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Róisín fumbles for something to say and settles on, “Oh, I give up.”
“And cut!” I say, ending the recording. “Thanks, you two. That’s perfect.”
Aoife grins. Róisín looks skeptical. Sure, I’ll need to do a bit of editing, but this is exactly what I wanted to convey—camaraderie, family. Not some clean and perfect aesthetic. Somethingreal.
Aoife returns her attention to the newspaper in front of her. She drags a finger down a page of race listings, then eyes me. “You like horse racing?”
“I don’t know a thing about it,” I reply.
“Neither do I. Doesn’t keep her from talking my ear off about it,” Róisín mutters.
Aoife attempts to swat Róisín with the newspaper but Róisín dodges it.
“That’s right!” Aoife calls after them. “You ought to quit messing around or I’ll tell Jack you’re slacking off.”
Róisín only laughs and disappears into the kitchen.
“They know he wouldn’t give a damn,” Aoife says. “Jackie’s asgoofy as the rest of us.” With a sigh, she unfolds the newspaper on the bar again. “Now, Moneyball or Typhoon? Odds are 7-2, and 5-1 respectively. What do you think?”
I know so little about horse racing that those numbers mean absolutely nothing to me. “Typhoon sounds faster, but I’d place my bet on Moneyball.”
“Why’s that?” Aoife asks.
I shrug. “I like the name.”
“Moneyball it is.” She snaps the newspaper shut. “You’ll do good here. You go with your gut. That’s what Jackie’s problem is. I tell him that, but he just shakes his head.”
“I think maybe he should go with his head more. Then maybe he’d have hired someone who is actually qualified for this job.”
“Oh hush,” she says. “And stop worrying, will you? Jackie can’t make up his mind about hardly anything, but he seemed very certain about you. I haven’t seen him so upbeat about this place in a long time.”
I feel my cheeks flush. “I have no idea why.”
“Let me tell you something about that boy,” Aoife says. “He and Ollie spent weeks trying to find someone for this job, but Jack couldn’t decide on anyone. You shoulda seen Ollie, thought he’d start pulling out that beautiful hair of his if Jack didn’t pick someone soon. I’m always telling that man to mind his mouth, but he just shakes his head and tells me I’m not his mum.And thank God for that, I always say. I’ve got enough on my hands with my own three boys. I don’t need another, especially one with a mouth like that.”
She sighs, then folds the newspaper up and tucks it out of sight beneath the bar. “Point is, Jack’s picky about who he hires. He grew up in this pub. It’s been his whole life since his da died, and he doesn’t trust just anyone. So if he thinks you’re capable of the job, it’s probably true.”
“I don’t know...” I think about the chatty, open guy I met at thebar and don’t know how to fit this new information in with the picture I have of Jack Dunne. I’d thought he was like me, overly trusting to a fault, someone who would make friends with anyone. There’s so much I don’t know about him.
Aoife watches me, and I get the uneasy feeling that she can know things about a person just by looking at them. I’m unsure how to exit this conversation, but then I catch sight of Sebastian crossing the pub. “Should probably get a good video of him too, right?”
“If you say so, dear.”
I follow Sebastian to the side room with the long table. “Are you ready for your thirty seconds of stardom?”
It doesn’t take long to get some great footage. Afterward, he flops onto the floor beside the fireplace. “You’ve got the right idea,” I say, and sit down beside him. I tug off my boots so I can warm my feet, and at the sight of my avocado sock, remember my incident with Jack earlier in the day and laugh.
“You just don’t think, Raine,” I mutter to myself.
Sebastian meows and nudges my hand with his face, so I pet him with one hand and edit the video with the other.
“You’re a superstar, floofs. Want to see?” I say, and turn the phone toward him.
“I want to see it.”
Jack’s voice startles me. I turn and find him settling onto the floor beside me.
“It’s probably not that great,” I say, and pass him the phone.
