Page 13 of An Irish Hope

“Had a favourite song, more like.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Whoa. Okay, two things: are you telling me you used to be a couple? And what is the song?”

He shrugged, studying the foamy residue lacing the sides of his glass. “I don’t know if I should say.”

Rory shot Aisling another glance. “Oh, you now definitely need to say.”

He sighed. “Anyone else need another drink?”

“No, you can’t get out of it by saying that,” Aisling protested.

He offered a twisted smile. “Are you sure?” Then he rose and steered back to the bar.

“Rude!” Aisling watched him then turned back to Rory. “Oh my goodness. Can you believe that?”

“I know! I thought she disliked him.”

“Well, there’s obviously more to that story. Good on Declan for trying, though.”

“He’s a good one.”

“They were at school together, right?” Aidan asked.

“A million years ago.” Aisling shrugged. “I was a lot younger, and Fiona’s never been the type to overshare.”

“Unlike some.” Rory nudged Aisling’s shoulder.

“Look, can I help it if I like to call it as I see it? No, I cannot. But anyway, back to Declan and Fiona. He got married to someone else and Fiona moved to Dublin.” Which, now she thought about it, made sense if Fiona hadn’t liked what had happened. “I don’t think I put two and two together, because all of this was happening around the same time as our father died and we learned that he had left the running of the business to Colin, too. Fiona was pretty upset by that.”

“Sounds like she might’ve had a lot of things to be upset about,” Aidan mused.

Hmm, put like that… maybe.

“Go on, ask him,” a voice goaded from the table behind.

“Okay.” Giggles. “Hey, Andy. Are you going to sing?”

Sing? Oh, put his name forward for karaoke. He didn’t seem the type to push himself forward like that. Unlike her. “Hey, Rory. Are we going to sing or what?”

“Of course we’re going to. And even Aidan is going to have a go, right?”

He shrugged good naturedly. “I’ll give anything a crack if you want me to.”

“Aww, bless. That’s the spirit.” Aisling tried for a casual look behind her, and peeked at Andy. He was frowning, shaking his head.

Irritation stirred at the women who kept pestering him. Why couldn’t they see the man didn’t want to sing?

She pushed to her feet, grabbed Rory, and they made their way down the front, and gave their name and requested song to Ethan, the sound guy tonight.

“You two want to kick things off?” Ethan asked. “We might as well start things right.”

Aisling glanced at Rory who shrugged. “Sure. Let’s do this.”

He handed them two microphones, and cued the music and words. But they didn’t need the lyrics for their go-to song. “Ready, ladies?”

“Always.” Aisling glanced across the room which had hushed. Then the opening funky beats began. “Now there was a time when they used to say that behind every great man there had to be a great woman.”

Rory took Aretha Franklin’s part, even doing some of the licks, and the crowd was clapping, smiling. Most of the people knew she and Rory were sisters, they’d seen them do this before, and if they didn’t then the matching dresses might give it away. But it didn’t matter, as they steamrolled to the chorus. “Sisters are doing it for themselves.”