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“No. It was good for her too. I know it was. Which is why I can’t… Aw, fuck it. I’m tired of talking about it. Tired of thinking about it.” Colm set his pint glass down and stroked his beard before running his hand through his hair.
“You’re going to go bald if you keep tugging at it like that,” she said.
And then, she recalled her conversation with Colm last week, the way he’d really listened and been supportive of her decision to have a baby on her own.
Padraig was gathering up empty glasses from a table nearby, and Emmy was on her way back from the bathroom.
“Can I talk to you, Colm?” she asked. “In private.”
He looked somewhat surprised by the request, but he recovered quickly. “Sure.” He picked up his beer glass and headed to a table near the bar.
“No,” she said, stopping him with a hand on his forearm. “Over there.” She pointed to a booth in the far corner. She couldn’t risk anyone overhearing what she was going to say.
Colm gestured for her to lead the way.
Once they were settled in the booth, he said, “What’s up? Something go wrong with the sperm donor?”
She shook her head, not surprised he assumed that was what she wanted to talk about. Right now, he and Robbie were the only two people who knew about her plans to have a baby.
“No. It’s about Halloween. I…” She swallowed heavily, her mouth suddenly going dry.
She reached across the table and grabbed Colm’s Guinness, taking a long swig as his eyebrows rose.
“What about it?”
“I, um…well, I… Fuck. I slept with Paddy.”
Colm tilted his head, and for a moment, she could almost imagine him trying to figure out if he’d heard her correctly. “Slept with or had sex with?”
“Sex,” she whispered.
Colm shook his head. “That’s not possible. Paddy hasn’t said a word to me about—”
“He was blacked out. Doesn’t remember.”
“I’m pretty fucking sure he’d remember that, Kell.”
“He doesn’t, okay?” She hadn’t meant to raise her voice, but she was running on fumes at the moment, her nerves stretched taut.
“Okay. You’re going to have to work with me here though. I mean…even if he doesn’t remember, you weren’t that drunk. Why would you—”
“It was dark—pitch-black. I thought he was Robbie.”
Colm chuckled. “Jesus. Only you could manage to sleep with the wrong guy.”
“Oh my God, you’re an asshole.”
“Wait,” Colm said, raising his hand to ward off her fury. “You thought you were sleeping with the sperm donor, but it was really Paddy?”
“Yeah. And now I don’t know what the hell to do.”
“What do you mean? Do about what?”
“About telling him! I mean, I slept with my best friend, who is still reeling from losing his wife. It’s going to crush him when I tell him! He’ll feel like he wasn’t loyal to Mia’s memory, and he’ll…” She sucked in a deep breath, unable to finish her thought.
Colm fell silent, and she took comfort in the fact he was genuinely thinking it through, trying to find a way to help her. She followed his gaze, the two of them glancing back at Padraig who was mixing up a batch of margaritas.
She and Colm were probably the only two people—with the exception of Pop Pop—who recognized the subtle differences in Padraig since Mia’s death. The lines by his eyes that hadn’t been there before he’d walked every step of the way through her illness beside her, the tightness around his mouth, the way his smile never seemed to fill his entire face the way it had when they were all younger. He moved just a little bit slower, held himself just a little bit stiffer.
