My Life in Shambles(50)

“And so what do you do, Valerie?”

I blink and look up from my beer to see Alistair staring at me expectantly.

“What do I do?”

“For work and such. Though perhaps you’re a kept woman. I wouldn’t be surprised. I’d do the same if I had the luck to be with Padraig. He’s so dreamy, ain’t he?” He reaches across and pinches Padraig’s cheek.

“Oh, sod off,” Padraig says grumpily, batting his hand away.

“Ah, well, I’m a writer,” I tell him.

“Oy, a writer? My god, no wonder you found Padraig. There isn’t any money in writing,” he says.

I hate to well actually him but… “Well, actually, until recently I was a full-time writer for an online newspaper.”

“Online? And they paid ye?”

“Very well,” I lie. So it wasn’t great pay but there were benefits, and that was good enough.

“And then what happened?”

I was hoping he wouldn’t ask. “Uh, I’m just writing freelance now.”

He winces. “Oof, that’s got to be hard.”

“Well, actually,” Padraig says, and I can’t help but smile at that. “Valerie is extremely talented, so it comes easy to her. Right now, she’s writing an article about falconry.”

“You McCarthys and yer crazy birds,” Alistair says with a shake of his head as he pours himself and Padraig another pint. “You should write about rugby. You’ll get way more hits. Hey, or ye can make a sex tape. Those always go over well when there’s a rugby player involved. Sell that and bingo.”

“Speaking of money,” Padraig says, changing the subject since I’m already blushing at the mention of a sex tape. “How’s the business going here?”

“Oh, just brilliant.”

Padraig looks at me. “We’ve always been rivals, ye see. Up this way outta town, there’s just his hotel and our B&B.”

“He may have the birds, but I have the booze.” He takes a sip of his beer and grins. “That said, it is January and if we don’t get any guests soon I’ll be pulling a tenner out of a leper’s arse with me teeth.”

I burst out laughing. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“We have many ways of putting things, sweetheart,” Alistair says with a shrug. He raises what’s left of his beer. “Here’s to a better tomorrow, then.”

We raise our glasses, clinking them against each other.

And we drink.

And we drink.

And we drink.

Before I know it, I’ve actually finished three pints and I’m about to explode. I head over to the ladies’ room, which they call “the jacks,” and when I come back, Alistair is going around the room, dimming the lights and pulling all the curtains shut and locking the door.

“What’s happening?” I ask, sounding slightly panicked, my mind immediately thinking we’re back in the States and in some kind of lockdown situation.

“It’s called a lock-in,” Padraig explains. “The pubs here have to close by eleven-thirty so this is one way of getting around that.”

“We make it look like no one is home and the party continues. Ain’t that right, boys?” he asks the other three men who have remained.

They do a drunken cheer in response. “Yaaaaay.”

“Shhhh!”

“In other words,” Padraig says as I take my seat beside him. “You’re one of us now.”

“One of us, one of us,” the men start chanting, slamming their fists on the table.

“Shhhh!’ Alistair hushes them again.

“One of us, one of us,” they say more quietly.

I beam at them, not so secretly thrilled. Even though it’s silly to think you belong because you’re locked in an Irish pub, it hits right through to the heart of me. I’ve never belonged to anything before. My whole life, I stuck out like a sore thumb. I was bullied and ridiculed for just being a little bit different. I was too eager and afraid for friends. My family never made me feel like I belonged with them either. Angie was the smart one, and Sandra was the pretty and outgoing one, and I just … I was the one who was crippled and flawed and weird and withdrawn, and so many things, things that I know my mother never hoped for when I was born.

And later in life, I did what I could to make friendships, but I wanted, I needed, them to be something more than shallow, and yet I had such a hard time converting that. I had a hard time opening up. I just wanted to look as perfect as I could on the outside to hide how imperfect I was on the inside.

But here … here in this pub, here with Padraig, I don’t feel I have to hide. Which is ironic, considering I’m supposed to be living out a lie and half the things coming out of my mouth aren’t true.

They said I was one of them.

For now, I’m just going to believe it.

I put my hand on Padraig’s knee and give it a light squeeze as I lean in, breathing in his woodsy scent, feeling the heat of his neck. I whisper in his ear, “Thank you for making me feel like I belong. Here, with your family, with everything.”

He turns his face to mine, eyes brimming with intensity as he looks deeply at me, and captures my mouth in a soft, warm kiss, as sweet and tender as anything.