn’t survive it. The flipside of knowing such great love was the possibility of knowing great pain.
“Excuse me, darlin’, can I reach around you to get some of those cherries?”
Kristin shook herself out of her daze and looked up at the man standing beside her who had spoken in a lovely Irish lilt. Her heart flipped onto its side when her eyes tangled with his dark blue ones and saw a quirky grin on the sweetest mouth she had ever tasted.
Her eyebrows came together in a scowl. “What are you doing here?”
His eyebrows lifted, giving his face the look of innocence he was probably going for. “Buying cherries.”
“Cherries? Really? That’s your story?”
“I like…cherries,” he said, his eyes settling on her mouth before drifting back to her eyes, his grin growing wider and more dazzling the more her face flushed.
“They’re all yours.” She turned her cart to move around him, but he stepped in front of it.
“I’ve seen you around, darlin’, but I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Sean.”
She knew what he was doing—trying to start over—but she had already face-planted on the bottom of that muddy pool once. But seeing his hand outstretched toward her, hearing his voice float through her like the melody of her favorite song, rooted her in place, making her unable to move away from the spell he was casting over her.
His eyes and smile compelled her to respond and, before she knew what her body was doing, her arm had extended and her hand had made the easy glide to his. His touch was as warm and comforting as she remembered, and it made her insides tremble. She forced herself to remember to breathe. She forced herself to remember her name.
“Kristin.”
“I see you like sushi.” He nodded to the package in her cart.
She glanced at the package then back to his face.
“I’ve never tried it meself,” he said, “but I’d like to. Any tips for a first-timer?”
Noticing he still held her hand in his grip, she pulled away and gripped the shopping cart handle with both hands.
“Don’t buy it from the grocery store.”
“Why are you buying it here then?”
“It’s easier than eating alone in a restaurant.”
The look of pity on his face pissed her off. “That better not be pity on your face, Sean O’Neill, because if it is—”
His eyes flew wide in mock surprise. “Pity? Naw. That was my ‘thinking’ face.”
At her silence, he continued. “Ask me what I was thinking.”
She shook her head, not wanting to play this game. But after a moment she asked, “What were you thinking?”
“So glad you asked. I was thinking we should go have sushi together. At your favorite restaurant. I could use a lesson in all things raw.”
The flow of energy filling her body during their casual conversation turned ice cold at his suggestion. “No.” She tried to steer the cart around him and escape, but he stood in her way, holding onto the cart.
“No expectations, no demands, just sharing a meal. We won’t discuss anything you don’t want to discuss. Hell, we don’t even have to talk if you don’t want.”
Paralyzed from her feet to her vocal chords, she could only stare at him, remembering how much he’d loved her and how much he’d hurt her. “No.”
“You don’t want me to poison myself by eating bad sushi, do you? Do you really want that on your conscience?”
She didn’t want him to be charming and cute. She didn’t want to respond to charming and cute. One hand rose to her mouth and she plucked at her lips to cover a little grin.
He picked up the cello-wrapped sushi from her cart. “Does that little smile you’re trying to hide mean I can put this back?”
She dropped her hand, letting her gaze dart to his before quickly settling on the plate of nastiness. “I can’t believe I was going to buy that.”
He laughed, and she almost joined him but swallowed the mirth at the last second. He convinced her to put back the few items in her cart so they could go to dinner that night.
“My bike’s over here,” he said and started walking toward it. “We can come back for your car.”
She didn’t walk with him. “No, I’ll meet you there. I need to go home and change.”
His gaze took in her flip flops, shorts, long-sleeved T-shirt, and ponytail. “Why? You look…perfect.”
Seeing the longing in his eyes, she turned away from it. “I’ll meet you there,” she said, wrapping her words in a tone that barred further argument. She told him the name of the place and he captured the location and directions on his phone.
****
As the hour of their dinner approached, doubts filled her thoughts.
I should have walked away when I first saw him in the store.
Why should I run away from someone I want so badly?
I should call him and cancel.
It’ll be great to be with him again…it’s been so long and he looked so damn good.
She sat on her bed in her bra and panties for a full fifteen minutes, arguing with herself and weighing her conflicting desires. When she finally left her apartment late, she still wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing. She just hoped she wouldn’t regret it too much.