Page 74 of Last Call at the Local

She digs in the pocket of her coat, pulling out her phone and a tangled-up pair of headphones. “Sorry they’re the wired kind. I had a nice pair of wireless ones, but, you know.”

“I don’t mind.” Especially if it means she’ll have to stick closer to my side.

She pauses beside me, muttering to herself as she untangles the headphones. Once she’s gotten them in order, she passes an earbudto me and places the other in her ear. She frowns at her phone as she scrolls, then finally chooses a playlist. The music is calm and electronic. I don’t think it’s in English, because I don’t understand it.

She tucks her phone back into her coat pocket. “Do you know this one?”

“I don’t.” We walk in silence as the music plays, but I can’t focus on it. All I can think about is her guitar, and how tomorrow morning I’ll be driving all the way to Dublin to pick it up. When the song ends, Raine pulls out her phone again, and I realize her hands are bare. “Where are your gloves?” I ask.

“Oh, I don’t know. I lost them,” she says. “It’s fine, though, my coat pockets are warm.”

I halt in the middle of the pavement, and she stops too. I take her bare hands and warm them between my gloved ones. “What am I supposed to do with you, ciaróg?”

“Whatever you want.”

I let go of her with a laugh, then pull off my gloves and slip them over her hands.

“But you’ll be cold,” she says. “And I’ve already stolen your hoodie.”

“You said I could do whatever I want with you. And what I want is to give you my gloves without you complaining about it.”

She smiles up at me. “Is that all you want to do with me?”

“That’s a ridiculous question,” I say.

“Why?”

“I think you know why.” I put my arm around her shoulders and pull her to my side as we walk.

We let the music fill the silence on our way to the waterfront. When we get there, we lean against the railing and look out at the dark water ahead.

Raine turns to me when the song we’re listening to ends. Shetakes my hands and presses one against her cheek. “You’re freezing.” She looks at my hands and blows hot air on them.

“Why’d you get ‘Last Call’ tattooed on your knuckles?” she asks. She pulls me closer and tucks my hands into her coat pockets, even though I have my own coat pockets. But I’m not about to remind her of that.

I sigh. We’re so close that I can’t tell where her cloud of breath ends and mine begins. “I got it right after Da died and I decided to move home and run the pub. As a joke. To lighten the mood. Didn’t really work, though.”

Raine is quiet for a moment. “You didn’t have a good relationship with him.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“You don’t have to talk about it,” she says. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

Normally, I wouldn’t talk about it. Normally, I’d say,We didn’t see eye to eye, and leave it at that. But Iwantto tell Raine. I want her to know, even though a part of me is terrified that when I tell her what my da was like, she’ll start to wonder if I’m capable of the horrible things I think, if I’ve got some genetic predisposition for evil. I couldn’t blame her if she did. I wonder the same thing.

“He was violent,” I say. “At home.”

Raine stills. “Oh.”

“He was charming and funny too, especially at the pub. For a long time, I wondered what we were doing wrong to make him act so different at home. He and Ollie always got into it the most, but things didn’t get any better once Ollie left.”

“Was that why Ollie left?”

I nod. “He tried to convince Mum to leave and come with him when he went to culinary school, but she couldn’t go through with it. I didn’t know that until after Da died. I really looked up to Olliewhen I was a kid. And then when he left, I never heard from him again. I had no idea... I spent years thinking he just forgot about me, or that I’d done something wrong.”

Raine steps closer and rests her head on my shoulder, and it makes it easier to keep talking, because I don’t have to watch her expression. I don’t have to worry about mine.

“After Da died, me and Mum were going through his stuff when I came across some of Ollie’s things. I must’ve said something about him, I don’t remember what, and that’s when Mum told me about it. I’d spent fifteen years upset with Ollie, only to find out I had everything wrong. I remember Mum asking me if I was okay, but I just got up and left. I walked for hours, not even thinking. Just walking.”

---