by Cara McKenna
The lesson went fairly well. She was hopeless at finding that sweet spot when it came to releasing the clutch, but she acclimated to the backward factor much quicker than she’d expected. By the time the sun was starting to wane, she could say she was semicompetent behind the wheel. But sadly, not confident enough to drive into a city. Which made the evening’s plans a bit complicated.
She parked by the barn and killed the engine, hands shaking faintly with leftover nerves.
“Well done,” Connor said.
“How’s your whiplash?” she asked, grinning.
He pretended to massage a kink in his neck. “I’ve had worse.”
“Well, I owe you dinner. But I’d imagined we’d be heading in separately, so I’d be able to get myself home later.... But I’m not quite ready for city driving yet.”
“I’ll drive us in,” Conner said without hesitation. “And bring you back.”
She was torn. She’d been hoping he’d say that, and yet... What if he got wasted or something, and couldn’t get her home? And Donna’s car got stuck in Cork for the night? Though there was another option.
“On your bike?” she asked.
He made a game face. “If you fancy, sure. I’ve only got the one helmet, but it’s not as though I haven’t gone without one before.”
She smiled. “I do fancy, then.”
“Settled.”
They walked to his motorbike and she accepted his helmet, pulling the strap tight.
“I’ve never done this before,” she told him, “but I’ve always wanted to.” Wanted to find an occasion to wrap her arms around some stunning foreign man and get zipped along over cobblestone streets, like some romantic, cliché commercial for Italian eyewear or pasta sauce.
She waited for Connor to climb on then did the same behind him, her lack of grace thankfully unwitnessed.
“Hang on tight,” he said. “That’s all you have to do.”
So much easier than learning to drive stick, she thought as she wound her arms around his middle. The motor flared to life, and so did her attraction. Connor felt solid and exciting even through her hoodie and his jacket. His back and ab muscles flexed as he steered them, bouncing over the rutted driveway and onto the lane, and Jamie grinned so hard she had to purse her lips.
They couldn’t talk much on the way, thanks to the wind and the throttle, but Jamie was happy to get lost in the nearness of his body. The excitement and the possibility, the newness...it charged her, thrumming as surely as the bike between her legs.
The fields gave way to more residential roads, then to the outskirts of the city, then Cork itself. The motorbike juddered over paving stones and Jamie held her chauffeur even tighter, the impact jolting her from all that lusty distraction.
Connor pulled up and parked between a couple hatchbacks and Jamie reluctantly released him. It all felt so tenuous, like a middle school crush. She had to remind herself, I could probably have him if I wanted to. And she did want to. If this date went well, she was a goner.
“Welcome to Cork,” he said, and took the helmet she handed him.
She mussed her hair—flat on top now, tangled at the ends.
“It looks fine,” Connor said, reading her mind. “All wild, like you’ve been riding a horse beside the sea in slow motion.”
She laughed. “Sounds like a feminine hygiene commercial.” His own hair had been blown this way and that and looked all the better for it, so she gave up the fight with her own. “Where to?”
“Down to you. What d’you fancy?”
“Something...typical, I guess.”
“Authentic Ireland?” Ah, another of those deliciously lilty words. Autentic.
“Please.”
“Pub it is, then. I know a few good ones.” He offered his arm and she linked it with hers, smiling on the inside. He added, “Lucky for me, the Crossroads sets the bar nice and low.”
“Never. I had a perfect time last night.”
He shot her a sidelong glance. “Funny, but so did I. Doubt I’ll ever look at that snooker table the same way again.”
“I should hope not,” she said loftily.
After a couple blocks they stopped before a bar and Connor asked, “Will this do you?”
The front windows were colored panes of pebbled glass, the walls rough stone or stucco painted olive-green, everything trimmed in glossy red. “Looks perfect.”
He held the door open. “There’ll be live music later. In case you require fiddles in your authentic Irish pubs.”
“Can’t hurt.” She preceded him.
Connor was immediately hailed with friendly shouts. He waved with one hand as the fingertips of the other found the small of Jamie’s back, pressing softy. She shivered, pride and excitement rippling through her.
There were stools open at the bar, but she wanted this man to herself. Face-to-face, as they’d been the previous night. Only no more barman and patron this evening.
They claimed a small table in the front corner, Connor waving to tell her to take the seat with the view of the bar. There wasn’t much to see from where he sat...though she felt his eyes on her as she scanned the space.
“All right?” he asked, and passed her a paper menu.
“Perfect.” The place was soothingly underlit, warm and old and full of energy, even with just canned music playing at the moment. The ceiling was a lattice of wood panels, stained dark and giving off a cozy intimacy.
“Just tell me what you want and I’ll place our orders.”
She scanned the fare, finding everything she’d have deemed “Irish.” Was she feeling the blood pudding, though? No, probably not. She slid her menu back in the holder behind the napkins. “Steak pie and a Guinness.”
“I’ll make that two,” he said as he rose. She watched him at the bar, watched his expression as he greeted acquaintances while the beers settled, watched the easy way he hugged another young man and then a woman. Watched his butt. Then he suddenly gestured to her, seeming to tell his friends he was already sitting with someone. She returned their waves, feeling only a little silly to have been caught studying him.
He returned shortly with their pints and they clicked them together.
“To your escape from the countryside,” he said.
“Hear, hear.” She sipped, already a little tipsy from the atmosphere and the buzz she got from this man. She marveled at her glass. “This tastes so much better than back home.”
“Funny how a holiday can do that. Change of scenery.”
“Where did you go on your last vacation?”
“Oh, I don’t get out of the county much,” he said. “I’ve been too mean, saving up for college. But I get up to Kilkenny every couple months, to visit friends. And Dublin. No place like Dublin in March.” He rolled his eyes, implying chaos.
“Oh, of course. Boston loses its mind on St. Patrick’s Day, so I can’t imagine what it’s like here.”
“It’s the tourists who really make a circus of it. If you enjoy watching Australians be sick on the pavement,” he said cheerfully, lifting his glass, “you’ll love St. Paddy’s in Dublin.”
“That’s a good tourism motto. You should go into advertising.”
He shook his head and sampled his stout. “Nah, I’d be a terrible salesman. I want to build things, not sell them.”
“Me, too.”
“Oh?”
“Before I uprooted my life to follow my boyfriend, I was in school for architecture.”
His brows rose. “Were you, then? And you said you’re going back this autumn?”
“Yup. Finally. When are you hoping to start your classes?”
“Same. Not a full courseload this year, but I’ve signed up for some of the required ones, the foundations. I’ll need the refresher. Christ knows how much’s fallen out of my head since I earned my leaving certificate, and engineering’s so bloody math focused.”
A strange sensation knotted Jamie’s middle...a kinship to know they’d both be reprising their educat
ions at the same time, but a sadness to know they’d be doing so on opposites shores of a massive ocean. In different hemispheres. Different worlds. But it was dumb to be feeling something so intense after only twenty-four hours’ acquaintance and one mind-blowing makeout session on the edge of a snooker table.
The conversation came easily, their rapport warm and natural, edged in Connor’s sharp flirtation. They talked about their nerves over returning to school. About the choices that had put Jamie’s plans on hold.
“What’s his name, anyway?” Connor asked. “This ex of yours?”
“Noel.”
“Noel...was he born on Christmas or something?”
She smiled dryly. “Christmas Eve. You can’t be jealous, can you?”
Connor made a great show of his reaction, every frown and wave suggesting her accusation was utterly preposterous.
“What about you?” she asked. “Does the thing that kept you from realizing your plans have a name?”
“No, not really...I mean, I suppose my ma factored. I lost her when I was quite young. Cancer.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. My best friend went through that, too. How old were you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Ah. I don’t suppose that has anything to do with your misspent youth?”
He smirked. “It may, Madame Freud. Though I’d prefer not to spend our first proper date being analyzed, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not. Tell me more about...anything. Like, why engineering?”
“Well, I suppose I thought all that nonsense I loved, all that messing about with engines and taking things apart...” He studied his near-empty glass. “I thought that meant I must be a mechanic. It took a long time for me to see it was understanding the way the parts worked—not the end result, the car or the bike—that I cared about. I realized all these mates of mine that I hung about with, working on cars, they wanted that result. But for me, the second I solved a problem, got some crocked old pile of shite running again, I was itching to move on to the next one. The next puzzle.”
“Huh. You love the process then, not the product.”
He smiled, blinking as though in wonder, as though no one had ever understood him as she was coming to. “That’s very well put. I may nick that.”
“Please do. Now me,” she said, propping her elbows on the table, “I’m just a dreamer. A planner. I want to design beautiful buildings or spaces, draw them all out, imagine the sunlight hitting the different faces at every time of the day, every season. But the actual grind of making sure they don’t fall down? Yeah, I’ll happily leave that realistic crap to you engineer types.”
He laughed. “We’d make quite the team, you and I.”
Her entire body went liquid at that, hot and restless. She felt a blush in her cheeks, so fevered she’d bet Connor could see it.
He parted his lips as though poised to say something, to tease her for going all dopey, then seemed to change his mind. When he did speak, it was only to ask, “Another round?”
The food was decadent, a riot of butter and gravy and salt. The live music started up, filling the space with energy. Nosy friends of Connor’s butted in now and then to introduce themselves, all of them cool and funny and easy to talk to. Upon hearing how he and Jamie had met, they ribbed him for poaching girls from the pub, teased her for having wandered into the only retirement home in the county with a liquor license. They made Jamie miss her old crowd from Boston with a fresh stab.
And if she’d harbored any worries that maybe this man was too good to be true—too good to be single—well, absolutely no chance he was secretly already seeing somebody else, not with all these witnesses. They were on a date, and he had no issue letting everyone see that. It made her feel more pretty and interesting and desired than she had in months. By far.
And she decided she didn’t want it to end with a mere kiss on her front steps.
“So where do you live?” she asked when their latest beers had been drained.
“Close—across the road from where I parked. Did you want to see?”
She shrugged, coy and dorky.
“My flatmate’s away for the weekend. If you fancied meeting against every wall in the place.”
“Meeting?”
“Eh, snogging? What d’you call it? Making out.”
She laughed. “Subtle.”
“Or just a drink. Well, a coffee for me, I suppose, so I can still get you back later.”
“Or a drink for you,” she said quietly, letting him translate. Maybe we don’t need to go anyplace tonight aside from your room.
As her words sank in, his expression turned serious. Not concern, but something heavy. Something loaded. “You want to spend the night with me?”
Fuck, yes. “Do you want to spend it with me?”
His smile was slow and seductive as his gaze dropped to her mouth. “Yes. I would.”
She smiled back. “Okay, then. Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Four
He held her hand on the short walk to his flat. Jamie’s heart was thumping so hard she wondered if he could feel it against his fingers. The contact seemed so easy for Connor, so casual. So why did she feel fifteen again, dizzy from a guy’s touch?
“You really shouldn’t have paid,” she told him. He hadn’t given her the chance, settling at the bar while she’d been in the bathroom. “This was supposed to be my treat, for the driving lesson. But thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
His pleasure. What might that look like, exactly?
What would his bedroom look like? Like a grown man’s room, or closer to the chaos of a college guy’s space? Would it match the rest of him, or reveal some mortal flaw she’d not yet detected and put her off? Please, don’t let it do the latter.
Connor’s place was on the third story of a narrow stone building, the ground floor taken up by a hardware shop. At the door he gave her hand a squeeze then let it go, digging his keys from his jacket pocket. He led her up the steps and flipped on the lights in a small, neat kitchen. Nothing matched, but it was surprisingly clean, considering two men lived here. The living room was the same—likely secondhand furniture, clashing with the modern TV, but overall a cool space, with posters for shows featuring bands Jamie had never heard of, juxtaposing funkily with the grandma-patterned wallpaper. There were even curtains flanking the open windows, framing a view of the busy city street.
Connor took her hoodie. “Beer? Cocktail?”
“Whatever you’re having,” she said distractedly, and wandered to the far wall to inspect a framed photo of a bridge patchworked in bright graffiti. The print was numbered and initialed CK.
“Did you take this?” she asked when he returned carrying two beers.
“No, my little sister. Carrie.”
“Ah.” She accepted her bottle. “It’s really cool.”
“Yeah, she’s good. She lives in London.”
“Is she a professional photographer?”
He laughed. “No, not yet. She’s a bartender, like the rest of us lot. A bartender with grand dreams of hanging up her towel.”
“Sounds familiar,” Jamie said, and turned away from the photo to study the room. Goodness, this man. His apartment looked just right. Not sophisticated but not immature. Suspended between the two, just as she was herself.
“C’mere,” he said, putting a hand to her hip, coaxing her closer. C’mere. Christ, that might be her new favorite word. His kiss was cool from a sip of lager, the tip of his nose warm when it brushed her cheek.
She was smiling when he pulled away.
His voice was quiet, nearly eclipsed by the hush of a car passing outside. “I’ve been dying to do that all night.”
“I’ve been dying to find out if you would.”
“Have a seat.” He waved to the couch and Jamie got settled while he shut off the overhead light and switched on a softer lamp.
“What kind of music do you like?” He turned on a stereo system, a tower of mismatc
hed equipment: ancient turntable, expensive-looking speakers. Everything about this man was an easy mix of old and new.
“What passes for makeout music around here?” Jamie countered.
His back was to her but she heard his soft laugh as he flipped through a shelf of LPs. He slid one out and lifted the record player’s lid. “Nothing says romance like the crackle of vinyl,” he said, fussing with the needle, then the volume. Soft guitar filled the room, a song Jamie recognized but couldn’t quite identify.
“I think my dad used to listen to this.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Connor said, pushing off his sneakers beside the couch. “I stole this copy off my ma.”
“What is it?”
He sat beside her. “Bread.”
“Huh. Doesn’t ring a bell. But I know this song.” And it was good makeout music indeed. She bet a lot of babies had been conceived circa 1970 to this very soundtrack.
Then her focus was all on Connor. His handsome face in the warm lamplight. The muscular curve of his shoulder under his T-shirt from the way he laid his arm along the back of the couch. The smell of his skin with his leather jacket gone.
“You look beautiful,” he told her, sounding very serious. “I don’t think I’ve said that yet tonight. I was too shy when I first came out to collect you.”
Oh, he so had. But she didn’t mind him telling her twice. “You? Shy?”
His smile was boyish. “Feels that way. Around you.”
“You wagered me a kiss last night in front of a bar full of people.”
“That’s different somehow. But when it’s just us...I dunno. I’m some skinny kid again, trying not to make an arse of myself with a girl.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I feel that way, too. With you. Like I’ve never even kissed anybody before.”
“Oh, you have,” he said. “Unless you’re some sort of savant.”
She felt warmth wash through her at that, at the thought that her kisses excited him. Him. The man who made her knees knock. “Why are we even talking?” she asked.