“You think you’ll ever go back there?” I ask.
“Maybe one day,” Cillian says with a shrug. “When I’m old and grey and I’ve lived so fucking much that I ache all over. Then I’ll go back and order a pint of Guinness. I’ll sit at the bar and sip my beer and fall asleep to old Irish songs.”
I laugh. “Jesus, that’s sad. And by sad, I mean pathetic.”
“Fuck you.”
Our laughter fills the empty streets as we head to the next bar.
The memory fades away. I wish I had more of it. More of him.
“The Free Canary,” Sinead echoes. The clench in her jaw melts under a wave of grief. “He loved that damn pub.”
“He loved a lot of the things he left behind,” I say. I turn once more to leave. Before I do, something else occurs to me. I pivot again and say to Ronan, “Oh, and I should apologize.”
“For what?” the grizzled man asks.
“I believe I killed three of your men at O’Malley’s.”
His expression is blank. “If the three of them couldn’t handle one fucking Russian, then they deserved to die.” He laughs scornfully and waves me off.
Ronan remains seated, sipping the whiskey straight from the bottle and staring out into the lush garden.
But Sinead gets up and walks with me back towards the entrance of the house. She’s quiet—weighed down with memories, no doubt.
I wish I had the ability to comfort her, but I’ve never been good with grief.
I can barely handle my own.
“He must have loved you,” Sinead says just before I cross through the front doors once again. “To have died for you, I mean.”
I turn to face her. The sunlight hits her blue eyes and makes them sparkle like the ocean.
“He would have died for any one of you, too,” I tell her solemnly. “If he’d only been given a chance.”