The cold presses in around us. Inside the pub, someone laughs and someone else raises their voice over the noise, and the normal world keeps going while the two of us stand on a sidewalk and rearrange the terms of a friendship.
"If you hurt her," Rome says finally, his voice low and certain, "I won't have a conversation about it."
"I know."
He nods once, pulls his jacket tighter around himself, and turns and walks down the sidewalk without looking back.
I watch him go until he disappears around the corner before I go back inside. Erin is already standing, pulling on her coat. She knows where she needs to be.
"Go," I tell her. "He headed down toward Main Road."
She squeezes my arm as she passes, quick and wordless, and then she's gone, chasing the man she loves down a cold street.
Lily is watching me from the booth, her face pale, searching mine for damage, trying to read how bad it was.
I hold out my hand. "Come on."
She takes it. I pull her up and out of the booth and don't let go.
Her fingers lace through mine, and I walk her through the pub and out the door and into the cold night holding her hand in full view of anyone who wants to see it.
I'm done hiding. Done sitting across from her at tables and pretending the distance is fine. Done keeping my hands on my beer when they belong on her.
The walk to her apartment doesn't take many minutes.Neither of us speaks the entire way home. Inside, I lock the door behind us and turn to her. She's already there, already reaching for me, her cold hands on my face, pulling me down.
"Is he okay?" she asks against my mouth.
"He will be. Erin's got him."
"Callahan…"
"I know." I pull her closer, as close as I can get her. "But he loves you. Everything will be okay."
"Are you okay?"
I kiss her instead of answering, because the answer is complicated and my mouth on hers is simple.
I pick her up and she wraps around me, her legs circling my waist, her arms around my neck, and I carry her to the bedroom.
I love her. I love her and she's leaving, and Rome is right, and I'm going to let her go when the time comes because that's what she deserves. I would rather lose her to a life she chose than keep her in one she didn't.
But not tonight. Tonight she's here and I'm here and the door is locked and I have hours before morning makes everything real again.
There is so much I want to say to her. Things like:
I can't stand the idea of you leaving
I can't stand the thought of not kissing you
I can't stand not seeing you at my house, in my kitchen, arguing with my dad about woodworking techniques you know nothing about.
So I redirect. I pour all my hurt into something else, something I can give her that won't shatter us both.
I undress her slowly. Every piece, every layer, my mouthfollowing my hands across her skin. I kiss the freckles scattered across her face, the birthmark below her left breast, the curve of her hip where my handprint had been and has faded now to nothing.
I'll leave another one. As many as she'll let me. Some record of my hands on her body that will outlast whatever is coming.
All I want is to sink into her, feel her as close as I possibly can. Instead, I strip off my own clothes and get under the covers with her.
