My Life in Shambles(12)

I’ve never turned around so fast in my life and I’m walking back to my sisters, wincing and cringing the whole way.

Sandra’s own cringing face looks like a Chrissy Teigen meme. “Uh oh,” she says as I approach the table.

“Sorry,” Angie says. “What a dick.”

“What did he say?”

I plop down on the stool and lay my forehead on the edge of the table. “I offered to buy him a drink and he said no.”

“But what did he say,” Sandra says again.

“He said, thanks for the offer but I’m all set,” I tell her, looking up with a groan.

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Angie says softly. “If it makes you feel better, he was watching you walk over here. His eyes never left you.”

“Probably realizing what a freak I am,” I grumble.

“And he’s still watching,” Angie adds.

“I should wave him over,” Sandra says, and with lightning quick reflexes I reach out and grab her arm before she can do any such thing.

“No,” I tell her. “Let’s just forget him. Okay? Please? I did the thing. I went over there and talked to him. He turned me down like he’s been doing to everyone else all night. It’s fine.”

Sandra gives me a sympathetic look. “I feel bad we made you do that.”

“Well, I didn’t have to and it was my resolution. So there you go. I said yes and a no came out of it, and well, at least now I know.”

“You’re taking this so well,” Angie says, sounding impressed.

I shrug and finish the rest of my drink in a few big gulps. When I’m done, I wipe my hand across my mouth. “Honestly these days, what choice do I have?”





5





Padraig





At first I thought the redhead was just like the rest of them. Either a fan of the game or a girl looking to score with someone a part of the game. Most of the time it didn’t matter who to them, it was just a matter of bragging rights.

She was gorgeous too, but most of them were. Oftentimes they were the ones who thought in terms of leagues and figured they were in my league and visa versa. I only thought of leagues in terms of rugby, the rest didn’t matter.

With her dark red hair, the color of leaves in autumn sunshine, and her pale, lightly freckled skin, I figured she was Irish. But the moment she opened her mouth, I knew she wasn’t like the rest of them. Her accent gave her away. American or Canadian, though I’m thinking more the States. It was rare that someone from there gave a shit about rugby, especially Irish rugby, especially me.

I still couldn’t figure her out and the alcohol coursing through me had slowed down my thought process. She had an angle that I just didn’t know of and didn’t trust.

So when she asked to buy me a drink, I said no, just as I’d been saying all night long.

No to free drinks, I can buy my own.

No to company, I’d rather be alone.

Yes, I’d come to this bar tonight, one of my local haunts, knowing that it was New Year’s Eve and it would be crowded, and that people would harass me. I knew that I wouldn’t have peace, yet after the phone call today and after the neurologists, there was no way I wanted to be at home alone. I had to be out where there were noise and people, even if I wanted nothing to do with it, even if I wanted to keep to myself.

But when I’d said no to everyone else, they’d just brushed it off. It was no dent to their egos. They had a funny story to tell, or they assumed I was gay, or they’d say I was an arse and forget about it.

With this girl, when I turned her down, it was like the light went out of her eyes. Her cheeks flushed with humiliation. My rejection embarrassed her someplace deep. I could almost feel the emotion rolling off her like fog off the Atlantic. It made me regret being so quickly dismissive.

Then, as she walked away, I noticed her gait was unsteady. Not from alcohol, but from favoring one leg over the other. It made her look even more vulnerable, like she’d been injured badly at one point, like she was a girl with stories to tell.

It made her look real.

Not the usual woman I came across these days, not the ones that knew me as fly-half for Leinster Rugby, Padraig McCarthy. A woman who maybe didn’t know who I was at all.

A woman who seemed to gather up courage to come talk to me, as if her courage was in short supply.

Now I’m sitting here, beer in hand, the music thumping in my ears, and I can’t stop watching her as she sits down with two other girls, both giving me dirty looks as the girl explains something to them, shoulders slumped. No doubt giving them the play-by-play of how I turned her down.

It feels wrong. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have been so dismissive of her, should have pulled my head out of my arse and read the situation a little better.

I tip back the rest of my beer and gesture to the bartender for another, shaking the moment off. It doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Not sure what really matters anymore.

But after I’m done with the next beer, after a drunk guy asks me for an autograph which I scribble hastily on a napkin with his girlfriend’s eyeliner, after the bar seems at capacity, I find my eyes drawn to the redhead again.

This time she’s alone. Neither of the girls who were with her are there and she’s sitting there, back to me now, looking small and swallowed up by the crowd where people are desperately fighting against their loneliness for the night. It looks like she’s embracing hers.