Chapter 11

Myla

“I realize that everyone is leaving,” I told my mom, rolling my eyes as I unloaded the dishwasher. “But I’m staying until everyone is packed up.”

“Would you talk some sense into your daughter?” she bitched, looking over at my dad.

“You’re comin’ home with us.”

“I’m staying with Cian.”

“He know that?” Dad asked with a chuckle.

“You’re leavin’ with your parents,” Cian said, walking into the room with a box in his arms. “End of.”

I paused to glare at him. “How well has bossing me around succeeded in the past?”

“Don’t start.”

“Cian,” I yelled as he walked out of the room.

“He’s got his hands full with the girls.”

“If Ronan would just help,” I muttered under my breath.

“Ronan’s dealin’ with his own shit,” my dad scolded. “Leave him be.”

“You’ve seen them,” I whispered, turning to face my parents. “They’re walking around like the world stopped spinning and they don’t know whether to lay down and die or start screaming.”

“Bas is stayin’ and so is Gray,” Dad reminded me. “They’ll help herd all the little ducklings to Oregon.”

“Mom,” I murmured, meeting her eyes. She knew why I didn’t want to leave Cian.

Since the moment he’d walked out of Richie’s room, Cian was like a barrel of gunpowder. One stray spark and he was going to either explode or implode. Either way, it was going to end badly. He’d forced me to sleep at the hotel for the last two nights, telling me that he thought his sisters needed a little space…but I knew that wasn’t the reason. He was pulling away—something he’d never done, even in the middle of our most epic arguments.

So, I was clinging. I knew I was clinging. I couldn’t seem to stop myself from clinging.

I wanted to cringe every time he walked away or brushed me off, but instead I just acted like everything was fine. We were best friends. Best friends got into bad moods. I didn’t keep my distance when Lou or Frankie were being pissy, I wasn’t going to do it with Cian.

Everyone saw through it.

“We’re leaving in less than an hour,” my mom informed me. “You’re going with us.”

I quietly closed the dishwasher and took off in the direction I’d seen Cian disappear. If he didn’t want me to stay, I wouldn’t stay.

I found him in Sean’s room, folding up the bedding and stuffing it into another box.

“My parents are leaving soon,” I informed him. “I’d like to stay with you.”

“You can’t stay with me,” he replied stonily. “I’m gonna be gettin’ the girls’ shit packed up and we’ll be on the road tomorrow or the day after.”

“I can help.”

“We’ve got it covered.”

“But—”

“Jesus, Myla,” he said tiredly, dropping the sheets into the box. “Can you just once think about what someone else needs?”

“Uh, what?” I asked, staring at him.

“I’m tellin’ you to go back with your parents. They’re tellin’ you to go back with them. Do I have to hire a fuckin’ skywriter? You need Aoife to tell you that she needs a day alone in her house, the one she grew up in, the one she raised her family in? Does my sister, who just lost her husband, need to spell it out for you? What do you need me to do to make it all right with you ?”

“Whoa,” I said, taking a shaky step backward. “Hearing you loud and clear.”

“Fuck,” he muttered, running his hands through his hair.

“You know, I’m glad I came out here,” I said, my nails digging into the palms of my hands as I stuffed them into the pocket of my hoodie. “I would’ve felt like shit if I hadn’t.”

“I’m glad you did too—”

“But next time—” I swallowed as my voice started to go all croaky and weird. “I’ll just stay out of your hair.”

“Myla, you know that’s not what I meant. You know I appreciate—”

“You don’t need to explain.” I smiled. “Overstayed my welcome.”

Cian sighed and set the box aside.

“I’m really sorry about Richie.” I nodded and took a step backward. “And I hope Aoife gets all the time she needs to say goodbye for a while. Tell Aisling to call me as soon as she’s up for some girl time, okay?”

I spun on my heel and raced down the stairs, taking them two at a time. My parents were in the living room folding blankets and cleaning up some of Sean’s toys when I passed them.

“If you’re not in the car in two seconds, I’m hitchhiking,” I told them seriously. I made it out the front door and into the passenger side of my mom’s SUV in seconds.

Thankfully, only a couple minutes later, she was climbing in beside me.

“Guessing Cian told you to head back with us,” she said as she started the car.

“Something like that,” I mumbled. “Overstayed my welcome, I guess.”

“He didn’t say that.”

“He absolutely did,” I replied as we pulled away from the curb.

“That little shit.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine. They needed some space. I get that. I was just—I just wanted to help.”

“I know you did, doll,” Mom said sympathetically. “They’re all hurting right now. Aoife’s probably aching for a little piece of quiet, though.”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t even imagine being in her shoes,” Mom said quietly, watching my dad on his bike in front of us.

“If you want to ride with Dad, I can drive this home,” I offered.

“Nah, I’m not built for the cold,” she joked, shooting me a smile. “Rose can ride for hours on the interstate on the back of Mack’s bike. I’d rather sit in here on my heated seats and listen to some music.”

“You’re a terrible old lady,” I joked.

“If that makes me wrong, I don’t wanna be right,” she shot back. “I love riding with your dad. I do not love riding in the freezing ass rain.”

We listened to Mom’s playlist while I stared out the windshield and thought about Cian. He made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want me to stay behind, but I still wondered how he was doing once we’d left. I was glad that Bas was staying. He’d designated himself Aisling’s personal bodyguard, and for the past two days I hadn’t seen one of them without the other. Gray was a little less…helpful, but I was glad he was staying, too. Even if he spent most of his time on the phone or sitting outside watching the street.

Aisling, Aoife, and Sean were going to stay with Cian’s aunt Ashley in Oregon for a while. No one was coming out and saying it, but I knew it was because whoever had killed Richie and attacked Aisling was still out there somewhere. It made my skin crawl to think of the guy lying in wait for one of Cian’s sisters to let her guard down. They’d be safer in Oregon under the umbrella of my dad’s club.

After hours of chatting, even more hours of podcasts and music, and a stop for dinner, Mom dropped me off at my house late that night. All the lights were on as I blew her a kiss from the front porch and let myself inside.

“I thought you were coming home with Cian,” Lou said in surprise as she popped her head out of the kitchen. “Bas called and told me you didn’t even say goodbye.”

“Cian told me to go,” I informed her, dropping my bag by the door. “He basically told me to get the fuck out.”

“No, he didn’t,” she said, her eyes wide.

“Oh, yeah,” I scoffed, kicking off my shoes. The long car ride had been an opportunity for a whole range of emotions, from embarrassment to sadness to anger and back to embarrassment again. The current frontrunner was anger. “He asked if he needed to get a skywriter to tell me to go home or could I for once think about what someone else needed.”

“That motherfucker!” Frankie yelled from her bedroom.

“How can you even hear me?” I yelled back.

“I have hearing like a bat!” She appeared in the hallway. “You know that.”

“Yeah, so anyway, I bailed,” I said, pulling off my jacket. “Like my ass was on fire.”

“The audacity,” Lou griped, her face scrunched up in disgust. “I swear to God. You’re a full-grown adult, loser, control your emotions.”

“I was being a little pushy.”

“You drove all day to get there when he needed you,” Lou argued. “You get a pass.”

“He’s all fucked up,” Frankie said, grabbing a soda out of the fridge.

“Is that my soda?” I asked.

She looked down at it. “Yep.” She cracked it open and took a long drink. “Everyone noticed it.”

“And we watched the whole bathroom situation.”

“It wasn’t a big deal.”

“He was breathing fire, ignored everyone else, and dragged you into a small room and locked the door,” Lou said dryly. “I think there was a little cause for concern.”

“He just needed a minute.”

“Why?”

“He said Richie fucked up,” I said quietly. “I don’t know what it meant, but it was bad.”

“Well, he was shot,” Franky replied. “I think we all knew something was stinky about that whole thing.”

“Did you ever get the whole story?” Lou asked.

“Nope.” I stretched my arms above my head and groaned. “But I’ve gotten used to only knowing bits and pieces. No one ever tells me anything.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Lou commiserated.

“Aoife and Aisling are coming out here, right?” Frankie asked, boosting herself onto the counter.

“Yeah. They’re going to stay with Ashley and Saoirse for a while.”

“That’s good. A change of scenery will help.”

“For sure,” I mumbled.

“Okay, yeah, we’re dissecting this,” Frankie said after a few moments of quiet. “What exactly did Cian say?”

I broke down the entire situation, and like always, Frankie and Lou had wildly different interpretations of what had gone down. While Lou murmured that Cian had a lot on his plate and was obviously overwhelmed and pulled in a million different directions, Frankie ranted about how she wanted to cut his balls off and make him eat them.

I was somewhere in between.

“I think I need to just give him some space,” I said as they finally wound down. “I mean, he obviously wanted me out of his face. He made that perfectly clear. And even before that, it was pretty obvious that he was trying to let me down easy.”

“ I care about you ,” Frankie mumbled snarkily under her breath.

“It’s just the back and forth that’s driving me nuts,” I said, throwing my hands up. “He’s so hot and cold. He’s curling up with me in the tent and then telling my dad he was just doing me a favor because I was wasted. Then he’s coming over here to yell at me about going to a party that I hadn’t even heard of, but the minute I tell him to make a move, he retreats and says he cares about me. I show up at the hospital and he’s relieved as hell to see me, wants me with him constantly, makes me sleep plastered against him on the couch, then spends the next two days telling me to sleep at the hotel. Jesus! Make up your mind already.”

“What’s this about the tent?”

“I fell asleep alone in the sleeping bag and woke up curled up like two caterpillars in a cocoon,” I replied dryly. “I didn’t mention it?”

“You guys have always been like that,” Lou exclaimed. “It drives me crazy!”

“I know, right?” Frankie said, rolling her eyes. “‘ Tonight I’m going to party with Cian and fall asleep in his bed, but two days from now he’s going to go out with someone else, and I’m going to go to a bar so I can flirt with guys.’ You two need to figure your shit out.”

“I tried, remember?”

“Well, then—” Frankie sighed. “Maybe it’s time to give up?”

“I don’t want to be with anyone else.”

“That doesn’t mean you need to wait around for his ass,” Frankie said seriously. She smiled sadly. “Because whatever this is? It doesn’t make you feel good. It doesn’t make you happy.”

I nodded and looked at my feet. “It just feels weird to make any decision when he’s already dealing with all of this, you know?”

“Honestly,” Lou said quietly. “I mean this in the absolute nicest way possible, but…he is already dealing with a lot. Do you think he’ll even notice?”

Her words hit the mark so perfectly that my stomach sank.

“You’re still his friend,” Frankie said. “You know you’ll always be that. You can be there for him…just without the flirting.”

“And waiting for him to call.”

“And sleeping in his bed.”

“Yeah, no more sleeping in his bed. Mixed signals, anyone?”

“No, you’re right,” I said, nodding. “You’re both right. This has gone on long enough.” I let out a shaky breath. “I mean, I’m kind of pathetic at this point, right?”

“You’re not pathetic,” Lou cried.

“A little pathetic,” Frankie joked.

“Why didn’t either of you say something before?” I asked in exasperation, pulling off my hoodie.

“We have,” Lou said, laughing a little. “You just didn’t want to hear it.”

“Okay, that’s fair,” I conceded. “I’m going to fill up my water bottle, grab my last bath bomb, and go wallow now.”

“Oh, no, you’re not,” Frankie said, turning to reach into the cabinet behind her. “We’re watching a movie and drinking…rum.”

“Ew.”

“No back talk,” Lou ordered. “We’ll mix it with juice. It’ll be great.”

“What movie?” Frankie asked, hopping off the counter. “I say we go with a classic. Nothing new. Something we know we like.”

“ Practical Magic ,” I said firmly.

“Excellent choice,” Lou said approvingly as she started filling glasses with ice. “A little laughter, a little tears, a little witchy.”

We spent the next two hours singing along to the music, saying every line, and generally being as obnoxious as possible. There was something magical about girlfriends, especially the kind that you could be yourself around, warts and all. I was a bit tipsy and more relaxed than I’d been in days, so when my phone rang a few minutes after the movie ended, I almost didn’t answer it.

Groaning, I rolled off the couch and jogged in to where I’d left it on the counter.

Cian.

“Hello?” I answered, looking at the clock.

It was one thirty in the morning. Lou had already passed out on the floor, but Frankie was watching me from her spot on the couch.

“I was a dick,” Cian replied. “And I’m just now realizing how late it is, which makes me more of a dick. Did I wake you?”

“Nope, just got done watching a movie.”

“With who?”

“Who do you think?”

“Tell the girls I said hello.”

“Cian says hello,” I told Frankie.

“Fuck off, Cian,” she called back.

“Can’t say they’re not loyal,” he muttered.

“What’s up?” I asked, leaning against the counter. “Did you just call to tell me you’re a dick?”

“Pretty much.”

“Cool.”

“You accept my apology?”

“I didn’t hear one.”

Cian was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry for bein’ a dick.”

“You’re forgiven.”

“Easy as that?”

“I was being pushy,” I replied, making Frankie groan in irritation. “I get it. It was time for me to go.”

“That’s not—you weren’t.”

“I was,” I argued. “It’s cool. I get that you guys needed some time to yourselves. Just took a minute for that to sink in.”

“That’s not—” Cian let out a huff of frustration. “Let’s talk when I get back, yeah? I think we’re headed out tomorrow.”

“Sounds good.”

“You didn’t overstay your welcome, Myla,” he said quietly. “Christ. You know I’d rather you were with me.”

“Sure.” Hot and cold. There was never anything in between.

“Call you when I’m back?”

“Yeah, drive safe tomorrow.”

“Always do.”

“Okay, bye.”

I hung up and set my phone carefully on the counter.

“Sweet Cian?” Frankie asked sarcastically.

“Yep.”

“You gonna fall into that again?”

“Are you joking?” I said, leaving my phone on the counter. I skipped back into the room and leaped over the couch, catching her in the side with my shins as I landed. “If it’s not a guy whose favorite shape is a star, flips pancakes in the air, and has different colored eyes? I don’t want it.”

“That’s my girl,” Frankie said proudly, pushing my feet off the couch. “Now we’re watching Scream . The original, obviously. If that doesn’t put you off men for a while, nothing will.”

I woke up the next morning with some kind of candy stuck in my hair, my hoodie on backward, and Frankie’s foot in my face.

“Morning, pretty girl,” Lou sang, laughing down at me.

“Not so loud,” I hissed.

“You two must’ve kept drinking after I fell asleep, because I feel fine and you look like garbage.”

“I feel like garbage,” I moaned, pushing Frankie’s foot away as I sat up. “What time is it?”

“Noon.”

“Ugh.”

“You called into work for the whole week, right?” Lou said as she walked away.

“Yeah. Told them we had a family emergency.”

“Good. Because I tried to wake you up at seven, but you didn’t even flinch.”

“We didn’t fall asleep until like four,” I groaned, following her into the kitchen.

“Your phone went off a few times. Your mom and Cian.”

“Did you read them?”

“I really wanted to, but I didn’t,” she said with a grin. “What did he say?”

I checked my phone. Mom wanted me to call her.

“He just texted to say they were getting on the road.”

“Oh.”

“He called last night.”

“Seriously?”

“He apologized for being a dick, his words.”

“Mm-hmm,” she said. “I’m frying eggs, hash browns, and bacon. You guys need greasy food or you’ll feel like shit all day.”

“Really, that’s all you’re going to say? Mm-hmm?”

“Of course he called to apologize,” Lou said with a shrug. “He’s Cian. He doesn’t like it when you guys fight.”

“True,” I mused.

“That doesn’t mean anything has changed, My,” she said, pouring frozen potatoes into the pan. “He always apologizes. He always makes it right. But he keeps making it wrong again, you know?”

Her words proved to be prophetic.

I called my mom back and then spent the day doing laundry and helping the girls clean the house. We tried to do it at least once a week, together, so none of us ever felt like the others weren’t pulling their weight. It was a system that had worked for years. After the house was spotless, we went to dinner and stopped by a thrift store to look around for anything new they’d gotten in. By the time we got home, Lou curled up on the couch with a book, and Frankie closed herself up in her room to…do whatever Frankie did. I checked my phone before I hopped in the shower. I checked it again after. I kept an eye on it while I blow-dried my hair and got into pajamas.

Cian never called. In fact, I didn’t hear from him for over a week, and by then, my decision to stop waiting for him had solidified into something tangible.