Page 108 of Last Call at the Local

Twenty-Six

Raine

When I arrive in Cork, Jack is waiting for me inside the terminal. As soon as I see him, I’m grinning, and when he sees me, he’s grinning too, and we must look absolutely ridiculous grinning at each other. If I weren’t so concerned about my gear, I’d drop it and run over, but I’m basically speed walking as it is, and I think I may have a literal bounce in my step.

As soon as he’s within arm’s reach, I drop my things on the floor and launch myself at him, hugging him as hard as I can. He squeezes the breath out of me when he hugs me back and lifts me off my feet.

When he sets me down, I tip my face up to his to tell him I missed him, but he’s kissing me before I can get a word out.

“Hi, Jack,” I say when we pull away from each other.

“Hello, Raine,” he says.

Jack insists on carrying all of my gear to the car. The backpack and travel case and guitar. I tell him to at least let me carrysomething, but he refuses.

“You always get to carry this stuff,” he says. “Let me carry it for a while. I can pretend I’ve just come back from my world tour.”

I laugh. “You’d make a very handsome touring musician.”

“I would, wouldn’t I?” He hefts the backpack higher onto his shoulders. “Jesus, this is heavy. What do you have in here?”

“Before I left Madrid, I stuffed as much Jamón Ibérico into it as I could.”

Jack only sighs and shakes his head as we exit the airport.

When we reach his car, I stand and watch as he packs my things into the trunk. In the six months since I left Cobh, I’ve mostly traveled to new places, but I’ve also visited familiar places to see friends, some from my old life, and some I’ve made since leaving the US. It’s been nice staying in someone’s home every now and then. Nice to see familiar places and revisit cities I loved the first time around.

But returning to Ireland feels entirely different. Seeing Jack feels entirely different. It isn’t the familiarity of a place I vaguely know or the excitement of catching up with a friend. Even when I travel to a place I’ve been to before, I always feel in flux. Everywhere is a pit stop to the next place. But Ireland feels like a destination. If my life is a song, then the places I’ve been are the verses, new and varied. But Ireland—Ireland is a chorus, something to return to again and again, a place to land.

Or maybe it isn’t Ireland. Maybe it’s Jack.

We talk the entire drive back to Cobh, though I’m not sure what there is to catch up on, seeing as we’ve been in touch almost constantly since I left. Even so, this is different. No wandering around for better signal. No time differences to keep in mind. No delay in the back and forth. He’s here, in the driver’s seat beside me. I can reach out and touch him, so I do. I take his hand in mine and don’t let go.

God, I’ve missed him.

St. Colman’s Cathedral is the first thing I see when we pass into Cobh. It glows above the town, as beautiful as I remember. Jack must see the excitement on my face, or maybe I make a sound (I’m toocaught up in the moment to know), because he laughs and squeezes my hand tighter.

“What are you laughing at?”

He glances at me, then eyes the cathedral. “I’ve lost count of all the places you’ve been in the last six months, and you’re all excited over our wee little cathedral.”

I gesture to it out the window. “It’s not little. And how dare you! That’s a great cathedral. Definitely in my top three favorite cathedrals. And that’s saying something, because I have seen a lot of cathedrals.”

“What’s it competing with?”

“Notre-Dame and Sagrada Familia, of course.”

Jack laughs so hard, I’m worried he won’t be able to drive. “You’re telling me that cathedral is right up there with Notre-Dame and Sagrada Familia?”

“Yes!” I try to look upset, but it’s no use. I still have that ridiculous grin on my face. I don’t think it’s disappeared since I saw him at the airport. “Actually, now that I’ve thought about it, I think St. Colman’s is number one. Sorry, Notre-Dame.”

Jack sighs. “Jesus, Lorraine. I don’t know what to do about you.”

“I thought you had an impossibly long list of things you wanted to do about me,” I say. “Maybe you should start there.”

Jack eyes me as he pulls into a parking space behind the pub. “Aoife and Róisín are working, if you want to see them.” When I glare at him, he laughs. “What’s that look for?”

“As much as I love Aoife and Ro, I did not impulsively buy a last-minute flight from Madrid to see them. If you don’t take me upstairs right now, I’ll die.”

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