She laughed. “If you haven’t suffered hearing loss from your family before now, I suspect you’ll recover just fine.”
“Still on for tomorrow?” he asked.
“Of course,” she quickly replied. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Good. We’ve got a big surprise for Pop Pop this year. Something we’re hoping will take his mind off the pub.”
Emmy swallowed heavily to dislodge the lump in her throat that appeared whenever she thought about the fire that had ravaged Pat’s Pub just a few weeks earlier. “What is it?”
“Nope. Not telling. I know how susceptible you are to Pop Pop’s charms. If he figures out something’s up, you’ll be the first one he questions.”
Emmy grinned with amusement but didn’t bother to deny it. “I’d like to defend myself against that, but who are we fooling? That man bats those chocolate-brown eyes at me and I forget my own name.”
“Celebration starts at one,” he reminded her, though it wasn’t necessary. She’d had the date and time circled on her calendar for months.
“I was thinking,” she said, the wine prompting her to speak before her too-reasonable brain could shut her up.
“Yeah?”
“Would you want to go out sometime…after the holidays?”
“We go out all the time, Em.”
Emmy had two choices.
Backpedal or forge on.
The queen of backpedaling when it came to Padraig, she actually shocked herself when she said, “I mean on a date.”
Chardonnay for the win.
“Oh.” And then there was a pause. “Em.” Another pause—this one more painful than the one before.
She started to let him off the hook. To tell him to forget it. To blame the wine. But she held her tongue. Because she was tired of pretending…of hiding…of playing things cool.
“Em. I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s…I’m not ready to start dating again. I think it’s better if we just stay friends.”
The part of her that lacked all self-preservation held on for a split second, waiting, wishing, wanting him to add two more words to that assertion.
For now.
If he would include for now…she would keep waiting. God, part of her feared she’d wait forever if he said those words.
But he didn’t say them.
“Okay. Yeah. I didn’t meant to…I…I’m sorry, Paddy. Too much wine tonight. Went straight to my head,” she said, trying to make light of her disappointment and failing pretty spectacularly. She dug deeper and managed to pull just-friends Emmy out of the rubble. “It’s totally cool. Honest. We’re always going to be great friends.”
“Best friends,” he added quietly.
“Best friends,” she agreed, wishing that made her feel better. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
The silence that followed told her he wanted to say more, but, like her, it appeared he didn’t know how to recover from this. So he let them both off easy.
“Sure thing. See you tomorrow.”
Emmy sat in her car outside the restaurant for a moment, trying to get out of her head, wishing she wasn’t still hung up on that damn phone call from Christmas Eve.
Five weeks had passed, but the memory of that conversation kept coming back to her, playing itself over and over in her brain. That night, while devastating, had been a wake-up call, a turning point, because she realized just how pathetic she’d become, hoping to win the heart of a man who’d already given his to someone else.
She’d spent Christmas with the Collins family, managing to put her and Padraig back on steady footing, joking around, keeping things casual. By tacit agreement, neither of them mentioned the phone call, instead falling right back into their normal fun-loving friendship.
But since the holidays, she’d doubled down on sorting her shit out. She had a definite vision of her future and it was way past time she found a way to get there, instead of sitting at the end of a bar, pining for her best friend.
This was going to be her year.
Of course, that determination hadn’t really been tested because she hadn’t seen Padraig since Christmas Day. He’d left for a grand tour of Ireland just a few days after. The two of them had maintained the status quo on their relationship through texts and phone calls. And now, Padraig was in the last week of his six-week trip with his grandfather, dad, and brother.
She’d put the weeks away from him to good use.
Or at least, she hoped so. Only time would tell.
She glanced up at Kelli’s favorite Mexican restaurant, wishing for the thousandth time that she was meeting her friends at their usual stomping ground, Pat’s Pub. It had been a long winter for Emmy since the place she’d come to consider her second home—actually, she was there so much, it was probably her first home—had been closed down following the fire.
She shook off that sadness, trying to comfort herself with the knowledge that the Collins family, who owned and operated the pub, were rebuilding it and, according to Padraig—during their last text exchange—it was slated to reopen just a couple weeks after he returned home from Ireland.
She got out of her car and crossed the street. Entering the restaurant, she glanced around, then grinned when she spotted her friends.
Sometimes she was amazed how much her life had changed in just two years. And she had the table full of women waiting for her, as well as the entire Collins family, to thank for that.
Ever since she’d walked into Pat’s Pub that first time, nothing had been the same.
Thank goodness.
Her journey to the pub that initial time hadn’t been intentional or thought out. Instead, it felt like karma, or perhaps the spirit of her parents, had led her there. After all, Mom and Dad had met at Pat’s Pub, set up on a blind date by mutual friends.
Her reason for venturing out of her apartment two years prior had been driven by a celebration after she’d achieved a pretty major life goal. Every second of that day was etched so deeply in her memory, it could have happened yesterday.
She’d woken up to find an email from one of her superfans, telling her she’d made The New York Times best seller list. She’d begun writing romance novels when she was a teenager, and she’d sold her first book when she was just twenty. In the seven years since that first sale, she’d managed to make a name for herself, as well as more than enough money to live on after both her parents’ passing.
Emmy had been certain the reader was mistaken about her hitting the list.
But nope.
It had been the truth. Her book was right there at number nine.
Her immediate flash of indescribable joy was instantly dashed. She’d accomplished a major life goal—maybe the biggest—and…
She hadn’t had a single soul to share it with.
She’d thought of her parents, of course, wishing they were still alive. Her mother—in her healthy years—would have flipped out, put on music, danced around the apartment, and then made Emmy a four-layer chocolate cake to celebrate. Her father would have hugged her, bought her flowers, and told her how proud he was of her.
But without them…
Loneliness hadn’t been a stranger to her, but that was the first time it crushed her. The first time it felt truly unbearable.