In the Unlikely Event

It looks like something out of folklore, a tale my late father would have told me in another life.

“What’s keeping you, Rory?” Mal turns around mid-stride into the pub and catches me crouching down on one knee, squinting and aiming the camera at him.

“Make love to the camera, gorgeous,” I say in a creepy, old-man voice, expecting him to tell me to quit it.

Instead, Mal breaks into a huge grin, covers an imaginary blowing-in-the-air dress, and sends a kiss to the camera, a la Marilyn Monroe. Only his dripping masculinity makes it look one hundred percent hilarious and zero percent feminine.

Click. Click. Click.

I stand up and walk over to him. He offers me his arm. I take it, too tired to resist.

“Is this where you live?” I motion around us. “In this village?”

“Just under that hill.” He runs his fingers through my hair to pull it out of my face, and my spine tingles in unexpected delight. He smiles, because he notices. “With all the arsehole sheep I told you about earlier. You’ll meet them in a bit.”

“I have a flight to catch tomorrow.” I clear my traitorous throat, which keeps clogging with all sorts of emotion.

“So?”

“I can’t stay long.”

He stares at me with a mixture of confusion and mirth. I think this is possibly the first time he’s been rejected. Then he does the unbelievable and reaches to run his thumb over my birthmark, staring at it, mesmerized.

“How’d it happen?” he asks, his voice so soft, it sounds like it’s fading.

I feel so warm I can practically sense the sun beating down on my skin, even though it’s cold and gray out.

“It didn’t. I was born with it.”

“You were, huh?” His thumb drags from my temple to my lips. Was he expecting some crazy story about a car crash or a freak accident?

I pull away.

“Anyway, I can’t stay. I have a hotel booked in Dublin.”

“I’ll drive you back to check out.” He snaps out of his weird trance. “You’ll be staying with me tonight.”

“I’m not going to sleep with you. Over my dead body, remember?”

He cups my cheeks in his hands. They’re rough and confident, an artist’s hands, and my heart thunders with newly found pity for my mom. Now I get why she slept with my dad. Not all Casanovas are slimy. Mal isn’t.

“Don’t let your feelings get in the way of facts.”

“Meaning?” I frown.

“Just because you don’t like the fact that you’re going to sleep with me doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen.” He brushes his thumb over my lips. “And just because we’ve only met doesn’t mean we’re strangers. Do we feel like strangers?” he asks, jerking me to his body.

No. No, we don’t. He feels like he’s never left my side. Like I carried a tiny part of him with me from the moment I was born, and now that he’s here, we can fit the part I kept with the rest of him, like finishing a puzzle.

I gulp, but say nothing.

“Exactly. Now, you’re cocking up our perfect meet-cute. Geena Davis is rolling in her grave.”

“Geena Davis is not dead, Mal!”

“Come, Madame Semantics. Let me feed you.”

Three corned beefs and a shepherd’s pie later, Mal points at me with his half-finished Guinness pint—his fourth. I’m still nursing my first vodka Diet Coke.

“You wanted to ask me something.” He squeezes one eye shut, like he’s zeroing in on me with a gun, licking the white foam of the Guinness from his upper lip.

Here goes…

“I came to Drury Street on your granddad’s advice. He knew I was Glen O’Connell’s daughter. He said you’d be able to tell me more about him.” I study his face carefully.

He takes my hand, flips it, and trails the lines on the inside with his finger. The little hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

“I used to go to Granddad’s church every Sunday when I was a kid. Glen lived behind it. He’d let me listen to his records. He taught me a few notes and helped me string a sentence together when I started writing songs. Taught me how to bleed onto a page. So, yes, we knew each other quite well. Well enough for him to tell me he’d kill me if I ever touched his daughter.”

Huh?

“The other one.” He shakes his head, laughing when he sees the look on my face. “Not you. God, Glen would have died on the spot had he met you in person. He would’ve appointed an army to protect your virtue.”

“From you?”

“And the rest of Europe.” He smirks.

Is that his weird, Mal way of telling me I’m pretty?

“Why didn’t Granddad send you to Kathleen, Glen’s daughter? She lives right down this street.” Mal frowns, finishing off his pint.

Kathleen.

My sister’s name is Kathleen.

The penny drops, and he realizes I didn’t know her name.