AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I can’t look at either one of them when I pipe up. “I’m sorry I put both of you in this position. I got carried away. It’s all my fault.”
It appears I said the right thing, because a few layers of pissed off and stress slough off Meg. She gives me a percussive nod. “Get your clubs and meet me out front. I think it’s best you ride back to Waterville with me.”
Jack’s voice is low, and a little scary. “There’s no harm in me taking Gilly home.”
I want to tell Jack this is not the time for him to press for getting his way. We’re all upset. Meg is doing her damnedest to steer her PR ship in the right direction. We need to give her this one.
My future on the show feels as fragile robin’s egg in the palm of True Time’s hand. If I’m the one to blow their fantasy about Jack and Niks out of the water, I may find myself back to writing about silk thermal underwear in five pastel options.
I crook my leg around Jack’s under the table. It’s the closest I can get at the moment to taking him in my arms. “I should go with Meg. It’s okay.” She’s trying to protect me, to protect Jack the way she did that first night in Blennerville where we shared a spontaneous kiss in the shadows of a pub.
He squeezes my leg between his knees, our silent agreement we will let Meg have this one.
She lingers to whisper to Jack while I retrieve my clubs and cross under the arch into the main dining room. My fatal error is looking back. The despair I find on his face condenses the flame for him that burns in my heart into a small black stone.
ChapterNineteen
This week has been equal parts hope and hell. Hope that I’ll be able to pull off a version of the season finale to validate Bobby’s offer of a more permanent position onThe Chieftain’s Sonwriting staff. Hell being away from Jack.
The ride from Howth to Waterville with Meg was its own special brand of torture. She painted one of her extended scenarios as we drove through several counties, illustrating every ugly ripple a fling between Jack and me would cause. Every time she said “fling,” I bit my lip to keep from insisting we were so much more than that.
The angry tears at her intrusion into my private life came first, followed by a well of frustration as I painfully came to grips with Meg’s outside-looking-in perspective. To her, Jack and I hadtemporarywritten all over us. I wasn’t about to share real details of our relationship to set her straight. What good would it do? The outcome of Jack and I going public would have the same negative effects, no matter our truth.
Guilt gnawed a hole in my gut as Meg continued to pepper me with how blowback from our pairing would also ruin her best laid PR blueprint to cash in on Jack’s popularity.The Chieftain’s Sonis her first gig as a major player. I’d learned from my parents’ experiences that studio executives can be unforgiving masters when plans go off the rails. True Time Network’s potential displeasure at Jack, Meg, and the show could escalate ripples into damaging waves.
Even though it’s unfair, our situation is bigger than Jack and me. A sadness as dark and thick as the Irish country night seeped into my heart. The selfish, defiant side of me wanted to take Jack’sfuck allattitude and see where we could take this relationship. The truth I know Jack and I share at a gut level is that neither of us want fallout from our actions to hurt any of the people who make upThe Chieftain’s Sonfamily. He tried to brush off the obstacles, but I can’t allow our being together to negatively affect his career. That’s not something I could live with.
To Meg’s credit, she warned rather than scolded. Her intention was to help, and there was compassion in her arguments. I began to understand a bigger picture than the one Jack and I chose to acknowledge. When she finally said, “I’m going to be the one to say what neither you nor Jack want to hear. It’s going to hurt you some now to step away, but waiting until you’re any further down the lane will cut you to pieces,”I felt her metaphorical blade.
The restless pre-dawn Atlantic I watched after Meg dropped me off mirrored my own turmoil. Doubts that I’d been trying so hard to shake about the odds of Jack and I having a real future fused with Meg’s brutal honesty to create certainty. I should call Jack to share the only decision I felt I could make to serve everyone’s best interest, not just mine. That was the brave move, but I knew the moment I heard his sweet, cheery voice, I’d crumble. A single, cowardly text was all I could manage.
Meg is right. Being together could hurt both of us and maybe even the show. Please understand that being apart is best for everyone. I’m so sorry.
And then, even with Jack’s words at the hawthorn tree that broke my heart and drove me to give him false hope lingering in my mind, I shut him out. The potentially disastrous consequences for all involved, directly or tangentially, make me feel I have no other choice.
This morning, copies of the magazine with pictures from the photo shoot of Donal Cam and Nieve’s wedding grace the conference table in the writer’s room. It is a lovely spread. The dewy-eyed couple decked out in gilded finery is justification I’ve made the right choice. This is the couple the fandom wants. This pairing is best for the show. For Jack.
I tuck one of the magazines in my desk drawer. It’ll be there for me in moments of weakness. When I ache for Jack, I’ll open to the pages of Donal Cam and Nieve to remind me why I walked away. For him. For me. For the show. When the nuptials episode airs, I vow to be at a pub worshipping the great god Guinness to avoid watching.
My cell rings. Bobby.
“G, I need your notes from editing.”
It was cool to sit in on the editing session with him yesterday. “Hard copy?”
“Email is fine.”
“On it.”
He ends the call without a goodbye. I’m thrilled that Bobby includes me more and more to discuss scripts and pitch solutions to problems. He’s threatened to ask me to dinner, but thankfully, his schedule derails any solid plans. If he does get around to it, I can’t say no again. It would be weird and seem damn ungrateful.
Despite loving this job, there’s a gaping hole in my existence.
“Jack.”
I close my eyes and picture him riding across fields on Streaker or drinking clansmen under the table in the banquet scene they shot yesterday. He’s become a spirit, occupying the same space as me, but never truly with me.
I retrieve the magazine and run my finger down the length of Jack’s body, remembering every stretch of muscle, the hollow behind his knee. “I miss you.”
