Page 102 of A Very Un-Shakespeare Romance
Her mouth worked before she lifted her shoulder reluctantly. “Maybe for us, but I still would miss Tim’s impressions. What about you, Reagan?”
“Me too!” the little girl called.
“Me too!” Cassidy echoed, flailing her hands in the air.
Robbie leaned in to Lily. “You traitor.”
She started chuckling softly, her fingers tickling the muscles of his upper thigh.
“You are so going to pay for this later,” he continued in a whisper-soft voice.
She only laughed harder.
“Well, it seems we have a quorum,” Tim announced, holding out his arms. “Hear ye, hear ye! The bard wishes to speak on this august occasion. Lily and Robbie, I have memorized a special verse for thee.”
Reagan and Cassidy cheered and clapped as the rest of the bar grew quiet. Robbie was already grimacing.
“Speak, bard!” Lily answered in that same crazy theater accent. “We have wish to hear thy words.”
“I cannot believe your girl is egging our brother on,” Billie hissed.
Robbie raised a warning hand and locked his jaw.
Tim eyed the room, his Adam’s apple twitching in his throat the only sign he knew the potential peril he was facing.
“Go on, Tim!” Kathleen called out with a shrill whistle.
“Yeah!” Ellie followed up with a fist in the air. “We want to hear it.”
Robbie caught the gratitude in his brother’s eyes before he bowed, and it hit him that it had taken courage for his little brother to take the stage, so to speak, in front of every one of his older brothers. “Go on, Tim,” he finally said. “You know you can’t stop yourself.”
They shared a long look before his brother cleared his throat, shaking off that flash of vulnerability in his eyes.
“This verse is for my brother, who inspires great brotherly admiration, but I imagine it will also pierce the breast of both of these crime-fighting partners.” He drew himself up, his stature rising.“When the suspicious head of theft is stopped. Love’s feeling is more soft and sensible than are the tender horns of cockled snails.”
Lily put her hand over her mouth, chuckling softly. “I love the theft part, Tim,” she called.
“Cockled snails?” Robbie slapped a hand to his forehead. “How does that even make sense?”
“The words of Shakespeare are sometimes difficult for the layman to understand,” Tim responded cheekily. “But wait, there is more.”
Groans rained out across the pub amidst spurts of laughter.
“This one is for the fair and sweet Princess Lily,” he said, bowing with his hand pressed to his heart.
Robbie’s fiancée touched her hand to her own heart, a sheen of warmth coming into her green eyes.
“Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.”
Robbie felt something claw at his throat. God, his brother… He’d nailed Lily perfectly.
“That’s beautiful,” Ellie’s husband shouted. “We Irish understand that one, given how much rain we have. When the sunshine appears, it’s like heaven’s opened its own door.”
Brady McGrath’s comments only inspired more groans and chuckles.
“Thank you, Brady.” Tim shrugged his shoulders back. “I will be silent after this, I do swear.”
“You’d better,” Danny called from the bar, “or we’ll be using you as our dartboard later.”
