But I don’t regret them.
So I don’t take them back.
She stares at me with surprise. Probably waiting for me to recant, to cover up with a joke or a laugh.
“You don’t mean that,” she says slowly when I stay quiet.
“What if I do?”
She shakes her head and pulls her hand out from mine. “Because you don’t really know me,” she says. “We’re strangers.”
I shrug. “That’s a relative term.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“I’ve told you more about my life in one hour than I’ve told any other person ever,” I tell her. “That has to mean something.”
She gives me a flippant smile.
But I can see through it now. I can see the cautious hope.
“It probably just means you’ve got a thing for redheads,” she throws back at me.
I take a cautious step towards her. “I have a thing for one redhead,” I say. “And I think you know that.”
She stiffens noticeably.
But she doesn’t move away.
“Yeah, yeah. Swap out ‘redhead’ for ‘blond’ or ‘brunette’ and I bet that line works every time.”
“It’s not a line, Saoirse.”
She closes her eyes for a moment. Then she mumbles something that sounds a fuck-ton like “I’m weak.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” she says. Her eyes flutter open again and the moment fades.
She walks past me and continues looking around as though we weren’t right in the middle of what I would consider a very important discussion.
“This place is beautiful,” she breathes. “It kinda feels like nothing can touch you up here.”
“I gather that that was the point.”
She smiles. “I wish I could stay forever.”
“That can be arranged. Rent’s a bitch, though.”
She throws me a look. “You’re a regular court jester.”
I sigh. “That’s the problem with being perpetually funny. Everyone thinks you’re joking, even when you’re not.”
She stops in front of the balcony’s edge but she angles her body towards me. I figure I should be flattered that her eyes are on me instead of the amazing view of the Dublin cityscape sprawled out before us.
“Cillian,” she says. “Tonight has been amazing. It really has been an escape for me.”
“You don’t have to go back,” I say, cutting her off before she can go all Debbie Downer on me. “You don’t. It’s a choice, Saoirse.”