With a tiny but incredulous shake of her head, Eve passes the bottle to Fin. “It’s official. Whisky made him blind.”
I find myself smiling. I don’t think my friends are much interested in Eve’s matchmaking skills, but they are keeping her mind occupied, because Matt likes women, period.
“Well, whatever tickles your pickle is a personal thing,” Fin says, pointing the bottle at our friend.
“You leave my pickle out of it.” Matt smirks. “Oliver’s already riled enough.”
“He looked so pissed.” Eve’s expression turns pensive.
“Don’t worry about it,” Matt puts in. “That gobshite’s face will look like he did the hundred-meter dash in a ninety-meter room right about now.”
“No, that’s not Oliver’s style,” Fin argues. “He’d say—”
“Rage is good, but revenge is better.” It looks as though Eve is chewing the inside of her lip.
“Sounds like something he’d say,” agrees Matt.
“Well, it seems I don’t know myself,” I begin, stepping into the trio’s line of sight.
“Oliver!” Eve takes two quick steps, then pauses, her actions suddenly tentative.Like her head and her heart have opposing opinions.I wonder which wins as she throws her arms around my neck. “I’ve been so worried.”
“That I might’ve killed him?”
“You wouldn’t do that, I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah, because I didn’t bring peanut butter.” She takes my face between her hands and adds, “Because you’re too pretty to go to prison.”
My laughter rings out as my friends make their goodbyes, but I barely lift my head.
“You’re all right?” I ask, stepping away for the benefit of perspective without surrendering my hold on her.
“Yeah, I’m fine. He was just ...” She rubs her fingers around her wrist. I lift her hand, and my stomach twists at the red marks I find there.
“That fucker.”Every ounce of me wants to tear him limb from limb. He touched what isn’t his—he touched what is dear to me.
“Oliver.” Her hands cup my face, bringing me out of that haze. “It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m just relieved that it’s over.”
“Over?”
“Seeing him. It won’t matter if I see him again, because the worst is over. I should’ve faced him, gone for my stuff. I guess I didn’t want to face the truth.”
“Which is what?”
“I’m as responsible for that day as he is.”
I open my mouth to protest when she cuts me off.
“I don’t mean his infidelity. There’s no excusing that. But I was fooling myself. I knew it, but I didn’t want to face it.”
I gather her into my arms, hugging her tight, filled with a sudden relief. “I understand.” Finally. She really doesn’t give a fuck about him. I hate that he knew her first, that she almost married him, but beneath all that resentment and jealousy, there was real fear. The human psyche is a strange thing, because only now do I realize I’ve been fighting these thoughts, this terror that she might walk away with him.
She suddenly rears back, slapping my chest. “But a safari park? Are you kidding me?”
“Eve.” I graze my lips across her head. “Let’s get out of here.”
We skirt around the palace gardens, taking pains to avoid the entitled, noisy throng—those drunken revelers swigging champagne from the bottle and staggering into hedges.
