Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
She considers that like it’s an offer on a contract, then nods. “Deal.”
She puts her hand out to shake, and like a fool, I take it.
I should know better. It's her hand, just her hand, and I take it to shake it like a normal person, and then I just—don't let go. She's warm against my palm, and my brain goes very quiet. The next thing I know, I'm drawing her toward the dance floor, and she's following, and I'm not stopping us.
Cavin is twelve feet away, with the eyes of a man who will make my life significantly more difficult if I give him any reason to. And she’s alone, watching her only family member cleave to another family, standing here with a gaping loss in the space where her family used to be.
“Fancy a dance?”
She looks a bit chagrined. “I’m not very good—”
“You’ll be fine. Just follow my lead.”
She’s a liar, for the record. She’s a perfectly good dancer—light on her feet, responsive—the kind of partner who reads movement without needing to be told. I steer us away from Cavin and Erin’s view, and she lets me.
I am acutely aware of every point of contact.
I’m also aware, beneath all of it, of the thing I haven’t said to her. The thing I haven’t said to anyone.
Seamus is going to want her accounted for.
The Kavanaghs betrayed us, and Bridget and Erin are the remaining liabilities. Two young women with no family protection, too close to McCarthy business to be left floating. Erin is Cavin’s now, so that’s sorted. But Bridget…
“What are you doing tonight?” she asks.
I pull back slightly from that train of thought. “I have a shift at the club.”
She tilts her head up at me, entertained by something. “A shift?”
“Aye.”
Cavin and Erin look over. Erin’s face does something soft. Cavin’s does something I’ll have to deal with later. I rotate us another few degrees and sidestep.
“Question. Do they really have dungeon masters? Or is that only in the books?”
I stare at her. “The… books? What books?”
“The romance novels. There’s a whole—” She must see my face because she starts laughing. “You genuinely didn’t know.”
“You’re taking the piss.”
“I am absolutely not taking the piss.” She looks entirely too pleased with herself. “Where did you think women learned about this stuff? There are whole series. Subgenres. It’s very well-documented.”
I pull back and look at her. “And how would you know about that, young lady?”
She stops. Her cheeks have gone pink, her chin comes up, and she gives me a curious look. “Because when you have nothing to do but read,” she says, “you read voraciously. Come on. You didn’t know? And young lady? Okay, Grandpa. What are you, sixty?”
It happens before I’ve thought it through. I tuck her against my chest, and my hand finds the back of her hair. I’ve wrapped one of her curls around my finger, pulled—not hard, just enough—and tilted her head back.
“Older than you,” I mutter.
What the fucking hell am I doing?
Christ, I know exactly what I’m doing, and I’ve been doing it in small increments, rationalizing stepping into a space where I have no fucking business being, telling myself it’s fine, and ignoring how every time I see her, I just want to see her again.
She's looking up at me, her lips parted, and I want to—no. No.
She's Cavin's new sister. She's in remission. She's too young, and she reads romance novels, and she called me Grandpa thirty seconds ago, and I have my hand in her hair at a family party like I've lost every fucking brain cell god gave me.
I’m dancing with her life, and it feels protective and has nothing to do with the way she smells or the fact that she reads romance novels about men like me.
The song ends. I step back properly this time, and she smooths her dress. Across the room, Cavin is still watching. I ignore him.
She’s safe tonight. She’s safe this week, probably. She’s under Cavin’s roof, and that counts for something. But Seamus is going to ask me soon about the Kavanagh girl, and I’m going to have to have an answer. The answer I give him will determine what her life looks like from here on out.
I flag down a passing server and trade my soda water for two Cokes.
I hand her one, and she takes it, looking at me with those steady blue eyes, like she’s waiting for something she doesn’t have a word for yet.
“Get some rest this week,” I say. “I’m glad you’re better, but you’re not all the way back yet.”
“You do like to tell me to get some rest… Grandpa,” she whispers.
Fuck pulling her hair, this little brat needs to go over my knee and—
I cut the thought off before it finishes. That's how far gone I am. That's what she's done to me in the space of one song.