Walking the Line (7 page)

His mouth flat-lined, his glower mutinous.
“The connection we share is more than sex and you know it.”

Hugging my knees to my chest, I shook my
head. “What I know is you’ve got your whole life in front of you. A
career to forge. Women to meet. Kids to raise.”

I waved my arm around the room. “That’s not
going to happen if you’re stuck in a shithole tending bar because
you’ve left Ireland for the first time and have confused a good
fuck for something more.”

I hated cheapening what we’d shared, but I
had to do it. Had to belittle and taint our relationship so he
wouldn’t make the biggest mistake of his life.

Because of me.

Rather than erupt and tell me to get the hell
out, his eyes narrowed, his stare too astute, too assessing. “Tell
me who hurt you so badly—”

“I’m done here.”

I swung my legs over the end of the bed and
tried to stand as he lunged across and hauled me back with an arm
around my waist.

“You’re pushing me away verbally, just like
you do everyone else with your bad-arse attitude and leathers and
make-up.” He tried to hold me tighter and I wriggled, desperate to
escape. “Stop the pretense because I can see right through your
armor.” He murmured in my ear, “I’m not leaving, Ellie, so get used
to it.”

I stilled, the fight draining out of me,
replaced by a fierce desperation to do the right thing. Because for
one terrifying second, I wanted to believe. Believe that Finn
really could see through me, and that he liked me anyway, that he’d
stay regardless.

That he’d never run.

But that second passed and the reality was,
I’d have to push him away, once and for all.

To do that, I’d have to lay myself bare and
tell him the truth.

“Let me go,” I hissed through clenched teeth,
elbowing him at the same time. I made contact with his solar plexus
and he released me on a loud exhalation.

I stood, spun around to face him. “If you
stay, what do you envisage happening with us? White picket fence?
Housewife? A family?”

He eyed me warily. “You know that’s what I
want eventually, but our relationship is new and—”

“There is no relationship,” I yelled, making
us both jump. “You’ll head to Melbourne to complete the internship
your grandfather bent over backwards to get. You’ll meet some sweet
girl who’ll give you the seven kids so you can replicate your
parents. And you’ll forget all about the fling you had at the first
stop of your Aussie adventure.”

“I won’t forget.” He stood so quickly I
stumbled trying to back away. “And just because I opened up to you
about wanting a big family one day, don’t use it as an excuse to
push me away when we’re only getting started.”

He tried a lop-sided smile, the one that
slam-dunked my heart every time. “Because I’d settle for three
brats, you know. Maybe even two—”

“I can’t have kids!” I screamed, my throat
convulsing. “I’m a fucking decade older than you. And by some
remote chance we could ever make a relationship work, I can’t give
you what you want…”

My chest heaved with the effort to subdue the
sobs making breathing difficult. “I was like you once. Naive and
hopeful, with big plans and big dreams. The perfect relationship
with the perfect person, or so I thought. Then the going got tough.
We found out I was reproductively challenged. And he didn’t want me
because I was flawed. So when your dreams turn to shit, the people
around you run and the only one you can depend on is the last
person standing.”

I touched his shell-shocked face for the last
time. “That person is me.”

I angrily swiped at the tears trickling down
my cheeks. “I choose
me
.”

Then I walked away without looking back.

FINN

I went after Ellie.

Hammered on her door. Pounded on it until my
fists hurt. Desperate to hold her, comfort her, love her.

Because if the pain ripping through my chest
was any indication, I must love her. There was no other
explanation.

Her pain was my pain and Ellie was hurting.
Big time. The devastation contorting her beautiful face when she
blurted the truth…I’d never seen anything like it. And it made me
feel dumber than ever.

How many times over the last week had I
rambled on about my family? Telling tales of Maeve and Ciara
exploiting their identical twin status by playing pranks. Waxing
lyrical about Connor, Liam, Aiden, and Sean, a dufus for idolizing
my brothers but proud at the same time. Raving on about our
close-knit loyalty, our celebrations, our togetherness. How much I
wanted the same when I eventually settled down.

All the while, Ellie had nodded and appeared
interested, when she must’ve been dying a little inside. By her
impassioned, devastating outburst, I’d rubbed her face in the one
thing she wanted most but couldn’t have: kids.

I tried one last time, bashing at the door
with my forearm. “Ellie, please. Let me in. I want—”

“Fuck off,” she yelled, followed by the sound
of something crashing against the door and shattering.

Wincing, I backed away from the door. She
needed space, I’d give it to her. So I trudged back to my room,
sank onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. For an hour. Ellie’s
revelations and consequent freak-out reverberating through my
head.

The thing was, as much as I loved my family
and being surrounded by siblings, kids weren’t a deal-breaker for
me. Especially with the right woman. And I now knew that woman was
Ellie.

I wanted to hang around, have a relationship,
see if we really did fit before even contemplating anything serious
yet she’d jumped straight to kids when I’d told her my plans.

Interesting.

It meant Ellie had been thinking ahead, way
ahead, envisaging the two of us together, being totally committed.
That told me more than her defensive behavior ever could.

She was invested in us already.

She could push me away all she liked but I
wouldn’t give up.

Not without a fight.

ELLIE

As I swept up the pieces of the glass I’d
thrown at the door and tipped them into the bin, a shard pierced my
thumb.

“Bloody typical,” I muttered, sucking my
thumb and glaring at the offending glass. Yeah, like it was a
responsible for the total balls-up before.

Why the hell had I told Finn the truth? I
could’ve pushed him away, fired him, made him leave, but the minute
he’d started spouting all that romantic crap about staying around
for me, I’d lost it. Completely.

Deep down, I knew why.

I yearned. Yearned to have what he had with
his family. Yearned to have that closeness, that bond, that mayhem.
The stories he’d told during our time together over the last week
highlighted chaos, siblings that bickered and fought and teased,
but siblings who would fight to the death to stand up for
family.

It made me want kids all the more and I’d be
lying to myself if I didn’t admit to envisaging a bunch of
tousled-auburn-haired brats with eyes as blue as their
father’s.

I was that far gone with Finn.

Finn, with his roguish smile and crinkly eyes
and sex-me-up Irish accent.

Finn, who was ten frigging years younger than
me though seemed more mature.

Finn, who made me laugh, who made me feel
feminine, who made me…whole. Whole in a way I hadn’t felt for a
long time, not since I’d lived with Dougal in a picture-perfect
three-bedroom brick cottage with a yard waiting to be filled with
our ragamuffin kids.

Tears filled my eyes again and I reached for
the nearest anesthetic: tequila, straight up.

Finn and I were over.

I’d get Kye to fire him and put him on a
Melbourne-bound train or plane. That would be the end of it.

I sloshed a triple shot of tequila into a
glass and slammed it down, straight. The alcohol scorched a trail
from my throat to my gut, but it did little to burn away the pain
making me clutch my chest.

Nothing would help ease that pain. I knew
that firsthand. It took me a year to get over Dougal.

It would take an eternity to get over
Finn.

In the meantime, I needed to feel nothing.
Numb.

This time, I filled the glass to the
brim.

FINN

When Ellie didn’t answer her door the next
morning, I contacted the one person who could help.

Kye answered on the first ring. “If you’ve
broken her heart, I’ll have to break you.”

“More like she’s broken mine,” I said,
rubbing the grit out of my eyes.

“She didn’t take kindly to the news you’re a
love-struck schmuck?”

“You don’t have to sound so bloody
amused.”

Kye’s chuckles petered out. “Sorry, mate,
it’s not surprising Ellie shot you down. But don’t give up. I’ve
never seen her the way she is around you so she’s doing her usual
putting-up-barriers thing. She’ll come around.”

Hope made me sit a little straighter. “You
think?”

“Absolutely. Where is she now?”

“Holed up in her room, not answering the
door.”

“At midday on a Sunday?” Kye tsk-tsked.
“That’s what she used to do when she first came to Sydney. Go on
benders in her room, sleep ‘til two.”

“Shit,” I muttered, feeling more of a bastard
than I did last night. “What should I do?”

“As someone who was on the receiving end when
Mum sent me round one arvo to wake Ellie up, trust me, you don’t
want to go there.”

Great, so much for Kye helping me out. “I’m
in love with her,” I blurted, feeling like an idiot.

Guys didn’t talk about this stuff but I had
to do something proactive. I’d had enough of sitting around doing
nothing. I’d been up the whole night, alternating between pacing
and mulling and staring blindly at the hotchpotch crowd milling
along Darlinghurst Road in the wee hours.

“Listen, meet me out the front in an hour.
I’ll help you find your balls.” Kye sniggered. “Because the very
fact you mentioned the L word to me suggests you’re in way over
your head, Irish.”

“Okay,” I said, and hung up.

Getting out of here for a while would do me
good. Hopefully Kye would help me come up with a strategy to win
Ellie over once and for all.

Though ninety minutes later, I questioned the
wisdom of entrusting Kye to give me advice as I sat in a crowd of
red and white-wearing fanatics at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

“Nothing like a good game of Aussie Rules
footy to get the blood pumping,” Kye said, handing me a beer in a
plastic cup. “What do you think so far?”

“It’s a poor imitation of Gaelic football,” I
said, sounding petulant and not caring. “Though I always root for
the underdog so the fact the blue and white team, the North
Melbourne Kangaroos are thrashing the locals, is a good thing.”

“Don’t let anyone in this parochial crowd let
you hear that.” Kye pointed to the Swans emblem on his cap. “Sydney
Swans rule.”

“What are you, five?”

Kye raised his beer in a mock toast. “Come
on, man, I’m trying to get your mind off things. Surround you in
testosterone. Make sure you don’t turn into a wuss.”

“Just because I love Ellie doesn’t make me
any less manly.”

“Just because I love Ellie…” Kye imitated in
an exaggerated falsetto. “Heads up, Irish, talking mushy shit does
make you sound less of a man.”

I placed my plastic cup filled to the brim on
the concrete under my chair. “Listen, this was a bad idea. I’m
leaving—”

“I thought telling Ellie how you feel might
make a difference.” Kye shook his head. “Guess I was wrong.”

I paused. “What do you mean?”

“Ellie’s…flawed.” Kye hesitated, downed the
rest of his beer, before continuing. “I’ve known her a long time
and she’s buttoned up tighter than a nun’s habit. She won’t let
anyone in. She doesn’t trust easily.”

He poked me in the chest. “So if you told her
how you feel and she still shut you out? I don’t think you’ve got a
hope in Hades.”

But I did have a hope.

If what Kye had just said was true, Ellie
didn’t trust anyone. So why did she trust me with the truth?

“You don’t know anything about her past?”

Kye shook his head. “Don’t think she told Mum
either. She just arrived one day, they became friends and Ellie
became a Kings Cross fixture.”

That sealed it. If I was the only one she’d
told about not being able to have kids and her guy running out on
her because of it, she did feel something for me. And she’d used
the truth to push me away before I got any closer.

For the first time since last night’s
confrontation, I felt like punching the air in victory.

We weren’t over and I knew just what I had to
do to convince Ellie of that.

ELLIE

Sunday had officially sucked: waking at two
in the afternoon with a monster hangover, sneaking around to avoid
Finn only to find him gone, Kye ignoring my frantic texts to sack
Finn, and ending with me booking into a cheap motel on the
outskirts of the city to avoid Finn until I could get Kye to do my
dirty work.

Considering I still couldn’t get hold of Kye,
Monday wasn’t shaping up any better.

My second double latte of the morning did
little to wake me as I perched on my favorite bench at Circular
Quay, watching the ferries. This was my ritual, a calming start to
the week that never failed to quell the jaded cynic in me and
resurrect the hidden optimist.

Because every Monday when I came to watch the
busy harbor, I remembered doing a similar thing with my parents.
Sitting by the manmade lake in Dubbo every week, watching the
sailboats. It had been the rare time my parents were happy. Almost
carefree. Buying me ice creams. Smiling at each other. Occasionally
holding hands. Before Mum got bored and ran off with a younger guy,
leaving Dad heartbroken and morose and disinterested in parenting
his only child.