“Okay,” I said shakily as the vision of him started getting misty. “Now I like you a fuckuva lot more.”
I got his misty smile before he dipped his head and then I got his warm lips.
He kissed me.
It wasn’t wild and hard and amazing.
It was slow and sweet and amazing.
And apparently it lasted five minutes, because when he ended it, he lifted his head and whispered, “Gotta go pick up Cill, darlin’.”
I held on because I had to (slow and sweet also did a number on me) and I nodded.
He gently pulled away but held my hand as he walked me down the wharf and to his truck. He put me in. He got in. He backed out. I took deep breaths.
Then I let all that settle inside me.
I’d fretted.
I’d worried.
And Mickey made it easy.
That was when I smiled.
We drove and got Cillian, who hefted himself into the backseat, crying, “Hey, Amy!” then took up the entire conversation babbling all the way home.
Mickey didn’t drive to his driveway. He drove to mine.
Then he turned in his seat and said to his son, “You can get out and run home or you can hang and I’ll drive you there, but not makin’ Amy walk in her shoes.”
“Wiped so I’ll hang,” Cillian said to his dad and looked to me. “See you later, Amy.”
I turned in my seat too. “Later, kiddo.”
I got Cillian’s grin, which also brought relief since the last time I saw him he was far from grinning.
Then Mickey and I got out and he again held my hand, right in front of his son, as he walked me to my front door.
When we got there and I got it open, he surprised me by stepping in with me.
He also surprised me by shoving me to the side.
It wouldn’t be a surprise after he did this when he took me in his arms and kissed me again, this time hard and deep, but short. So I knew he shoved me to the side so not only could Cillian not see us from the drive, but if Aisling was home, she couldn’t see us from their house.
When he lifted his head, he noted, “Your turn to have us over to dinner, Amy.”
“Tomorrow okay?” I replied instantly and got his easy grin.
“Yeah,” he whispered.
“Good,” I whispered back.
“Kids wanna go back to Dove House,” he told me.
I nodded. I wanted them back too, and so did the oldies.
“I’ll talk to Dela and arrange it with the kids tomorrow night.”
“Great,” he murmured, eyes dropping to my mouth.
That was when I said something I didn’t want to say.
“Cill’s in the truck, honey.”
His gaze lifted to mine. “Right.”
I pressed closer in his arms, tightening mine still around his shoulders. “It was a good night.”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you, Mickey.”
“We’ll do it again, Amy.”
We’d do it again.
I smiled.
He smiled back, dipped in, touched his mouth to mine and let me go.
I walked him to the door, stood in it and watched him walk out.
He was two steps out before he twisted his torso my way.
“Need to wear that dress when I can take it off.”
Wet flooded between my legs and I latched onto the edge of the door with my hand in order to remain standing.
“Yeah, baby?” he prompted.
“Yeah, Mickey,” I replied breathily.
He gave me my favorite grin of his, the one filled with heat and promise, before he turned away, lifting a hand in a short wave.
I lifted mine back before I looked to the truck and waved at Cillian.
He returned it.
Unsteadily, I closed and locked the door.
Moving into my dark house, I walked to the kitchen and turned on the pendant lights.
I looked across the space I created that was all me and I did it feeling something I’d never experienced feeling.
Light and airy, like I was floating above the ground and didn’t have my feet solidly under me.
It should have felt scary.
It was exhilarating.
The weight of my life had been lifted. The weight of my upbringing. The weight of the mess I’d made of my family.
All was not right in my world, but I’d discovered me and found that I’d done something right along the way.
I’d built a support network, new and old, of people who cared about me and were generous enough to take care of me, listen to me, understand me. And I was able to build this because I was me.
And that said everything. Everything about me.
Not the me I wanted to be.
The me who had always been.
Not to mention I was walking on air because Mickey liked my dress.
As in, really.
Chapter Fifteen
Soaring
“Marriage counselling?” I asked my phone sitting on the kitchen counter beside where I was working.
Lawr was on the other end and we were talking on speaker so I could continue to make my chocolate chip cookie sandwiches stuck together with chocolate buttercream frosting. A double delight. A real winner. And something I was making because the next day was Mrs. McMurphy’s ninetieth birthday, and she might think I was a Nazi, but I was going to be a Nazi bringing her birthday treats.
“Marriage counselling,” Lawr confirmed.
I slathered buttercream frosting on the back of a cookie and asked, “Are you crazy?”
“No,” Lawr replied with a smile in his voice.
“Okay, you think that then I’ll ask, is it working?”
“I’ve learned she doesn’t mind my working hours because, in three sessions, she hasn’t mentioned them. However, it annoys her that I sometimes don’t hit the laundry basket with my dirty socks. This is something I can’t imagine why it would be annoying since she has a woman come in twice a week who cleans and does laundry so she doesn’t even touch my socks. However, now I make certain I hit the basket with my socks.”
I knew long hours. My ex-husband had worked them too. I hated it but he loved his job, had wanted to be a neurosurgeon since his uncle, who also was one, allowed him to stand in an observation room and watch a surgery when Conrad was sixteen.
Alas, now I knew that those long hours weren’t all about patients.
I’d also had a cleaning lady and Conrad hadn’t even bothered to throw his clothes anywhere near the hamper. I didn’t really care. He worked. I didn’t. I had the time to gather clothes and dump them in a hamper.
If we had marriage counselling, I might mention the work hours…tentatively.
I wouldn’t give a fig about the laundry.