My Life in Shambles(15)

“Well, it was nice to meet ye both,” I tell them, raising my empty glass at them. “I wish ye both a happy new year.”

“No,” Angie practically hisses. “Don’t leave on account of me.” She glances at Valerie. “The last thing I want to do is be a cockblocker.”

I can’t help but grin at that, and again Valerie looks embarrassed. It’s hard to tell where her skin ends and her hair begins.

“Seriously,” Angie says. “Stay. Stay here. I’ll go find Sandra.” She reaches over the table and snatches up her purse. “Valerie, text me later. Have fun tonight. Love you.” She says this a mile a minute, and suddenly she’s gone, like she vanished into thin air and it’s just Valerie and I again in the alcove.

“Wow,” I remark, watching her get swallowed by the crowd. “I would have thought she was going to tell me to get out of here.”

“She’s usually a lot tougher than that,” Valerie says after a minute. “I thought she would have given you the third degree.”

“So why didn’t she?”

She gives me a quick glance and smiles. “I guess she trusted you. Or trusted me.”

“Or maybe she thought I was good for ye.”

I expected her to blush even more at that, but she doesn’t. She just gives me another smile, this one soft, and I feel it in my gut.

I want to be good for her. This redhead from Philadelphia, the writer, the one with the body that won’t quit, the one who lacks any armor right now, who is saying yes to the moment and not thinking about the future. I want to be good for someone, now, while I can.

“Do ye want to get out of here?” I ask her, knowing I might be too presumptuous but also knowing it feels like there are no rules tonight and the shy beautiful girl might just want to be with me.

She licks her lips in thought, her eyes on her sisters by the bar who are now drinking and throwing us quick glances. Then she meets my gaze. “Yes.”

I know what that yes means.

An adventure.





6





Valerie





What the hell am I doing?

One moment I’m nursing my bruised ego over a cider, the next the stranger who had bruised said ego is buying me a whisky and asking me about my life.

Now he wants to get out of here, and while I’m not sure where, I have an idea, and I said yes.

Something tells me this resolution of mine is going to get me into nothing but trouble.

The odd part is even though I’m usually a bit socially awkward around guys, it’s not the case at all with Padraig. And I should be. I mean, he’s the most enigmatic, sexy, commanding man I’ve ever had the pleasure to be around. His accent makes me melt, especially how he says “you”—even his damn name is sexy (it’s pronounced “Pawd-rig”). I should be an awkward puddle of mush around him, knocking over drinks and saying stupid things.

But so far I’ve managed to hold it all together. Aside from the out of control blushing, of course—there’s no helping that.

I get to my feet, ready to follow this Irishman, this stranger with a name, and only then do I realize how damn tall and big he is. I’m not short by any means, around 5’7”, but Padraig has got to be at least 6’4”. It’s not even just his height though, it’s the space he takes up. I can tell he’s got muscles to die for and a frame that can take a beating, both probably a prerequisite for rugby, but he has a way about him that makes him seem larger than life.

Everyone in the room knows it, that’s why they’ve never stopped glancing over at him the whole time he was talking to me. I know I’m nothing to sneeze at, and that to some guys my excessive curves are more of an asset than a hindrance, but I still can’t help but feel I have to be way out of this guy’s league. He’s a rugby star here, he’s probably used to having hot models on his arm all hours of the day.

But he chose to talk to you, I remind myself before I get carried away. He didn’t go off with them, and even when they were throwing themselves at him, he chose you.

I take in a deep breath from my nose and steady myself, pushing those thoughts of being unworthy out of my head. It’s been a long battle with my self-esteem ever since “the accident” when I was six years old, and only recently did I start going to a few therapy sessions hoping to get a handle on my body dysmorphia, my trauma, and of course, my family. I’m working on it, I guess that’s the important part.

“Shall we?” he asks, his delicious accent and the warmth in his voice putting me at ease. With my jumbled thoughts and sensitive heart, that’s not always an easy thing to do.

“Sure,” I tell him as I follow him through the bar.

How funny it is that he even has warmth in his voice. When I was observing him from afar, I could have sworn he’d be cold as ice. That’s why I was so reluctant to approach him. And I guess he was cold, at first.

But even though there’s a wash of sadness that seems to pass over his dark eyes from time to time, whatever thing he was dealing with earlier seems to have been pushed aside. Maybe I’m distracting him from his problems as much as he seems to be distracting me from mine.

In fact, the last thing on my mind right now is my hot mess of a life. All I can think about is him.