Chapter 8: Molly
The Honey Pot had a different quality to it in the late afternoon. The golden light that poured through the windows seemed to soften everything, turning the worn wooden tables amber and honey coloured, and the scent of roasted beans mixed with the faint sweetness of pastries cooling on the counter. Javier had been here before, twice now, but the room felt unfamiliar in this light. Hopeful, almost.
He was early. Ten minutes early, because he had learned from his father, Seamus, that a man who kept a woman waiting was a man who did not value her time. The thought brought a small smile to his face. His father. He was still getting used to the word.
He ordered two coffees and took the table by the window, the one where he and Molly had sat barely a week ago, talking for an hour until the barista had politely cleared her throat and pointed at the clock. That had been a good afternoon. A simple one. Two students discovering they had more in common than their course modules.
Now this felt different. This felt deliberate.
He watched the door, his fingers wrapped around his cup, and when she walked in, he forgot to breathe for a moment.
Molly wore a black dress that hugged her from shoulder to knee, cut low enough to be elegant and high enough to make a man's eyes linger. The fabric had a soft sheen that caught the fading sun as she moved, and the high heels she wore added three inches to her already considerable height. Her hair was loose, dark waves tumbling past her shoulders, and there was a confidence in her stride that had been missing in their coffee shop meeting. That had been Molly the student, the researcher, the friend. This was Molly the woman, and she was stunning.
He stood, and the chair scraped against the floor. She smiled, that wide smile that he had grown fond of, and crossed the room toward him.
"You're early," she said.
"So are you."
"I couldn't wait." She said it plainly, without irony, and he felt the words land somewhere in his chest. "You look very handsome, Javier. That shirt works."
He had worn a crisp white shirt beneath a navy blazer, and he had spent an embarrassing amount of time in front of the mirror making sure the collar sat right. Roisin had noticed him fussing from the landing. She had come down and straightened his lapels with a smile and told him he looked beautiful, her hands lingering a second longer than they needed to. That memory, the warmth of her touch, flickered through him now and he pushed it away.
"Thank you," he said. "You look incredible."
She sat, and he sat, and for a moment neither of them knew what to say. The coffee arrived, and they laughed at how ridiculous it felt, sharing coffee here when they were about to go somewhere far nicer.
"I thought we could walk," Molly said. "The restaurant is only twenty minutes away. Down by the river."
"That sounds perfect."
They finished their coffee in comfortable silence, stealing glances at each other, the air between them thick with unspoken things. When they left The Honey Pot, the evening had begun to settle over Dublin, the sky a purple bruise fading into charcoal, and the streetlights were flickering on one by one.
Molly linked her arm through his as they walked. It felt natural, the way she fit against him. She told him about her afternoon: she had been in the library, wrestling with a statistical analysis module that refused to yield, and she had almost fallen asleep face first into a stack of papers. He told her about his morning: Killian had him sparring with a young lad from Tallaght who had fists like cinder blocks and no sense of mercy.
"You love it though," she said. "The boxing. I can tell."
"I do. It keeps my head clear. When you're in the ring, there's no space for anything else. No exams. No research. No worrying about whether you're good enough. Just the next punch."
"Mmm." She squeezed his arm. "I think I need to find something like that. I just run. It works, but it's dull."
"Running is not dull," he said. "It teaches you patience."
"It teaches me that I hate hills."
He laughed, and she laughed with him, and a woman passing by smiled at the sound of them.
The restaurant was a small French place tucked between a bookshop and a jeweller's, the kind of establishment that did not need a sign because its reputation preceded it. The maître d' greeted her by name, which told Javier she had been here before, and led them to a corner table with a view of the Liffey through a window streaked with condensation.
They ordered wine. She asked for the Bordeaux and he nodded, letting her choose. When the sommelier arrived with the bottle, Molly tasted it with the gravity of a woman who knew her way around a cellar, and she nodded her approval.
"I used to work in a vineyard," she said, setting the glass down. "Between high school and university. In Oregon. My uncle owned the place."
"Oregon. That's where you grew up?"
"Outside Portland. Small town. You know the type: everyone knows everyone's business, and the biggest scandal of any month is when Mrs. Callahan shaves two minutes off her church bake sale record." She smiled. "It was fine. It was home. But I always knew I'd leave."
"And you ended up in Dublin."
"I ended up in Dublin," she echoed. "I spent two years on a research vessel off the coast of Maine after my undergrad. Cold water, cranky engineers, the most beautiful dawns you've ever seen. And then I got the offer here, and I thought, why not. It's an adventure."
"Your family were okay with that? Leaving?"
"My dad was upset. He's a big softie, my dad. Cried at the airport." She laughed, a warm, carrying sound. "He sends me a text every Sunday asking if I've met a nice Irish boy yet."
Javier raised his glass. "And have you?"
She held his gaze. "I think I might be in the process of finding out."
The words hung in the air between them, electric, and he felt the heat rise to his collar. He took a sip of wine to steady himself. It was good. Deep and dark and smooth.
They ordered. He had the duck, she had the sea bass, and they talked through the courses about everything and nothing. She told him about her research interests: she was fascinated by cold water coral ecosystems, the way they formed reefs in the depths where no light reached. He told her about the North Sea, the weeks he had spent on a trawler mapping seabed habitats, the way the cold could seep through a dry suit and find your bones.
"You miss it, don't you?" she asked. "Being at sea."
"A part of me does. But I'll go back to it eventually. This master's is just a chapter." He paused. "I want a life that has many chapters."
She looked at him differently then, and he wondered what she saw. A man who had won the lottery and kept working. A man who had been interviewed about his win and told the press he was going to study sharks instead of buying a yacht. She had asked about that over coffee, the lottery, and he had deflected. Now, over a second glass of wine, he told her the truth.
"I was twenty-three. I bought a ticket with my friend Luis outside a tobacconist in Valencia. We split the cost. It was a joke, really. We bought the same numbers every week. And then one Tuesday, Luis called me at three in the morning screaming in my ear." He smiled at the memory. "We won six million euros. Three each, after tax."
"Jesus." She set her fork down. "And you're here, studying marine biology."
"I gave some to my parents. My mother cried. My father didn't say anything for a week, which for him is the loudest statement there is. I invested the rest. CDs, bonds, a few sensible things my uncle recommended." He shrugged. "I was never going to be the kind of man who retired at twenty-five. I'd have gone mad within a month. I need purpose. I need to be useful."
"That's a rare thing," she said softly. "Most people in your position would have bought a boat and a tan."
"I did buy a motorcycle." He grinned. "That's my one indulgence."
She laughed, and the sound filled the corner of the restaurant. "A motorcycle. Oh, God. That's such a cliché. What kind?"
"Triumph 900 Adventure."
"That's a bike you could ride across Europe."
"That's the plan, eventually." He ran a thumb along the rim of his glass. "I'd like to see the west coast of Ireland again. I did a road trip a few weeks ago. The Cliffs of Moher. Doolin. It was extraordinary."
"Alone?"
"I borrowed the bike from a friend. I wanted the time to think."
She watched him, her dark eyes soft in the candlelight. "What were you thinking about?"
"Home. Family. The shape of my life." He hesitated, then said, "I found something in Dublin I didn't expect. A family. Not by blood. But they've taken me in, and I think they love me. It's strange, being loved by strangers. It's disorienting and wonderful all at once."
"The couple you live with."
"Yes. Roisin and Seamus. They're the best people I've ever met. They have no children of their own, and they treat me like I'm theirs." He paused. "I thought I was too old to need parents. Turns out I wasn't."
Molly reached across the table and put her hand over his. Her touch was warm, grounding. "I love that," she said. "That you can say that. Most men your age would never admit something like that."
"My mother raised me to be honest about my feelings. My father taught me to be strong about them." He turned his hand over, lacing his fingers with hers. "I think that's a good combination."
They lingered. He had promised himself he would not rush the evening, but the hours seemed to slip away like sand through fingers, and before he knew it the restaurant was emptying and the candles were burning low. She finished her wine and set the glass down with a decisive click.
"My apartment is a ten minute walk from here," she said. "Would you like to come back with me?"
Her voice was steady, without coyness, and he respected that. She was a woman who knew what she wanted and had the courage to ask for it.
"I would like that very much."
They left the restaurant and walked through the quiet Dublin streets, the Liffey glinting black beneath the streetlamps. Her apartment was a fourth floor walk-up in a converted warehouse, all exposed brick and industrial beams, and she unlocked the door with a key on a faded blue ribbon.
The space was warm and lived in. Books stacked on every surface. A winter coat slung over the back of a chair. A set of pencils in a tin cup beside a journal laid open on the coffee table. A record player in the corner, and a shelf of vinyl she had clearly been collecting.
"This is beautiful," he said.
"It's a mess."
"It's alive." He turned to face her, and she was close. Close enough that he could smell her perfume, something floral and sharp. Close enough that he could see the flecks of gold in her dark eyes.
She reached up and touched his cheek, her fingertips tracing the faint scar that had faded from the fight. "Does this still hurt?"
"No."
"Good." She stepped closer, and then she kissed him.
The kiss was soft at first, tentative, two people learning the shape of each other. But then her hand slid into his hair, and his arm went around her waist, and the kiss deepened until there was nothing else in the world but her mouth and her body and the way she pressed against him.
They made love slowly, deliberately, in her bed with the city lights flickering through the blinds. He was careful with her, attentive, learning what made her sigh and what made her gasp, and she returned the favour with a tenderness that left him breathless. When it was over, they lay tangled in her sheets, her head on his chest, his hand tracing lazy circles on her bare shoulder.
"I could get used to this," she murmured.
"So could I."
She was asleep within minutes, her breathing evening out into soft, steady rhythm. He lay awake for a while, watching the shadows move across the ceiling, and he felt something he had not felt in a long time. Contentment. Simple and uncomplicated.
At four in the morning, he carefully extracted himself from her embrace. She stirred, made a small sound, and he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I have to go," he whispered. "I'll text you later."
"Mmhmm." She smiled in her sleep and turned over.
He dressed in the dim light, finding his shirt draped over a chair and his shoes beside the bed. He let himself out, closing the door with a soft click, and walked back through the sleeping city toward the O'Sullivan house.
The sky was a deep blue, pre-dawn, and the air had the clean, sharp quality of a night about to turn. He walked quickly, his hands in his pockets, replaying the evening in his mind. The wine. The conversation. The way her body had moved beneath his. It had been good, she had been good, and he felt no regret.
The house was dark when he reached it, which soothed him. He had hoped no one would be awake, had thought about his texts and winced at his own negligence. He had silenced his phone at the restaurant, and he had not checked it since.
He let himself in with his key, easing the door shut, and he was halfway across the hall, heading for the stairs, when the sitting room door opened.
Roisin stood there in her dressing gown, pale blue, her hair loose around her shoulders. Her face was a mask he could not read.
"Roisin." He stopped. "I'm sorry, I know I should have texted."
She said nothing. She stood in the doorway, and the silence stretched, and he felt his heart sink.
"I fell asleep," he tried. "I didn't mean to worry you. Molly asked me to stay and I just."
"Molly." She said the name like it was something she was trying to swallow. "You stayed with Molly."
"Yes."
"I sent you seven texts, Javier." Her voice was low, steady, and somehow that made it worse. "Seven. I asked if you were coming home for dinner. I asked if you were all right. Seamus made steak. He cooked it rare because you like it rare. And we sat at the table, the two of us, and we ate your portion ourselves because we did not want it to go to waste, and I spent the whole night staring at my phone willing it to vibrate."
Guilt closed his throat. "I'm sorry. I switched it off. I didn't think."
"No. You didn't think." She stepped forward, into the dim light of the hall, and he saw that her eyes were red, rimmed, the kind of red that came from staring too long at a ceiling. "And that's fine. That's what young men do. They forget. They get caught up in their lives and they forget the people who love them. I know that. I know that."
She took a breath, and her voice cracked. "But please, son. Please don't do this again. Just send a text. A single text, to let your mum know you are safe. That's all I need."
The word landed in his chest like a blow. Son. Mum. She was not scolding him. She was pleading.
He crossed the hall and pulled her into his arms, and she went stiff for a moment before her hands came up and gripped his back, her fingers curling into his jacket.
"I'm sorry," he murmured into her hair. "I am so sorry. I will never do that again. I promise you."
She said nothing. She just held him, her face buried against his shoulder, and he felt the faint tremor in her body. When she finally pulled back, she forced a smile that did not reach her eyes.
"Tell me about her," she said. "Tell me about this girl who kept you out all night."
He hesitated. "She's nice. She's smart. She works on cold water corals."
"That's lovely."
"Mum. Are you okay?"
Her eyes flickered, and she looked at him, and for a moment he saw something he could not name. It passed, and she smiled again, softer this time.
"I'm fine, love. I'm just an old woman who worries too much." She reached up and touched his cheek, the same gesture Molly had made hours ago, but different. "Go to bed. Get some rest. We'll talk properly in the morning."
"Roisin."
"Go on." She turned away and walked back to the sitting room, and he heard the door click shut behind her.
He stood alone in the hall, the house silent around him, and he felt the weight of her goodbye settle on his shoulders. She had called him son and she had called herself mum, and she had looked at him with eyes that held a question she had not spoken.
He climbed the stairs slowly, and when he reached his room, he did not turn on the light. He sat on the edge of his bed in the dark, the memory of Molly's warmth still on his skin, and he wondered, for the first time, whether he was caught between two worlds that could not coexist.
The house was quiet when he woke, the light through his curtains soft and grey. He lay still for a moment, the ceiling unfamiliar in the half dark, and then the memory of the night before returned in fragments. Molly's skin. The wine. The walk home through the sleeping city. Roisin in the hallway, her eyes red, her voice cracking over the word son.
He rubbed his face and reached for his phone. It was almost nine. He had missed his run, and his lectures did not start until early afternoon, but the household had its own rhythms and he had broken them.
He showered and dressed in the muted colours he favoured, jeans and a soft grey sweater, and he went downstairs with the careful tread of a man who owed an apology.
The kitchen was empty. The kettle was warm to the touch, and there was a single cup on the draining board. A note on the counter, in Roisin's hand.
Gone to the shop. There's porridge in the pot. Seamus is on a site in Howth.
Love, Mum.
He stood for a long moment, the note in his hand, and read the word again. Mum. She had signed it with love, but the kitchen felt different. The air tasted of something unspoken.
He ate the porridge standing at the counter, the way he did when he was alone, and he washed his bowl and set it on the draining board. He checked his phone. Still no message from Roisin. He composed a text, deleted it, composed it again.
Morning, Mum. I'm sorry about last night. I should have texted. It won't happen again. I love you.
He sent it before he could second guess himself, and then he stood there, his phone in his hand, waiting for the reply that did not come.
He tried to study. He opened his laptop at the kitchen table and stared at a paper on sediment transport in the Irish Sea, and he read the same paragraph three times without absorbing a word. His mind kept drifting to Roisin's face in the hallway, to the red around her eyes, to the question she had not asked.
It was past noon when his phone buzzed. He grabbed it, expecting her name.
Molly.
Hey. I had a wonderful time last night. I'm at the market by the canal, picking up vegetables for a stew I'm planning to make that will absolutely not live up to my ambitions. Any chance you'd like to keep me company? I'm in the mood for good conversation and someone to carry my bags.
He smiled, a small release of the tension that had been coiled in his chest since he woke. He typed back quickly.
I'd love to. Give me twenty minutes.
His phone buzzed again as he was pulling on his jacket. Roisin's name at last.
Thank you, love. I know you didn't mean it. I'll see you this evening. I'm making shepherd's pie.
He read the message twice, and felt the tightness in his chest ease, just a little. She was not angry. She was hurt, perhaps, but she was not angry. He replied quickly, the words simple and sincere:
Looking forward to it. I'll be home for dinner.
He pocketed his phone and walked out into the spring afternoon, the air mild and bright, the clouds high and white. The city was busy, weekend crowds spilling out of coffee shops and bookshops, and he wove through them with the ease of a man who had learned the streets well.
He found her at the market stalls along the canal, a canvas bag slung over her shoulder, a paper cup in her hand. She wore jeans and a loose knit cardigan, and her hair was pulled back in a messy twist. She looked softer than she had the night before, less curated, and he realised he liked her better for it.
"There he is," she said, her eyes lighting up as he approached. "My knight in weatherproof outerwear."
He laughed. "You said something about vegetables."
"I said a lot of things. Some of them were about vegetables." She handed him a paper cup. "Here. I got you a flat white. I took a gamble on how you take it."
He sipped it. It was perfect. "You're a witch."
"I'm observant. You had one at The Honey Pot. Two sugars, a splash of cold milk." She grinned. "I pay attention."
They walked the market together, and he found himself relaxing into her company. She was easy in a way he had not realised he needed, filling the silences with observations and laughter, drawing him out of his own head. She haggled with a stallholder over the price of tomatoes with a charm that earned her a discount and a free handful of basil. She inspected leeks with the forensic attention of a scientist, which he found both endearing and, given her field, entirely on brand.
"Marine biologists aren't supposed to be this good with vegetables," he said.
"Marine biologists are supposed to be good with anything that comes from a body of water. Vegetables are just plants that live on land. Same principles."
"I don't think the principles are the same at all."
"You've clearly never been to a farmers market in Ohio." She dropped a bag of potatoes into his arms. "Carry that. I'm not done."
They ended up at a bench by the canal, the bags at their feet, eating pastries from a stall she had spotted on the way. The water moved slowly beside them, green and placid, and a family of swans drifted past, the cygnets still grey and downy.
"I had a lovely time last night," she said, after a comfortable silence. "I wanted to say that properly, not just over text."
He turned to look at her. She was watching the water, her profile soft in the afternoon light. "So did I."
"The food. The conversation. Everything." She looked at him then, and her eyes were warm, direct. "I'm glad I asked you to dinner."
"I'm glad you did too. I'm not usually good at this."
"Good at what?"
"This. Meeting someone. Letting things develop naturally." He paused. "I've been on dates where I felt like I was performing. Pretending to be someone I thought they wanted. It's exhausting."
"And with me?"
He considered the question. "With you, it's easy. You make it easy."
She smiled, and something in her expression shifted, softened. "I think I should make you dinner sometime. Not a restaurant. Something I cook myself. It'll be okay, I promise. I'm a better cook than I am a negotiator."
"You were a great negotiator."
"I got free basil. That's a low bar." She nudged his shoulder with hers. "So? Saturday. I'll cook for you. Stew, fresh bread, the works."
"I'd love that."
She beamed, and he felt the warmth of it spread through him. She finished her pastry and licked a crumb off her thumb, and the gesture was so unselfconscious that it struck him as the most attractive thing he had seen in a long time.
They walked back through the city, her bag heavy on his shoulder, and she stopped at the corner near her apartment to take her groceries from him.
"You don't have to walk me all the way up," she said. "I can manage from here."
"I know you can. I just wanted to."
She stood on the pavement, her arms wrapped around her bag, and looked up at him. "You're a gentleman, Javier Barreiro. I like that."
"It's the Irish influence."
"Sure it is." She rose on her toes and kissed him, quick and warm. "See you Saturday."
He watched her walk away, her hips swaying gently, and he turned toward home with a lightness in his step that surprised him. The afternoon had gone better than he had dared to hope. Whatever tension had been in the kitchen that morning, whatever distance Roisin had put between them, he had his answer now. She was not angry. She had signed off with a plan for dinner, with love. He had done the right thing, apologising the way he had, and he could live with the rest.
The house smelled like onions and herbs when he let himself in. The evening light was still bright, and through the kitchen window he could see Roisin at the stove, her back to him, stirring a large pot. She wore an apron over a floral dress, and her hair was pinned up with a clip.
He kicked off his shoes and crossed to the kitchen doorway. "That smells incredible."
She turned, and her face was guarded, but the corners of her mouth lifted when she saw him. "It's just shepherd's pie. Nothing fancy."
"It's my favourite."
"You say that about everything I cook."
"Because it's true every time."
She laughed, a small sound, but it was real, and some of the tension in the kitchen eased. He crossed the room and kissed her cheek, and she let him, her hand coming up to rest briefly on his arm.
"I got your text," she said. "Thank you for saying what you said."
"I meant it. I should have texted. It was thoughtless of me."
"You're young. You were caught up in something." She turned back to the stove, stirring the filling with a wooden spoon. "I remember being that age. When someone new caught your eye, the rest of the world fell away. It's not a crime."
"It doesn't make it right."
She was quiet for a moment. "No," she said softly. "But it doesn't make it a sin either." She set the spoon down and turned to face him. "Tell me about her. Properly this time. Not just that she's nice and she likes corals."
He leaned against the counter, folding his arms. "She's from Ohio. Outside Portland, actually. Oregon. She grows up in a small town, worked on a research vessel off the coast of Maine, and she's here for the same master's as me. She's sharp, she asks good questions. She makes me laugh. She made me talk about the lottery last night, which I usually avoid."
"The lottery?"
"She asked about it over dinner. And I told her. Everything."
Roisin's eyebrows rose. "You told her about the money?"
"I told her I won it. I told her what I did with it. It felt good, actually. Being honest about it. She didn't care, I don't think. She looked at me like I was the same person before and after she knew."
"That's a gift," Roisin said quietly. "Being seen like that. Not many people can give it."
He nodded. "I know. I think I'm lucky."
The kitchen was still, the only sound the low simmer of the pot. Roisin turned back to her cooking, and he watched her for a moment, the careful way she seasoned the dish, the slight tension in her shoulders that had not fully released.
"Mum," he said, and she stilled. "Are you okay? Really?"
She did not turn around. "Of course I'm okay, love. Why wouldn't I be?"
"You cried last night. In the hallway. I've never seen you cry before."
She was silent for a long moment, and then she turned, the wooden spoon in her hand, and her eyes were bright. "I was scared," she said. "I was scared that something had happened to you. It was midnight, then one, then two, and I kept waiting for my phone to light up, and it didn't. And the longer I waited, the worse the images got." She pressed her lips together. "I know it's foolish. You're a grown man. You can take care of yourself. I know that. But you're also my son, the only son I'll ever have, and I will never stop worrying about you. Not as long as I draw breath."
He crossed to her and took her hands, the wooden spoon trapped awkwardly between them. "I'm sorry. I should have thought. I was selfish."
"You were happy." She shook her head. "You were with a beautiful girl, and you forgot the time. It happens. It happened to me, a lifetime ago, and I made the same mistake. My mother was frantic for three days, and I never forgave myself for the look on her face when I finally came home." She squeezed his hands. "But it taught me something, that look. It taught me that love is a burden. You carry it for the people you love, and they carry it for you. The trick is remembering that you're carrying it too, and that sometimes you need to put it down and let them carry you."
He looked at her, and something in his chest ached, a deep and nameless thing. "I love you," he said. "I know I've only known you a few months, but you and Seamus are my family. You're my mum. I don't know how else to say it."
She pulled one hand free and touched his cheek. "You just said it perfectly." She smiled, and this time it reached her eyes. "Now let go of my hands so I can finish this pie. It'll burn, and then we'll all be sad."
He laughed and released her, and she turned back to the stove, and the moment passed into something easier, the rhythm of the household returning. When Seamus came home, dusty and tired from the site in Howth, he found them in the kitchen, Javier peeling potatoes at the sink, Roisin humming along to the radio. He stood in the doorway for a long moment, a smile touching his weathered face, and then he crossed the room and wrapped an arm around his wife, kissing the top of her head.
"Smells like heaven, my love."
"It's just shepherd's pie."
"My favourite."
"You say that about everything."
"Because it's true every time."
Roisin laughed, and for a moment the kitchen was full of it, the three of them circled around a simple meal, and whatever had cracked in the night before seemed to seal over, at least for now.
They ate at the kitchen table that evening, crowded around the smaller counter, Seamus telling tales of the site in Howth, a dispute between two bricklayers about the correct way to lay a course that had nearly come to blows and had instead ended in a compromise involving a tape measure and a pint. Javier listened, and laughed, and passed the salt, and he felt the warmth of the house settle into his bones.
Later, when the dishes were done and Seamus had gone to the sitting room with the evening paper, Roisin caught his arm in the hall.
"You'll be home Saturday, won't you? For dinner?"
"I'm going out, actually. Molly's cooking for me. She invited me."
Something flickered across her face, too quick to read. "Ah. Well. That's nice." She smiled, and the smile was careful. "Don't stay out too late this time, love. That's all I ask."
"I won't. I promise."
She squeezed his arm, and he felt the warmth of her hand through his sleeve, and then she turned and went into the sitting room, and he was left in the hall, alone with the low murmur of the radio and the smell of the house settling into evening.
He climbed the stairs to his room and lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He had a lecture in the morning, and he should sleep. But his mind kept turning, circling the same thoughts. Molly, warm and bright, her lips on his. Roisin in the hallway, her eyes red, her voice breaking. The two of them, pulling at him from opposite directions.
His phone buzzed on the bedside table. He picked it up.
Molly: Saturday's plan is set. I'm making a beef stew that will knock your socks off. Bring an appetite and maybe a bottle of red.
He smiled, and typed back: I'll bring both.
He set the phone down and closed his eyes, and the last thought before sleep took him was not of Molly. It was of Roisin, standing in the kitchen doorway, watching him with those bright, unreadable eyes, and the strange and troubling warmth that had lingered there, refusing to be named.