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“Áine,” he replied, all formal and pleasant.
“Fancy seeing you here.”
“Ah, you were only down the road.”
He laughed. “Is that what we’re calling ten-thousand miles these days?”
She smiled and then another moment of unsureness passed. Or maybe it was unfamiliar. The ritual of reacquaintance no matter how adored both parties were.
To quickly contradict, it was Áine who abandoned the facade of stiff pleasantries and banter to move first. Move away from her giant, clingfilm-wrapped suitcase and across the bar with successive silent steps until she was all but on top of him, her head stiff into his chest as the wind knocked out of him and the drowning feeling returned all at once.
Iombhá.
Whether it be relief or elation or something he didn’t have a word for yet, Fionn held her tight, arms cradling both the top and bottom of her arched back. She shook beneath him.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he muffled into her curls.
“Christ. Neither can I! You’ll have to excuse the absolute state of me after travelling over.”
He drew from her, forcing the wordsthank younot to come out and sought something more settling. “C’mere, I’ll fix you a drink, yeah?”
“Please.”
Sitting opposite one another at a corner table, the other staff had begun to count the till, wipe down the bar, upturn the chairs onto empty tables. Even the band was packing up, letting a Dermot Kennedy tune play over the radio to soothe the stragglers.
“Do they mind us being here,” she asked, her eyes scanning all the people about their quiet business.
Fionn meandered his hand through their untouched pints of Guinness, just on the cusp of their settle. Taking his guide, she rested her own atop it. “I’ll be locking up so there’s no rush on us. The owners are sound that way.”
With her slight hand, she grabbed the pint that almost looked too heavy in it.
Taking his own then he said, “I suppose we’re having a cheers.”
“For what? For comin’ all this way?”
“No. Jesus,” he laughed. “For graduating I mean!”
“Ahh, I’ve a long road ahead of me,” she said with a modesty that didn’t suit her.
“Yeah, but you did it.”
The day Fionn left wasn’t just a pivotal one for him, but also Áine. It was the day she decided to invoke real change in her life. It was the day she went to the Credit Union and took out a student loan. After which she contacted DCU to re-enroll and to her surprise, they kindly accepted nine weeks into the college year. It was the turning point by which she told Paddy she would only work three days a week. Most importantly, it was the exact point shechoseto be vulnerable. Chose instead of another pressuring her into it.
“I start in two weeks by the way. I got the email on the flight over with the details. An apprentice in an actual solicitor’s office. Thank you for arranging that by the way. Your sister-in-law sounds lovely.”
He shook his head. “Thank me for nothing. It was the least I could do considering you picked up your entire life to move here.”
She paused and took to gently clenching his short hair he wondered if she liked in person. “Fionn, I didn’t move as a favour to you. I did it because I couldn’t spend one more day of my life without you. It’s been nine months of near torture.”
“Torture, really?” He smirked, and so did she.
“Not torture then. No. But certainly a longing.”
“Well I longed for you too, and since I don’t have to do that anymore I suppose I’ll just love you.”
Áine held the rim of her pint to her mouth, the froth threatening to smear her lips for her waiver of words. “And I suppose we’ll be getting married in the morning then.”
“Ah.” He grinned in temptation. “Knowing me I won’t get around to doing that until we’re dead.”
