Page 50 of The Endless Want

And through it all, I drink because it’s easier than thinking about what I should be doing. Who I should be with.

I glance toward the stairs leading up to the pub. If I left now, I could be at the compound in twenty minutes. Thirty, if I drove slow. Twenty-five, if I sped through the empty streets.

I imagine her still awake, poring over logistics, rubbing at the tension in her neck the way she does when she’s been staring at numbers too long. I imagine knocking on her door. I imagine her glaring at me first, then softening, then telling me to go away, then not wanting me to.

I imagine walking toward her and her not walking away.

A hand claps my shoulder, startling me out of the spiral. Rory grins too broadly. “Come on, man. We’re doing shots to celebrate profits.”

“Not interested.”

Conor joins him. “You’re drunk enough anyway.”

“I’m fine.”

They share a look. I hate when they share a look.

“Come upstairs,” Conor says. “Get some air. You look like you’re either about to break something or confess something.”

“Neither,” I mutter, though he’s not wrong about the first. But instead of going upstairs, I take another drink. And another. And another.

The night bleeds into a fog—voices, flashes of laughter, the clink of glasses, the hum of the music low in my bones. I don’t know how much time passes before Conor reappears at my side, expression tight.

“You need to go home,” he says.

I swallow another mouthful of whiskey. “Not home.”

He sighs. “Fine. Wherever. Just… stop sitting in corners looking like you want to kill the next man who mentions her name.”

“I’m not⁠—”

“You are,” he says firmly. “And I get it. I do. But this? This is you spiraling.”

Rory appears behind him, using that same gentle-but-annoyed tone. “Come on. Let’s walk you out before you punch an Italian. You know how dramatic they get.”

I shove off the wall. The room sways, but I steady it with a hand. “I’m leaving,” I mumble. “Happy?”

Conor’s expression softens. “I just don’t want to see you burn everything down because of a woman you actually care about.”

The words hit harder than any punch. I shove past him, heading toward the stairs. The music fades behind me, the sound of boots against wood echoing in my skull. The corridor upstairs is quiet, empty except for a bartender sweeping broken glass into a dustpan. The pub beyond is calmer now, the crowd thinning as midnight creeps closer.

Outside, the night air is cold enough to bite, sobering me in sharp bursts. I drag in a deep breath, but it doesn’t clear the heaviness in my chest.

Ailish’s voice rings again in my mind. The words twist like a knife, but beneath the sting there’s something else. Something like resolve.

She’s right.

She’s wrong.

She’s driving me mad.

She’s the only thing lately that feels real.

I climb into my car, gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles pale in the streetlight.

I should go home and sleep it off. Wait for the morning. Instead, I start the engine and pull into traffic with only one thought burning through the whiskey haze like a beacon:

I can’t keep doing this. I need to choose a side in this war—and she deserves to know which side I’m on.