“And for you…” he continued. “I’m trying to think what would get Niall to swipe right on you.”
“Oh wow,” I said. “A real brain buster, huh?”
“No,” Eamonn rushed to say, seeming to hear how that had come out. “That’s not what I meant. I just wouldn’t have thought you were my brother’s type.”
The full band had gotten set up on the stage, now featuring a violinist and a flautist in addition to the guy with the guitar, and another woman on vocals. They’d already made several announcements and gotten enthusiastic cheers from the crowd during some call-and-response before launching into a bouncing, raucous song.
I remembered how Niall had called itirresponsible, the fact that I didn’t even have a passport. Certainly it was true that I shouldn’t even be here, that I’d never be in a Dublin pub if I were yesterday’s version of me, therealme, the me at home. It had been obvious Niall didn’t think I was worldly or sophisticated enough for him, and sitting in front of Eamonn in the same shabby dress I’d been wearing then, I guessed I shouldn’t be surprised that he agreed.
“You haven’t talked to him in years,” I said. “So what would you know?”
A low blow, I realized once the words had flown out of my mouth. The truth was that Iwasn’this brother’s type. The more important truth was that I didn’t want to be. And yet it still stung to hear Eamonn say that, brought me all the way back to that up-and-down look Niall had given me when he first walked into the Thai place, that sense that in a single second he’d judged me completely and found me wanting. What was it about me that kept coming up short?
“Fair play to ya,” Eamonn said. “I wouldn’t.”
The crowd had started clapping along to the music, the energy in the pub a far cry from the energy in our little corner.
“Eamonn—” I started to say, but he didn’t let me finish.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said, his blue eyes intense on mine as he leaned over the table. “I’m sorry, none of this is coming out right. My brother is—he’s lucky to have you, if he has you. I agree with you that he could stand to be a little more humble, but I think it’s good for him to be with someone who sees that, who challenges him in that way. If you want a happily ever after with Niall, I’m rooting for you. I’d put all this ina speech at your wedding—although I doubt I’d be best man—I’d be proud to call you my sister-in-law. I really didn’t mean anything against you, I hope you know that.”
I didn’t want to be his sister-in-law. That meant I’d have to be married to his brother, and it also meant…well, I didn’t want to be his sister-in-law.
“Eamonn,” I said. Now that I’d started letting myself say his name, I was a little addicted to it. “I went ononedate with your brother. And it wasn’t very good, honestly. I’d say you can hold off planning our wedding.”
Eamonn’s brows knit together. “You’re not dating Niall?”
“No.” The emphasis on that word was probably the closest I’d gotten to revealing my true feelings about his brother to him, since I was still trying not to talk shit about his family to his face. I tried to think what ever could’ve given Eamonn that idea in the first place, and all I could think was that I’d told him I went on a date with Niall and maybe he’d thought I meant we were actively dating, an ongoing verb instead of a single disastrous noun.
I ran through all the events leading up to this moment in my head, casting them in a new light through this lens. “Wait,” I said. “Have you thought that this whole time?”
Nineteen
Eamonn leaned back in hisseat, his gaze searching my face. “You said—” But then he stopped, seeming to think about what I’d said, maybe running through our past conversations in his head the way I had. “I don’t understand. Then why are youhere?”
The question was so unexpected, it landed like a punch to my gut. All I could do was repeat it, both to stall for time and because I genuinely didn’t know how he meant it. “Why I’m here?”
“I know you said you have your folklore research,” Eamonn said. “And you’re traveling in general. Ireland is a beautiful country. I get why anyone would want to come here. But I figured you being with my brother, you being outside my garage…At first I thought he’d sent you with some kind of, I don’t know, not a peace offering. That doesn’t seem like him.Some sort of reconnaissance mission. Or I thought maybe you came on your own, wanting to know more about his family.”
“It’s just a coincidence.”
He huffed a laugh, like that was funny to him for some reason I couldn’t tell. “This whole time.”
Something in my stomach swooped, then sank all the way down. It hadn’t occurred to me that one of the reasons Eamonn might’ve been helping me out, showing me around, was because he thought I had more of a connection to his brother than I did. And even from this brief time we’d spent together, I knew that his relationship to Niall was important to him, despite it not being very good. Maybebecauseit wasn’t very good—I could tell that Eamonn had a lot of baggage around his distance from his siblings.
“There’s no chance of me being your sister-in-law,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Right.” Eamonn’s voice was steady, his expression unreadable. It was impossible to know if he was angry or confused or disappointed or something else entirely. He didn’t even seem to be talking to me—it was more like he’d directed the word at himself, like he was grappling with something within.
He lifted his napkin to wipe his mouth, leaving the square of cloth on the table next to his empty plate. “I’m going to hit the jacks,” he said, and then got up and left.
His relative lack of reaction was more concerning to me than anything else. The whole day suddenly swirled in my vision in one sickening kaleidoscope of images. First meeting Eamonn at his shop, where he’d directed me to the bus. Him throwing his sandwich at me, then offering to drive me to theembassy. Him making that truly terrible pun when I was in the middle of freaking out, and then him taking me to lunch and showing me around the city, talking about James Joyce and god and his sisters.
I felt like a scam artist. Not that I’d done it on purpose—I was still stuck in a foreign country, with no money or passport or idea of how I got there or how to leave—but the end result was the same.
Instead of figuring my own shit out, I’d involved him at every turn. And either this was all real—in which case, he had his own life, and certainly didn’t need me to complicate it—or it wasn’t, and none of this mattered.
I slid down from my chair, hesitating only a minute over his jacket. I really wanted to take it, both because I knew it would be cold out there and because I just wanted to have it. His own discarded sweater had fallen off his chair in his haste to leave, and I picked it up, placing it on his seat without letting myself linger on how soft it was under my fingertips.
