Before he can finish, Siobhan transfers all of my weight over to Hayato. “You got her?” she asks.
Hayato responds with a head gesture just short of a bow but too formal to be considered a nod.
And Siobhan turns to leave without another word.
Oh no, she’s leaving! Before Declan’s even had a chance to meet cute with her!
“Siobhan, wait!” I call after her.
And to my surprise, she comes to a dead stop.
But not because of me.
I hear Declan before I see him. “Who the hell left their truck running in the driveway? That’s a dick move for both the guests and the environ—”
I still can’t see past the tall woman, but I know the exact moment when he sees Siobhan because he cuts off abruptly.
“Siobhan?” he demands, his voice filled with shock. Then: “Shuv, why are you crying?”
Oh dear, will this unexpected reunion end in tears?
And what secret is Hayato hiding?
Stay tuned for the next episode of
TWELVE MONTHS OF KRISTAL
MONDAY MONDAY
Episode 6
24
Got a Feelin’
KRISTAL
“Shuv, why are you crying?” Declan asks.
Hayato’s bodyguard steps into view from behind Siobhan’s tow truck, and he wears an expression almost as pained as the one I imagine Siobhan must have on her face if she’s crying like Declan said.
Shuv, as he calls Siobhan goes still as a statue from my vantage point. But her tears must still be falling because the next thing Declan says is, “Hey…hey…don’t cry.”
“I’m sorry,” Siobhan says, her formerly harsh Maine accent now watery with tears. “But look at you!”
She waves her hands at him, “You’re still so wicked handsome. And look at me. I’m….” she waves her hands at herself. “Me! This huge mess. I broke up with you because I didn’t think you’d come back. But then my dependable second choice was anything but. My whole life…I messed it up. Ayuh, that’s what I did. And now I can’t stop crying…”
Declan shakes his head at her. “Don’t cry,” he says again. And this time he draws her into his arms. “I’m here. I’m right here. I finally came back. Don’t cry, Shuv.”
His show of comfort only seems to make it worse. Siobhan’s shoulders shake with a new torrent of tears as he hugs her.
But instead of pushing the sobbing woman away as I imagine Hayato might if he were in the same emotional situation, Declan pulls her in even closer.
“Nah, babe, you didn’t ruin nothing,” Declan croons, rocking back and forth with her in his arms as snow flutters down all around them. “Everything’s going to be okay. I promise you.”
As the best friend/cousin of a gifted matchmaker, I’ve witnessed more True Love moments than I can count. But this one touches me somewhere deep.
And now I am sure my suspicions about this pairing is totally right. They aren’t just a second chance. They are True Love finally reunited.
I can feel their magic sparking in the air as I watch Declan smooth Siobhan’s bird nest hair back into place with just a few passes of his hand. And I have a feeling, that promise he made will definitely be kept.
Everything is going to be okay for them.
Maeve informs me over lunch that the doctor diagnosed her with COPD.
“Most likely from sneaking too many ciggies behind the inn. Always figured it was safe if no one caught me doing it. But according to the doctor and Dec, not so much.”
“Yeah, not so much,” I agree with a laugh. “I’m sorry you’re having to go through this, Maeve, but I’m crazy glad I can erase the expiration date on your sketch for now.”
I lower my voice to tell her this. We’re sitting side-by-side at our usual round table in the mostly empty dining room. But the inn finally has a few more guests now that the blizzard’s done and New Year’s Eve is only a couple of days away.
I don’t want anyone else to hear us talking about magical things. Actually I don’t want to deal with anyone else, period.
It’s hard enough having to draw Jae-Hyun over and over every morning. I don’t want to have to make more soon-to-be-departed sketches for the new guests trickling into the freezing dining room. So I’m keeping my voice down and putting lots of effort into making zero eye contact with anyone but Maeve.
“Well, mind you, I will have to cut down on salt and start exercising.” Maeve pulls a face on “exercising,” as if it was even worse than the chemo she suspected she might be in for when the nighttime cough first appeared. “But if I do that, Dr. Foss says I’ve got a lot of years left in me. Might even live to fuss over some grands!”
Maeve glances hopefully in the direction of the front sitting room where Declan and Siobhan have been catching up by the fireplace ever since they reunited in the inn’s driveway.
By the time I come back downstairs for dinner, Maeve’s upgraded from hopeful glances to full-on beaming.
“Just took a tray into the sitting room for Deckie and Shuvvie,” she tells Hayato and me when she joins us at our dining table. “They’re still talking. I can almost hear the pitter patter of future grans.”
As a lifelong purveyor of bad news, it feels great to be part of someone’s joy. However, Hayato doesn’t appear nearly as moved by Maeve’s update as me.
He spent most of the day at the beach, despite the weather. And now he seems even more focused on his plate than I was at lunch.
“You like long walks in the cold even more than us Irish,” Maeve says, trying to draw into our conversation.
But Hayato just says, “Yes, the beach at winter is beautiful,” before returning to the simple meal of shepherd’s pie Maeve prepared.
He looks pensive and miserable.
And I think back to our conversation from earlier. “I’m just trying to understand why a big business guy like you would believe a weird elf like me?”
Why do I have the feeling his all-day disappearing act has something to do with him not answering that question?
“Is everything all right?” I ask when we go back up to the room.
“It is better than all right,” he answers, bending down beside the door to take off his shoes. “Declan left his conversation long enough to text me that the airport has opened back up. The pilot has filed a flight plan. Tomorrow we will leave for Japan.”
“Japan?” I repeat, kicking my shoes off. “We’re going to Japan?”
“Yes, that was my original plan, before all of this came up. And I would like to get back to work.”
His face is a perfect blank, but I frown at his tone of voice. He sounds a lot like Maeve did when she talked about a future that included exercising.
I’ve been glowing all day because ROMANCE ACCOMPLISHED in huge bold-faced kanji with fireworks in the background and big hearts drawn in place of Declan’s and Siobhan’s eyes. But my heart deflates as I realize that where I see an epic romance come true, all Hayato sees is inconvenience.