Page 2 of Irish Fire and Forbidden Love
“Not if I can help it.”
I could tell from the look on her face she was also thinking about Old Bill.
“You don’t exactly have the money. Didn’t we try raising money last year? And that was just for repairs. We needed like five grand and we failed. What do you need here? Fifty?” She grabbed my taped up 2015 open mic fundraiser poster.
I remembered that day. We made over five hundred dollars. A success in its own right, but it had also failed getting me the funding for repairs we desperately needed. I’d used all the money, then ignored the rest. Convinced that money would come rolling in in no time.
“Yeah, but that was then, this is now.” I took the poster and left the office.
The bar was quieter than it had been, but that was only from the absence of any music. Joe, one of the regulars and often tipsy guitarist, stumbled off stage and toward the door. He was cradling one of the pub’s guitars like a precious newborn.
“Joe!” I called, racing after him. I grabbed the guitar. “What do you think you’re
doing?”
“Taking my property home.”
He pulled the instrument back, but I pulled harder, forcing him to release his contraband and causing me to ricochet back, and collide with a tall and handsome man entering the pub.
“Oh, come on, Maeve!” Joe slurred, but he didn’t move.
“Are you alright?” asked the man, who helped me up.
“Yes, I’m fine. Thanks.” I brushed myself off, then turned to Joe, “Just because you got to pick out this guitar doesn’t make it yours. You do that again and you’ll get banned from open mic.” The words came out harsher than I intended, but with the recent unfolding of events and then my body pressed into a stranger, Ibarely had time to think, let alone be my normally even-keeled self.
Joe’s face crinkled, and he shook his head. “Oh, Maeve. I didn’t mean to offend you. I just wanted to take it home. To practice?—”
“Just stop it.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Have a goodnight, Joe,” I said and set the guitar beside the bar as I dropped into a bar stool.
Joe muttered something that seemed close to a “goodnight,” then left the bar. The curious bystanders had gone back to their drinks and the cackle of voices reverberated across the space. A guitarist came up and requested to use the nearly stolen instrument, which I agreed, and then grabbed myself a beer.
The stranger sat beside me. In an American accent asked, “Raising money?” He looked at the poster crinkled in my hands.
I stared at the poster, then at Eliza who was back behind the bar. Our eyes locked and then I said, “We are. Next Thursday. All donations go to saving the pub.”
“Saving it from what?”
I turned back to the man, who had the most striking green eyes. They were like mossy pools beneath a shaded sun. Warm and inviting. I wanted to swim inside.
“Family stuff,” Eliza said after my long silence.
My cheeks went hot, and I turned back to my beer. To say it had been a long time since I’d been with a guy was the understatement of the century.
It had been years.
Ever since I’d moved to Ireland, and that had been a way to flee a relationship. I’d always meant to be with someone, but with working and owning a bar, it was easier just to push it off to another day, another week. Now, I couldn’t remember why I’d preferred the isolation. Why I’d let myself stare up at the ceilingfor hours, allowing the hum of only my breath to ease me into sleep.
“Family always has a way to work its way into our lives in the most inconvenient ways,” he said, chuckling.
“Feels that way,” I said because I didn’t really want to get into my whole mess, but I also didn’t want him to stop talking. There were plenty of Americans who came through my pub, but none of them spoke to me like a person worth knowing. My family barely did that, but this guy did. And those eyes— he kept them hard and focused on me.
“Can I get an amber ale?” he asked Eliza. Then to me, with a smile, he said, “You know, it’s funny, I come all the way from America, and I’m still getting served by Americans.”
Eliza said in her Irish accent, “Not today, you’re not.”
He held up his glass. “Suppose that’s true, but you—” He turned back to me. Those mossy pools stared into my soul. Into the very fabrics of what I had made of myself. “You’re American, aren’t you? Do you work here…?”
“Yes, I’m American. I’m owner, well, part owner, counting my family, but I’m the only one who lives up here. Not that I didn’t try to get them to move up here.”
