Chapter 32: Fifth Avenue Fling: Chapter 32

One month later

“They’re giving it to rain tomorrow.”

I look up at Tommy as he does the final sanding to the chest of drawers he’s working on.

I’ve been helping out at the furniture store in the village for three weeks now. It feels like three years.

“That’s the good weather gone now,” he says around the pencil clenched in his teeth as his arms move back and forth in a steady motion, sanding the curves. He always has a pencil in his mouth, like a child with a dummy. “The days will be getting shorter and darker. This is probably the last good day we’ll get this year.”

Bloody hell. It’s the beginning of August. I didn’t come here to be even more depressed than I already am.

We Irish love to talk about the weather. We take it very seriously.

“Ack, sure, a wee drop of rain won’t do us any harm,” he says, not looking up at me.

“Aye,” I mumble and continue with the varnishing of the cabinet because what else am I supposed to say?

I look out the window at the grayish sky, where a sliver of sunshine peeks between clouds.

Here, I work hard to distract myself. It’s difficult when we only get a few orders a day, but if I manually tire myself out, I might sleep at night. My only purpose each day is to exhaust myself to the point of numbness—no longer thinking, no longer feeling.

No longer realizing that I’m stuck in the same place I was four years ago, living with my mam and gran, doing the same old routine day after day. I’ve had zero inspiration to create new inventory. Even yoga has become an empty ritual, void of any satisfaction.

My only social life is when Mam drags me along to funerals or one of my brothers asks me to collect them from the pub because they’re too drunk to drive.

I’m still part of the Queens yoga group chat. Sometimes when I read the messages for a fleeting second, I forget where I am, and I’m teleported back to New York.

Then I remember and feel a sharp stab of pain before the emptiness sets in.

I have no tears left. He drained them all.

Now I’m hollow.

I get up, go to the furniture store, come back, have dinner with Mam and Granny Deirdre, watch TV, and try not to stalk Killian online.

Sometimes I think I should have accepted his offer. After my feelings for Killian fade away, when he’s just an entertaining story, I’ll kick myself for not taking the green card.

Orla begged me to stay until she was blue in the face, but the only way I could stay was to accept Killian’s charity. Those last few days in New York were a blur. Killian and I went from one hundred to zero in twenty-four hours. An emotional roller coaster—one minute, I’m soaring high above the clouds in a fancy helicopter, and the next, I’m plummeting back to earth at breakneck speed.

I went from seeing him every day to never seeing him.

I didn’t even tell him I was leaving New York. What was the point? After the fight in the office, he didn’t reach out. He didn’t care.

Inhaling the familiar scent of sawdust and wood, I take a deep breath and tell myself to get a grip.

This, too, shall pass.

I mean, we were only together for a few weeks, for Christ’s sake, and I’m twenty-five. The world is my oyster. Plenty more fish and all that jazz. When I’m Granny Deirdre’s age, I’ll remember it as a really sexy time in my life, that’s all.

My Fifth Avenue fling with a billionaire, something to laugh about in the pub.

This, too, shall pass. Yet no matter how many times a day I tell myself that, the dark cloud follows me.

The bell at the front of the shop rings to warn us someone is in the shop. Usually, Mam is out the front—yes, I’m working with my mum again—but she’s on her break.

“I’ll get it,” I say to Tommy and stroll up to the front of the shop.

As I approach the woman waiting at the till, my smile is met with a discontented scowl.

“Hi, how can I help you?” I greet her cheerfully. I fucking hate sales. Almost as much as cleaning.

“I’ve got a problem with the phonebook table I bought from here,” she says curtly. “I’ll need to return it.”

“Oh. What’s the problem?”

“It’s too big for my hallway! It won’t fit!”

I keep my smile steady. That’s hardly our bloody fault.

Why does she even need a phonebook table?

Who needs to use a phone book these days? I didn’t realize they still made them.

I sigh heavily. “Bring it in.”

“Do you not do pickups?”

“No,” I say through gritted teeth. “Not for refunds unless something is wrong with it. Is there anything wrong with it?”

“This is very inconvenient.” She ignores my question. Her eyes narrow as she waits, expecting me to say something. “McKinney’s furniture store has better service. I’ll have to take my business there from now on.”

Fuck, I need to get out of here.

“You’re welcome,” I mutter as she struts out of the shop. Moody old bag.

I glance at my watch. 2:00 p.m. It’s morning time in New York. I can’t look at the time without converting to New York time and thinking about what everyone is doing there. Teagan. Orla.

Killian.

Orla has her civil service examination in a few hours. The first step of her becoming a New York cop. It’ll be really slow going because she’ll have to have been in the country for a certain period. I’ll never sleep if she ends up patrolling the streets of New York.

I give her a call to say good luck.

She answers right away. “Hi!”

“Hey, I wanted to wish you luck with your exam this morning.”

“Ugh.” I hear her sigh heavily. “I haven’t taken an exam since school. And the first part is math. Like who adds up things manually these days?”

I smile, pushing away my own worries for a moment. “You’ll be fine. You’ve done the practice test.”

“How are you feeling today?”

“Great,” I lie. “I’m pretty decided on London now.” I’ve been talking to Orla about this for a couple of days and she’s become worse than Granny Deirdre, sending me articles about the less-than-ideal aspects of life in London. A rat spotted in a restaurant. People renting out rooms the size of cupboards for exorbitant sums. Not helpful.

Orla hums thoughtfully in response. “I don’t want you to give up on New York. It’s not the same here without you.”

I close my eyes and take a breath before responding. “I miss you, too. I’ll start saving and come for a visit in a few months, I promise.’

“Christmas in New York?”

I was so looking forward to my first Christmas in New York. Ice-skating at the Rockefeller. Mulled wine in Central Park. “I’ll check how much flights are.”

“By the way, we had a visitor at The Auld Dog last night.”

“Oh yeah?”

She pauses. “I wasn’t sure if I should tell you because it seems like you’re getting over him.”

My heart races. I clutch the phone tighter.

“Connor Quinn.”

“Connor, Killian’s brother?”

“Yeah.”

“What did he want?”

“I’m not sure. He said he was in the area.” She pauses. “He was asking about you.”

“What exactly did he ask?” I ask, hysteria creeping into my voice.

“It was vague. He recognized me and said hi. He wanted to know where you were living now and how you were doing. I told him you were thinking of moving to London. Honestly, it seemed like small talk. Sorry, Clodagh.”

I want to scream down the phone at Orla that she needs to tell me every single minute detail about their exchange. What did he say? What mood was he in? What was his tone like?

Why? Why was he there?

“Careful,” I joke instead. “They probably have their ear on bulldozing the pub to put a casino there.”

She laughs. “Over Uncle Sean’s dead body.”

We both fall silent. The thought of Connor being in the pub makes me sad.

“Did he mention Killian?”

“No. He said that Teagan’s upset that you’re gone, though.”

I smile. Teagan and I have been exchanging emails, although I try not to bring Killian up. She sometimes talks about him—like how he doesn’t let her do something or how he’s in a bad mood. Superficial stuff. I couldn’t handle anything deeper.

I’m sure we’ll lose contact sooner or later now that nothing holds us together anymore.

“I gotta go, Orla,” I say as Mam walks into the shop. “Good luck. You’ll do brilliantly.”

I hang up the phone.

“We have a funeral to go to,” Mam cheerfully informs me as she sets her handbag down on the counter. “Your neighbor’s dead. Passed away in his sleep last night. Ninety.”

“Oh wonderful,” I reply sarcastically. “I can’t wait. I don’t even know the man well; why do I have to go?”

“He’s your neighbor.” She scowls at me. “Besides, his nephew will be there. The good-looking one with the limp. He’s single, you know.”

Oh, for God’s sake.

So now my mum is trying to play matchmaker for me at a dead guy’s goodbye party.

Her scowl deepens. “Although he won’t be interested in you with that ridiculous hoop through your nose.”

Fuck my life.