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But when I found the box on the table, I frowned at it and wariness hit me. It was regular cardboard.
Faintly beige, faintly brown. The corrugated kind.
I licked my lips, recognizing how messed up it was that I found myself checking the base for fluids…
When I registered it was dry,bonedry, I headed toward the table where it was located. Sucking in a breath, I jerked the lid off, almost dreading what I’d find, then I sagged, hands flopping onto the table when I recognized what it was.
A Kevlar vest.
There was a note pinned to it too.
Wear it if you go out. I have one for Seamus as well. They only just arrived.
Da called. I have to go out, but I’ll be back before Shay gets home from school.
There’s a present for you in my bedroom. I’ll give it to you later.
Dec
It was short and sweet, everything he wasn’t.
I plucked my bottom lip, wondering what the gift was and why he hadn’t left it here now. Better that than thinking of the fact I had an addition to my wardrobe—a bulletproof vest.
Shit like this was a reminder of the anonymity I’d left behind.
The threat was high if they were making the women and kids wear Kevlar, and I was surprised we weren’t being shoved into lockdown if that was the case.
I rubbed a hand over my face as I slumped in the chair that I’d taken to sitting in. Funny how routines grew. I sat facing the view, Declan sat to the side, and Seamus faced us both. We took those seats every day, and not one of us had mentioned it before. We just did it.
That was what family did, didn’t it?
Like, with couples, one of you just always took the left side of the bed in a motel/hotel. One of you tended to have the remote, and one of you always knew where everything was in the house…
I’d never had that. It just wasn’t in me to want much from a guy, not when I knew what the real thing was. So to suddenly be experiencing all this was very strange.
And to be doing so with Declan… well, I couldn’t say it made the Kevlar worth it, but neither did it make me want to run for the hills.
I’d missed him.
More than I’d even realized.
Which was dumb, I knew, but I’d been too busy to really think about it. Raising a kid, forming a career, making a name for myself, it took time and energy. That didn’t take into account the rather nomadic lifestyle I’d forced on us since Seamus was a toddler.
I didn’t like to think back to that point, when my grandfather had tried to shotgun me into marrying a local boy whose boots he’d thought I should lick in gratitude because he was willing to ‘take Seamus on’.
I’d had needs. I’d enjoyed the men I’d screwed. But marriage? If that ever happened, it was for Declan.
Beyond stupid, I knew, and even more than that, irrational.
But who said a woman always had to make sense, huh?
I dragged the Kevlar out of the box, stared at the paradox that was the slimline bulkiness, and winced at the weight of it in my arms.
Because this was the first morning I had to myself, where the penthouse was empty, where I had time on my hands, I knew what I was going to do.
Shopping.
I hated it, but when it involved getting art supplies, it gave me a lady boner.
