Mismatched (10 page)

I glance in the direction of the bar where Micheál is ordering drinks and make a pleading puppy dog sound. Ridlee’s finger presses harder into my lips, and as I turn longingly in his direction again, her finger becomes lodged in my left nostril.

“Now, play it cool,” she growls. “You stink of desperation.”

“It’s hard to be cool with your finger jammed up my nose.”

“Right.” She removes her finger. “Sorry.”

“Here you go ladies!” Micheál arrives with three more pints.

“Are ye dancin’?” he asks Ridlee.

She looks at him as though he’s a little retarded. “Not at this very moment, no.”

“He means ‘would you like to dance’,” I translate.

“I don’t know the steps.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Micheál assures her. “You lead, I’ll follow. Or, I’ll lead, you follow.” He grins and my heart melts.

“Go on, Rid,” I try to say with enthusiasm, “it’s great fun.”
He’s asking her to dance? Why not me?

“Okay, then,” she says shrugging, “when in Rome and all that jazz…”

Micheál takes her hand and pulls her toward the dance floor. For a ridiculous moment I suffer the pangs of jealousy.
Please don’t fall for Ridlee. Please don’t fall for Ridlee.
I grin broadly, ever the supportive friend and watch them take their places for the next set.

The music starts, and I recognise the dance as
The
Walls of Limerick
, a great reel that’s easy to pick up. Ridlee’s a quick study and gets the steps the first time. Soon she’s spinning round the floor with Micheál, grinning from ear to ear. I gulp my Guinness down too quickly.
He’ll probably fall for her—they usually do
.

The set ends and I clap and whoop too loudly.
I’m not upset. I’m not upset.
As they’re coming off the dance floor a guy steps between them and asks Ridlee to dance again. She beams and follows him back out.

“Your turn next.” Micheál holds out his hand.

“No, you’re alright. I won’t.” I say, playing it cool. His face falls into a frown.

“Take care of her friend first. Then you’ll win her heart. That’s what my granddad always told me. Come on. You’ll break my heart if ye don’t dance with me.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to be responsible for something as grave as all that.” I give him my hand and follow him to the dance floor. The next set is
The Haymaker’s Jig
, a dance I know well. We get in line and I realise that Micheál has been holding my hand all this time. My heart is going like the clappers. I try to focus on the person in front of me, but I can’t help stealing glances at his profile. He’s tall and broad and has that rugged outdoor look and smell about him. His eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles at something the guy opposite us says to him. It’s ridiculous, but I feel proud to be on his arm.

The music starts up and we jig in and out. The steps come back easily; I had to perform them a squillion times when I was at school. Micheál dances well, and when it comes to the spin, he gives it all he’s got. All I can see is his face smiling at me and my own smile is locked in by the g-force of our spin. This guy is quite literally sweeping me off my feet, and I like it. We finish the set laughing. Never, ever,
ever
, has a guy turned me on the way this guy does, and he really isn’t my type.

A young girl stands and begins to sing, but I can barely hear her. I steal glances at this Adonis and have to resist the urge to reach up and stroke his face. The song ends and the crowd applauds. I almost fall over as I’m jerked back into the moment — the moment that includes all these people and not just me and this beautiful man. I clap too and turn around to smile up at him.
Jesus, he’s gorgeous! Stay cool, Erin. Stay cool…

We head back to the table to find Ridlee but she’s nowhere to be seen.

“I’ll just check the ladies.”

“Maybe she went home…,” suggests Micheál.

“I’ll just check the loos to make sure.” I go into the bathroom calling her name. There are only two toilets and Ridlee is in neither.
Odd
… I head back out to Micheál, doing a quick tour of the pub first in case she’s sitting at one of the other tables.

“No sign of her anywhere.” I tell him.

“Does she often disappear?”

“The odd time, but this is my first time traveling abroad with her, so…” I’m feeling kinda anxious and I stand there with my fingers in my jeans pockets, scanning the crowd. Half of Ireland seems to be in here.

Micheál puts his arm around me. “Jack the barman is a friend of mine. I’ll go ask him if he’s seen her, okay?”

“Thanks.” I watch as he tunnels his way through the crowd and up to the bar. It’s not like Rid and I are joined at the hip or anything but I’m starting to wonder why she would just take off like that.
 

Micheál is coming back my way smiling. “Jack says that she left a few minutes ago and said to have fun and she will no doubt ‘crawl into you again’. Does that make sense? Sounds kinda kinky.”

I smile, completely relieved. “Yep. Perfect sense.”

“Happy?”

“Happy,” I assure him.

He looks around the crowded, noisy pub. “Listen, it’s crazy in here. Do you wanna go for a walk?”

“Sure.” My pulse rate climbs.

“So, ye’re a proper Yank now, are ye? No guilty conscience about rats and sinking ships?” He chuckles at his own joke.

I stop and turn to face him as we get outside the pub. “Listen you, I left before the arse fell out of the economy here. My mum’s American and I always wanted to go there and make my fortune—you know, realise the American dream an’ all.” I smile at him cheekily.

“And?”

“And, what?”

“Have ye made your fortune?”

We turn off the main street and walk down a small side street. He puts his arm around my shoulder and I feel my heart quicken. His eyes are a beautiful shade of green.
 

“What are you, some kind of gold-digger?” I’m going for nonchalant but I sound skittish.
 

“Not at all. I’ll never leave the auld sod. I’m married to her. There’s nowhere as beautiful as this place, and ye can’t beat the people.” He smiles proudly.

“Jaysus, are you on the Tourist Board payroll or something?” I laugh loudly and the sound comes back to me in a strange kind of echo as we walk down a narrow lane that leads toward the harbour.

Neither one of us speaks, so all we hear is the sound of our own footsteps and the faint tinkle of sailing lines banging against their masts as we get nearer the water.
Halliards!
The word for the sailing rope comes back to me from a course I did many years before.

“So, what do you do?” I’m eager to get off the subject of our lovely island.

“Oh, you know, a bit of this, a bit of that.”

Great, another drifter who can’t settle down and make something of himself.
“Right.”

Even though, I can feel him eyeing me, it’s hard to mask my disappointment. I know that this is just a little fun fling, but it reminds me yet again of how hard it is to meet men with any direction in their lives.

“I own a shop,” he says.

“Really?” I ask way too brightly.

He laughs. “Phew, eh? Bet you thought you’d hooked up with yet another loser.”

“Nooohhh.” I let myself lean into his shoulder a little more. “What kind of shop?”

“Sports. Extreme, really. Well, what some people would call extreme — surfing, kite-surfing, skateboarding, mountain biking — that sort of thing.”

“Cool. What’s it called?”

“Surf ’n’ Turf. How bout you? What do you do?”

“I have a bar, back in Boston. The Pot O’Gold.”

“Oooh, impressive!” he laughs. “Nothing like cashing in on a little of the hi-diddle-diddly, eh?” He adds elbowing me playfully.

“Actually, it was my grandmother’s bar. She named it, and I inherited it. Well, more or less.” The last part I mutter more to myself than out loud. I’m reminded of why we’re here.

“I’m sorry.”

“What?” I’m confused for a minute. Did I tell him about the bar and inheriting only half?

“About your grandmother.”

I stare blankly at him.

“Dying,” he proffers, helpfully.

“Yeah, well she was old.”

“They often are.”

“Who?”

“Grandparents.”

Is he taking the piss out of me?
“We weren’t all that close, toward the end. She was ninety-odd, so…” The ‘so’ hangs heavily in the air between us until he breaks the silence.

“My own grandfather died a couple of years ago. He pretty much brought me up. He was a cool guy.”

“Yeah? That’s nice… I mean, that he was cool an’ all—not that he died.”
Please don’t think me a cold bitch, please don’t think me a cold bitch…
God, I’m sooo smitten.
Cop on, Girl! Why do you even care what this guy thinks of you? This is a one-night-stand. A chance to get laaaiidd, that’s all!

“I knew what you meant,” he says kindly. “You have a kind heart. I can tell.”

Jaysus, did he actually just say that aloud? This guy takes the whole metrosexual, comfortable with his femininity to a level I’m not used to.

When we reach the harbour a moment later, he stops and turns me round to face him. He’s a good head taller than me. Gently, he reaches up and touches my dimple in the middle of my chin with his thumb. “Cute.”

I smile, and he leans in and kisses me. I close my eyes. His lips are so soft as he explores mine. Then his tongue slides between them and firecrackers of happiness begin exploding inside me. My knees actually start to buckle, and I have to pull away. Blushing, I take a step back and try to act normally. I have
never
had a reaction like that to a simple kiss.

“Very nice,” he says, his tongue hovering on his lip appreciatively. I turn and look at the boats moored in the harbour, desperate to get my shit together.
Nobody
has
ever
had this affect on me before.

The harbour is bathed in moonlight. “Perfect for a night-time sail,” I say desperate to deflect attention from my knocking knees.

“Come on!” Micheál jumps over the small wall and jogs toward the jetty. I look around me to see if anyone’s watching and then I follow him. I feel like we’re about to do something naughty, and I’m tingling with excitement. When I catch up to him he’s sitting in a small boat with an outboard engine attached. He feels around under the bow of the boat and produces a bunch of keys. Dangling them at me so that they tinkle he says, “Jump in. Quick!”

The engine starts up, put-putting over and over, until he revs it. My feet jump before my head has time to consider, landing me in the boat. Michaél angles the engine and turns up the power, heading us out to sea.

“Who’s boat is this?” I yell.

Micheál just shrugs, his eyes searching the black water ahead, I hope for other boats or rocks. The moon provides our only light.

What the fuck am I doing? I’ve just met this guy and now we’re stealing a boat together…?
“Where are we going?” I yell again.

“You’ll see!”

CHAPTER TEN

RIDLEE

I CANNOT WATCH ERIN DROOL over this guy any longer. Mostly because it’s embarrassing but also because every once in a while she sneaks a glance over at me to see if I’m watching and then she stops for about five seconds. I’m making her feel bad for having a massive, over-sized insta-crush on a drummer, and that’s just not cool. What’s the worst that could happen, anyway? A one-night stand in a country she no longer wants to call home with a hot guy who has magic in his hands? Yeah. I’m not getting in the way of that. That’s the kind of thing that gets your BFF card revoked, and that’s the most valuable card in my wallet.

Leaving the bar without Erin or her drummer boy seeing me is about as easy as you’d imagine. The two were oblivious, but as far as they’re concerned, I was probably there one second, gone the next. This town is too small for anything bad to happen in it, but Erin will forget that when she can’t find me. I stop off and tell the bartender where I’m going, just in case Erin freaks.

The next pub down in my crawl is called The Irish Arms. It’s small and paneled in dark reddish wood with rooms for rent over the bar. I swear this time I will not inhale the pint I’m given, even though it has a perfect frothy foam on the top and the striated dark goodness below that I’ve come to appreciate.

I sit down next to a table with two old men at it, and it’s not long before I’m drawn into a conversation about faeries.

“O’ course they exist. I’ve seen many round the Cliffs of Moher. There be selkies there, you can trust me on that.” The man saying it looks pretty much like a leprechaun himself, so I’m inclined to believe him. I can almost see a green tinge to his skin, and he can’t be more than four and a half feet tall when he’s standing. I’m pretty sure his feet aren’t touching the floor as he sits in his chair.

“The Cliffs of Moher?” I say, leaning in. “What’s that?”

He looks at me and smiles. “The Cliffs of Moher are a place of beauty and legend, unrivaled in all the world!” His arms spread wide, and he does it with an impressive Guiness-inspired flourish if the empty pints in front of him are any judge.