And linen. And Irishness.
Kate’s text came after a pause: I hate you. All I can smell is my cube mate’s nasty body spray.
Jamie smiled.
That’s what you get for putting professional development over our friendship. I’ll let you know what happens. For now, I have some hardcore flirting to do.
She set her phone aside.
She glanced over, seeking that handsome face, and was embarrassed to find his eyes already on her. Busted. She lifted her glass in a little toast and took a sip. It tasted so right. So much better than her first round somehow.
She shed her zip-up and shoved it in her bag. She was wearing her favorite top, a slouchy green scoop-neck tee that looked good with her with her dark hair and eyes and performed true miracles with her modest cleavage. No sense stifling its powers. Plus she suddenly felt rather warm.
Jamie’s barman sidled up after delivering a whiskey to her neighbor. “She jealous, your friend?”
“Very.”
For a long moment he held her eyes, one corner of his lips curled with unmistakable mischief. She expected some offhand remark, but when he spoke, all that came was, “What’s your name?” Three simple words, but loaded somehow in his hushed, conspiring tone, warmed by that melodic accent.
She swallowed. “Jamie. What’s yours?”
“Connor.” He offered the silliest of gestures, miming a curtsy with an invisible skirt. She laughed.
“And what brings you to the dullest pub in all of Country Cork, Jamie?” Connor asked, organizing lemon wedges in their bin, forearms flexing. Down, girl.
“I’m staying at my mom’s best friend’s house for a week and a half.” Best to not say she was house-sitting, solo. Gorgeous or not, this guy was a complete stranger.
Connor bopped his fist against his palm, squinting in concentration. “Donna,” he declared, snapping his fingers. “Donna Jameson. She’s your ma’s mate?”
Jamie laughed. “Yes. How did you know that?”
“Only American I know of who lives round here.”
“Oh, of course. Yeah, she and my mom grew up together.” Jeez. A realization struck. Jamie had packed up and moved cross-country for a man, but Donna had moved across an entire ocean for her husband. Not me, no, thank you. No more following anybody’s map but my own. Then again, an Irish accent did mess with a woman’s good sense...
“What about you?” she asked. “Are you from around here?”
“Grew up here, but I live in the city now.”
A city! Swoon. Take me there. She needed it like a grounded fish needed water.
“When did you land?” he asked.
Jamie pretended to check an invisible watch. “Five hours ago?”
“Ah, very fresh then.”
She eyed him. “So you live in Cork?”
“I do.”
“That must be quite a commute, just to come bartend.”
He shrugged. “Only a half hour’s drive, plus it’s the family business.”
“Was that your dad who served me my first round?”
Connor nodded.
“I could tell. You have the same eyes.” Blue, she guessed, though it was hard to confirm in this lighting. Pale, at any rate, and bright as a river sparkling under the summer sun. Fucking dreamy.
“I tend a bit of bar in Cork, too. And I fix up cars and motorbikes on the side.”
“Busy boy.”
“Saving up,” he said, lifting her glass to run a bar towel across the wood.
“What for?”
“College. Engineering.” He strung the towel through his belt loop.
“I thought college was free here. For citizens.”
“Tuition is, but registration fees and rent and petrol add up.” He pursed his lips, something guilty in the gesture, then told her, “I had a bit of a squandered youth. I’m playing catch-up these days.”
Aha. A formerly delinquent hot Irish bartender looking to make good. He probably picked up some tricks in his so-called squandered youth. Sex tricks. Jamie wouldn’t mind making those tricks’ acquaintance.
“Squandered how?” she asked, and sipped her stout.
“The usual rubbish. Drinking, trouble, spending too much time underneath fast cars...and trying to get underneath fast girls.”
She laughed.
Connor smiled, reflecting that funny mix of humble and shameless she’d expected of Irish guys. “Can’t say I was always so successful with the latter, but no one could fault my efforts.”
“Sounds like a youth well squandered to me,” Jamie said. “I just wasted over two years of mine playing house with a guy who didn’t pan out, so irresponsibility sounds pretty attractive.”
“If you’re going to make mistakes, I suppose you may as well make fun ones,” Connor offered.
She lifted her drink in a toast to this wisdom. After a pause, she found the balls to say, “So you’re trying to make good now—does that mean you traded in all the fast girls for one nice, slow one?”
“Nah, not yet. I may be through chasing women, but I’m not ready to stand still with one either. I’d be quite happy to find the right lass to just walk alongside for a while.”
“Good plan,” Jamie said, liking that image—the natural, easy pace of it. “I pretty much signed up to play housewife for my ex way too young. Put everything I had in mind for myself on hold. I probably need to find some momentum while you’re busy cooling your jets.”
Any reply Connor might’ve volleyed was cut off by a patron’s request for a refill. After delivering it, he busied himself running the glass washer and organizing the bar and register. Jamie watched him with stolen glances, and twice their eyes met. Even wordless, the flirtation buzzed—excitement mixed up with nerves and shyness, shaken until it fizzed.
When his tidying brought him back into Jamie’s orbit, Connor asked, far too innocently, “So, how long since you and this bastard ex of yours split up, then?”
“Three months or so.”
“I, em, I hope you at least made up for lost time.”
“Not really.” Not remotely. “I was in too much of a panic, figuring out how to get myself moved back to Boston and enrolled for classes again, and finding a job to pay for it
