Page 44 of Fireworks
But she didn’t, instead kissing Sky’s forehead before addressing her brother. “Can you give us a minute? Go and take Sky back to the bookshop?”
Warren’s heart pounded in his ears.
“You can’t be serious,” Fraser said.
“For once, can you just trust that I can look after myself?” she snapped.
Fraser set Sky down, casting Warren a final warning glare before he walked off.
And then Eiley turned to him, and he looked at his feet, waiting for the blow.
It never came. “Can we go somewhere to talk?” she asked instead.
As much as he wanted to say no, he was unable to deny her even now. If nothing else, he wanted to put an end to all this.
So he made sure it was all right with Nate, then followed her away from the crowd, crackling with a tension he’d never felt before. A tension only she ever managed to draw out of him.
That thread, pulling him even now, even when his mind bellowed at him to walk away, leave it be.
For all his love of rationality, safety, gut instinct, he couldn’t find it in himself to listen.
19
Eiley didn’t even know where to start. Her limbs still trembled from the fear of losing Sky, and the shock of finding him –laughing.
She cupped her steaming coffee, grabbed from Morag’s stall on their way through Main Street, at least glad to be freed from the pervading pressure of a hundred different bodies and conversations as they crossed the bridge towards the woods. If she was going to do this, it needed to be somewhere quiet, where she could think properly.
Not that she could ever think properly with Warren around.
“Not going to murder me and bury me in the woods, are you?” Warren muttered through a sip of his own drink, a strong builder’s brew she’d refused to let him pay for. It was the least she could do.
“I won’t pretend I haven’t thought about it,” she admitted, tucking her hair behind her ear. She must have looked like a mess: her face always went so splotchy when she was anxious, and the wind tousled her hair in all directions.
He’d been walking behind her before. Now, he matched her pace, elbow brushing her arm as they fell onto thewoodland trail. Her trainers crunched through dried fallen leaves and pine needles, trees casting them in cool shadow. Here, she could just about breathe again.
Warren didn’t laugh like she’d hoped, his glower fixed firmly on a wide tree stump that overlooked the riverbank below. She decided it was as good a place as any to sit, avoiding flattening the red clover that had sprouted between the cracks in the wood. He hovered as though he couldn’t stand to join her.
Which she supposed meant there was no more putting it off.
“I’m really sorry, Warren.”
His jaw ticked, the only sign he’d heard her. “For what?”
“For what I called you in the pub the other night.” Shame hung heavy on her neck, try as she did to keep her head up so that he’d know she was sincere. “And for all the times I’ve been unfairly rude to you.”
“I can take a few jabs, Eiley, but you and that brother of yours make me feel like I’m some monster you can’t trust.” He had every right to sound angry, and yet he didn’t. Didn’t raise his voice at all, the confession instead spoken softly into his tea. “I get it if we’re just too different to get along, but Jesus, I’ve never said a mean thing about you. Never insulted you. Not like you have me.”
“I know. You haven’t deserved it. I think I’m just … too used to not trusting people. It’s not an excuse. It’s my problem.”
He remained silent for a moment before finally sitting down, tugging the zip on his uniform. He shouldn’t have looked good in such a bland non-colour, not to mention theneon stripes, and yet it brought out the lighter browns in his eyes, the warm tint of his pale complexion.
“I would never do wrong by your kids.” Finally, he looked at her. “I don’t care if you hate me, but Sky was safe with me.”
“I know that, too.” She shook her head. “You must think I’m a terrible mum, letting him wander off like that. I thought I had my eye on him, on them both …”
His knee knocked hers, a gentle tap of reassurance. “It happens more often than you’d think. I can’t count the amount of calls we’ve had from distraught parents who looked away for a single second. It’s impossible not to get distracted, especially on a busy day like this.”
“So, no lecture today, then?” She’d expected one. Deserved one, even.
