Michael knew the answer to that.
And for the first time in nine years, he acknowledged it was his fault too.
He let her go.
So he wasn’t the one to put her in his car and take her home because he knew there was nothing he could say to change her mind.
Closing his eyes, she was there. He could hear her breathy gasps, feel her skin beneath his fingers. Being with her, moving inside her, feeling her all around him, it was the best moment of his life. It wasn’t just fantastic sex. It was phenomenal because it was her. Because he had Dahlia.
And she wanted him to let her go again.
Michael’s eyes snapped open, and he glared at the bare space around him. Circumstances with Dahlia had never been easy. It had been one long drama for eleven fuckin’ years. Yet he couldn’t say he ever felt more alive than when she was with him. She woke him up in ways difficult to explain.
He knew what his life without Dahlia looked like. Bare walls, a difficult job in a tough city, and more bare fuckin’ walls. Life with Dahlia? Oh, he knew it wouldn’t be easy at first, but he remembered what it was like between them before everything went to hell. A lot of laughter, a lot of affection. And never feeling alone. She’d made him feel like he wasn’t alone anymore.
She’d felt like home.
Michael wanted that back.
Determination washed away any tiredness he’d been feeling.
It looked like he had some calls to make.
Because there was no way he was letting Dahlia McGuire slip through his fingers a second time.
After a few hours of restless sleep, and by restless, I mean a sleep of Michael-filled dreams, I’d joined my family and Bailey in the sitting room that afternoon. My best friend was full of questions about what had happened, and I promised to tell her everything when we were traveling home.
“I’m sorry,” Bailey said. “I thought we were doing a good thing.”
“I think it was,” I assured her.
“And just so you know, Nina is only an acquaintance. She’s gay.” A little hue of red crested Bailey’s upper cheeks.
“Liked herself a little bit of cherry, did she?” I teased.
“Somehow she missed the gigantic rock on my finger and propositioned me.?
?? She shot me a round-eyed look. “I’m popular in Boston. Let’s just say Nina doesn’t beat around the bush.”
I opened my mouth to pounce on that one.
She shook her head. “Don’t.”
Straining not to laugh, we settled in with the snacks that Dad had laid out before dinner. The TV was on in the background for the game later. We were sitting around, snacking and chatting. No one mentioned Michael or last night, and my nephews hopped from relative to relative for attention.
Davina was telling me, Bailey, Astrid, and Krista about this foul colleague at her work who constantly tried to undermine her, and I was vaguely aware of my dad and Dermot grilling Darragh about the tickets he’d be able to get for next year’s baseball season.
It was Bailey’s gasp, her eyes on the TV, that drew me out of our conversation. She launched across me for the clicker on the coffee table and jabbed it at the TV. The news story flooded the room, and I read the news banner along the screen: DIRECTOR OLIVER FROST FOUND DEAD.
“Sources say his fiancée screenwriter, Ivy Green, found his body early this morning,” the newscaster relayed, and my heart sank. Worried, I looked at Bailey who was pale-faced watching the news. “Reports are circulating that Frost has died from a drug overdose, although authorities have not yet confirmed the cause of death.”
“Isn’t that the guy who made that film about the guys in Boston? You know, the one about the foster brothers who go after the guys who killed one of their kids?” Dermot asked the room.
“Yeah, that’s him.” Bailey turned to me. “We need to go home.”
I laid a hand on her arm. “Our flight is early tomorrow. And there’s nothing we can do right now anyway. I’m sorry, Bails.”
“What am I missing?” Dad’s brow creased in concern.