Page 94 of Blame it on the Bet
“But what?” I ask, a little eagerly.
“But like I said, my home is wherever you are. So if you want to stay here, it’s here. If you want to go to Boston, it’s Boston. If you want to come back with me to the west coast, we can do that, too.”
“And if I want to go back to Mayhem…?” My question comes out as a whisper.
Bryan closes the distance between us again, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me to his chest.
“Then that’s where my life is from now on, Hennessy O’Halloran. Because you’re my home, and I’m never, ever leaving home again.”
Even as I look up to see his face as he utters these words, he’s lowering his lips to mine. I welcome him, sighing with relief at the feel of his hands on the bare skin under my robe.
He’s not wrong. Right here, right now—this is home.
…
He’s so warm and soft—and I’m so emotionally exhausted— that I fall asleep in his arms for hours afterward. I barely register it when he gets up just long enough to shoo away the irritated movers, placating them with a ridiculous tip and the promise of a move somewhere in the very near future—destination to be determined.
When my eyes flutter open around noon, he’s back in bed, his body wrapped around mine, clutching me as if he’s afraid I’ll levitate and float away from him.
“You haven’t said it,” he murmurs without preamble. I don’t need to ask what it is he’s talking about.
“I love you, too,” I whisper without qualification.
This makes him smile. It’s a smile that makes his entire face soften while filling it with light… And all at once I feel as if I’m the luckiest person in the world to have someone smile at me like this. But then something unreadable dulls it. “What?” I ask, desperate for him to look at me like that again. “What is it, Bryan?”
I’m startled to see his eyes fill with tears.
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t save it for you, Hennessy. I tried… But I was so arrogant! If I’d just done it differently, you’d still have your father’s pub…”
Well, now I’m just plain confused. I prop myself up on my elbow so I can get a good look at him.
“What are you talking about? You did buy the pub, didn’t you? Isn’t that what all this fuss has been about? Letting us continue running it? Staying all anonymous?”
He shakes his head solemnly.
“No, Hennessy, it wasn’t me,” he says miserably.
I stare at him for a long moment before reaching up to touch his face.
“Bryan, it’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.”
He starts to protest, but I put a finger to his lips.
“Don’t you get it? It’s like you said, when we’re together, it’s like we’re home. I don’t need the building to have the memories. It’s just a building—a thing. And, in the end, it brought us together, didn’t it?”
“You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever known,” he says, swiping at the rogue tears that have escaped to roll down his scruffy cheeks. “What…what do you think you want to do now?”
I can tell it’s not an easy question for him to ask, seeing as how he’s just committed himself to go wherever I want to go. Which, by the way, is no longer Boston.
“Right now I want to get up and eat some of that pie and have a cup of coffee. Then I want to crawl back into this bed and sleep the day away in your arms.”
“I’m liking it so far.”
“Yeah, I thought you would. Beyond that, I’d kinda like to have you all to myself for a little while. So how about we just hang here for a few days or weeks or whatever, and we can take our time figuring the rest of it out together?”
“Whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge.”
For a second I’m stunned.
