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Pulling from his touch to offer him her vulnerability on a plate, he ultimately beat her to it. “I should have kissed you that night on the riverbank,” he told her in a heaped breath between their mouths.
He was right about that.
“I knew you were crying,” she told him, possibly being too honest for the first time tonight. “That night. I saw you crying before I ever came over.”
Fionn edged back from her with what was surely shock making his touch that little bit firmer on her neck.
She continued, “It’s obviously silly saying it now, that I pretended not to recognize you when I did. I was building myself up to approach you, pacing like a maniac over by the streetlights across the way. I guess I was conflicted, torn between my own embarrassment and worried about the way you were looking at the water.” Áine felt all her words come out loose and heaped. “That’s how I remembered the night. When you said about Blind Boy and the men of this country jumping into rivers. That’s what I was afraid you might do. It was some concoction of prerequisite to guilt and envisioning a world without you in it that gave me the courage to actually walk over and speak to you. I think I was willing to take the hurt of your inevitable rejection if I got you home safe that night . . .”
Áine didn’t say this to embarrass either of them, but mostly so he’d know how she had risked her vulnerability once before for him. To offer him respite from his constant pain.
Whatever rigidity had overcome him quickly left, and his fingers drew into her hair, not with anger but fervently, taking bunches of it into his hands. “When you called my name in that fight, and came to sit with me that night at the riverbank when most wouldn’t bother their arse. . . Christ, I knew the issue was me and never you. You were always there for me when I needed you, and at the church—”
“The church?” She frowned, unable to recall that either.
He carried on, “Seeing you tonight, honest to God, it makes me wonder how much influence you’ve subliminally contributed to who I am. Or, well, who I manage to be above the old intrusive feelings of worthlessness.”
The word ‘worthless’, it nauseated her. That he could actually think such a thing about himself.
Urged to protest, Áine’s words were stunted by a sudden knock at the front door. Both their heads swivelled in unison to it, near cheek to cheek while their hands returned home to their own bodies, falsely listless despite humming from adrenaline.
Then came another knock. One of code only Áine could know the meaning of; three consecutively. A pause. Two more.
She sighed so hard her lungs begged for instant replenishment. “For fuck’s sake.”
Can’t have five minutes of peace without someone wanting something from me.
Fionn fixed his hair behind his ears and pulled the sleeves of his hoodie back to the wrist so whoever it was wouldn’t be suss to their shenanigans. “I thought ye’ were full for the night?” he asked.
She sighed. “Yeah we are, we are full. It’s the bloody—” She didn’t want to say it outright. She wasn’t even allowed really. “Just say nothing, please. Pretend you’re supposed to be here.”
“I don’t know what that means, Áine,” he called after her with a strain.
To be fair, neither did she.
She left him at the foot of the stairs with all her sexual desires and improbable futures to ready herself asWork Áine.
“Hello. We’re getting cold out here,” a soft southside voice called from outside the door. A voice that sounded resolutely false. She knew this because the owner’s voice in question had once told her it was part of the act, to create distance. To protect who they really are.
Áine entered said act from stage left, pulling the stiff lock over and plastering on her diligent work smile, all teeth. HerNo Fucking Funny Business Smile, as she liked to call it. Thenshe pulled the door open and quickly beckoned them in off the street, like the B&B was a secret safe house amidst war.
Trina led, sheen wooden cane first, followed by a leather boot up to her thigh that met the end of her furred coat. Behind trudged a man Áine considered not to be Trina’s usual type, or maybe regular was a more fitting word. A boy was also a more fitting word than man, considering most staff would ID the chap in Tesco for wanting a few cans of beer. His poor jawline didn’t help his case either, making him appear timid.
Sparsely wet off the street, Trina took to taking in the foyer like she’d never stepped foot in there before. She even went as far as to marvel at it as she slowly twirled, cane pointing to the chandelier above in a contradicting way that suggested she owned the entire establishment. Like she’d been holidaying at Lake Como and had brought back her boy toy of the week to the new abode because it was ‘love’ this time.
Áine folded her arms as she watched the woman, smiling.
“See, love. Exactly how I said to you. A palace fit for a Kerry prince,” Trina said as she shimmied from shoulder to hip at her guest.
The boy didn’t seem to care much for Trina’s theatrics or the misaligned height of her legs; one boot stilettoed, the other a near inch below and kittened. Mostly he seemed concerned with Fionn leaning against the reception where his shock persisted in a way that pressed all his wrinkles deeper into his forehead.
Áine scowled at him from afar to rein it in.
Trina must have seen it too. “C’mere young lad, I have a favour to ask of you,” she said to him, feline grin almost distorting her accent with a lisp. She strode to Fionn, power building with each bang of her cane off the dust-rising carpet. In a retaliation which made Áine laugh aloud, Fionn drew his elbow from the desk and stretched himself to maximum height, as if he was trying to primally protect himself from a woman whoreligiously collected her disability check every Wednesday from the Post Office.
“No thanks. I’m grand here,” he said without theh. “No tanks,” he’d said instead like a snooty child rebelling.
“Awh c’mon, I don’t bite . . . unless I’m being paid for it.”
