AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, isn’t it lovely,” she mused over the cheap laminate. “Look at that, Dennis, lovely isn’t it. The nicest of all of them over the years I’d say. We’ll have to hang it up, won’t we?”
“I suppose we will, yeah,” he said, his attention drawn to his watch in what was surely the anticipation of some match he feared missing the start of.
With little else to say, they left Áine to the devices of her night out with her classmates, a departing gesture from her dad of ten euro passed into her hand when her mam wasn’t looking. “For the taxi home,” he whispered.
***
Áine and her friends found themselves in the one pub in town that didn’t mind the vomit and bullshit of eighty-odd teens due to the revenue. This alone made it no surprise to Áine to see the majority of her year already packing the place with reminiscent stories spilling from their drunken mouths.
With little stories of her own to share, the only way Áine fit in was she’d dressed the part; a decision that made several of her classmates look at her when they never would have in school.
Her shoulders pulled back, making her jawline stronger, because it actually made her feel nice; a trait just one person, one boy, had considered her in the entirety of her life.
Leaving her friends to their flirtatious banter with a crowd of older boys in Adidas jackets, Áine made her way to the snug bar. The transition of blaring speaker music to nothing was jarring on her suddenly ringing ears.
“What’ll you have?” asked the young bartender to her chest.
Áine looked down too before answering. “A Guinness.”
“A glass?”
The snug is still oppressive then.
“Did you ask that to any of the men who ordered before me?”
He rolled his eyes, which had at least managed to drag them away from her chest. “So a pint?”
They’ll get stuck up there if you’re not careful, she was tempted to say in possession of her mother’s voice. “Please. Yeah.”
Rummaging through her tiny shoulder bag she took out the loose twenty euro she’d saved from her 18th birthday two weeks previous. There was a note written onto it with blue pen from a long past owner:John silage trailer banjaxed.
“Will you be getting blackcurrant in that?” came a voice from behind Áine was tempted to accuse of burning ears because of how recent she’d thought about him.
The temptation slipped away as she smiled, because for what the bartender had asked genuinely in his piggish disposition toward women, the voice behind had known better.
Turning, she reigned in said smile as best she could and folded her arms with a suave unfitting to herself. “Jesus, you’re as bad as the guy pulling the pint.”
“Why, what did he do that was as bad as that?” Fionn asked all casual with an arm on the bar like they were good friends who had intended to meet up this way.
“Hold the presumption that I’m inept with the task of drinking a pint of Guinness. It’s exhausting. Look at me. I’m fit for fucking bed just for ordering a pint!”
He did just as she asked; Looked her up and down in one swoop. His cheeks turned a little flushed despite a seductive stare dilating his eyes.
Áine edged into the bar, not expecting it, the power it gave her. How hot and constricted it made her insides.
She veered into the old habit of pleasantries, “Fionn.”
“Áine.”
He leaned past her, tapping the bar for both their drinks as he handed a fifty over to the barman.
“Did you just buy my drink?”
“Would you prefer I didn’t?” Fionn asked with a hint of panic in his eyes replacing the seduction. At least they weren’t sad like how they were in the church.
“If you want to spend a fiver on me” she started, more lax in her stature, “I’ll say thank you and not lose sleep over it.”
She dropped the twenty back into her bag.
