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“What’s not?”
“You and whatever you have going on with Murphy.”
“You’re right, it’s not. I told you I have a healthy sex life. So why do you sound like a wounded fucking puppy over it?”
“You gonna be mean to me forever, Cole?”
“I don’t know. You gonna deserve it forever?”
“I’m trying not to,” he says, somber and maybe sincere. But what do I know about his sincerity? “I spoke with my lawyer today.”
“Why?” My heart pumps blood so powerfully through me, it’s nearly physically painful.
“What’s happening,” Willa asks, picking up on the distress she must have heard in that one small word.
“Not about custody, Isla,” he rushes out. “Okay? It wasn’t about that. I asked him to research how much child support I should have already paid and what I should be paying now.”
“I don’t need your money.”
“It’s not about need. Let me do the bare minimum here. Please?”
“Let me know what he comes up with and we’ll discuss it then.”
“That sounds like a stall tactic, but I’ll agree to it. For now,” he says, laughing. “I wanted to tell you that I talked to Trina the night I flew in to Boston.”
“Good for you?” Phrasing it like a snipey question is purely a defensive move, but I’m only human here and I still hate the sound of her name on his lips.
“About what you said she’s done,” he says, his voice still a pitch higher with humor. “She didn’t admit to doing anything.”
“You’re a bigger idiot than I thought if you believed she’d readily admit to being a harassing piece of human trash.”
“Hey, hey! I didn’t say I believed her,” he argues. “I don’t, for the fucking record. But I also don’t know what exactly I was accusing her of. You never gave me details. Either way, I told her to leave you alone. I’m done with her. I promise, she’s out of your life.”
This should be good news, something that makes me happy. So why does my mind go back to all the times he told me there was nothing going on and she was just a friend?
Because he lied so much before… No matter how badly I want this to be true, I don’t trust it. Or him. That phone call to Torsten and the video call later are all too clear. Time hasn’t diminished the pain it caused me. My old, broken heart wants me to be an asshole and ask him if he stuck his dick in her one last time. Where will that get us though? Certainly not anywhere closer to being better parents to Sadie.
“Thank you,” I say instead.
“You don’t have to thank me, Isla. I would have done it a long time ago, if I knew she was harassing you.”
“Cillian,” I stop him. “Be real. You never protested anything she did before I broke up with you.”
The silence stretches and I wonder if he’s remembering all my pleas. All the time I tried to convince him that she was purposefully trying to get between us. My last trip to see him in Boston, we spent so much time arguing about her. He didn’t see it the way I did, or he didn’t want to admit that he did.
“There’s always been so much I wish I could change or take back,” he finally says. “I used to think that I wasn’t all in the wrong. That what I learned that first year or two, and the man I became, wouldn’t have happened any other way.”
A silent tear trails down my cheek, and Willa wipes it away in worry. I blink at the care of my baby sister who has always been so strong for me when I’ve lacked it. She’s the thing that holds me together when my foundation starts to crumble. It’s not supposed to be her, this isn’t her job, but she’s yet to fail at it regardless.
“What does that mean?”
“That I didn’t think we were ready for each other back then. There was too much growing up to do, or that’s what I convinced myself of after you broke up with me. It made it easier to look at myself in the mirror every day thinking that you were better off without me until I could get my shit together. I was an idiot, Isla. Such a fucking idiot, and it’s lost me years with Sadie. With you. I’ve missed you, you know? More than I can say. I’m not going to fuck this up again.”
“Cillian—”
“I’m not the same guy you knew, Isla. I’m a man of my word. I’m telling you I’m not fucking this up again. You be ready for that. I’ll see you in a couple of days.” With that, he ends the call in his special way of leaving me in a tailspin, wondering what the hell just happened.
12
