Page 46 of Irish Fury
He hated that he sounded insecure, but the reality was…well, that he was. Mags was the first woman he’d ever wanted to date where the next day mattered—and the next, and the next, days, weeks, and even months after mattered.
Mags: You’re being silly. I’m going to an art exhibition, not a dance club.
Jonathan: Let me pick you up after the event. Eze won’t mind.
Mags: Nasir had to go back to Nigeria. Eze is grumpy but needs attention.
Jonathan grimaced at the attention bit, but he was far from deterred.
Jonathan: How about I pick you both up, and we go for a drink at Gray Eyes and then you let me drop Eze off and come home with me. I promise not to keep you out too late.
Mags: Scrap Gray Eyes. Eze said he has a math formula he would like to “delve deeper” into when he gets home.
Jonathan: Let me pick you up.
“Don’t say no, Mags,” he pleaded in the silent living room.
Mags: 9:00
twenty-eight
MAGS
“I’mhappy one of us has reason to smile,” Eze told Mags with little inflection as they sat in the back of his car. Abeo was driving and met her eyes in the rearview mirror, rolling his eyes dramatically. It was all Mags could do to stifle a giggle.
She patted Eze’s arm in a patronizing “poor baby” gesture. She wasn’t offended by Eze’s mood. Love had a way of bringing out the best and the worst of anyone.
“Would your parents be okay if you had a serious relationship with Nasir?”
Eze clicked his tongue in annoyance, as if she were foolish for asking. Perhaps she was. “I am my parents’ youngest son, and though they are loving to all of their children, as the youngest, I have more leeway, so to speak, in my…proclivities.
“My father loves me and simply chooses to believe I’m a profligate. My mother, however, understands that what I had with Nasir…well, it was love on my part.”
“His too,” Mags quickly defended the guard.
“Perhaps,” Eze conceded. “In my country, same sex relationships are forbidden and even in recent years, punishable by death.”
Mags sucked in a sharp breath. Eze nodded once in understanding. “My parents will turn a blind eye and always love me, but only if I uphold a strict level of circumspection.”
“So,” Mags surmised, “while you make England your home, your parents would happily agree to Nasir being your guard?”
“Assuredly.”
“And will you invite him?”
“Perhaps,” Eze answered with the vagueness and subterfuge of a career politician.
“Save me from a man’s psyche,” Mags replied, rolling her eyes, earning her a slight smile on her friend’s lips.
“I told Jonathan he could pick me up tonight. Do you mind?”
“Of course not. I will mind, as I’ve told you before, if he treats you falsely.”
“It’s a gamble on my part, I know.” As Abeo pulled up to the curb of the gallery, late because of Eze’s online tutoring class, she added, “Jonathan is the one thing that I would regret for the rest of my life if I didn’t, I don’t know, try.”
Eze nodded in understanding as he helped her from the sedan. Mags was excited to see the new exhibit and to watch her older sister do her professional thing.
She had always looked up to Mirren. Her sister was a badass in her profession, an amazing wife, and the best mother to Mags’ twin niece and nephew.
