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“You coming to play in the game next weekend, Ry?” Kelly took the now empty seat across from them.
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. Do you think we could get a jersey for Maggie?”
Kelly’s brows lifted in surprise. “You want to put an O’Malley on the O’Malley’s team? Whatever will the locals say?”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Probably that they don’t care, on account of that vendetta being fifty years old and stupid.”
Ryan snorted and Kelly grinned. “Oh, I like her. But make no mistake, love, people care. Don’t they dad?”
Maggie’s back stiffened as she sensed Mr. McCullough standing behind her. She slowly turned and sure enough there he was, all six and a half feet of masculine flannel and work-roughened skin. She shrank into Ryan’s side.
“What’s that?” Mr. McCullough asked.
“Maggie here was sayin’ no one cares about the O’Malley rivalry anymore.”
Mr. McCullough’s dark brows lowered into a scowl. “If no one cared, the bar would have been renamed. We keep it O’Malley’s so they never forget we own a piece of them.”
She glared at Kelly who chuckled. Was he purposefully trying to make things uncomfortable for her? Her eyes narrowed on him. Challenge accepted. “But I wonder, if they had changed the name, which name they would have used, McCullough or Clooney?”
“Clooney—”
“McCullough—”
“Mosconi—” Ryan’s father and uncles all barked at once, as if somehow hearing her quiet comment through all the other chatter.
Ryan chimed in. “Uncle Paulie didn’t have a chance to get it named after him. It’s always been an Irish pub.”
“Aunt Col would have insisted on the bar taking her maiden name, O’Leahey, before letting it be called Mosconi,” Kelly insisted. “And there was no way you were getting it named McCullough, Dad. You weren’t even there for the full fight.”
Mr. McCullough shrugged, his expression unapologetic. “I got what I wanted.”
Ryan leaned close and whispered, “He practically kidnapped my Aunt Maureen and ran off to elope with her. When they got back to town, my grandfather took a shot at him.”
“He missed,” Mr. McCullough barked. “Besides, keeping the pub’s name as O’Malley’s served as a reminder to Caleb that he not only lost a bet fair and square but also that people don’t take kindly to others defaulting on their promises.”
She found it interesting that no one mentioned the upcoming sale of the pub. It would have taken the attention off her name, but she wasn’t cruel enough to bring it up.
Kelly cocked his head and gave her a told-you-so grin. “See? Now you know just how crazy the old grudge holders are. Still want to play on our team?”
She rolled her eyes again. “I think if you saw me play, you’d want me on your team.”
“Oh!” Kelly hooted and laughed. “She’s no shrinking violet, that’s for sure.”
“What brought that up?” Mr. McCullough asked, exchanging his coffee for a beer.
Maggie’s eyes went wide, silently begging Kelly not to—
“Maggie here is an O’Malley.”
The kitchen fell silent, and she sank into her seat.
“Alright, you had your fun,” Ryan said. “Now, drop it. She was a Harris first.”
“You’re dating an O’Malley?” Mr. McCullough’s tone rumbled through the stillness. “After what they did?”
Maggie lowered her hands and gripped the table, wishing an escape hatch hid underneath.
“Come on, Dad.” Kelly laughed. “It was fifty years ago.”
“And I still have scars from that fight. Your Uncle Paulie’s knee still isn’t right. Your mother nearly got her head bashed in with a stool, before I got her out of there.”
Unphased, Kelly turned to her and clarified, “And my grandfather didn’t totally miss. Dad’s got a scar smack dab in the center of his arse.”
“That’s not a bullet hole, you moron,” Kelly’s father smacked him in the head.
Her jaw gaped. What kind of crazy family was this?
“He missed,” Mr. McCullough snarled.
Ryan’s Aunt Colleen laughed. “Oh, I’ll never forget the night you came into the pub howling like a banshee and bleeding all over the place. You were a big wuss.”
“The man fired a rifle at me! But he missed.”
“Sure, he did, Frank,” Mrs. McCullough said and snickered.
Thankfully, Mr. McCullough stormed out of the room, and the conversation over the O’Malley rivalry was put to rest. Kelly laughed, but she didn’t find it as funny.
Not realizing how serious the older generation took the stupid conflict, her heart thundered. She worried they might truly hate her over a name.
“You’re a jerk,” she snapped at Kelly and pushed back from the table.
“Oh, come on, love. You gotta have a thick skin if you’re gonna hang around this lot.”
She carried her coffee mug to the sink and used the screen door to escape the kitchen to the porch. Rocking chairs lined the side of the house, and children’s voices babbled in the distance.
Several syrupy popsicle sticks clung to the banister where the kids left them. She was picking them up so they didn’t attract ants when the sound of sniffling caught her ear.
