Page 15 of Never Too Late

The conversation flowed so freely that I was slow to recognize that we were the last two left in the cafe, and that the staff were cleaning up around us. “We better leave,” I said, “before they throw us out.”

“Yeah,” Cillian agreed, his obvious reluctance heartwarming. Even as I thought that, I warned myself against being swayed by it. I didn’t know how Cillian had pulled it off, but this really had felt like a first date. One that had gone so well, it would be all too easy to forget about our history.

“We should get separate cabs,” I announced once we emerged out into the night air. “Your hotel is in the opposite direction to my flat.”

“Not a chance,” Cillian insisted. “What kind of date would I be if I stuck you in the back of a cab and simply waved you off?”

“A practical one.”

Cillian laughed, but it didn’t deter him from flagging a single cab down.

No doubt he had plans for us. Plans that involved inviting himself into my flat, so the evening could reach its natural conclusion. And I’d be lying if I claimed to be mad about that. I hadn’t had sex since that fateful day in Cillian’s office, so it seemed apt that we’d pick up where we left off. At least this time, it would be in a better location.

The brief journey passed in a companionable silence, Cillian’s thigh warm against mine. He’d already announced his intention to pay the fare, just as he’d done with the meal, so when we drew up in front of my building, I jumped out. Cillian got out, but bent to say something to the driver, presumably for him to drive off, before following me over to the door of my building.

“I had a lovely time,” he said when he reached me. “Thank you for agreeing to come out with me.”

“’Thank you,’” I gently mocked. “So formal.”

He smiled. “I’m practicing being a gentleman.”

“You weren’t one already?”

“No… I don’t think I was.”

The amount of introspection in his tone had me searching his face. He stared steadily back, the seconds stretching for long enough that I decided to seize the bull by the horns and speed things up a bit. “You should come in. We can…” I trailed off as Cillian started vigorously shaking his head.

“No,” he said. “I’m a gentleman, remember?”

“Well, yeah, but…”

He leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead, the skin continuing to tingle long after he lifted his lips. “Sleep well, Finn.”

It was only once he’d backed away that I realized the cab still idled at the curb, the instruction to wait rather than to go, meaning he’d had no intention of coming inside. I watched as he climbed into the back again. He lifted a hand in farewell, and then he was gone, leaving me puzzling over the rather abruptend to the night. That was two nights spent with him that hadn’t ended the way I’d expected.

The lights in the hallway of my building always stayed on, meaning I had no problems seeing the ginger cat sitting right in front of my door like he’d been waiting for me to return home. I regarded him warily as I drew close. “The kind man isn’t here, if that’s who you were hoping for. You need to find his hotel.”

The cat stared balefully up at me, apparently in no hurry to move. “He likes cats. I don’t. Especially not mangy looking ones with half a tail and one ear missing.” The cat’s response to that was to wind itself around my legs and meow as I fitted my key in the door. “You can’t come in. You should be glad I’m not throwing you out on the street. You can thank Cillian for that.”

Despite my speech, I expected him to dart between my legs. Because, since when do cats do what they’re told? Instead, he just watched as I opened the door and walked in. I turned back to see him sitting as good as gold on the mat, a twinge of conscience plucking at my chest. “Fine,” I said after a few seconds of our gazes being locked together. “You can come in tonight, and then tomorrow, you’ll need to find somewhere else.”

The cat trotted in obediently like it understood every word, which was ridiculous when he was a French cat and I’d spoken English. While he set about sniffing everything in sight, I took my coat off. “You see, the thing is,” I said to the cat, “that I barely recognize this new version of Cillian, and I don’t know how to feel about that.” I searched through my cupboards until I found a can of tuna, the cat making a beeline for me as soon as the can was open, its meows increasing in volume as I dumped half of the contents of the can onto a plate. “Obviously, he’s on his best behavior and that won’t last. But it’s still messing with my head because this Cillian… Well, he’s even more attractive, and I can’t tell you how dangerous that is.”

I set the plate down and the cat tore into it like it had never eaten before. “You can have the rest for breakfast before you go back out on the street. Even I’m not mean enough to throw you out without giving you something.” I watched him eat for a while, surprised by how relaxing it was. “The mistake was not going along with Laurent when he pretended to be my boyfriend. Cillian was walking away. I was the one who made him come back.”

The cat glanced up at me as if to say “too late.”

“Yeah, I realize that,” I argued. “It’s way too late. But none of this changes the fact that I was never over him, that I was just fooling myself I was.”

I was still mulling over the night’s events when I went to bed. I’d only been there ten minutes when the door creaked open. There was a soft pad of paws across the carpet, and then the mattress gave slightly, a warm, furry body curling up right next to me and purring so loudly it made me smile. I reached down and petted him, surprised by how soft his fur felt. “What happened to your ear?”

In news that would surprise no one, the cat didn’t answer. “If he asks me to go out with him again,” I said. “I’m going to say no. I need to call a halt to things now before I’m dragged back down the rabbit hole I worked so hard to crawl out of. Before I start believing that there’s a chance of him changing.” Yeah, it was melodramatic, but in my tired state, I didn’t care. I fell asleep with my fingers buried in the cat’s fur.

Part Two

Chapter Seven

My hotel wasn’t as luxurious as the places I usually stayed in when away from home. There was a simple reason for that: I’d booked it myself, using the not so tried and tested method of carrying out zero research, typing‘hotel in central’Paris in the search bar, and then booking a room in the first place that had rooms available, rather than letting Amrita handle it.

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