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“Nope,” he replied with a shrug. “I’m an only child.”
Wow. “What’s that like?”
“Quiet,” he quipped before shifting the limelight back onto me once again. “You’ve lived here all your life?”
“Yep. Born and raised in Ballylaggin,” I confirmed. “You’re from Dublin, right? You moved down here when you were eleven?”
His eyes brightened. “You remember me telling you that?”
I nodded.
“Christ, you were so out of it that day, I didn’t think you’d remember any of it,” he replied thoughtfully, scratching his chin.
“Even if I hadn’t, your accent is a dead giveaway.”
“Yeah?”
Nodding, I put on my poshest south-side accent and said, “I’m from Blackrock darling.”
Johnny laughed at my attempt. “Not even close.”
“Let me guess, you enjoy dipping your toes in Sandycove before heading for a spot of lunch in D4?” I added with a snicker and another forced accent.
My cheeks burned.
God, I was so awkward.
“There’s nothing posh about me, Shannon,” Johnny countered, smile fading. “I might come from a decent area, but my parents work hard for everything they have. They came from nothing and built themselves up.”
“You’re right.”
He didn’t sound posh at all.
My attempt at impersonating him was an epic fail.
What an idiot…
Embarrassed by my rare and poorly executed joke, I fiddled with my braid and mumbled, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he replied dismissively, smiling again. “Now, my ma, on the other hand, has a really thick north-side accent.”
My eyes lit up. “Like in Fair City?”
Johnny scrunched his nose up. “You watch soaps?”
“I love them,” I admitted with a smile. “Fair City’s my favorite.”
“Well, if you heard my ma, you’d be in your element.” He chuckled, oblivious to his weird hand-to-thigh movements. “My da was born and raised in Ballylaggin. So, he’s a Cork native like yourself.” Shrugging, he added, “I suppose I sound like a fucked-up mixture of both.”
He wasn’t. He didn’t have an ounce of Cork accent in him. He was one hundred percent Dub, but I decided to skip telling him that and ask, “Why did your family move here?” instead.
“My da’s mother was sick,” he explained. “She wanted to come home to, ah, you know, so we moved down to take care of her.” Dropping his hands in his lap, he fiddled with his thumbs. “It was supposed to be a temporary thing. I was enrolled in Royce College for the following September. We were supposed to go home after the funeral.”
“But you didn’t go back to Dublin?”
He shook his head. “Nah, the ’rents decided they liked the quiet way of life down here, so they put the house in Dublin on the market and made the move a permanent one.”
“How was it—moving at that age?”
