Page 52 of Dark Ink

“Shh, my little Raglan Road girl.”

Rian

My dream girl was finally in my arms. And it was perfection.

Or at least it was until she started thrashing and pounding against my chest.

It wasn’t exactly the way I’d imagined waking up beside my little Raglan Road girl: the rage-filled eyes on the verge of tears, the quivering snarl, the angry flush on her cheeks. It was louder than I expected. More painful. And certainly more clothed.

“I was supposed to go home, you dipshite!” Eithne kicked at my shins, shoved at my arms that had just seconds before been wrapped tightly around her as she slept against my chest. “This is all your fault!”

I rolled on top of her and grabbed ahold of her wrists, pinning her legs down with mine. She thrashed to get loose, but soon collapsed when it was clear I would not let her up. Her angry breathing fluttered the dark strands covering her face, falling across her pink lips.

“What’s the problem?” I said as calmly as possible. “I can drop you off home now if you like, no bother.”

Eithne cursed me out. I would have let her keep going, wear herself out again, but there was Mason and Rachel and God knows who else leftover from the wedding downstairs. I already had enough people keeping a mistrustful eye out on me; I didn’t need more.

I corralled Eithne’s wrists into one hand and clasped my other hand over her mouth. Her eyes flashed daggers.

“Eithne,” I said, staring down at her as I tried not to get hard at the feel of her soft warm body underneath mine, “what’s wrong? You’re fine. Nothing happened last night.”

She growled something incomprehensible against my hand. I lifted it to let her speak.

“Exactly!” Eithne repeated. “Nothing happened! I was supposed to go home and paint something for class today which is in one fucking hour and because of you I have nothing! Nothing! You fucker! You—”

I muffled her again with my palm. I considered the dilemma as I tried to keep other things from my mind. Like how much I liked the fiery red of her cheeks and the feel of her vibrating with rage under me. How my palm was wet from her lips, from her mouth. Blood rushed to my groin.

I stood and heaved her over my shoulder. She screamed and pounded her fists against my back as I carried her across the little peaked attic room on the very top floor of Dublin Ink with nothing but its spare mattress and dust motes. She thrashed against my back and threatened to send us crashing back down to the dusty floorboards as I hoisted her up the ladder to the roof.

The blast of icy morning air was like a slap to the face for both of us. Eithne stilled as I set her down. She shivered in silence as she watched me spread the old canvas tarp across the small rooftop patio, little more than a few square feet of cracked concrete between four rusted fences. I knelt beside the forgotten tins of paint we stored up there, excess from when we redid the downstairs before opening the tattoo parlour. My fingers went numb prying them open with a nearby crowbar.

Eithne glared at me as I set the tins of paint in front of her and stepped to the centre of the canvas tarp.

“What the fuck is this?” she asked.

Her voice was a snarl, but she hadn’t left. Hadn’t stalked past me. Hadn’t run for the bus. I knew she wouldn’t.

“Do your homework, Eithne,” I told her as I opened my arms out at my sides.

She arched a dark eyebrow at me before glancing around her. We were at least a floor above all the surrounding buildings of the neighbourhood. Beneath the clouds above twisting with slate and gold, we were entirely alone. The wind nipped at our exposed cheeks and the tips of our noses.

“I’m leaving,” Eithne threatened, though she did not move from her spot.

“You’ll fail your class,” I told her. “How will that look on job applications?”

“Because of you,” she snapped. “Because you can’t let me go. Because you keep dragging me back into your life. You didn’t have to give me that B-. You didn’t have to force me to come here last night.”

“I didn’t force you. You chose to come here,” I told her.

Her chest began to rise and fall more rapidly now. I was stoking the flames the cold had momentarily extinguished.

Eithne said through gritted teeth, “I’m not playing this game.”

“What game?”

“This,” she waved her hand between us, “us. We’re never going to be together.”

“We’re together right now.”

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