“This is ridiculous because I’m finding this all quite emotional,” Cat confessed, dabbing her eyes with a paper tissue.
Daisy turned, embraced me and kissed me lightly on my chin.
“Oh my God, Jamie, you’re fecking Northern Irish! This explains everything. I thought it was all the spinach you ate, but now we know why your pee is green,” she joked.
“Thanks for the emotional support, Daisy,” I teased, trying to keep a straight face.
“Barney Quinn,” she mused, chuckling. “The positive in all of this is you tick a suitability box on my dating app profile.”
“You have a dating app profile?” a spike of jealousy hit me in square in the chest. Realizing she was joking, I let my breath out in a huff. “Haven’t I ticked enough boxes for you yet?” I asked, amused.
Daisy just smirked but didn’t reply, and by leaving my question in the air about the dating app, I knew she’d do what she needed to keep me on my toes.
For the rest of that day we behaved like the tourists we were. By the time we’d arrived back in Dublin, we had all been ready to part ways and get some much needed rest before the New Year’s party that had been due to take place the following day.
Chapter 16
“No way. You’re full of shite. Get your arse over here right now, Poppy. I don’t have time for any rebellion. I need you at the pub. You promised to help me during the day.”
It was New Year’s Eve and Daisy was furious with her sibling who was supposed to have been at the pub more than an hour before. She cut the call on her sister and threw her cell on the table.
“Selfish little bitch,” she muttered, grabbing a dirty glass cloth and folding it, before glancing at it and throwing it in the laundry bucket at the end of the bar.
“What’s up?” I asked, passing her with a folded table I was about to take up to the function room.
“Your fucking nephew is what’s up,” she shot back, her eyes stormy with rage.
“Ryan?” I asked, expectantly.
“No, Nick. Or should I say, Nick and Poppy. I told you that was a bad idea, but oh no, I was obviously exaggerating how quickly our relationship could go south. I didn’t need to own a crystal ball to know how bad this would turn out.”
Propping the table against the bar, I opened the hatch and pulled my girl into my arms. “Whoa. Breathe, baby. Tell me what’s going on?”
“Nick… you know, the one who was sick from too much alcohol and made a miraculous recovery yesterday after we left? He spent the day with my sister… and the night as well, if I know my sister.”
“Fuck. Look they’re kids…” I began.
“No, they’re not. Poppy knows better. She had an obligation here today. I support her going to college, and all I ask for is two days a year in return. St. Patrick’s Day and New Year’s Eve. She already skipped out on St. Patrick’s Day due to an assignment, but she’s supposed to be working in the bar to leave me free to prep for the dance tonight. And where is she? Taking Nick and Ryan on a pub crawl of Dublin.”
As my girl fumed, I pulled out my cell and rang Nick. When he answered his phone on the first ring, the rowdy noise in the background told me Poppy hadn’t taken heed of Daisy’s request for help.
“Sup?” he asked, sounding like he had no clue.
“Those girls will be at the bar in half an hour. You get me?” I warned. A smile creased my face despite the seriousness of the situation when I noted the three old regulars, Archie, Ronan and Seamus wearing the cowboy boots Daisy had given them for Christmas.
“Roger that,” he replied, sounding chirpy. I knew deep down he’d likely have called me all the names under the sun, but when I made an order, neither Ryan nor Nick defied my demand.
Without saying goodbye, I hung up and looked at Daisy’s stressed face. “They’ll be here in half an hour.”
“Who?” she asked. “Nick, Ryan and your sisters. I told you, it’ll be fine. I get they want to spend time together, so instead of just Poppy you’re going to have four extra pairs of hands.”
“Yeah? And how much work do you think we’ll get done with four pissed off people that want to be somewhere else.”
“Watch and learn, Daisy. My nephews may be a lot of things, but we brought them up to take responsibility. They’re both grafters when necessary. They’ll have the tables shifted and set up in no time. I’ll help restock the bar up there. Everything else is ready, so you can just concentrate on the trade down here, which I know will likely feel like St. Patrick’s Day all over again.”
Twenty-eight minutes later, Nick, Ryan, and the girls arrived at the pub.
“Where do you want us?” Nick asked, rubbing his hands together and flashing me a guilty look, because he knew he’d caused a ripple in my girl’s busy preparations.
Poppy looked defiant as Daisy fumed and almost dragged her behind the bar. The thunderous look on my girl’s face almost made me feel sorry for her younger sibling as she led her upstairs. From the comment Daisy had made about Poppy and college, I figured there was more to that story than I was aware of.
Instead of dwelling on her remark, I decided to leave her to call out her sister and put my two nephews and her youngest sister to work.
Cat came downstairs looking awkward and was obviously giving Daisy some space. Wanting to feel useful, she held out her hands.
“Can I do anything?” Terry, the charmer, immediately pounced.
Ten minutes after he’d taken her up to the function room, I looked in on the others, and saw Cat and the barman were standing close together, chatting and laughing like they were old friends. I noted Terry wasn’t the only one with a twinkle in his eye as my sister smiled up at him while they finished wrapping silverware in napkins and stacking up plates. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him practically hitting on Cat, knowing Terry was a bit of a player.
Distracted when the chef and two agency staff appeared, my thoughts turned to Daisy. I was about to go and find her when Poppy came into view, right before Daisy came in after her. I sensed an immediate change in her sister’s attitude. Behaving far more amenable and polite, Poppy slid behind the upstairs bar and took her orders from Terry.
“She had better keep her face straight. If I see her scowl once in my direction or toward my customers, I’m going to kick the shite out of her,” Daisy warned, nodding toward her meek looking sister. From the anger in her tone, I had no doubt that she would have, had Poppy stepped out of line again.
“Jesus, don’t do that. If she’s full of it like you said before, you’ll make a hell of a mess.” Daisy stared me down for a second while I held my breath, but her lips quirked upwards and she chuckled.
“You’re too much sometimes, you know this?”
“I believe you’ve told me that a time or two, but I usually have the pleasure of being balls deep inside you when you do.”
“You are one horny man,” she muttered, shaking her head as she began moving the platters about a half an inch each.
I noticed she’d blushed with my comment. “Oh, baby, did I make you wet? I’m sorry,” I teased in a whisper and hugged her from behind.
“You’re ridiculous,” she squeaked, looking at me over her shoulders, but a mixture of love and desire shone from her eyes.
“I’ve heard you say that one as well, but it’s normally followed by… you’re ridiculously big,” I muttered in her ear and she elbowed me in the ribs. Turning to face me, she slid her arms around my waist.
“You know I don’t think I’ll ever get over you being mine, acting like a normal boyfriend and giving me a hand in my pub.”
“The more time we spend together, the less weird it’ll feel. When all’s said and done, I am just an ordinary man.”
“Hm, never,” she mused, grinning at me like I’d hung the moon. I brushed my lips against hers and she pushed me away.
“Ah, well, hold that thought, I’ve got a party to start,” she stated, wriggled out of my hold and hurriedly walked away. I sighed, loving
that she could put her work first, and hating that she worked at all, in equal measure.
Thankfully, with the equilibrium between the sisters back in place, it had only taken twenty minutes for all the seating arrangements to be configured with name tags, thanks to Daisy’s clipboard seating schedule. With the buffet tables in place, and only five hours to go to the turn of the year, all that was missing for the party night was the disco, the band, the customers and the rest of the food.
“How many people are coming to this party?” Nick asked once everything was ready, his eyes flitting between Daisy and Poppy like he didn’t know who he should ask.
“We’re at capacity tonight in the function room. Fire regulations say we can only have two hundred.”
“Trust me, boys, you’re going to love it,” I told them after my hilarious experience on St. Patrick’s Day that year. I could see by their faces they weren’t convinced.
“It’ll be a nice opportunity for all of you to connect with your heritage,” Daisy quipped, good naturedly. I was glad to see her back to her usual sunny self. Pissed off Daisy was scary Daisy.
“Big question. Do we get a table, and can we drink as much as we want, Daisy?” asked Ryan, who’d been unusually quiet. He was great at picking up vibes, and although he pushed his boundaries all the time, he was intuitive, at least as to when not to get involved.
“Yes, I set a table aside for all of us, for later. You’re classed as an adult in Ireland, Ryan, so the choice is yours. All I ask is that you don’t embarrass yourself or the pub. I have the power to say when I think you’ve had enough, and your Uncle Jamie might need a hand to clear tables and glasses if things get overwhelming. Oh, and you don’t call him Uncle Jamie.”
“Are you saying we’ll have to work?” he asked.
“Do you have a ticket to attend?” Daisy pressed her point that if he didn’t, and he wasn’t prepared to help, he had no business being there. I loved how quickly she thought on her feet to put my nephew in place without an outright challenge.
“Ouch, I’d just like to say it would be my pleasure to help things run smoothly,” he replied, catching her drift.
Daisy scoffed and shook her head, but bit back a smile at the same time. Placing one hand on her hip she pointed toward the pub entrance.
“Any minute, people will start coming through those doors. Their main objectives for this evening will be to dance their legs off, have a fabulous time, but most of all, they’ll try to drink this pub dry. The small bar will constantly be five deep in bodies and they take their drinking seriously. However, once the band takes over, the agency staff will be on their own so we can all have some fun and bring in the New Year together.”
“Is the place going to be full of old people?” Nick asked. His eyes followed a couple of the band members enter the bar, one carrying his accordion, the other with his fiddle case.
“Of course not,” Daisy chuckled, “they’re some of the band, she replied waving in acknowledgement to the guys, before turning her attention back to Nick. The questioning glare on Nick’s face made me laugh.
“We have some single sexed groups in their twenties and thirties, and because your Uncle Jamie, or Barney as he is known here in the pub, is very popular with the ladies, we have lots of groups of single ladies coming just to watch him collect the glasses,” Terry informed them.
Ryan chuckled, still finding that fact hysterical. “Let me get this straight. They come not knowing he’s a rock star, but he still gets mobbed by lots of hot chicks anyway? And you’re okay with that?” he asked Daisy.
“Here they can look but not touch, because they all know Barney is mine,” Daisy piped up with a grin.
“Honestly, lads, your uncle’s a legend here and not because he sings,” Terry said to the boys nodding his head toward me. “I’ve already been tagged in umpteen tweets and Instagram posts with the hashtag #jamiefontainelookalike #luckyshamrock from local women excited to see Barney at the dance tonight. I have no idea what they’re going to do when they all see two lookalike members of DistRoyed in the same small bar. I think when Paddy arrives, the game we’ve all been playing might be up.”
“True, but as all the tickets have already been sold, there will be no press here to validate the story,” I remarked. But Terry was right, with Paddy coming to the ceilidh, there would undoubtedly have been questions as to who I was.
Daisy interrupted with a look that told me she couldn’t begin to contemplate how she would cope with the public knowing who she was and took the boys to help her carry four crates of fruit juices up to the bar, right before Terry opened the door.
“Hey Jamie, this place has a lot of potential; it’s close to the city center, has local customers and a function room. This could be a great little investment for you both financially and it would show a commitment to Daisy,” Catrina suggested as Daisy came back into earshot.
“That’s not happening. The owner won’t sell,” Belle stated, deadpan as she wandered past us from the kitchen door with a stack full of white pottery plates.
“Here, let me,” Terry offered, diving forward and carefully transferring the plates from her arms to his.
“I’m sure if the price was right, he would,” Catrina replied, looking to me like she was prompting me to say something. “I mean if you owned the place, you could arrange to have someone to co-manage whenever Daisy was away.”
“Away where?” Daisy asked as she and my nephews came back from the cellar, each boy carrying a keg of beer. I shot forward and took the keg from my girl’s hands. “Could you go and take those up to Terry in the function room, lads.” Turning to look at me, her brow furrowed. “Well?” she asked waiting for me to reply.
“Cat was suggesting I maybe buy the place to give us more freedom. I mean I know we’re not there yet, but we should start to think about next year. I’ll probably tour at some point and I’ll ask our management to set up something around the times when you’re not busy at the end of January, February and the first part of March, September and October?”
“Daisy?” Poppy asked, her eyes shifting suspiciously from my girl to me. “They don’t know you’re already the owner?”
My eyes shifted from Poppy to Daisy who blushed, and I felt shocked she had never said anything about actually owning the pub.
“It just hadn’t come up yet,” Daisy replied, with a guilty look on her face. “Thanks a lot, Poppy” she mumbled, throwing her a death glare.
“It’s come up now,” I stated, flatly.
“Wow, did you buy it for her for Christmas, Uncle Jamie,” Ryan asked, his eyes wide.
“No, it’s news to me, it’s her pub,” I admitted, staring Daisy down because I’d thought we were all about trust.
Daisy shrugged. “It’s no big deal. When I finished Business School, my da sold a large parcel of land to a property development company. Da was looking for a business to invest in, so he became my investor. Poppy is supposed to be my partner, which is why I was so pissed about her attitude earlier,” she sighed, clearly not wishing to deal with Poppy’s disclosure at that point in time. “Look can we talk about this later? I’ve got an event to run and people are already arriving,” she asked, her cheeks stained pink.
I wasn’t sure how I felt that she had kept this vital piece of information from me. But it did go some way to explaining why she was so keen to do everything herself.
Chapter 17
The door opened and eight young women burst through it, all visually pleasant to look at dolled to the nines, the smell of perfume and body lotion in the air. Ryan immediately glanced in their direction and a smile grew on his face.
“The night just got way more interesting than Daisy owning the pub,” Nick mused, his eyes widening in delight at the female eye candy that had just walked in.
I glanced from him to Poppy and he snickered. “She’s adorable, but we decided it would feel incestuous, man,” Nick disclosed, winking toward Poppy, who mock shuddered. “I love her already, but in
a nonsexual context, Uncle Jamie.”
“What he really means is I like my men older,” Poppy shot back in snarky banter and chuckled, although her cheeks still blushed adorably, nevertheless.
For once, Ryan didn’t remark. His silence couldn’t have had a louder declaration of him being smitten with Belle.
Within minutes of opening time the function room was packed, filled with colorful characters, laughter and excited chatter as families and friends took their places at all the reserved tables. Drinks flowed freely and catcalls rang out between a group of single guys and another table full of some attention seeking females.
“Barney, how are you doing?” A girl I recognized from a previous close call when she hit me up with her number as she left the last ceilidh, I’d attended on St. Patrick’s Day.
“Well, thanks, really enjoying my time with Daisy,” I said, dropping the hint I was taken already. “Just got to get moving with these,” I informed her, lifting my arms to show her my fingers were full of glasses. “Don’t want to get canned on the most important night of the year for the pub,” I stated and quickly weaved my way through some people who had been arriving and scooted behind the bar.
“Ah, I see you’ve met Morah,” Terry said with a wink. “Good ride, but fuck if she’s not looking for a husband.”
I chuckled and shook my head at his blunt disclosure and stacked the dirty glasses in the glass washer. My cell phone rang. Sliding it out of my pocket, I swiped to answer and lifted it up to my ear.
“How do we get into this place?” Paddy asked and I realized the security on the door had been advised not to let anyone in without a ticket.
“I’ll send Daisy down to get you in.”
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