“My major is Liberal Studies,” she replied.
“What the feck do ya do with that?” I laughed, and was rewarded with another flash of her sweet and sexy smile.
“It’s actually a great degree. I can go all kinds of directions with it. But I’m thinking social work. Sort of keeping it in the family. My mom was an addiction counselor. My dad’s a cop.”
Bloody hell, I thought, her dad was a cop.
She was feckin’ underage and her dad was a cop.
I could feel the blood leave my face at that thought, yet it did nothing to detract from the intense attraction I felt for her. I still was drawn to her something fierce. Having spent the greater part of the day listening to her, watching her, and wanting her, I sorta thought she may just be worth going to the clink for.
We stepped between the Main Hall and the Engineering Hall, up to the railing that gave an impressive view of the city below. The wind tousled her hair and sent the light, fresh scent of her perfume my way, making me want to lean closer, to breathe her in and press tender kisses along the curve of her neck.
Seemingly unaware of where my thoughts were at, she continued. “How about you? What is your major?”
“General Engineering, Welding option,” I replied, trying to sound cool. Probably failing. “Engineering mostly for my ma and da, because they want me to have a real career.” I tossed some air quotes around the word real. “But I’m more a hands-on guy. I like to make things. To create things with my hands. Welding is an awesome thing for that.”
As I spoke, my hands moved in a way that caught her eyes. As she looked back up at me, some purely illegal thoughts began to swirl through my brain. Triggered by the thought of holding her hand in mine, of my hands on her curvy little hips, and her ample, delicious-looking tits that were entirely too mouthwatering for a seventeen-year-old girl to have.
Seventeen. She’s only seventeen, ya eejit, I reminded myself over and over. And her da’s a feckin’ peeler.
As if the heavens above were trying to cool my ardor, the dark clouds that had slowly made their way from the west began to release big, cold, heavy drops. Starting with a few here and there and then unloading as we rushed inside the entryway of the Main Hall. Mountain storms could piss rain like no tomorrow, but they were generally short-lived. The veritable wall of water outside the wide arches of the building seemed to create a curtain, separating us from the rest of the world outside.
A sudden intimacy seemed to filter around us with the soothing rainfall pattering in the background. I couldn’t seem to stop my hand as it brushed a few drops of water from the curve of her cheekbone, and my fingers tingled where I touched her. Her eyes drifted almost closed with the touch, and her plump lips fell open ever so slightly.
“What’s your name?” I quietly asked.
She looked up at me just a moment before she answered. “Felicity.”
“Happiness…” My voice had grown a little too husky for my liking, but I couldn’t seem to control it. “That means happiness.”
“Right,” she replied with a slight tremble. It could have been from the chill in the air. Her dark-green t-shirt was a touch dampened from the rain, and it clung to her curves, accentuating her waist. The heat in her deep blue eyes, though, told me it was more than that. “My dad always says I’m his happiness.”
“It’s kind of a mouthful, though,” I shrugged, attempting to appear nonchalant. Ignoring the slight movement as the tip of her tongue darted out to wet her lips, I tried to ease up the tension that suddenly filled the humid spring air of the entryway. “I’ll call ya Fliss.”
Her lips curved up into a gentle smile. “I like it.”
The rain let up, and moments later, a group of high schoolers, led by a frazzled looking instructor, came barreling out of the Engineering Hall next door.
“Felicity,” the instructor harrumphed, “I was wondering where we’d lost you.”
Fliss waved over at him, then turned back to look up at me. Her eyes held a bit of sadness and her smile faltered a little. “I better…” she trailed off, motioning to the group with her thumb.
“It was nice to meet ya, Fliss,” I murmured.
She took a few steps backward and started to turn, but then stopped.
“Wait,” she said, “I don’t know your name.”
“I’m Denny.”
She grinned and began to turn. “Well, Denny,” she said over her shoulder, “I’ll be seeing you around.”
And as I watched her petite curves and long thick hair as she walked away, I could only think one thought.
I sure feckin’ hope so.
Present day
About an hour into the flight, I noticed that the guy sitting somewhat next to Fliss had gotten the attention of the flight attendant. I couldn’t hear much, as he was talking in a hushed, agitated voice, but I did catch the words ‘sick’ and ‘big presentation’ and he appeared to be asking for a different seat. The stewardess appeared concerned, then offended and mildly outraged as he continued to speak. His voice grew a little louder and it became clear what his issue was.
“I can’t get sick. I have a meeting in New York in two days, and it is crucial to my business. I need to find another seat.”
“Sir, the plane is practically full. You’re lucky to have the seat in between you.”
“Maybe so,” he demanded, and the fuckhead even had the gall to press a handkerchief over his mouth to block the germs, “but I can’t sit next to someone who is ill.”
Ill? Fliss was ill?
The flight attendant pursed her lips. “Let me see what I can find, but you may end up in a center seat.”
“Whatever, I just cannot get sick right now,” the jackass muttered as she began to walk away, down the aisle towards me.
Don’t do it, Denny… Don’t do it.
“Excuse me, miss,” I said, ignoring that quiet little voice in my head, “I think I may know her. If she’s ill, I’ll sit there to help take care of her.”
The flight attendant looked back at the other guy.
“Works for me,” the jackass said.
My heart was thumping hard up against my ribs as I stood and stepped back, allowing him to take my seat. Thinking I was an idiot for what I was about to do, I took a deep breath and sat in his.
“Howya, Fliss,” I murmured.
Her head, lying against a small pillow propped up on the cabin wall, jerked around and her wide blue eyes fixed on me. I’d dreamt of the color. For years really. All that time I waited. All that time I had pushed her from my mind and told myself it could never happen.
“Denny?” she croaked. Her face was pale, and she was clearly feverish with sweat-dampened tendrils pressed to her forehead. Initially, in spite of her obvious illness, she almost appeared elated. She weaved towards me a little before straightening up in her seat, blinking a few times like it might clear me from her sight. “What are you… I don’t…”
“You look as sick as a small hospital,” I said.
She just sort of looked at me for a moment before she replied, looking sad and lost and confused. “I don’t know what that even means.”
“Ya look like pure shite,” I explained, instantly regretting it when her expression fell and tears filled her eyes.
“Fuck off,” she murmur, turning towards the window. “If you’re just sitting here to be a dick, you can leave.”
I shook my head. “Actually, I can’t. I gave away my seat.”
“Fine, I’ll just ignore you then.” Reaching down to her earbuds, she placed them in her ears and propped her head up on the pillow again, looking out the window. Doing her best to pretend I didn’t exist. I couldn’t just leave it like that.
“Fliss,” I said, tapping her on the shoulder. “Fliss, hey…”
She yanked the earbuds out of her ears and glared back at me. “What, Denny? I’m really not feeling up to this right now.”
“I can tell. Have you got anything to take for your fever?”
&n
bsp; She took a long moment and just watched me in speculation, like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. It had been a long time since I was anything but curt and cold to her, and her shields were up. Finally, she pressed her lips together and she just sorta deflated, releasing the anger she’d been using to appear strong. “I took some Tylenol, but it doesn’t seem to be helping much. One minute I’m freezing, and the next I’m roasting.”
I pushed the button for the flight attendant, asking her for something to drink, then dug through my bag for a bottle of ibuprofen.
“Take some of this, too,” I said as the flight attendant came back with a glass of water. She had brought another cup with ice, as well as a wet washcloth.
“It may help,” the attendant offered. “Press this to your forehead when you’re hot, and you can cool it with the ice in between. I wish I had something else to offer you.”
“Thank you,” Fliss smiled weakly, “I appreciate it.”
The woman smiled back. “Don’t hesitate to call if you need something else,” she urged.
Fliss nodded as the attendant headed back up the aisle, then swallowed down the tablets and pressed the cool washcloth to her forehead. She gave an audible moan as she swept it down her face and then stroked it along her neck.
“Of all the times to get sick,” she murmured in a slightly dazed voice.
“We’ll land soon. Hopefully you can get some rest then.”
“I still have another flight after this,” she said as she glanced up at me. “I’m doing a thesis abroad term in Irish studies to finish up my master’s.”
My stomach lurched, both with a feeling of dread and a sense of excitement. “Irish studies?”
“Yeah,” she said, pressing the cloth up under her hair. “My thesis is about the timing of the discovery of copper in Butte and the potato famine. How those two things led to the high Irish population in that part of Montana.”
“Where are ya off to, then, to do your Irish studies?” I asked somewhat hesitantly.
“Trinity College. Dublin.”
Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph… Dublin. She was going to feckin’ Dublin.
I was utterly gobsmacked.
“Ya don’t say…” I trailed off in disbelief.
The thought that we were both going to Dublin at the same time was simply too much of a coincidence. It sort of had to be fate. Or karma for all those untoward thoughts I’d had of her in the past. It seemed to be my penance for lusting after my friend’s girl, for being a complete fuckhead to Fliss over the years, for not being a good Catholic boy and going to ask forgiveness for my sins. For all the bad shite I’d ever done in my entire feckin’ life.
“Yeah, I just hope this illness is short-lived, or I’m going to be a wreck. I’ve been fighting it off for a week and thought I was doing well, but as soon as we left Butte, it got a gazillion times worse. Like it was waiting for me to stop moving to set in.”
“Well, ya’ve got a long trip to rest up. And I can help get ya through Newark,” I offered.
She looked over at me. “I don’t want to mess things up for you. It’ll be okay.”
“You won’t mess things up,” I said with a wry twist to my lips. “We’re going to the same place.”
“You’re going to Dublin?” she gasped.
“I am,” I nodded. “My grandmother’s not well. Doesn’t look like she has long, and she wanted to see me again.”
Her eyes went soft and sad. “I’m sorry, Denny.”
“It’s life, ya know,” I shrugged, swallowing the lump in my throat. Doing my best to appear less affected than I really was, I dropped my eyes down to my hands in my lap. “People come and go.”
“Are you close?” she asked.
“She’s what I miss most about Dublin,” I replied simply.
Fliss was quiet for a moment. I could feel her eyes on me, studying me. Her hand came to rest over mine. She didn’t say anything. What can someone say when you’re faced with the death of someone you love? But the comfort from her touch meant more to me than I cared to admit.
We sat in silence for a while and her eyes began to grow heavy. The weariness caused by her illness seemed to pull her away, into herself, and she began to relax into a doze. Yet her hand stayed on mine.
In all the time I’d known her, I’d hardly touched her. But her hand on mine felt so right and real, so powerful in its own weird way. It didn’t make sense to me why this one girl affected me like that.
I only knew that nobody else had ever touched me the way she did.
Fliss slept most of the way to Newark. Fitfully. Sometimes shivering, and I pulled out my fleece jacket to tuck around her. After some time being covered, her face would become flushed and she would pull the jacket away with a barely audible moan. I’d take the washcloth and dip it into the melting ice, then would draw it across her forehead to ease the burning fever. I woke her once to take more Tylenol, and she almost immediately faded back into her uncomfortable somnolence.
We had about a two-hour layover in Newark, and I figured she could use as much rest as possible, so I made a mental note to get her some NyQuil or something that would help her sleep once we took off again. Otherwise, she’d have a horribly long, sleepless night and be completely off-kilter when we got to Dublin.
I nudged her shoulder as we came closer to landing. Still wary, but apparently too sick to really care, she followed my direction as we disembarked and made our way to the next gate.
“Are ya hungry at all? I think they’ll feed us on the next flight, but I can also about guarantee that it won’t be very good.”
“Not at all hungry, but I could go for something cold,” she murmured. “A soda or something. My throat is killing me.”
Looking around, I saw a smoothie place. “How about a smoothie? It’ll give ya a bit of nutrition, too. Any flavor you prefer?”
“Um… I don’t know… pomegranate?”
“Huh,” I nodded slowly. “Well, that’s random, but… okay,” I said, guiding her to sit on a bench at our departing gate. I propped her carry-on and mine alongside her. “One pomegranate smoothie coming up.”
I grabbed some nighttime cold medicine from a shop and a burger from McDonalds for myself on the way back to her, and we sat quietly on the bench and gazed out the large windows while we waited for our flight. Fliss finished off her smoothie, shivering as she sipped it through the straw. I grabbed my jacket and tucked it over her shoulders, ignoring the cautious glance she gave me. After a bit, she turned her head to study the view before us with a little more concentration.
“Is that the New York City skyline?”
“It is.”
“I didn’t realize I’d be able to see it.”
“Well, Newark is practically connected to the Big Apple, ya know,” I said with a teasing smile in my voice, and she looked up at me, completely unamused.
“Feck off,” she said, parroting my accent.
“Ah, see,” I grinned. “You’ll fit in very well when we get to Dublin.”
She grumbled a little, but went back to gazing out the window before she dropped her head back and closed her eyes. “How can I be tired? I slept almost the entire flight here.”
“Just rest,” I said. “I’ll make sure you’re on the plane, no matter what a pain in the arse you can be.”
She was quiet for a time, and then murmured softly. “Thank you, Denny.”
We boarded the plane a short time later for our outbound flight, and I helped get Fliss settled, then went to check with the flight attendant to see about getting a seat next to her. Chances were, she would be just fine, but I kind of liked being able to take care of her as long as I didn’t examine the why of it too closely. It helped that we were both veiling our discussion with a hefty amount of dry sarcasm, but there was an underlying emotion to it that I felt was best to ignore. The flight was fortunately far from full. Fliss actually had both seats next to hers open, so we were able to have one in between, like on the flight to Newark.
As the plane left American soil and the sun set quickly behind us, Fliss began to shiver even more. I tucked the jacket around her, asked the flight attendant for some 7-Up with no ice and stirred all the bubbles out. My nanny was pretty sure that could cure cancer. I would have settled for a break in Fliss’ fever, but she continued to shake, a cold sweat gleaming on her cheeks. Her pale skin felt raging hot to the touch, yet she could barely contain the chills that chattered her teeth.
Lifting the armrests between us, I slid a little closer to her and pulled her up against me.
“What are you doing?” she said with a worried frown, half-dopey from the NyQuil.
“You’re freezing,” I explained. “Likely to take the feckin’ plane down the way you’re shaking.”
It took a while, but her stiff posture slowly began to relax against me, tremors still coursing through her, but slowly growing less violent and less frequent. Her drowsy eyes had returned, groggy and disconnected before they closed for a long while. I thought maybe she slept, although it turned out that she’d become pensive. And apparently the NyQuil made her feel a little freer to express her thoughts, and her unfiltered, albeit slightly medicine-induced, question caught me a bit off guard.
“Why are you doing this? You don’t even like me,” her thick, feverish voice murmured in the semi-darkness as I spread a fresh cool cloth over her heated forehead.
I couldn’t answer her. Partly because I didn’t want to face the thought that I had hurt her in the past, even though I know I had. Badly. I had known it then.
Yet I clearly didn’t want to face what she still clearly meant to me after all this time, either. Someone who had never really been a part of my life, yet had so drastically colored my world.
I didn’t respond. I simply pulled her closer as her body began to tremble again with chills, goosebumps rising on her flesh.
“So cold,” she whispered as she curled towards me, unconsciously seeking the warmth of my body.
Wild Irish Envy (Copperline #2) Page 3