AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He set the bags down on the kitchen table and pulled out some toothbrushes.
“Oh, brilliant,” I said and ripped one open. He didn’t actually grin at me, but I could feel him wanting to grin. “What?”
“You sound proper Irish.”
“What can I say? You’re rubbing off on me.”
I found the toothpaste in the bathroom and started scrubbing my teeth that felt like they had fuzz growing on them. Ronan followed. For a few minutes, we stood side by side in the bathroom, brushing our teeth and taking turns spitting in the sink.
The mundaneness of it all was a little surreal.
“You didn’t happen to get any underwear, did you?” I asked him.
“No,” he said. “I didn’t realize you had none.”
“I’ll live.”
Back in the kitchen, he took a few more things out of the bag. Coffee and a French press.
“Something smells delicious,” I said.
“That bag.” He pointed to another bag and inside of it was a giant bundle of newspaper. “I stopped by the chippy.”
I peeled open the paper, revealing a giant heap of fries and two pieces of fried fish on top covered in salt and vinegar. “Oh my God,” I said, putting one of the fries in my mouth. “That’s good.”
“Yeah?” He gave a half smile. “I remember the chips being good, but you know how—” He took a fry, too, and nodded after a bite. “Nope. It’s as good as I remembered.”
He pulled an older model flip phone out of his bag.
“Where’d you get that?” I cried.
“It’s a burner from the shops.”
“Can I call my sister—?”
“I did already,” he said. “No answer.”
“That’s . . .” The sinking feeling in my gut said that was bad, but I couldn’t say it out loud.
“Not good or bad,” he said quickly, his eyes on mine. “Don’t read too much into it.”
“Can you tell me where she is at least?”
“I have a house in London. No one knows it’s mine.”
“Why?”
“A guy I worked for before Caroline found me told the only way to stay alive was to have as many escape routes as possible.”
“This house is your escape route?”
“One of them. One of the last ones.”
I imagined a sad apartment in some high-rise building. Something small and anonymous.
I abandoned the fries and curled into one of the chairs in front of the cold and empty fireplace. Ronan kept putting things away. Milk in the fridge. A bottle of whiskey in the corner of the counter. I remembered how he’d built the fire yesterday and got on my knees to give it a try.
Kindling. A lit match.
“I reached out to a few old friends,” he said.
“That sounds ominous.” I blew gently, but only managed to blow out the tiny flame that had caught. I started again. Kindling. A match. A lighter breath this time. The twigs caught.
“You need a new passport. Driver’s license. Fake names and information. You need to dye your hair and cut it.”
“I don’t have hair—”
“I bought some.” He lifted a box of drugstore hair dye from a bag and set it on the table.
I added a larger piece of wood, blowing gently on the coals. The larger piece of wood caught. Even one-handed I was a fire-building natural.
“Poppy Maywell needs to disappear.”
I turned to him, unaware I was smiling.
“I expected a fight,” he said. “But you don’t seem too upset?”
“I’m not. It’s just hair, and . . . I mean . . . God, what a relief not to have the senator’s last name and frankly, I’m okay not having my father’s last name either. Do I get to pick?”
He was making coffee, pouring hot water into his French press. “Sure. If you like.”
“What are you going to choose?”
He shook his head. “My name will stay the same.”
“Because you’re a badass and you don’t care who knows it?” The fire was going pretty good, so I sat back in my chair, curling my legs under me.
His lip kicked up. “Something like that. How much have you had to drink?”
“Just one cider. It was delicious.”
“What else did the priest try and feed you?”
“Egg salad and cucumbers.”
“I meant stories. What stories did he try and feed you?”
He sounded so dark and skeptical. So prepared to believe the worst about the man on the top of the hill. It seemed so unlikely. Father Patrick was such a sweet man. “He said he was the villain in your story.”
“Did he now?”
“Is that true?”
“One of them. There have been plenty of villains.”
He sat down in the chair beside mine. He wore a thick cream sweater with worn cuffs and a high collar. He looked like a sailor, home on leave. That, too, made me horny.
“He said you were wild and could be vicious but that you were sweet.”
“Hardly sounds like me,” he said.
“I think it sounds exactly like you.” I reached out with my foot, thinking I could nudge his knee with my toe, but he was too far away, and I had scrunched down in my chair and stretched in a totally ridiculous position. I pretended to nudge him anyway, and all while he stared at me slightly bewildered and aghast.
