Page 3 of Flourish By the Night

“It is Fionn O’ Rourke,” he confirmed. “Mind you, I don’t have a reservation, so I’m not sure how you’d know that.”

The unabating honesty rolled over Áine’s jittering lips several times before she pressed them together and sought the route of deflection, “Would you like a towel? We wouldn’t want you catching a cold.”

His hoodie, crested with the red and green of their local football club, was a darker shade of grey from the layer of rain on it. And though itwasa deflection, Áine really didn’t want him getting sick.

He raised his arm to decline.

The shabby gear bag slipped off his shoulder.

She used the brief distraction to enact her escape, twisting on both heels to swiftly make for the tiny linen closet behind, arms clenched by her sides until closing over the door with a bang barely louder than her beating heart.

The linen cupboard was rows of perfectly folded whites: white towels, white sheets, white pillowcases. Áine blended in well considering all the blood in her body had left to form a coup in her cheeks.

She wiped her sweating palms on the top towel of a barely sturdy pile before immediately tossing it into the laundry basket in the corner. It wasn’t even necessarily seeing him that had thrown her, or how it had upheaved her out of her loneliness near immediately, but the uttering of his name like she knew all his secrets. Like she knew his soul or at the very least, had hefty shares in it.

Fionn O’ Rourke.

Fionn O’ Rourke.

Fionn O’ Rourke.

She repeated it over and over as she paced the tiny room.

It had been six years since she last saw Fionn, on a night not unlike the current one. Not that the similarity had any significance, but it was only now that he’d sprung up out of the blue did she wonder how she’d forgotten him at all. It was as if he’d faded from her memory over time, though not because he wasn’t worth remembering. Definitely not. Which meant it was deliberate. It wouldn’t be the first time this happened.

And yet just by seeing him, she suddenly remembered what was said that rainy night;

“I kind of live in my own head because the world is a bit too much for me,” she’d told him. “And you . . . sometimes you manage to visit me in there, make me feel less alone for a while.”

She needed that so badly right now; someone to scoop her out of her loneliness. And if Fionn could be that person for even the five minutes it took him to check in, maybe that would keep the feeling at bay for another while.

Something similar to excitement and fear meshed together, lit up inside Áine from just the idea of that. Her pacing drew to a standstill as she clenched the smile on her lips and grabbed the towel.

“So, you want a room?” she asked before the door opened fully.

His elbow was propped on the desk, but he’d been staring at the clock and was forced to arch over his raised shoulder to face her.

“Well, yeah. If you have one, I suppose.” His bag slipped again, and he let it fall to the floor this time.

From the slight pink kissing his ears, she presumed the minor inconvenience of having it fall twice had embarrassed him. And while tempted to tell him it wasn’t a big deal, she worried it might embarrass him more.

She dropped the towel to flick through reservations for availability, her head swaying to skim the page’s notes. The minute tic made her grow incessantly annoyed because it encouraged a curl to keep falling over her vision despite blowing it away.

“Does it bother you much?” He asked.

She cocked her head to Fionn how her old Collie would do when she barked back at him.

Hunching a little as he did it, he pointed to the curl already fallen back over her eye. “The curl. Does it bother you much?

Áine gawked at him. Stared right into his eyes without any red finding her cheeks this time. It was a peculiar question to ask. If he was looking for small talk he’d have mentioned the weather like any other awkward person.

To answer, she slid her fingers through the knotted ringlets and dragged them up to tie.

His body inched a fraction forward. “Oh no, please.”

“What?” She paused, her hand still holding the bunch.

“It’s just . . .”

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