Trying Sophie: A Dublin Rugby Romance

by Norinne, Rebecca

  Eventually I was able to get the call to connect and as it rang, I swallowed and took a few deep breaths. I’d had a whole speech planned out for when I saw Sophie that culminated with me dropping to my knees and begging her to love me. A phone call was a whole different ball game. After four rings I realized I was going to have to wing it when her voicemail clicked over. Hearing her voice for the first time in weeks caused my chest to ache with lost time and missed opportunities.

  “Hi, this is Sophie. You know the drill.”

  I froze. Literally could not make a word form on my lips. Three seconds passed, then five. And then, just before the message clicked off, I said the only thing I could, the most important thing she needed to know. “Sophie, it’s me. Declan. I miss you. I know I fucked up when I said I wished I’d never met you, but I hope you can forgive me.”

  I started babbling, not at all sure what was coming out of my mouth. But then an idea struck that I thought was genius. I couldn’t get out to Ballycurra, but hopefully I could convince Sophie to come to Dublin—to me.

  “I don’t know what your plans are tonight, but it would mean a lot to me if I could see you after the match. If you can make it, I’ll have a ticket waiting for you at the will call gate … and then we can go somewhere and talk.” I paused to collect my thoughts. “I’m begging you. Please, baby.” I stopped speaking when my voice broke.

  I hung up and held my head in my hands as my heart thumped furiously in my chest and my breath came in quick gusts. I’d done what I’d set out to do this morning, even if my approach hadn’t been ideal. Now it was up to Sophie to decide if she was willing to meet me halfway.

  Five minutes later I was in the changing room, pulling a shirt over my head, when Coach McCarthy approached with Aidan, Eoin, and Liam trailing behind.

  “You get yourself sorted then?” he asked brusquely.

  We both knew he alluded to the mess I’d been the past couple of weeks but I appreciated he hadn’t mentioned any specifics.

  “Yes sir,” I responded while he leaned forward to stare into my eyes.

  They were still a bit bloodshot from my weeks-long bender and all those sleepless nights, but they were clearer than they’d been in days thanks to my newfound lease on life. Coach wouldn’t see anything to make him question my ability to play later today.

  Confirming what I knew to be true, he stated, “You look better.”

  While I’d been working through my shit—or rather, not working through it—Coach hadn’t once asked what my problem was and I’d never volunteered the information. Now I appreciated the quiet faith he’d shown in me when I wasn’t sure I deserved it.

  The lads stepped forward, Aiden clasping my shoulder, and Coach fell back.

  Turning to leave he barked, “Help him get that flowing mane pulled back so he looks pretty for the cameras!”

  The last thing I heard before he stepped through the swinging double doors was a hearty chuckle and something about “ugly mugs” and “fucking dandies.”

  Aidan looked at me skeptically. “That hair is awful.” He gestured in a circle over his head. “And what’s with the Grizzly Adams look?”

  If anyone on the team was more of a pretty boy than me, it was Aidan Quark.

  I shrugged. “I haven’t felt like shaving.”

  “More like you haven’t felt like showering,” Eoin muttered under his breath while he rifled through his bag.

  “Just because you’re fucking Aoife, don’t act like you know anything about me.”

  There was no mistaking the threat inherent in my words. I’d let the situation with them slide because I’d been too wrapped up in my own shit to properly notice what had been going on under my nose. But now that I had some breathing room, it allowed me to see what was happening all around me. And that meant Eoin and I would be having words. Specifically, ones that went a little something like, “Lay another finger on my sister and I’ll cut off your dick.”

  He sputtered and his face paled. “I am not having sex with Aoife! Jaysus man, I’ve known her since we were babies. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  He stalked away then and, watching him leave, I assessed his reaction. The words—his tone—rang true, but I knew what I’d seen that night. I knew what those lazy, happy smiles meant and where they led. I knew because that had been me when I first started falling for Sophie.

  All those lovey-dovey looks aside, there’d been no reason for Aoife to have been in Dublin that night, much less waiting for one of us in an empty parking lot. And then there’d been the night Eoin had made sure Aoife made it safely home after she’d shown up at the bar with Tanya. He could have just as easily put her in a taxi and considered his job done. Driving her home went far beyond the call of duty, especially for someone like Eoin who lived for new and varied pussy. He was like a kid in a candy store when he went out to the club, so the fact that he’d left with my sister instead wasn’t like him. Even so, I remembered Aoife announcing she was still a virgin when I’d harassed her about Tanya. Not that I wanted Eoin to be fucking my sister, but something wasn’t adding up here.

  “You coming?” Aidan broke into my thoughts and I shook them from my head. I had more important things to obsess about right now, not the least of which was the match in a few hours.

  “Yeah. I need to take care of something first but I’ll meet you in the trophy room in fifteen minutes for the meet in greet. We can go in together?”

  “Sure thing,” he said, as he and Liam exited the room.

  Per Coach’s orders, I tied my hair back, then grabbed my phone and ran across the building to the ticket office.

  “Hey Sweetheart,” I greeted Fiona Callaghan, the woman in charge of season tickets.

  She had to be close to seventy, and while every year she threatened to retire, she always returned at the start of each new season. Fiona was a favorite with many of us since she had somehow figured out how to make us healthy sweet treats packed with protein. If you’d have told me ten years ago I would look forward to black bean brownies someday, I would have told you to feck off.

  “Declan, lad!” she exclaimed happily, patting her shockingly magenta hair self-consciously before embracing me in a warm hug. Stepping back, her hands cupping my upper arms, she assessed me critically. Her eyes lingered on my face for a long time before she finally pronounced, “You’re not sleeping.”

  “I’m not gonna lie, Fiona. I’ve had a rough couple of weeks.”

  There was no use denying it since the bags under my eyes gave me away. When I’d gotten out of the shower this morning and inspected my face in the fogged-up mirror, I realized it was a good thing I bashed my body around for a living because it gave me a plausible excuse for the blue-tinged skin around my eyes. For all the rest of the world knew, they were actually black eyes, not bags.

  She stepped back and clucked around me like a mother hen. “You’re not still feeling the effects of the match against Liverpool, are you? You took a few hits to the head that had me worried.”

  It would be so easy for me to blame my recent … troubles … on that match, but doing so would give The Wallaby an excuse to bench me for the coming tourney. If anyone involved with Irish rugby thought I was reeling from a hard knock to my head, they’d order tests and scans and the gossip could put my position with the team into jeopardy.

  “Actually, I’m having woman trouble, if you can believe it,” I responded with an aw-shucks grin that made her smile.

  “Well, I never thought I’d see the day,” she chortled back merrily. And then sobering, she asked, “You’re not in trouble, are you?”

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out she was asking if I’d knocked up one of them birds I’d fucked before. I grimaced, worried my reputation would always precede me. Rushing to put both our minds at ease, I said, “If by ‘in trouble’ you mean did I ruin a good thing with the most wonderful woman I’ve ever known, then yes. I’m in trouble.”

  Hearing how completely out of sorts I was over a go
od woman, Fiona beamed back at me. “Well, why didn’t you say so, lad?” She patted my arm affectionately. “What can old Fiona do to help?”

  “I need a ticket—the good seats—waiting at will call for Sophie. I begged her to come, but it was a last minute thing so I didn’t plan ahead.”

  Fiona walked over to her computer and tapped away at the keyboard for a few seconds, her lips pursed in concentration. “Ah, here we go. I’ve got a seat available in the front row of the grand stand. The season ticket holder put it in the pool only a couple of hours ago and no one’s claimed it yet.” She tapped the keys again. “There, it’s reserved. You said your girl’s name is Sophie…?”

  “Newport,” I supplied as Fiona filled in the rest of the information to secure the ticket.

  Glancing up at me with misty eyes, she remarked, “I never thought I’d see the day Declan O’Shaughnessy had a special woman in the stands cheering for him.”

  “Well, keep your fingers crossed that my last ditch effort to get her back works, because otherwise it’ll be a very long time until you see anyone there again.”

  “Best of luck to you then,” she said, then added, “She’s a lucky girl, your Sophie.”

  I appreciated the sentiment but if this worked out, I’d be the lucky one.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Sophie

  In a stroke of amazing luck, Katie walked through my bedroom door less than five minutes after I listened to Declan’s voicemail. Amazing because I’d been in the midst of a pretty epic freak out and had no one to talk to since she’d gone and disappeared two days ago. Alright, she hadn’t exactly disappeared. She’d been with Cian, but I wasn’t about to interrupt whatever that was with an SOS.

  “What should I do?” I asked, taking my phone from her and sliding it into my pocket.

  “The fact that you’re even asking that question is enough to make me want to punch you in the tit,” she responded, as her foot tapped out a furious beat.

  “I just …”

  I just, what, exactly?

  Declan still wanted me. And I wanted him too—so, so much—but I was afraid.

  “The fact remains I’m still leaving.” I explained. “If I walk away now, it’ll be a clean break and I can move on. But if I go back to him and something like this happens again … well, I don’t know how to come back from that.”

  Katie sighed, a deep dramatic sound, and rolled her eyes. “You’re the smartest person I know but sometimes you can be pretty fucking dumb.”

  “That’s not—” I blurted but she interrupted me.

  “—I know you’re scared, but you’re going to wonder for the rest of your life what could have been.”

  “And if it doesn’t work out, I’ll always wonder where I’d be if I’d walked away when I should have.”

  “Would you quit being so cynical?! He could be the great love of your life.”

  That’s what worried me.

  I’d always thought the phrase “absence makes the heart grow fonder” trite bullshit, but in the days since we’d been apart, my feelings for Declan had grown more all-encompassing. We’d only known each other a couple of months but from the very first time I saw him, I’d felt this spark of electricity between us that had grown stronger with each and every encounter. Things might have progressed quickly, but from the beginning we’d both known this thing between us was something different, something unexpected. Every time I was with him, he made me smile from ear to ear, and when he wasn’t making me smile, he was making me feel emotions I hadn’t known I was capable of. And the sex? Well, I was ruined. He’d made me an addict and Declan O’Shaughnessy was my drug of choice.

  “What about the distance though?” I asked jadedly. “I don’t have the best track record when it comes to long distance love affairs.”

  I’d wasted a year of my life on Stephen, proof that no matter how much you might love someone, it could all fall apart. Of course he’d had that whole wife and baby thing Declan was blissfully free of, but still. Declan had enough demons to make attempting a long-distance relationship fraught with worry.

  “I’m going to say something right now, but before I do I want you to acknowledge that you know I love you and I have your best interests at heart.”

  Uh oh. That sounded ominous. And yet true.

  “You love me and have my best interests at heart,” I repeated.

  “Okay, good.” Standing in front of me, Katie placed her palms on my shoulders and stared. “So here it is. I need you to cut the bullshit. You have proof Declan never cheated on you, you have his sister telling you the man loves you, and you’re still looking for an excuse not to be with him. There is none. Zip, zilch, zero. You’re afraid, and that’s okay. Love is scary. It’s also exciting and wonderful and worth it. If you close yourself off to it, you’re going to wind up a very bitter old woman one day.”

  Her words sent me reeling. Is that what she thought I was doing? Worse, was it true? I searched my heart for the answer.

  “But I’m leaving,” I whispered, one last ditch attempt to make it stick.

  “Which, again, is bullshit,” she answered matter-of-factly, the sting of her words lessened when she embraced me in a tight hug. “You don’t have to go Sophie.”

  “I do,” I answered, stepping away, even as I wondered why I felt that way.

  She eyed me shrewdly. “Why? Give me one good reason you can’t stay in Dublin?”

  “My job, for one.”

  “Pshaw.” She batted away my objection. “I was in London for two years and I worked plenty. You don’t have to be tied to the hip with Declan, but there’s no reason you can’t work out of Dublin.”

  “But my family is back in the U.S.,” I answered lamely.

  “A family you can’t stand,” she reminded me irritably.

  Shit. She had me there.

  And so I seriously considered what she was telling me. Was there really a good reason I couldn’t have Dublin as my home base? I could keep an eye on my grandparents—from a few miles away though; I was done living above the pub with them—and I’d have better access to Europe which would make my trips so much easier. Mentally, I created a quick pros and cons list, and was surprised to find the latter nearly empty.

  “You love him Sophie, don’t run from that.” Katie’s eyes misted with tears and she swiped her eyes with her fists. “Fuck, look what you’ve gone and done.”

  Her words were fierce but her tentative smile told me she would be okay. Eventually.

  “Jackson didn’t deserve you,” I told her. “And yes, I love him. The way I feel about him turns me inside out.”

  So why wasn’t I already on my way to his match? Because I was an idiot, that was why.

  “I’m going to do it.”

  “Thank Christ,” Katie exclaimed, her hands thrown victoriously in the air. “I know you don’t think I’d ever actually do it, but I was so going to punch you in the tit if you chickened out on him,” she said, forming her hands into fists and did a little shadowboxing dance.

  “I know, I know,” I laughed. “You’ve been looking for a reason to get your hands on my boobs for years now. Happy to say you still haven’t gotten your chance.”

  “Only because you inevitably do the right thing,” she remarked. “In the end.”

  When I’d looked up the train schedule there’d been no way for me to make it to the stadium before kickoff. As it was, driving in, finding parking that wasn’t a mile away, and then walking to Lansdowne in the freezing cold had been cutting it close, but in the end I’d plopped down in my seat with seconds to spare.

  Both teams were already on the field when I arrived, Declan taking center stage as he prepped for kickoff. I’d never seen him play in person but I remembered watching, transfixed, the first time I’d watched him on TV.

  Once Declan kicked the ball and his teammates raced down the field to do battle against their opponents, all hell broke loose as around me thousands of fans cheered Dublin on. Within moments I was ca
ught up in the frenzy, stomping my feet, clapping my hands, and shouting along with them, my American accent (and general lack of knowledge about the sport) causing a few people to do double takes.

  A man best described as a beast tossed Declan the ball and for a moment it looked like he was going to get tackled but then he maneuvered around a crush of opponents while the beast blocked their charge. Declan danced a different player, also much larger than him, tucked the ball close to his side, and charged over the goal line.

  “Touchdown!” I screamed, jumping up and down with the rest of the crowd as everyone in the stadium lost their minds.

  The couple sitting next to me glanced my way, a curious expression on their face, before going back to their cheering. People in every section waved green flags and sang a tune whose words I couldn’t make out. The celebration went on for a good 30 seconds before a hush descended. I scanned the field, my eyes peeled for an injured player, but I needn’t have worried because there he was, standing tall and proud, all alone, the ball propped in front of him for a kick. I watched as Declan checked the wind, adjusted his position, eyed the goalposts, and then let the ball fly. It arced through the air, dead center between the posts. Collectively, the crowd jumped to their feet again while I sat rooted in my seat, my hands clenched tight, as a smile cut across my face.

  On a field of thirty men—all prime examples of exquisite masculine strength and form in their own right—I only had eyes for him. As far as I was concerned, no one else on that field could come close to matching Declan O’Shaughnessy. Maybe it was because I’d seen—experienced—exactly what his body was capable of that I was so confident in my assessment, but I knew Declan was something else entirely.