“Fine,” I said, lifting my hands in surrender. “I’ll get you a pint of Guinness.”
“Good,” she said smugly, making me smile like a dumbass.
I leaned down into her ear. “Whatever you do, January, don’t take a damn thing from these clowns. You hear me? We don’t really know them.” Her eyes were round in her head but she nodded. I sat back up and gestured to the others. “Pint, boys?” They shook their heads, their glasses over half full. Not half empty. Twenty-two years of Tie-Dye Tom couldn’t be erased so swiftly after all.
I approached the bar and ordered two pints of Guinness instead of my usual McEwan's Scotch Ale. She would have been toe up from just the smell of it if I’d ordered her that. I gathered the pints and made my way back to January, setting the stout in front of her face and waited for her reaction. She smiled widely and picked up the pint. She hesitated, looking at me before bringing it to her lips.
“Drink up, baby girl.”
“I am,” she said, furrowing her eyebrows. “Stop ordering me around.”
I sighed deeply.
She took a long, deep swig of the stout and her face contorted to impossible angles, making me laugh my ass off.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“I - I like it,” she answered, her face still slightly knotted.
“I can tell.”
She gave me a dirty look and I backed off, deciding to finally focus on the band playing that night.
They were just finishing up a lively tune when they shifted things a bit and started a deep, dark lament. January shot upright in her chair and grabbed my arm. “Molly Bán,” she whispered to me, never taking her hand from my bicep.
Molly Bán is a song of sad fates, a warning of sorts, meant for all young men.
Come all ye young fellows
That handle a gun
Beware of night rambling
By the setting of the sun
And beware of an accident
That happened of late
To young Molly Bán
And sad was her fate
She was going to her uncle’s
When a shower came on
She went under a green bush
The shower to shun
Her white apron wrapped around her
He took her for a swan
But a hush and a sigh
'Twas his own Molly Bán