The urge to spill and admit to him how sick and weak I used to be is pushing against me.
But this is just a fling. You don’t go dumping emotional crap like that on a fling. No matter how sweet that fling is being. I spin back to the window.
He steps around until he’s in front of me again. He leans to the side until he can look up into my face. “You’re talking rubbish now. Let me do what I can to help.”
Even while I’m getting increasingly frustrated and angry that he’s pushing me on this, my heart breaks a little at that statement. He always wants to help.
I shake my head. “You can’t fix this. It’s my decision. My problem.”
“Yeah, but—”
I hold up a hand and face him. Realizing that my excuses sound lame and that I look weak for not going, I say, “I’ll think about it.”
Anything to end this discussion.
Conor
It’s clear that Claire doesn’t want to talk about what’s happening with her mam. Biggest clue? She’s now in her room reading on her tablet. I run my hands through my hair.
Her mam’s in fucking hospital, and she won’t be trying to see her?
I’m more agitated about it than she is, and I don’t even know her mother from Adam.
When I kick the dark red footstool, I’m realizing something else—I’m bleeding pissed off. And resenting what she’s throwing away.
It’s an ugly set of emotions, I know.
My mother didn’t have much love or care for me or Siobhan. Not enough to stick around. She walked out on us when I was fucking seven. Seven. And if there’s a chance her mam has any care for Claire, she needs to be heading to Denver. I’ve seen and met enough mothers to know mine was not the usual stripe.
I fall back into the couch with a sigh and cross my arms. The other part that’s hurting my heart? I opened up to her about the farm when she questioned me, but when I’m asking what’s troubling her? Instant dry up.
I’d have to be thick not to see there’s something she’s not telling me.
Claire pops back out of the room fully dressed. “I’m getting stir crazy. Wanna go watch the storm from the lobby?”
I look at her for a moment and will my emotions to bite the back of my bollocks. A lot of these emotions are because of my own past. That’s not fair to her. I nod and blow out a breath, releasing some tension. “Sure, yeah. Let me pull on my trainers.”
She blows out the candles, and soon we’re padding down the hall. Eerie red bulbs pulse along the hallway enough to leave anyone with sense feeling their hairs rise. We must not be the only guests after getting ourselves a bit stir crazy, because when we get to the foyer, it’s jammers with a good-sized crowd hanging about. Most of them look to be business men and women types, looking out-of-place in “casual” clothes. It probably doesn’t help that the whole scene looks strange—the hotel’s set up lamps on tripods hooked to a rattling generator, lighting the place up like a movie set.
Because I hate how we left things, I slip my fingers into hers as we walk to the big picture window. She stiffens for a moment and then squeezes my hand, making my heart feel warm, yeah. Generator-run lights are arrayed out front, giving us a better view of what’s going on outside than we could get from our room. The Bradford pears are at a near forty-five degree angle in the parking lot.
Rain is still bucketing against the panes.
Nearby, some boyo has a weather radio plugged into a power line running from the generator.
“What’s the news?” I ask.
He looks up. “The eye passed east of here about an hour ago.”
“So we didn’t get a letup,” Claire adds.
“Nope. Hurricane hit Atlanta just after it was downgraded from a Category 2 to a 1, so we’re seeing winds around ninety miles an hour.”
“Jaysus.”
“Yeah, they think we’ll be out from under its arms by early morning.”
I nod. “Thanks for the update, yeah.”
“Sure thing.”
We watch the wind playing about for a time. The rain’s sounding like tiny beads hitting the glass over and over.
Claire rests her head on my upper arm. Just that tiny gesture has me feeling like I won a major victory with her. A strange notion after what we were doing on the hotel floor, but some gestures can just feel more intimate somehow.
“Seeing Mother Nature like this can really make you feel insignificant,” she says.
I squeeze her hand. “Sure it can.”
Behind us a guitar chord strums. Claire tugs on my hand, and we make our way over to a corner of the common area where two lads are having a go at playing covers on their acoustic guitars.
The couches and chairs in front of the duo are taken, but there’s a spot on the arm of one of the couches so I settle there and pull Claire onto my lap. It feels great having this excuse to hold her against myself. I may be turning into a sap, but fuck it.
The lads are playing a cover of a Nine Inch Nails song. Their voices are good, and their playing’s not half middling. Everyone claps when they finish, and they go right into another tune. It’s obvious they’ve played a lot together—they have that casual ease with each other of best mates.
At the end of the next song, a cover of “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree,” someone calls out “Stairway to Free Bird,” and we all obligingly laugh at the stale joke. But they do glance up, and the darker haired one asks, “Any requests?”
Soon we’re all laughing and singing along to different tunes. It reminds me of good times at the local pub back home, and homesickness bleeds into me. In Ireland, the lads never batted an eye about singing whenever the bunch of us gathered and needed to be entertaining ourselves.
My first time at a pub in the States with some other ex-pats, we drew some stares when we broke out into song. Americans can be good craic, but it’s in a different way.
By now my arms are completely encircling Claire’s waist, snugging her up against my chest, my chin on her shoulder as we finish singing a Simon and Garfunkel song. Talk about an oldie but goodie.
I turn my face into her neck, inhaling her scent and pressing my lips just below the ear. She shivers.
I whisper, “Ready to call it a night, yeah?”
She turns in my lap and looks at me, her eyes searching. She gives me a sensual, but safe for the kiddies, kiss. “Yes.”
Chapter 13
Conor
I follow close behind Claire, watching her backside sway, as we say our goodbyes to the closest hotel guests and head to our room.
I dig the keycard from my back pocket and swipe us in.
I’ve just cleared the door, Claire in front of me, when she whirls around and shoves me against the door. Fierce determination lights her eyes. Fuck. She’s pissed off about something, I’m thinking, but then her hands are in my hair and she’s kissing me hard enough to be wearing my face off.
Much better than fighting.