“My plan is to see where things between us can go. Then I'll see where Rachel and Fiona end up. With my touring schedule, I don't get nearly enough time with Fiona and she's growing up so damn fast. I don't want to miss out on any more than I have to.”
“Sure. Of course.”
“But it's not just that. I need to see if you and I can make this work. That's why I said I couldn't take up with you again if you weren't serious.”
“I don't know why you act as though I'm incapable of being serious. Like where does that come from?” I switched off the bathroom light and headed back to my bedroom. “I was very serious when we were in Ireland. You were my whole world then.”
“You say that, but I asked you to marry me and you laughed it off.”
“You did not.”
“That night in the pub. A few weeks before you left.”
“Are you serious right now? You did not ask me to marry you. You saidmarry meand then you took a drink of your beer. That was not a proposal.”
“Maybe I was trying to protect myself. Which was probably a good call, since you laughed.”
“Of course I did. We were always joking around. You never mentioned it again.”
“I was dead serious, Katherine.”
My head was swimming. Of course it was—I truly had thought he was kidding. We'd been in the middle of a crowded pub. We were both at least a little drunk. And I was twenty-one years old, nowhere close to being ready for marriage, whereas he was a year away from thirty at that point. “Shit. I’m so sorry.” I plopped down at the end of the bed and ran my hand through my hair. This was a classic example of just how far out of my depth I was with Eamon. “I had no idea you were serious.” My brain wouldn't stop churning out scenarios of how differently my life would've played out if I'd known he wasn't kidding around.
“To be fair, I should've forced the issue. I see that now. Which is why I might've been a little heavy-handed the morning we had coffee. I just didn't want there to be any ambiguity.”
“You didn't want me to laugh.”
“How would you have answered? All those years ago. If you hadn't thought it was a joke?”
“I don't even know how to answer that question. I was so young. I had my family at home.”
Painful silence hung in the air and I again flopped back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
“It was stupid of me to ask in the first place. It was probably more stupid for me to bring it up now. It was a long time ago. We can't fix the past.”
Everything he was saying was designed to let me off the hook, but the reality was that none of it made me feel better. I would've said no. I never would've said yes, and if I told him that now, it would hurt him unfairly. It was hurting me right now just to think about it. That would've been the end. But I knew my own heart and was very well aware of the way the idea of marriage made me feel. Some people might feel like marriage made their whole world open up. For me, it meant nothing but the beginning of the end. The moment you're trapped. No one gets out happy or alive.
“I’m super excited for you to get here. And you can stay for as long as you like. As long as you can put up with me. That's probably a better way to say it.”
“I’ve waited a long time for this chance. I don't think I'll have any trouble putting up with anything.”
“Well, good. It sounds like you'll have some writing to do while you're here. But that should work out since I'll have to go to work every day.”
“The perils of a day job.”
“Hey. Not all of us can be a rock star. Wait. Sorry. Musician.”
“That's better.”
“Hey. Maybe I'll inspire another song.”
He didn't reply right away, which made me horribly embarrassed. Why did I have to say stuff like that? Eamon couldn't force his creativity in any particular direction and it made me sound like I was fishing. “You never know. I'm hoping I can get everything written before I get to New York. That would be better for me.”
“But then what would you do all day? Sleep?”
“That and convince you to stay home all day.”
I laughed softly and settled back into bed. “Yeah, well, only a few more days of phone sex.”
