looking at me with clarity that wasn’t there before. And maybe a touch of embarrassment.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
“For acting the maggot.”
“Tell me that’s another saying.”
“I lost my shite. I shouldn’t have. I don’t know what happened.”
“You fell is what happened.”
“I know. I just … lost my balance. I think the ground must be uneven here,” he says, eyes scanning the ground as if that could be it when we both know it’s not.
“You were pretty upset about losing the owl,” I say carefully.
Like, nervous breakdown kind of upset.
He nods, licking his lips. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
He studies me for a moment, as if he’s trying to deduce whether he can trust me or not. I would hope at this point that he could but the truth is I guess we don’t really owe each other that in real life, just in our fake one.
“After my mam and sister died,” he says quietly, clearing his throat, “my dad and I grew apart. I think we were enemies. My nan, back then, she was living elsewhere and she had to come move in with us just to keep the peace. He was drinking all the time. Cruel. He’d tell me things … things like it was my fault somehow that they died. Or that he’d rather have a daughter than a son. Things like that. Things that, when you’re sixteen, you take to heart.”
“Or at any age,” I say.
“Maybe. So we had another horned owl like McGavin. His name was Jasper. And my dad, he put all his love and energy into that bird and none into me, and I needed him the most, you know? Not the bird. I needed him. I’d lost my mother and I needed him and I never had his love anymore. And so … one night I came out here and opened the cage, and I let the owl loose. Owls are nocturnal—I knew he’d never come back.”
He takes in a deep breath, and guilt and shame radiates from him. “The next morning my dad went out there to feed him and he saw the bird was gone. Obviously someone had let Jasper out. I admitted it before he had a chance to blame me. I told him I was glad that the stupid bird was gone, that now he can be like me with nothing left to love. It was … ugly. It still scars me to this day. And I know that the rift between us started when they died, but it became a fucking fracture the day I let that owl go. We’ve never been the same.”
Jeez. This is heavy. No wonder their relationship is so rife with tension. Last night it was like everyone was walking on eggshells around them.
Except for me, who was just blundering about, not really having an idea about that, nor about what happened to his mother or that he had a sister.
“I’m really sorry,” I say softly, staring deep into his dark eyes that are sheltering so much turmoil. “It makes sense now why you need to be here and make amends while you can.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Oh, I know it is. Hello, I’m your fake fiancé.”
A hint of a smile ghosts on his lips. “You really have been amazing, you know that?”
I shrug. “I’m glad you think that because I feel like I’ve been doing nothing but fucking up.”
“No,” he says, shifting to face me dead on. He cups my face in his hands and searches my eyes feverishly. “No, you are amazing. You are wonderful. You went and you got that bird back. I can’t believe you did that. But you didn’t hesitate. You just put on the gauntlet and did it. Do you know how incredible that is? How incredible you are?”
My cheeks go warm, but maybe it’s his strong palms pressed against my face. “I did what I had to do. I couldn’t stand to see you like that.”
“And that was the last thing I wanted you to see.”
“But I’m still here. If you recall from last night, I’m not going anywhere for a long time.”
He leans in and kisses me on the mouth, then the corner of my lips, then my nose, then my forehead. “You are fierce, Valerie Stephens. A wild bird that could fly away but chooses to stay with me, and I am forever grateful for that. Believe me, I am.”
Okay. I might be melting just