AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I like your accent better, lass.”
Both of us are laughing as we go into the store. I half expect Niall to be bored of it before long, but instead we end up spending over an hour wandering through, comparing furniture and picking up baby clothes so tiny they don’t seem real, poking stuffed plushies and discussing names.
“Declan, after my father, if it’s a boy.” Niall glances at me. “Unless you’re set on Ricardo?”
I shake my head. “I love my father, but I don’t think I want to name my child after him. I always liked Hector. Or Jaime. But I think Declan has a nice sound to it too—or even a Niall, Jr?”
Niall shakes his head. “I don’t want to hear you yelling at me to settle down and listen to you,” he says teasingly. “But Declan Jaime Flanagan has a nice ring to it.” He pauses. “What about girls’ names?”
“I don’t really know,” I admit. “I haven’t thought about names all that much, honestly. It all hasn’t really felt—real, until today. I think I was afraid to think about something so solid, you know?”
Niall nods. “Aye, lass. There’s plenty of time, anyway. We can compare names all we like until we settle on some that sound right.”
We’re headed back out to the car, a few small purchases made and tucked into a small matte black bag, when I hear the sound of Niall’s phone going off.
He pulls it out of his pocket, opening the text that I see flickering on the screen, and the change in his expression is so instant that I immediately feel a stab of fear.
“Is something wrong?” I ask nervously as Clarke opens the door for me, sliding inside.
“No,” Niall says, his voice slightly more clipped. “But I do need to take you home, in case I’m needed elsewhere.”
“Who was it from?” Normally I wouldn’t ask, but I chance it, feeling that knot return to my stomach.
Niall glances at me. “Liam,” he says finally. “Saoirse is in labor.”
13
NIALL
There’s obviously no need for me to go to the hospital, so as soon as I drop Isabella off and make sure she’s seen safely up to her apartment, I go back to mine. I highly doubt anyone will need me for anything tonight—the last place I want to be is at the hospital, and I can guarantee neither Connor nor Saoirse want me there either. Liam might need some friendly support, but for that he can come to my place, or meet me out if need be.
The truth is that I don’t want to be where Isabella can see the tangle of emotions, some darker than others, that rose up in me when I heard Saoirse was in labor. Now, back at my apartment with a strong whiskey in my hand, I can surrender to them instead, letting it all work its way through my system in privacy.
I’d truly thought I was over all of it—everything that happened with her, that I didn’t give a single shite anymore. Especially after Saoirse’s antics of the past weeks, I’d been completely fed up with her meddling and the way she kept sticking her damned nose into things, even after she’d taken herself out of my life. But something about knowing that Saoirse is in labor right now, about to have Connor’s child, on top of the appointment today—it’s well and truly fucked me up.
The only recourse to that I can see is togetfucked up.
I’d felt shit I’d never expected to at the doctor’s appointment. Ever since Isabella told me she was pregnant, I’ve been fighting waves of conflicting emotions—anger at being forced into such a massive responsibility, fear that I’ll be a bad father, along with a strange and uncertain anticipation. I’ve never feared death in my life, but now I find myself worrying that I’ll die and leave my child fatherless, leave Isabella without a protector, and that chafes at me constantly.
I don’t know how to be any other kind of man than what I am now. I’ve never desired anything else. But now, I find myself longing for Isabella every night when I go to bed, in a way that goes beyond just physical desire. Whenever I’m with her in that apartment, which she seems to like well enough but could never feel like a home to me, I can’t help picturing her in that grey-sided house, standing in the huge living room, my child in her arms. I see things that I never thought I cared about, but every time I follow that thread of imagining, it ends in fights and tears when I can’t trust her, when I watch her every move, when I pick apart her words waiting for the next lie.
The feelings I have for her, the things she’s made me want, combined with my deep-rooted fear that we ruined things from the very start, feels as if its tearing me apart.
The whiskey helps, but not as much as it should. I finish one glass, and then another, and another still, wanting to dull the tearing pain in my chest. I think of Saoirse in the hospital, Connor at her side, of Liam at home with Ana and Brigit, thinking of the night his daughter came into the world, and I feel so desperately and achingly lonely that it leaves me hollow.
My phone buzzes, and I pick it up, thinking it’s Liam. Instead, I see a message from Isabella flickering on the screen.
You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.
I stare at the message, reading it over and over again. I can picture her in the apartment, chewing on her lower lip, agonizing over whether to send the message at all. It makes me want to pull her close, hold her in my arms, kiss all her fears away—but how can I do that, when I’m the source of all those fears—when everything she wants are things I’m too afraid and too hurt to give her?
Don’t go over there.I tell myself that as I toss back more whiskey, hand tightening around my phone. I’m too drunk to control myself, and I know what’ll happen. I can see it, and that only makes it worse, makes it that much harder, because I bloody fuckingwantit.
Iwantwith a ferocity that I’ve never felt for anyone but Isabella, and I can feel myself losing the fight between what I know I should do, and what I know in the end I’m going to end up doing anyway.
I stand up, staggering towards the counter, glass in hand. I reach for the whiskey bottle again, knowing that one or two more might do it, send me into a slumber so deep that I’ll wake up tomorrow hungover and glad that I’d chosen oblivion over what could turn out to be nothing but a mistake.
Or I’ll regret it.
