Page 45 of A Trap So Flawless

“What is it?” I run my hands down the silky front of my dress. Darragh’s throat bobs, his eyes tracking the movement.

“In the future, I’d appreciate a warning,” he finally says.

“A warning for what?”

“For the next time you plan to come before me looking like my own personal wet dream come to life.”

I smirk, feeling a rush of giddiness, because this is the only way I’ll ever have power over Darragh, and it’s a heady fucking feeling. I’m about to make a cutesy remark about how warning him would have taken all the fun out of this, but before I can even open my mouth, he’s with me, his hands at my hips, his nose thrust against my throat.

“Love your hair like this,” he growls, his lips brushing my earlobe before he nips it. “Have you eaten yet?”

“No. I was going to make some pasta.”

“Leave it.” He draws back and runs his thumb along my chin, just below my lower lip. “I want to take you out.”

Now I’m the one who needs a warning. The only place Darragh’s taken me so far was that pharmacy for the morning after pill.

“You want to… to take me on a date?”

I can’t imagine Darragh ever doing a thing like that, and his next words only hammer that feeling home.

“Don’t know. I’ve never been on a date,” he says with a shrug. “But if that’s what you want to call it, then that’s what it is.”

It seems strange to consider anything we do now a first date. Not after all the things we’ve done and seen. But I feel a stupid little niggle of excitement at the idea anyway.

“Where?” I ask.

“I have a place in mind.”

He tells me it’s not far, so we walk. The air is cool and crisp, the sky unusually clear as night takes hold. I think this is the coldest it’s gotten here so far. I haven’t looked at my phone, read a newspaper, or even been listening to the radio. After I do some quick mental math, I realize that today is the first day of October. I’m briefly stunned by that.

Being in Dublin with Darragh…

It almost made me believe that time was standing still.

A chill sweeps through me. My bare arms prick with goosebumps. I don’t do anything to draw attention to the fact I’m cold. I don’t cross my arms or rub at them or complain.

But Darragh notices. Because of course he does. In a wordless, casual movement, he drapes his leather jacket over my shoulders. His hand coasts down the leather, then touches beneath it, his knuckles brushing the exposed part of my upper spine.

As darkness falls and the lights come to prismatic life, I think that maybe my eyes are beginning to play tricks on me. It looks like the lights are reflecting on…

“Is that water?” I ask, gaping at the dark span of river ahead. I don’t know why I’m so surprised to see it here. It’s not like Toronto doesn’t have rivers.

“That’s The Liffey.”

The Liffey…

That’s the water they pulled his grandfather’s body from. Tourists and locals mill along the banks, laughing and taking selfies, completely innocent to what this water has done to Darragh. When we reach the fencing that separates the river from the land, I risk a glance up at his face. I only see him in profile, but he doesn’t look upset. He looks like he doesn’t feel anything at all as his eyes – one brown, one hazel-green, both dark – gaze blankly upon the water’s rippling surface.

He's let his hand drop away from my back. It hangs at his side. And then it curls into a fist.

That fist never touches me. It hurts me anyway.

I grab it with both hands. Darragh flinches, as if I’ve woken him from a deep sleep, then turns to me. As I work to pry his fingers from the clenched fist, he watches me with faint bemusement, like I’m a small, wild animal who’s crawled my way into his house and he’s trying to figure out how I’ve gotten there.

He lets me pull his fingers apart. I slide my own between his and squeeze.

We’re holding hands.

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