“I’m sure they do,” I said. Granted, I didn’t know his family, but I felt like I knewhimwell enough by now to imagine they would. And I really had always loved the idea of big families like that, not to romanticize what I knew had its challenges, but it was just so far from my own experience. I hadn’t grown up with siblings or extended family who lived close by, so I’d never had any of that. Christmases at Grandma’s house, everyone gathering for a baby’s first birthday, an entire group of people at your graduation with signs and air horns to celebrate you.
Eamonn grunted in a way that didn’t sound like agreement. “I just always feel so…”
He rolled his shoulders, an agitated gesture that did a surprisingly good job of conveying the feeling I thought he meant.Anxious, maybe.Edgy. Out of place.
We’d been walking along the river, but seemed to be heading more into the crush of people. The minute we stepped into that fray, the likelihood of us talking about his sisters or how he felt about his family or anything else seemed much slimmer, so I was anxious to finish this conversation while we could.
“Why don’t you all really talk?” I asked. “You and Niall and the rest of them.”
“My sisters are close with each other,” he said. “Kathleen teaches Irish at a secondary school, she’s got two girls, like I mentioned, she kind of took on the role of mother to all of us, for better or worse, especially the twins, who were still at home when our own mother died. Rachel and Claire are grand, both in college now in Galway. Rachel wants to be a doctor and Claire is studying social studies or…” He frowned. “Social work? I can’t remember what she called it. One of those.”
“And then Sio is an artist in London.”
“They’ve all done well for themselves,” he said, but in a tone of voice that suggested it was an end to the conversation instead of an encouragement of it, and he still hadn’t answered my original question.
The sky was already a bruised blue, the sun long disappeared behind the horizon. I hadn’t realized how much even that tiny bit of warmth had helped the temperature, because now it was hard not to shiver as I burrowed deeper in Eamonn’s jacket.
He led me down a busy street, gesturing toward a building on the corner, the bottom exterior painted fire-engine red, the top covered in a netting of twinkle lights, green shamrocks fixed all along the walls. “We’re in Temple Bar now,” he said. “That’sTheTemple Bar right there, which is one of the top tourist spots. It’ll be busy, but we can try if you want.”
Even from out here, I could tell there were people packed in the building, some hanging out in small groups on the street, which definitely made me concerned about the capacityinside. It was a Saturday night, I had to remind myself. It was Saint Patrick’s Day weekend. It was hard to remember when time felt so fluid and strange, when it was hard to wrap my head around other people also out enjoying their nights, presumably having more normal ones than I was.
“Let’s keep walking,” I said. “I’ll go wherever you want.”
We had to stop on a corner waiting for enough of a break in the crowd to cross a street, and a group of American college-aged guys came to stand near us, clearly already way past drunk. From behind me, I could feel Eamonn move a little closer.
“There’s a kebab place a couple blocks down,” one of the guys was saying. “It was so good I ate there twice.”
Another guy was checking his phone. “Bro still doesn’t have his location turned on, how are we supposed to—”
And then they were moving on, blending in with the rest of the crowd, and we started heading that way, too.
“We could try that kebab place,” I said, tongue in cheek, and Eamonn leaned in, obviously trying to hear me. I repeated my comment louder, and he shook his head, grinning.
“He was too scuttered to know a kebab from a kiwi,” he said. “C’mon, we’re getting away from this madness.”
We eventually stopped outside a cozy-looking place with latticed lower windows and a worn wooden door. Eamonn opened it for me to precede him inside, and the moment I stepped into the warmer vestibule I felt immediate relief. The pub looked exactly how I might’ve expected it to look, like an Irish pub out of a movie—the walls painted a deep red,black-and-white photos in mismatched wooden frames covering most of them, a giant mirrored bar with whiskey bottles lined up all the way to the ceiling. In the very back, in a separate room I could barely see into, there was a guy on a low stage strumming a guitar and singing about a long road.
It was self-seating, so we grabbed an open high-top closer to the bar rather than venture into the main dining room where the music was coming from. This place was fairly busy, as well, even if not quite as intimidatingly so as that first place. I took off my jacket to hang it on the back of the chair before climbing into the seat.
“Feels good in here, yeah?” Eamonn said.
“God, yes,” I said. “My hands are so cold.”
And then I reached up to touch the back of my hand to his face, to show him how cold they’d gotten, apparently. I only realized as I was already doing it what a weird thing it was to do. It was too intimate, touching someone’s face. But now I could feel how chilled his own cheek was, the fine bristle of a day’s worth of growth at his jaw, the warmth of his breath on my wrist. I wished I hadn’t done it. I wished I’d turned my hand, pressed my palm there instead.
“Ah,” he said, then surprised me by taking my hand between the two of his, which were warmer because he’d been smarter about keeping them in his pockets as we walked. He gave a quick rub, just enough to leave my skin tingling, before letting go. “We’ll get you warmed up. It’s a bit mad in here but we can order at the bar. Want a menu?”
In the end, I said I’d eat whatever he recommended, agreeing to some kind of stew that sounded good in this weather. Hetalked me into trying a pint of Guinness, reminding meWhen in Dublin, and I said sure becauseWhen in Dublin, indeed. At this point, it had been almost twenty-four hours since I’d been here—maybe, possibly, depending on whether you counted from the moment I’d hit my head or from the moment I’d woken up—and I was no closer to figuring out what the hell was going on. But at least I was enjoying myself.
He’d lifted his sweater over his head, and I tried to ignore the strip of lower stomach that got revealed when the staticky sweater took some of his T-shirt with it, the way even the sight of his bare arms got me a little fluttery when they’d been covered most of the day.
It was hard to deny that this felt like a date, even more than our lunch earlier, even more than the actual real date I’d gone on the night before. Eamonn was up at the bar, leaning against the counter while he waited for the bartender to come over, and it occurred to me that he looked relaxed and almost happy. His shoulders weren’t as tense as they’d been in the car, nowhere near up around his ears like that gesture he’d made when he talked about being around his family, and when he started tapping a rhythm against the countertop it seemed less like an anxious gesture and more like he was hearing music in his head and vibing to it. That man thought I was pretty.
He also was apparently on a very different wavelength than me, if his opening line once he got back was anything to go by. He set two tall glasses filled with dark, foam-covered beer on the table and slid one toward me before taking his own seat.
“So,” he said. “Tell me about you and Niall. How’d you meet?”
The question threw me because I just hadn’t been expecting it. “The same way anyone meets anyone nowadays, I guess. On a dating app.”
