Page 16 of Never Too Late

There was nothing wrong with it, though. It had a bed to sleep in, a perfectly serviceable room service menu, and a phone I could use with mine languishing at the bottom of the Seine. I smiled at the memory of Finn’s face as he’d watched it sink below the surface. Seeing that moment of genuine surprise had been worth every occasion since that I’d reached for it, only to find it wasn’t there. Although I’d never admit it to Finn, it felt like someone had chopped my left hand off, the temptation to buy a new phone a constant niggle. So I could hardly blame Finn for his lack of belief in me.

I turned on my laptop and waited for it to fire up, automatically opening my email once it had. Regret wasinstantaneous, as hundreds of new messages loaded. The ones from Amrita stood out a mile, mainly because for the last few she’d abandoned any attempts at subtlety and gone for block capitals for the subject line, the most recent entitled TALK TO ME, OR SO HELP ME GOD, I WON’T BE RESPONSIBLE FOR MY ACTIONS!!!!!!!!! I clicked on it, the message content simple and to the point:If you’re dead, I need to know that. You’re not answering your phone and you’re not responding to emails, so I don’t know what other conclusion I’m supposed to reach. I guess if you’re dead, you won’t care how many people are on my back because they’ve also tried to reach you with just as little success. But on the off chance you’re not dead, call me and let me know you’re still breathing.

I didn’t bother reading through the rest she’d sent, guessing they’d be variations on the same theme. As I’d only been incommunicado for two days, it made me think I was too accessible if going off grid caused that amount of panic in such a brief space of time.You think, Finn’s voice drawled in my head. I accessed the cloud backup, where thankfully all my numbers were stored, one name catching my eye before I found Amrita’s.

Acting purely on impulse, I picked up the hotel phone and called the number. “Adam speaking,” a cheery voice said after only a couple of rings.

“Hey, Adam. It’s Cillian.”

“Cillian?” He made no effort to keep the surprise out of his voice. “What can I do for you after all this time?”

“Has it been that long?”

“Three years. Maybe even four.” A momentary pause followed. “Yeah, bloody hell, four. Time flies. I’m surprised you’ve still got my number.”

Despite the man on the other end not being able to see, I shrugged. “I was hoping you could answer a question for me.”

“Go on.”

“What was I like as a boyfriend?”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line that I interpreted as stunned, before Adam let out a laugh. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Humor me.” Adam and I had been together for close to a year, which was about the longest I’d spent with any one person, so I figured if anyone was qualified to answer the question, he was.

“What are you angling for here?”

“The truth.”

“Okay…” A longer pause while Adam thought about his answer. “As a boyfriend, you were no more and no less than what we both needed at the time.”

I frowned at the rather cryptic answer. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means neither of us wanted anything serious. We wanted someone around to scratch an itch when the urge took us. Which, if you remember, we were both so busy with work, wasn’t that frequent. It meant neither of us had to waste time dating or hooking up with some random, and we could just get right down to the nitty gritty.” Adam seemed to read between the lines of my lack of response. “I’m guessing that’s not what you wanted to hear. I thought you wanted the truth?”

“I did,” I gritted out. “That doesn’t mean it’s easy to hear. You make it sound like I used you.”

“We used each other,” Adam said, his voice calm. “Our split was mutual, remember?”

“Yeah.” I remembered. And I’d lauded myself for the incredibly adult way we’d gone about things. Now, though, it was taking on a different slant. One that neatly slotted in with Finn’s reading of the way things had gone between us. Only, unlike Adam, he hadn’t been on board with it and had expectedmore from me, and I’d either been too blind or too stupid to see it. Probably both. The gut-wrenching thing was, I’d wanted more, too. I just hadn’t known the work required on my part to achieve it. I’d had genuine feelings for Finn. I still did. It was why I was here. It was also why I’d rung a man I hadn’t spoken to for years to conduct a post-mortem of our past relationship that I expected he would rather have avoided. I cleared my throat. “How are you doing now?”

“Married,” Adam said with a smile in his voice. “Coming up on two years in March. We’ve just started looking into surrogacy, actually. We’re hoping two will soon become three.”

“That’s great!” I said. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks. How about you? I’m guessing something triggered you asking me what you were like as a boyfriend?”

“I met someone, but I screwed things up. I guess… I wanted to work out if my behavior was a new thing or part of a pattern.”

“I see. Sorry to hear things didn’t work out between you.”

“I’m going to get him back,” I said with far more conviction than I was feeling. “I’m going to prove that nothing is more important to me than him.”

“Yeah? Well, good luck!”

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