AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You have nothing to be ashamed of.” Rachel’s voice was heated. “Fucking Moira Adams is the one who should be ashamed, trying to buy off her son’s girlfriend.”
“She didn’t just try — she succeeded.” Bridget had always thought the more she said it, the less ashamed she’d be, but it never seemed to work out that way.
“Because you were trying to save your brother’s life!”
Bridget looked around. “Let’s not announce it to the whole neighborhood.”
“Fuck them,” Rachel said. “I’m just saying, if you tell Nolan what happened with Owen, if you tell him why you were afraid to say something, he’ll understand.”
“It’s too late for that,” Bridget said. “I can’t tell him without outing Moira, and I’m not coming between Nolan and his mother.”
“You’re not the one to blame if Nolan finds out and holds it against her.” Rachel looked at her phone. “Are we staying? Because if so, I’m ordering another beer.”
“What time is it?”
“Almost eight,” Rachel said.
“I better not. My dad’s driving tonight and my mom could probably use some help getting Owen settled for bed.”
Rachel slid off her bar stool. “Okay, but we should go out sometime soon, really go out — heels, makeup, dancing, the works.”
“Sounds great,” Bridget said.
It was something of a lie. Bridget had never been one for partying — staying in with a movie and takeout in her pajamas was more her speed — but she’d play along for Rachel’s sake.
They paid their tab, left a tip for Derry, and made their way outside.
Rachel shivered as they stepped onto the sidewalk. “Jesus, it’s getting cold.”
Bridget looked up at the sky, dark beyond the street lights and the glow of downtown. “Hard to believe it will be Thanksgiving soon.”
Another year with Owen. Another one without Nolan.
“Bite your tongue,” Rachel said. “I’m not ready for the holidays, not with my family.”
Bridget laughed. There was nothing wrong with Rachel’s family. They were just big and boisterous. “You love it and you know it.”
“I love it for the first two hours of Thanksgiving,” Rachel said. “After that, you can have them.”
They embraced and said goodbye. Rachel started for her house four blocks away while Bridget stood on the pavement, looking up at the sky and breathing in the cold night air. Then she got into her car at the curb and started home, Nolan and her conversation with Rachel about him fresh in her mind.
He loved you. Like, he really, really loved you.
That kind of love doesn’t just disappear.
She was still thinking about him when she pulled up in front of the house. She gathered her bag from the passenger seat and got out of the car, determined to put him out of her mind.
Rachel wasn’t wrong about everything. Nolan would forgive her for taking the money, but he would never see her the same way again, would never trust her again. He wouldn’t admit it, but he would see her just like his mother saw her: as a cheap gold digger who wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of his wealth if she thought the situation called for it.
Add to that the rift that would widen between him and his mother — a relationship that had never been good to begin with — and they were consequences she couldn’t live with. She was almost to the walkway leading to the porch when she heard a voice behind her.
“Bridge.” She froze, wondering if she’d imagined it. “Bridget.”
She turned to find Nolan standing near a silver car parked in front of hers. She wondered if she’d conjured him, if her thoughts of him had carried his image to her on the wind, a holograph from the past.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I hope I didn’t scare you.”
He was real. Real and as beautiful as ever, his sandy hair cut short on the sides, the top still long and threatening to fall over his forehead. He was staring at her with the same hazel eyes she’d fallen into the first time they met, the same eyes that had studied her over the table at Southside Diner, that had taken her breath away and made it hard to remember that he was just a spoiled rich kid slumming it in Southie.
