His eyebrows raised over his glass as he took his first sip, making an impressive dent in the beverage. “A real modern relationship.”
“Hardly.” I pulled my beer closer to me, examining the creamy foam floating on the top, wanting to change the subject before he could respond. “Is there a trick to drinking this?”
Eamonn’s expression had been a little brooding, his chin resting on his hand while he looked at me over the table, but now it cleared. “No trick,” he said. “Except there’s a thing, more a marketing gimmick than anything else, where you try to ‘split theG.’ Take a gulp, chug till the level of about halfway up thatG.”
“This G?” I said, pointing to the capital letter printed on the glass, a good two inches down. “There’s no way.”
“Just try it,” he said.
“You’re a bad influence.”
He laughed. “Despite the Irish stereotypes—and there are a lot of ’em, more than art students, I’d say—I don’t drink very much. Not anymore, at least.”
Suddenly I felt terrible. It hadn’t even occurred to me, what he’d said before aboutweekends were for drinking and partying. Maybe I was the one who was a bad influence, putting him back somewhere he’d rather not be. “We don’t have to do this,” I said. “I mean, I’m totally fine if you’d rather—”
He cut me off. “I’m happy to enjoy a pint with ya,” he said.“It’s not a problem, truly. Alcohol’s not an issue for me, and yeah, I used to do some drugs recreationally, socially, but I haven’t in a long time and that’s not an issue for me, either. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable about any of that stuff.”
I did feel uncomfortable, but none of it was his fault. It made me feel like such a square, that he’d even felt the need to run all that down for me. It made me feel like a judgmental asshole that he thought I was uneasy about any of his history that he’d shared with me.
“Now,smoking,” he said, resting his chin back on his hand again, pulling at the corner of his bottom lip with those same fingers like he wasn’t even aware he was doing it. “That was my problem. I quit eight years ago and I still dream about it every once in a while.”
“You were a smoker?” I asked, then tilted my head. “I can see it. You’re so…”
I tried to think of the right word for the quality I was trying to convey, not wanting it to come out in a bad way, which wasn’t how I meant it. I decided to take my first test sip of my beer to buy myself some time, even though I was intimidated by all the foam on the top. I also decided only just before taking the sip that I was going to try to split thatGafter all, so it was a much heartier and less graceful sip than I would’ve normally gone for. When I placed the glass back on the table, I’d come nowhere close but I was still impressed with myself. I could also tell I’d given myself a nice creamy mustache, maybe even gotten a bit on my nose. I licked my top lip and reached up to wipe at my nose, hoping Eamonn hadn’t noticed.
But of course he was watching me, and when I gave him a sheepish smile he answered with his own grin that spread slow and sinful across his face. “Orally fixated?”
I felt the blush all down my neck and onto my chest. “Restless,” I said. “I was going to say you seem a little restless.”
He sat back in his chair. “That’s a good word for it.”
He didn’t actually seem that restless right now, though. I’d been responding to the fact that he’d often seemed like he wanted to take a break, or do something with his hands. I could picture him easily on our walks throughout the day, bending his head against the wind, a cigarette in his mouth as he scooped his hand around the tip to light it.
Eight years ago, I’d been his age. And he would’ve been twenty-one, and maybe still in prison. I wondered if being in that environment had made it easier or harder to quit something like that, or if he’d done it just after he’d gotten out. I wondered if it was patronizing to say I was impressed, because I’d always heard that was a hard thing to do no matter what. I kept my mouth shut and took another sip of my beer. It was slightly bitter, but with a surprisingly smooth aftertaste, something almost like coffee.
A server set our food on the table with barely a word, off to bring two more plates to the main dining area, where a couple of new musicians were getting set up onstage to join the guy with the guitar.
“What’s that?” I asked, gesturing toward Eamonn’s dish. He’d gotten a burger with what looked like mashed potatoes on the side, except with more greenery mixed in.
“Colcannon,” he said. “Mashed potatoes with kale orcabbage. My mother used to make it so much I got sick of it, and then I came back around and now I crave it all the time. Want to try?”
I kind of did, and I figured the time to do it was now, when my spoon was still clean and I could dip it in. “You sure?”
He pushed his bowl toward me, and I took a spoonful of the dish, savoring it before swallowing it down. It was creamy and rich, the added flavor and texture making it more robust than mashed potatoes all by themselves. “I’ve never heard of that,” I said. “But it’s delicious. Do you want to try any of my beef stew, just to make it fair?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
We started eating, and the stew was exactly what I wanted—warm and hearty and comforting, like I was eating at somebody’s house. It came with a slice of brown bread, which I tore pieces off to dunk in the stew. I wanted to thank Eamonn again for everything—for buying my meals and taking me around the city—but I didn’t know where gratitude ended and awkwardness began. Anytime I brought it up he seemed uncomfortable.
“So,” Eamonn said finally, when we’d both had time to put a dent in our meals. “You and my brother. It all began when you both swiped right.”
It felt like that tension around his shoulders had returned, or that could be me projecting. Because for some reason, the way that he said that, the way he’d called it amodern relationshipearlier, got under my skin. His tone was almost carefully neutral, but I couldn’t help but read a lot into it. I didn’t like the idea that he might be making fun of me, that he thought usingdating apps was pathetic somehow, or hopeless. Maybe it was just because at my lowest moments I sometimes wondered the same thing.
“It’s a valid way to meet someone. About ten percent of partnered people met their significant other on an app.” I’d gotten that statistic from a pop-up on the app’s home page itself, so the scholarship behind it might be questionable, but whatever. I could believe it.
“It is,” Eamonn said. “Definitely. I’m only trying to picture it. My brother’s profile would’ve had…I’m going to say, a picture of him outdoors looking outdoorsy, something about his job, and maybe something about his go-to nightcap. Am I right?”
I thought of the green grass picture, the bit he’d included about being a marketing executive, and the note that he liked his Manhattan on the rocks. For someone who wasn’t that close with his brother, Eamonn had him pretty nailed.
