Page 36 of Holiday Romance
“Nah. I suppose every six-year-old is annoying when you’re eighteen and just want to get on with things. We’re close though. She’s a good kid. Real smart. Smarter than any of us.”
“We should do something next time they come to visit.”
“She’d love that,” he says, perking up. “She knows all about you.”
“She does?”
“Oh yeah. Irish girl making it big in the world? She thinks you’re pretty cool.”
I stare at him, delighted. “No one’s ever called me cool before.”
“Hard to believe,” he deadpans.
We fall into silence and after a moment he takes off his sweater, using it as a cushion between his body and the chair.
He’s wearing a holiday T-shirt underneath because of course he is. Though this one isn’t that bad, navy with a gingerbread man on the front. I examine it for a second before Andrew picks a loose thread from his sleeve and then I’m staring at his bicep, and the curve of muscle that disappears beneath the fabric. There’s a tiny scar by his elbow, a sliver of raised pink skin from some childhood fall that I’m immediately fascinated by.
“Why didn’t you move to Seattle?”
“What?” I jerk my gaze up to find him watching me and try not to look as guilty as I bizarrely feel.
“With Brandon,” he says. “You said you asked him to stay, but why didn’t you want to move?”
“Because of my job.”
“They don’t have lawyers in Seattle?”
I frown. “Don’t simplify it like that.”
“I’m not, I’m just…” He trails off with a shrug. “You’re right, never mind.”
I can’t read the expression on his face. He almost looks frustrated, though that could be the exhaustion. To be honest, I’m kind of surprised we haven’t started snapping at each other yet.
“I didn’t want to leave,” I say. “And I’d have to take the bar exam again. It would have been a whole big thing.”
“You’d have to do that to practice in Ireland too,” he points out, and I give him a funny look.
“Yeah, but I’m not moving to Ireland, am I?”
“You might someday.”
I huff. “You sound like my parents. I have no intention of moving back to Dublin. Chicago’s my home now.” An uncomfortable thought strikes me. “It isn’t for you?” He’s lived there even longer than I have.
“Sure it is,” he says. “But so is Ireland. If you can have a home in two places.”
“Of course you can. But I’d only been with Brandon a few months,” I add, feeling the need to point that out again. “Definitely not enough to move halfway across the country.”
“So, if you’d been with him longer, you might have gone?”
“I don’t know.” The words are curt, sounding as annoyed as I feel. “That’s way too much of a hypothetical.”
We stare at each other for a beat before he nods. “Okay.”
“Yeah? So can we change the subject?”
“Sure. Are you seeing anyone else? I don’t think I asked.”
“That’s not changing the subject.”
