“Sure. We’ll work something out.”

Faith breathes a laugh. “Grand.”

“Grand,” Brian echoes, looking like he’s just struck gold.

At this point, I am barely restraining the urge to launch myself at Shane and kiss him until he passes out from lack of oxygen. He is being so agreeable, such a good brother, even though I suspect he wants to lock Faith in her room and throw the key into the Liffey. He might not be welcoming Brian to the family with a big, back-slapping hug, but he’s making an effort. From Shane, an effort seems more meaningful than any false gesture of camaraderie.

“At one time, people called me the best dancer in Dublin.” Kitty breaks the silence with that statement, daring us all with a look to contradict her. She gestures to a group of dancing students with her empty glass. “They wouldn’t have known what hit them back then. One boy even called me superior. I could tell he meant it, too. Sometimes you can just tell.”

She goes back to staring wistfully at the group of dancers, her feet tapping on the floor, as she hums along to the unfamiliar pop song. I don’t know where I get the courage, maybe it’s the three Shirley Temples buzzing through my system, but I lean across the table and tap her arm. “Kitty, do you want to dance?”

“More than anything.”

I shrug one shoulder. “Let’s see those moves.”

Kitty seems to lose her courage with each step in the direction of the dance floor. After her speech, I’d kind of been counting on her to get this little dance party started, being that I don’t usually dance in public. As in, you couldn’t pay me. When she looks like she might bolt back to our table, I take her hands impulsively…and start doing the twist. She stares at me wide-eyed a moment, then begins to loosen up little by little. Her face transforms with an intense look of concentration, teeth biting her bottom lip so hard I think she’s going to draw blood. One of the younger men dancing behind us gives her a thumbs-up and she giggles, sounding so much like Faith, I feel an uncomfortable welling in my chest.

“I told you I was superior, American.”

“I never doubted you, Kitty.”

“Hmm.”

Swallowing a laugh, I glance over at our table to find Shane watching me with a strange look in his eye. I’m positive I’m looking at him the same way, almost like a reflection. He looks like he’s actually coming to join us when Orla shouts his name behind the bar, holding up the phone to indicate he has a call. With a regretful look in my direction, he heads behind the bar and picks up the phone. For some reason, I keep watching him. There’s a prickling at the back of my neck that I’ve gotten regularly since childhood, a sense that I need to be on my toes. That my guard needs to be firmly in place. I try to ignore it, put my attention back on Kitty, but when Shane’s face slowly loses color, I know I was right. He looks up, gaze zeroing in on me through the crowd to where I’m dancing. He’s talking into the phone, jotting notes down onto a pad of paper.

A minute later, he hangs up and makes his way toward me slowly. I fight back the need to turn and run out the door. Something is coming and I don’t want to face it. When he reaches me, I realize I haven’t been dancing in long minutes. I’ve just been standing motionless amongst the group of swaying bodies.

“What’s up?” I manage.

He’s staring at me so hard, it’s a wonder I can stand under the weight of it. “That was my racing coach. Their driver was injured this morning during practice. They have an alternate, but he has no experience on this particular track.”

I nod, as if I could even process that information. I need him to rip off the Band-Aid. To give me the bottom line. “Okay. What does that mean?”

“They need me for the Italian Grand Prix. Tomorrow afternoon.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

There’s a horrible feeling you get when you wake up on a Monday morning thinking its Saturday. Then you slowly remember, as you enter wakefulness, you have a whole week ahead of you instead of a lazy day off watching television and eating bagels. This moment, where Shane is telling me he’s leaving tomorrow, it’s that Monday morning feeling multiplied by a thousand. Only, I didn’t get my week. I didn’t have a chance to prepare myself before Monday morning blindsided me. I’m in the deep end with no time to make it back to the shallow side. And if I’m honest with myself, this feeling I have right now, the cantaloupe-sized crater in my stomach, tells me I was fooling myself if I thought I could have readied myself for this.

“Willa.”

Shane snaps me back into myself, his panicked voice telling me he’s been saying my name for a while. His handsome face is a mask of worry, instead of elated, the way it should be. This is his dream. He has a serious offer on the Claymore and his racing team needs him back behind the wheel. In a matter of days, his future has been sorted out for him. Yet he looks like his world just caved in. It hits me, then. It’s because of me. He doesn’t want to leave me. For a split second, I ponder if I could be selfish enough to keep him here. Make him stay and give me the week he promised. Maybe…more, even. If he stays, there’s nothing stopping me from extending my time here. We could have even longer. If he says no to the race, that is.

Disgusted, I push that idea over the side of a cliff. If I’m even partly the reason for the fear in his eyes, I will never forgive myself. And this will only be the beginning. There will be more races. More offers. I can’t expect him to turn them down. This is what he’s wanted his whole life.

Underneath all these valid reasons is the one that I’ve been trying to ignore. But it’s there, circled and underlined with a black Sharpie. It’s the ugly monster that has been hiding under my bed, finally crawling to join me among the sheets, suffocating me until there’s nothing left.

I’ll ruin him. I can’t make another human being happy. I’m incapable of it. What I did to Evan, the way I wore him down until the spark left his eye when he looked at me. If I did that to Shane, if I changed a single thing about him for the worse, I would never recover. I could have handled a week. Even I can’t screw up something that quickly. The thought of him altering his path—for me, a girl who can’t commit to a brand of gum—it’s terrifying.

“Willa, say something.”

“Sorry.” I force a smile onto my face. “That’s great, right?”