His face was so earnest, like he was desperate to convince me, but he didn’t even know that I needed no convincing. Not about that part.
“When I left?” I asked faintly.
“I didn’t know what to think,” he said. “At first, I was worried—did you ever get your passport situation worked out? Did you manage to catch the bus? You couldn’t have picked a worse day—practically half the roads in Dublin close down. Then I couldn’t believe you hadn’t even left a note. I tore the place apart, looking for one. Eventually I realized it was my fault. You’d told me you were halfway in love with me and I got—I don’t know, my brain got scrambled, my throat felt tight. I couldn’t find the words. I’m still trying to find ’em. Jess, I’m in it. I think my heart knew from almost the moment I met you. It only took you leaving for my head to catch up.”
I’d started crying, and he put his hands on my face, or maybe he touched me and then I started crying, I wasn’t really sure. Because if I couldfeelhim like this, the warmth of his hands on my cheeks, his calloused fingertips sliding over the sensitive spot behind my ears, into my hair, his mouth pressing a kiss to my forehead, down to my cheek, my mouth…this couldn’t be a dream. So many times I’d dreamed about him in the last few months, and it had never been like this.
“I love you,” he said. “All the way, in every possible way.”
I reached up to grasp his wrists, wanting to hold him there forever. “I love you, too,” I said. “God, I really do love you.”
Those strong wrists, the way he held me like he also didn’t want to let me go. The line of his jaw, his ears, that fuzz of his hair that started right at the nape of his neck, still warm from the sun. Those cheekbones, that mouth that seemed to stretch into a smile easier than it had when I’d first met him. Those blue, blue eyes, the way he looked at me. It seemed ludicrous, suddenly, that I’d have found someone who looked at me like that. And he was real, he was here.
He gave me a crooked smile now, swiping at the tears on my cheeks with his thumbs. “I don’t pretend to know how we’re going to make it work, me living there, you living here. But for the first time I’m more scared ofnottrying than of the alternative, so I’ll do anything I can.”
“Had they but courage equal to desire,” I said, laughing a little. He didn’t even know. “I would’ve come to you sooner, except I was scared you didn’t exist.”
He got that line between his brows. “Is this about the birthday wish, worrying everything would disappear?”
“You remember that?”
“Jess, I remember everything.”
There was no reason for me to take that in a sexual way, because of courseeverythingencompassed so much more—the places we’d gone, the food we’d eaten, the conversations we’d had. And yet I felt a twinge in my belly all the same, as I thought about all the moments I’d replayed obsessively over the past few months.
I guided his hand to the back of my head, where I knew there was still a shorter patch of hair growing back in under my new haircut. “I really was in a coma for a few days,” I said, then cut him off when he was about to say something. “But that’s a long story—one that we’ll definitely need to talk about. I think we both have a lot of questions. Like…are those for me?”
I gestured down to the flowers, which Eamonn must’ve dropped when he went to kiss me.
“Oh, fuck,” he said, bending to pick them up, giving them a little shake. “Yeah, sorry. I’ve bought like eight of these by now. I can’t believe it worked this time.”
“This time?”
He handed me the flowers, which were wrapped in the patterned cellophane I recognized from a local grocery chain. I still couldn’t get over it, that he was here, that he’d bought flowers at the same store that I shopped at every week. I buried my face in the bouquet, not sure if I wanted to laugh or cry.
“I would’ve come to you sooner,” he said. “Except it was a whole process, getting my waiver to travel here. It only happened because Niall vouched for me.”
I didn’t know what surprised me more. That Eamonn hadgone through all that trouble, when he’d seemed so resigned before to the fact that he’d never be able to travel to America even if he wanted to. Or that Eamonn had clearly worked to reknit the relationship with his brother, which he’d seemed even more resigned to being a lost cause.
“We’ve eaten at that Thai place almost every night,” Eamonn said. “And this is the third library art class I’ve shown up at. I was beginning to worry I wouldn’t find you. Even before I flew over, I called most of the law firms in this area, just waiting to hear your voice. My mobile does have international calling, by the way.”
I knew I’d had that feeling, that one day I’d pick up the phone and he’d be on the other end of it. “When did you try that?”
He squinted one eye, as if thinking about it. “Not too long after. A week? Maybe two?”
“I was on leave,” I said. “We probably just missed each other.”
I couldn’t believe we’d had all these moments, times we’d been circling each other and didn’t even know. I ran my hand up his arm, up under his shirtsleeve, until I felt those raised initials of the tattoo.
“I tried searching for you so many times,” I said. “Eamonn Gallagher.”
His brows knit together. “Well, that’s why it didn’t work. Gallagher was my mother’s name.”
I laughed, leaning my forehead against his shoulder. He smelled so good. He smelled likehim. “No wonder I couldn’t find you,” I said. “No wonder I thought you didn’t exist.”
His hands tightened at my waist, his fingers sliding up intothe space between my shirt and my jeans. It gave me goose bumps, even though it was a million degrees outside. “I promise you, Jessica, I exist. I think I exist more than I ever have, and it’s because of you. It’s been a lot of sleepless nights, going back over everything you said, wishing I had done some things differently. Wishing I’d just asked for your feckin’ number, for starters.”
“And where’s the fun in that,” I joked. I could afford to find the whole thing funny, now that he was here. “How long are you here for?”
