Those words have stung so many times before, would have stung again from him even a few days ago.
But in this moment I feel only unrelenting joy.
Chapter 26
FINN
VIOLET, I’VE DECIDED FOR THE hundredth time, is the perfect fake girlfriend.
I take another sip of my beer as I watch her, captivating the crowd with her crooning Sinatra impression. I snort. I can’t help it. This beautiful, strange creature, warbling and deepening her voice, her face deadly serious. She starts doing movements, acting out the lyrics.
My chest tightens. My god, Billie would love her. I can picture Violet so clearly with me at the drag clubs. She’d be right up at the front, cheering Billie on like a maniac. She is someone you want to have around, or at least I do anyway. I let myself picture it: how easily she would fit into my life back home. Except for the fact it would drag her away from her own life, I remind myself bitterly.
It occurs to me, with a sudden start, that I haven’t thought about Gemma once. It’s only been Violet on my mind, really since we met.
It also starts to dawn on me that, despite knowing Gemma longer, I didn’t feel a fraction of what I’m feeling for Violet. I never had this maddening urge to know her, really know her, the way I do with Violet. I didn’t feel this same urge to prove myself worthy of her—only the urge to prove to her that I could have been a good boyfriend.
Did I really think there was a future with Gemma? I guess I did at the time. But I’m trying now to remember what I liked about her, and I’m embarrassed to admit even to myself that I can’t think of a single thing. I can, of course, only think of Violet.
I wonder about Florence’s comment earlier tonight: she sure wasn’t a lady in New York. Some part of me had buzzed with jealousy. I’d felt some need to lay claim to Violet, and finally gave in and kissed her—an urge I’d been fighting since we were on the rocks at Peggys Cove.
Despite everything she knows about me, Violet hasn’t chased me away. She hasn’t yet deemed me unworthy of her. Even though that sends a wave of acceptance over me, it doesn’t change the fact that I’m stuck in Scotland, and she has a life far away on the other side of Canada.
As the song finishes, Violet pretends she’s fainting—or dying, I realize, to coincide with the words in the song. She takes her free hand that isn’t holding the microphone and drapes the back of her hand to her forehead, arching her back as if she’ll fall to her death.
I want to touch her. Run my hands along her back bowed like that, lick up the column of her neck as she leans back. I know it’s a bad idea. I know we said no sex. But there’s some string between us and I can feel it getting tighter with every second I spend in her presence.
I have to push down the maddening thought that keeps popping up: that she’d be the perfect real girlfriend if the circumstances were different. If we didn’t live so far apart. If we weren’t quite so burdened with our family obligations, maybe.
Before the song even finishes, the entire place is on their feet, cheering and clapping loudly. Violet takes a dramatic bow before her eyes find mine again.
I have to physically fight the urge to haul her onto my shoulders, and out of here, far, far away from all these other people now vying for her attention. I simply nod at her, doing a smile I’m sure she can tell isn’t genuine and raising my beer in salute.
She grins fully now, her fully unrestrained smile, the one that makes my chest feel like it’s caving in; like a crushed beer can, not standing a chance.
I feel a hand clap on my shoulder. Allie is staring at me with a mixture of amusement and something else. You’re so done for, he says, whispering loudly so I can still hear him over the roar in the bar.
What do you mean?
He only glances over at Violet, who has run off the stage and is currently in a huddle of her friends, jumping all around her, before looking back at me.
Absolutely fucked, mate.
I feel a little like the wind’s been knocked out of me. My brother has no idea how much he’s noticed at this particular moment.
Isn’t this what you wanted? For him to see that you could be serious about someone?
I shake the thought aside, sitting down at a nearby table that’s just opened up.
Violet plops down in front of me, throwing her phone—which is currently buzzing—onto the table. She props her head up with two hands and stares at me with glazed, slightly tipsy, puppy dog eyes.
So what did you think? She says it so smugly, clearly so pleased with herself, which the arsehole in me finds utterly delightful.
Perfect, I say, for the thousandth time in reference to her. No notes.
Good, she says, seeming pleased. Her phone starts buzzing again. She sighs and reaches for it, but I beat her to it. I slip her phone off the table, cancelling the incoming call I can see is from her brother Ace, and turn the thing off altogether.
She looks up at me, her doe eyes a little panicked. What if it’s an emergency?
