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“What can I get you?” I asked, flipping over to a blank page on my little notepad and retrieving my pencil from behind my ear. “Today’s specials are seafood chowder and roast lamb with the chef’s homemade mint sauce.”
“I actually wanted a word,” he said, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck as he eyed my belly nervously. “With you.”
“I’m sorry, but a conversation with me isn’t on the menu for today,” I replied. “Neither is forgiveness.”
“Then I’ll have the roast lamb,” he said with an awkward shrug. “And a pint of Guinness.”
“You’ve got it.” Snapping my notepad shut, I turned on my heel and headed back to the kitchen with his order before moving for the bar to pull him a pint of the black stuff.
When I returned a few minutes later with his order and set it down in front of him, my ex did the unthinkable and curled his hand around my wrist. “Two minutes,” he said, tone full of urgency. “Just two minutes of your time. That’s all I’m asking for.”
“Why should I give you one second of my time?” I demanded, yanking my hand away. “You’re damn lucky I need this job, because in any other circumstances, you’d be wearing that pint.”
“I know,” he agreed, holding his hands up. “And I would one hundred percent deserve it. But I’m leaving for college in a couple of weeks, and I couldn’t go without at least trying to make amends.”
I arched a brow. “You want to make amends?”
“I want to apologize,” he offered. “For what I did to you. Telling the whole class you were pregnant? It was fucking terrible of me.”
“Yeah,” I deadpanned. “It was.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my behavior,” he added. “About the way I treated you when we were together.”
“I don’t see why any of this needs to be rehashed, Paul,” I quickly said. “School’s finished. We’re finished. You’re going off to college to start a brand-new life. I’m about to have a baby with your arch-nemesis. Let’s just leave it at that, yeah?”
“That’s precisely why we need to talk,” he said. “Please, Aoife, just give me five minutes of your time.”
“First you said two minutes,” I grumbled, plopping down on the seat opposite his. “Now you’re saying five. I’ll give you three and a half.”
“Thank you.” Releasing a sigh of relief, he smiled at me. “Seriously, thank you.”
Remaining stony-faced, I rested my hands on my bump and waited for him to get to the point.
“I was a shitty boyfriend to you,” he started off by saying. “I didn’t pay you enough attention. I never asked you what you wanted to do. I put my needs, my feelings, and my wants before yours. I fucked around behind your back constantly and then blew a head gasket when you gave me a dose of my own medicine.”
“Paul, it’s in the past.”
“Yeah, it is,” he agreed with a nod. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I feel horrible about how it ended. Especially about revealing your pregnancy. And afterward,” he continued. “When it all came out about what Lynchy was going through at home.” He shook his head. “And then the fire?” He exhaled heavily. “I never felt shittier.”
“Yeah.”
“I tried to talk to you at school after the funeral,” he reminded me. “To apologize. But you were completely closed off.”
“I had a lot on my mind.”
“I know,” he agreed. “I just… I feel so bad about everything, Aoife.”
“Listen, it’s not like I was an angel,” I offered. “You were paranoid about my friendship with Joey, and you had every right to be. It might not have been physical, but you were dead on the money when you said that I was having an emotional affair with him.”
“But a lot of that had to do with the fact that he gave you everything I didn’t. I gave you presents. He gave you his presence,” he said calmly. “I didn’t understand it at the time, why you were so insistent about being his friend. I thought having a girlfriend was all about material shit, but then I would see you hanging out with him, and he had nothing to offer you and still managed to give you everything you wanted.”
I shrugged helplessly. “Where’s this change of heart coming from?”
“Because I don’t want to go off to college and start a new life without making peace with my old one,” he explained. “And whether you want to hear it or not, you were a huge part of my old life for a very long time.”
“Okay.” Slightly confused, I leaned back and said, “Quick question.”
“Shoot.”
