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I’ve fantasized plenty of times about meeting a cute local and falling into a whirlwind travel romance, but none of those fantasies ever began with the cute local catching me in conversation with a cat. “You can’t deny he’s very floofy,” I say. “It’s scientific.”
“Ah, yes. What we have here is the magnificentFelis floofyis, the fiercest and, dare I say, floofiest of felines.” When Sebastian chirps at him, he gives the cat a scratch between its ears before lifting his eyes to mine. “So the phone charger. Do you want to borrow it?”
Right.I tap my fingers along the screen of my dead phone with a sigh. “I don’t want to be a bother.”
“I know the owner,” the man says. “He won’t mind.” Before I can tell him not to worry about it, he reaches behind the bar, face twisting in concentration as he gropes blindly for the charger.
“Really, don’t trouble yourself. I’ll just—”
“There,” he says, a victorious look on his face when he sits back down, phone charger in hand.
I look from him to the charger. I don’t make a habit of borrowing other people’s things without asking. Hell, I won’t even touch them, not even if said thing is in my way and probably a fire hazard. (A lesson I learned the hard way after being screamed at in a hostel.) But the bartender is nowhere in sight, and I really do need the charger. I’ve already missed the last train to Cork, where the nearest hostel is located, and I have no idea how I’ll get there without my phone.
“And you’re sure the owner won’t mind?”
“Positive.” When the man holds out the charger, the cat takes a swipe at it with a paw. “Quit it, Bash.” The cat meows but leaves the charger alone when the man hands it to me. “There’s an outlet right there beneath the bar,” he says.
“Thanks.” I plug in the charger, and when the battery icon lights up on my phone, I feel both relief and dread. I can’t put off calling my parents for much longer. Maybe the cat can conjure up my missing things if I ask nicely enough.
I’m searching for a hostel with vacancies when the man shrugs off his coat and hangs it on a hook beneath the bar. He pushes up the sleeves of his black button-down, and I’m distracted by the colorfultattoos that cover his forearms. He must be heavily tattooed beyond his arms too, because when I look him over again, I notice the hilt of a dagger peeking out from the collar of his shirt.
I set my phone on the bar and turn toward him. “Do they all mean something?”
The man looks at me as if he has no idea what I’m talking about. Which, of course, he doesn’t.
“Your tattoos,” I explain.
“Oh.” He holds his arms in front of himself as if he’s never seen them before. “They do.” He stretches a forearm out on the bar. “This one,” he says, pointing to a portrait of a ginger cat with flowers around it, “is because I like cats.”
I scan his arm. There are so many tattoos that it’s hard to know where to start. A three-headed dragon. A pint glass. The structural formula of a chemical compound I can’t recall the name of at the moment because my brain has obviously stopped working. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”
He scratches behind one of Sebastian’s ears. “I’d never joke about my tattoos,” he says. “I really do like cats.”
I want to ask him more about the cats and if this tattoo is of a particular cat, but then Sebastian yawns and leaps from the stool. He crosses the pub and turns his green eyes back on us for a moment before disappearing into another room and out of sight.
“I think I bored him,” I say.
“Nah,” the man replies. “There must be something interesting about you. Sebastian doesn’t sit beside just anyone.”
Something about the way he looks at me makes my brain short-circuit. “Are you flirting with me?”
When the man laughs, it makes me want to laugh too. “I wasn’t, but I can if you’d like.”
I’m sure it’s a joke, but after everything that’s happened today,I’m feeling like a mess and not a hot one. Besides, it isn’t every day a gorgeous tattooed Irishman offers to flirt with me, joke or not. Who am I to reject the universe when it sends something good my way?
“You know what? That would be nice. I’m having a bad day.” I adjust myself on the stool to tuck one leg beneath my butt. “That’s if you’re serious about the offer.”
A smile twitches at his lips when he looks me over. “I’m serious,” he says.
I turn to face him. “Well then, let’s see what you’ve got.”
When he moves to the stool beside me, my heart ticks away like a metronome that’s set a bit too fast.
“If you’ll give me your hand, please,” he says.
“Why?” I drop my eyes to his extended hand and find that even the underside of his arm is filled with color. His tattoos are of things that shouldn’t go together but somehow do—two candy hearts, a pair of scissors, the ghosts from Pac-Man.
“Can’t say. It’s for the flirting.”
