She sucked in a breath when she realised how close we were standing. Surrounded by shelves of towels and spare bedding, the narrow space allowed barely two inches between us. The quiet that followed was so thick with tension I could barely stand it. I wanted to touch her so badly but worried it might be unwelcome. That was the problem with being a worrier and thinking things through so much. In the end, I almost always decided against taking action. Hell, I’d driven by Milly every day after school for almost two years before I’d finally found the nerve to offer her a lift.

  “This has been a fun night,” she whispered, breaking the quiet as she peered up at me in the dark. I’d never been more aware of our height difference. Outside the closet, I could hear Aidan stomping around searching for everyone. It sounded like he’d already located Nuala because my sister complained loudly about being discovered.

  “It has,” I agreed, still gazing down at her.

  “Thank you for the invite.”

  “It was Nuala’s suggestion,” I answered, and her face fell a little. “But I hoped you’d come,” I was quick to add. “To be honest, me and the lads were supposed to stay at Aidan’s tonight, but I couldn’t keep away knowing you were here.”

  “Oh,” she breathed as I levelled a hand above her head against the wall. “Can I tell you a secret?” she went on, whispering.

  “Sure.”

  “I was hoping you’d turn up. I’ve missed you.”

  Her words had my pulse spiking. “You know you don’t ever have to miss me, right? All you have to do is call, and I’ll be there.”

  She peered up at me, her eyes wide and almost disbelieving. “Really?”

  Unable to resist, I sank my other hand into her hair. It was still a little wet after the pool, and I noticed a tremble shudder through her at my touch. This was it. My chance to finally taste her like I’d been imagining for what seemed like forever.

  “Yes, really,” I whispered in response before I lowered my mouth to hers. Milly hitched a surprised breath when our lips touched, and I kissed her very softly at first. She seemed to flounder for a moment, but then her hands came to my shoulders, and she kissed me back, a small, pleasured noise escaping her that had me lifting her up. My hands went to her thighs as I encouraged her to lock them around my waist. My breathing was ragged as I sank my tongue past her lips, her drugging taste seeping into my bloodstream.

  My erection pressed against her stomach, and a vibration rumbled through me when she wound her arms around my neck, tugging me closer. I deepened the kiss, my tongue taking on a mind of its own as it skated along hers. She was shy in the way she kissed, but I encouraged her to open up, so full of need I almost lost control. I held her against the wall as I finally broke the kiss and dropped my mouth to her neck, pressing my lips to her soft skin.

  Fuck, I was already addicted.

  The kiss was better than any I’d had before. I was pretty sure I never wanted to do this with anyone but her ever again.

  My fingers slipped under the hem of her top, meeting the bare flesh of her hip before I heard footsteps approach. Footsteps that were suddenly dangerously close to the closet door. I had just enough time to break away and set Milly back on her feet before the door swung open, and Aidan declared, “Found you!”

  Milly stared at the floor, clearly mortified, when my friend glanced between the two of us and sighed. “Not you two as well. Is everyone using this game as an excuse to hook up?”

  “What are you talking about?” I questioned grouchily, annoyed that the most blissful few moments of my life had been cut short by Aidan bloody Finnegan.

  “Rhys and your cousin. I found them hiding behind the couch in the den smooching away.”

  So, it was happening. My best friend and my cousin. If I weren’t so worried about Rhys getting his heart broken, I’d almost be proud of him. He must’ve really liked Charli because I’d never seen him take a chance on a girl like that before.

  Aidan left to go search for the others, and I turned back to Milly, who was in the process of fixing the hem of her top that I’d so eagerly shoved up.

  “So,” I said, my heart going haywire just looking at her. She was so beautiful I could hardly stand it.

  “So,” she repeated, flushing as she lifted her eyes to mine.

  A short beat of silence fell before I blurted, “Want to be my girlfriend?”

  Milly’s eyelids fluttered, her pretty mouth forming a surprised ‘O’ as she gazed up at me. The question seemed to bring her pleasure before something else crept in, something that looked oddly like guilt. What the hell?

  “I can’t,” she said at last, and like a pin sticking in a balloon, everything within me deflated.

  I stepped closer to her. “Why not? Are you already seeing someone?”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh, my goodness, no, of course not. I never would’ve kissed you if I already had a boyfriend, Derek.”

  “Then why?” I pushed, hating feeling so pathetic, but I had to know. Milly hadn’t kissed me reluctantly. She might’ve been a little shy at first, perhaps taken off guard, but once she got into it, she’d enjoyed kissing me as much I’d enjoyed kissing her.

  Her gaze lowered. “It’s complicated.”

  I lifted a hand and tucked some of her hair behind her ear, needing to touch her in whatever small way she might allow. “Try me.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath then let it out, lifting her eyes to mine again. “I like you, Derek. I mean, I really like you. But I just …” She faltered, as though searching for the right words. “I have too much going on in my life. School starts back up in a couple weeks, and I’m literally not going to have time for anything other than studying if I want to get enough points for medicine. Plus, you’ll be heading off to college soon.”

  “I’m going to DCU. It’s a twenty-minute commute. It’s not like I’ll be moving across the country.”

  “Right, but you’ll be busy, too. We won’t have time for each other.”

  “Why don’t we cross that hurdle when we come to it?” I suggested, but she was already shaking her head.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t. I’ve worked too hard, and I can’t let anything jeopardise my goal.”

  There was something odd in her expression, something that made me feel like there was more to this, more to her reasoning she wasn’t willing to say. But then she levelled me with a pleading look, and I couldn’t bring myself to push the matter. The idea of being my girlfriend was obviously stressing her out in a big way, and I didn’t want to upset her. I mean, I didn’t agree that us being together would distract her from her goal of getting enough points for medicine. If anything, I’d go out of my way to ensure she got into the college course she was aiming for. I’d drive her places, buy her books, help her research and study, give her orgasms to relieve her stress. But I could tell by her expression that I wasn’t going to convince her of how right we were for each other, how amazing we could be. Not tonight, at least.

  That didn’t mean I didn’t have every intention of changing her mind.

  “Friends, then?” I asked, and the relief in her eyes told me it was the right thing to say.

  “Friends,” Milly agreed.

  I threw my arm around her shoulders. “Come on. I’ll drive you home.”

  6.

  Milly

  The excuse I gave Derek as to why I couldn’t be his girlfriend was eating me up inside. It only half the reason I’d refused him. The other half was, sadly, because of my aunt. I’d looked up to her my entire life. She was the one who always came to help when my parents had dug themselves into a financial hole and needed money to bail them out. If it weren’t for Aunt Nell, I’d spend all my time worrying about my family and zero time focusing on my own life.

  She’d seemed so disturbed by the idea of Derek being my boyfriend, her expression almost haunted, and that was why I just couldn’t do it, no matter how much I wanted him. I couldn’t date the son of the man who’d put her through hell. I already felt guilty enough about being friends with him and his sister. Some days I thought that it might even be worse developing friendships with them, especially because of how close I’d gotten to Nuala. She was just such a bright, bubbly person, and I found it impossible not to want to spend time with her.

  It turned out that she’d been dealing with a toxic friend group at school and had been on her own for months before her cousin, Charli, came to visit and kept her company for the summer. By the time school started back up, Nuala and I were inseparable. She ate lunch with me, Tara and Celine almost every day, leaving her old friend group behind and fully becoming the newest member of our little trio. It also turned out that Nuala and Tara were second cousins, so they knew one another from childhood.

  That was the thing about living in a relatively small Irish town, a lot of people were distantly related in some way.

  My friendship with Derek was much more of a struggle. Over the weeks, my feelings for him grew ever more intense. My attraction, too. He went out of his way to spend time with me, behaving like a perfect gentleman all the while. Well, aside from the times when he decided to flirt with me by telling me how pretty I was or how sexy he found me. He’d look at me all intense like he wanted to kiss me, and it took everything I had to resist.

  We had a standing arrangement to swim laps together at his dad’s hotel every Sunday evening. Afterward, he’d drive us to get fish and chips, and we’d park by the beach, sitting in his car and watching the waves crash against the shore. Then on Monday, he’d have college, and I’d have school, so we wouldn’t see much of each other until the weekend.

  Aunt Nell was aware of my friendship with both Derek and Nuala, and though she didn’t exactly approve, she also didn’t try to guilt me into dropping them.

  “Just so long as you don’t get romantically involved with the boy,” she said. “Falling for someone, especially a Balfe, at your age only ever leads to trouble.”

  So, I’d lied to my aunt, telling her there was nothing more than friendship between us even though every time I was around Derek I felt like I was dying inside little by little. I yearned for him to kiss me like he’d done in the closet at his house that night, the two of us trapped alone in the dark. Sometimes I felt a burning energy from him, like he wanted me just as badly, but he never made a move. I’d never experienced a more conflicted mixture of relief and disappointment than when Derek looked like he might smash his mouth to mine but did nothing.

  As the weeks ticked by, turning to months, exam time came ever closer, and so my stress levels rose exponentially. When that happened, Derek was always there to take me for a swim or an evening drive or even an impromptu tennis match. He was adept at distracting me from my academic stress, and I felt myself falling deeper into a pit of despair because I was hopelessly in love with him, but I could never have him.

  At long last, exam time arrived. I managed to get through the absolute hell of it and come out the other end relatively unscathed. I felt like it had gone well, and I just had to wait until my results came out at the end of summer so I could know for sure if I’d gotten into my chosen course. Aunt Nell paid for my entire family to spend a month at her villa in Spain, and though I enjoyed the break away from normality, I also missed Derek like crazy. But he was working at his dad’s hotel in the city for the summer, learning the ropes, so it wasn’t like he’d have much time for me anyway.

  I arrived home two days before the exam results would be released, sun tanned and eager to see Derek. His texts hadn’t been very plentiful, and I feared he’d found a girlfriend and forgotten about me. On the day the results came out, Nuala, Tara, Celine and I all planned on going into the city to celebrate. All four of us were now over eighteen, so we could go to a bar or a club, something we hadn’t done before. To be honest, I was far too focused on getting my results and hadn’t really given much thought to the celebration afterwards.

  Mam, Dad and Aunt Nell came with me to the school, where an administrator handed me an envelope. We stood huddled together in the school corridor as I eagerly tore it open before my eyes frantically scanned the contents.

  In an instant, everything inside me deflated. I read and re-read the results, hoping the numbers and letters on the page would change, shift into something resembling what I’d been hoping for. My stomach pitched violently when they remained the same, the paper shaking in my hands. It was the oddest feeling, but it felt like my heart was breaking. So much work and sacrifice, and all for nothing.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  By any standards, I’d gotten stellar results, but I was a measly ten points short of the predicted requirement for medicine. I felt like I was floating in a sea of disappointment. Self-recrimination reared its head. If only I’d studied that little bit harder, put in a fraction more effort.

  All my plans were ruined, just like that.

  My parents and aunt chattered around me, but I barely heard them. My ears caught fractions of sentences like, “could repeat next year” or “maybe study nursing instead,” but my brain wasn’t fully comprehending anything right then. By the time I started thinking relatively clearly, we were back at my house, and Mam had placed a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits in front of me as I sat at the kitchen table across from my aunt. Dad had retreated upstairs, as was his habit whenever something stressful was happening.

  “I’ve been considering this as an eventuality, Milly,” Aunt Nell said. “The points system can be so fickle, you know? I even mentioned it to Edward.”

  Edward was Aunt Milly’s second husband, and as far as I knew, they were still on good terms. Husbands number one and three were the ones who were dead to her. Edward was a surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital, where he performed lifesaving operations on children. Of all her marriages, it was a pity things hadn’t worked out with Edward, but both he and Nell were career people. Everything else came second, even spouses.

  “And what did he have to say?” Mam asked as she came around the table holding a cup of tea.

  “Well, he mentioned a preparatory course that Milly could complete in London before applying to study medicine in the UK.” Aunt Nell met my gaze. “There are many more opportunities over there, not only for completing your training but also for when you graduate and start looking for a job. I’d be willing to pay for the preparatory course, as well as the eventual degree, and you could live in my penthouse, which is empty half of the year anyway. It’s an option to consider.”

  Just like that, my out-of-body feeling of failure dissolved as a little hope filtered back in. “You’d do that for me?” I asked in disbelief.

  “You’re my niece and goddaughter, Milly. Of course, I would. I’d do anything to help you achieve your dream.”

  At this, Mam began to well up, and I wasn’t far behind her. Happy tears trickled down my cheeks as I stood and went to throw my arms around my aunt, hugging her tight. Sure, I could’ve stayed home and repeated my Leaving Cert in the vain hope I might achieve enough points next time around, or I could go to London and actually start studying to become a doctor for real.

  “Thank you. You have no idea what this means to me,” I gushed as she returned my hug with a big squeeze.

  ***

  Later on, I was in a much better mood as I got ready for my night of celebrations with my friends. I never normally went out and usually hated this sort of thing, but after the day I’d had, not to mention an entire year of studying, I felt an unusual urge to let loose. Forget my social anxieties and just enjoy my time with my friends for a night. Everyone was meeting at Tara’s house, which was closest to the train station, and then we’d take the train into the city.

  I wore a tight, dark blue dress that was a little outside of my comfort zone, but I wanted to show off my holiday tan. I’d gone shopping with Nuala, and she’d convinced me it was “the one.” A while back, we’d developed this little joke that if we could just find the perfect dress, we’d be able to seduce the boy of our dreams. She had no idea the boy of my dreams was her brother.

  Sometimes I’d think of Derek and how he often looked at me and wonder if I even needed to look sexy to seduce him. Those looks, so heated and intense, made it seem like I could be wearing a bin liner paired with ratty, just woken up hair, and the liquid fire intensity in his eyes would remain.

  The hardest part of moving to London would be leaving him. I hadn’t told him yet because I wanted to tell him in person rather than saying it in a text or over the phone. I mean, I loved my family with all my heart, but they were a constant. No matter if I went away and came back, my parents would always be there. But Derek. I felt like if I left then that would be it. Sure, we could continue our friendship with calls and texts and social media, but was it worth it?

  I adored him, but I could never truly be with him, not unless I wanted to betray my aunt. My aunt who’d just offered me the solution to my troubles, who was prepared to pay for my college education and let me live in her apartment rent-free in London.

  Aunt Nell had been there for me my entire life. And in return for her love and care, I would deny myself Derek Balfe. It was my cross to bear.

  “Quit tugging at your skirt,” Tara scolded on our walk to the train station. “You look incredible. Own it.”

  “I agree,” Nuala put in. “I don’t know how you manage to have such amazing legs when they’re so short, but you do. They need to be shown off.”

  “Hey! I’m five-foot-four,” I protested. “I’m hardly a hobbit. Plus, these shoes bring me up to a respectable five-foot-seven.”

  “The magic of heels,” Celine said with a big grin, the shine of vodka in her pretty hazel eyes. She’d gotten amazing results today, which would allow her to study Theoretical Physics at Trinity. We were supposed to go there together, and we’d commiserated back at Tara’s house when I’d arrived and informed them of my new plan to move to London with Aunt Nell. There’d been a few tears shed, and Nuala, in particular, seemed like she was going to miss me a lot. We’d only been friends for a year, but she’d become an intrinsic part of our little group. Nuala was going to study Irish and French as part of an Arts degree, while Tara planned on going to culinary school because she’d always wanted to become a chef.