He’s got scars I don’t recognize.
Those blue eyes, though—stubborn, laughing, alive—those haven’t changed one bit.
And when he takes the final step forward and embraces me, I realize just how damn much I missed my best friend.
“You’re not getting all soft and sentimental on me, are ya?” he mumbles in my ear.
I release him from the hug and step away.
“You look like shit,” I comment wryly.
“Still better looking than you’ll ever be,” he fires right back.
I laugh, he laughs, and the men looking on from the table laugh. It’s a soul-cleansing laugh, the kind that only happens a few times in a man’s life. When something truly takes him by surprise.
“Now,” Cillian says, eyes sparkling, “can we finish that toast? I’m fucking dying for a drink.”
I find a pair of fresh glasses and pour us each one. Adrik, Alexei, and Vasyl all stand to join us. We clink glasses and drink deeply.
It tastes like salvation.
It tastes like redemption.
It tastes like the future I’ve shed blood, sweat and tears for.
It tastes really fucking good.
Once we’ve all drained our glasses, my lieutenants make mumbled excuses and slip out of the room.
It’s just Cillian and me.
I feel like a fool—I keep looking at him, wondering if he’s real or if I maybe just sustained a traumatic brain injury and this is all a sick hallucination.
But he’s real. He’s here.
“So?” I say after a minute of silence.
He glances back at me curiously. “So what?”
Jesus—all these months later and it takes him no time at all to infuriate me again.
I slam my hand on the table and roar, “So are you going to tell me how the fuck you got here?!”
He laughs again at that. That infuriating Irishman’s laugh that drives me up the wall the same way it always has.
He reaches out for the whiskey bottle and refills our glasses.
“Yeah, I’ll tell you,” he says mirthfully. “And boy, I promise you this—it’s one hell of a story.”
* * *
A few hours later, Cillian and I head downstairs. He promises me that he’ll be at the club opening tonight—he just has to go take care of a few things first.
We hug again and then he limps away, still leaning on that silver-tipped cane.
I can’t believe the story he told me. But it makes sense, in the end.
And something tells me there’s more of it yet to be written.