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A sudden static filled the air, like they were sharing the same thought. O’Hara flagged the bartender and soon his gaze met Jonathan’s over a glass of port. “To love.”
Jonathan almost dropped his drink.
“The theme for this year’s Social Challenge.” O’Hara dinged their glasses together. “There you go. Why are you looking at me like that?”
Jonathan met his eyes. “You didn’t say goodbye.”
O’Hara’s smile faded.
“It’s a shitty way to treat a friend. But perhaps” —Jonathan’s throat tightened as he looked away— “we never were.”
O’Hara stared at his port, and smiled again, a wavering quality to it. “We were.”
“I would have driven you to the airport.”
“I couldn’t . . .”
“I understood you needed to find your mother—”
O’Hara swallowed.
“But you never came back.”
Quiet.
O’Hara looked away, and Jonathan . . . it had been a long day. He raised his glass and turned to leave—
O’Hara grabbed his shoulder and urged him back around.
Every part of Jonathan worked to keep his breath even.
Lowering his voice, O’Hara said, “Please . . . I . . .”
Jonathan waited.
“Hey, O’Hara,” someone yelled, “you joining us or not?”
O’Hara gulped and called back, “Coming.”
Jonathan understood. That was all he’d get from O’Hara tonight.
He was about to leave again but O’Hara’s hand, still on his shoulder, tightened. “Will you hang out too?”
Something pleading hit his eyes, and Jonathan couldn’t fathom what to make of that.
“They’re all nice people. Last night we stayed up until the early hours debating.”
“Debating?” Not what he’d expected from that crowd. Or, perhaps, O’Hara.
O’Hara cracked a grin. “I’m an adult now. I can be serious sometimes.”
“I’d have to see that to believe it.”
“Then stay. Listen.”
He wanted to, but . . . speaking to O’Hara again. Being this close to him . . . it was pushing all those memories to the surface and it was tough shoving them back where they needed to stay. “I . . . believe in getting eight hours sleep.”
O’Hara lifted Jonathan’s arm and checked his watch. “Past your bedtime, then.”
Fingers touched his wrist, straightening the clockface; Jonathan pulled his hand back swiftly, the shifted metal warm and ticklish against his skin.
“Wasn’t this your mum’s?”
He surged to his feet, a creeping flush threatening to rise above his collar. “Good night, O’Hara.”
O’Hara in the bar, raising a glass.
Goodnight to the fellow ICon-ers headed for some shut eye. Us unsensible lot will wish we’d done the same tomorrow!
Chapter Three
Jonathan gets curious, O’Hara is quite something, and a hangover antidote
Usually, Jonathan fell asleep swiftly. Not tonight. When his eyes shut, he was a teen again, trying and failing to convince O’Hara he didn’t need to take ballroom dance lessons from his mum—and especially not one-on-ones with him!
He opened his eyes to the dark hotel room with a shiver.
His phone blared light into his face. A dozen new pictures popped up on his homepage from the attendees in the bar, all smiling, laughing, arms thrown around one another in camaraderie.
The attention-hogging Sapphire Twins. Mira—looking gorgeous and perfect once again—and Giant George, who’d made his name in the world dwarfing everything with his massive height and build to humorous effect.
O’Hara.
He’d been snapped on the arm of a couch, head bowed, staring pensively into his glass. Probably the only moment he’d stopped smiling.
Jonathan stared at the photo for a ridiculous period. Cursing his lack of restraint, he surged out of bed, redressed, and returned to the golden warmth and buzzing discussion of the bar.
O’Hara was pacing the couchless end of the U, hands behind his back, head tilted in dream-like thought. He wasn’t a tall man, but a certain energy brightened his step; every glance gave the impression he was equal to anyone’s height.
Jonathan slunk to the bar, ordered his second drink of the night, and quietly settled himself in his earlier armchair. His solitary corner was shadowy, and within hearing distance. He’d come to observe, to satisfy his itchy curiosity.
O’Hara hadn’t noticed him—one of the Sapphire twins held his attention—and Jonathan was glad of it.
“. . . strength. When you meet someone, nothing is more powerful than the energy that courses through you. It can keep you functioning all night, supplies endless motivation to act and achieve things. The first time I fell in love, I was suddenly strong enough to lift her up and climb stairs. I was mentally sharper, wittier. I aced all my exams at a mere whisper from her that I must.”
“Strength,” O’Hara hummed. “But by the same token, isn’t it also weakness? When you love and are not loved back, or when you’re dumped, you’re hurt, pained. You agonise over what you did wrong or why you aren’t enough. You forget to eat, or eat too much. Work means nothing anymore and gets abandoned. You become a shell of yourself.”
Jonathan clutched the arm of his chair. The passion in O’Hara’s voice . . . he’d experienced heartbreak before?
