Dad cut her a dismissive sneer. I felt it scrape across my spine and tried not to wince. “When?”
“When I was eighteen. They flew me out for a weekend shoot.”
“And you’re positive it wasn’t Scotland?”
Forks scraped against plates. I desperately searched for something to say.
Please, I thought. Get me out of here. Get me to Ireland.
* * *
Cam looked up from her email when I walked into our apartment. “Your undergrad friend emailed me back. She’s going to sublet for the summer.”
“Great.” I flopped down on the couch.
“Whoa.” Cam’s head snapped up. “You’re wearing pearls. And a cardigan. Dinner with the Sullivans?”
“Yes, and it was just darling.” I unhooked the line of freshwater mussel irritants and slung it across the room into my shoebox of jewelry. “I can’t get to Ireland soon enough.”
“Any news on the football front?”
“Yes! I got an email on the way up to my parents’. I’m going to meet with Mike O’Connor tomorrow.”
“Oh, good.” She paused, and then said in her attempting-to-be-delicate voice: “Have you thought what you’re going to do if he says no?”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if doesn’t give you permission to dig?”
I waved a hand. “Come on, he’s a first-string Leopard. He doesn’t need a little non-functional farm in Ireland.”
“Yeah, probably. Though, you know, it wouldn’t be awful if you stayed here this summer. I mean, if you stayed in one place for longer than six months, you could probably even date.”
I laughed. “I’m way too busy to date anything other than my carbon.”
“You’ve already made that joke,” Cam said, a little more acerbically than I thought warranted. “What about that guy in your program that you got lunch with yesterday? How was that?”
I shrugged. “It was fine. It was lunch. I had a strawberry gazpacho soup. Pretty exciting.”
“Oh my God.” Cam stepped over the back of the couch and dropping down on it. “Nothing happened.”
“What was I supposed to do?” I pushed my shoulders back defensively. “I smiled. We talked.”
“See, this is why you don’t have a boyfriend. You were probably all chummy when you should have been, you know, cute.”
“Hey.” I waved a hand down the length of my body. “What about this isn’t cute?”
Cam shook her head. “I just don’t even know what I’m going to do with you.”
“It’s not my fault. It’s not like I’m friend zoning everyone, they’re friend zoning me.”
“Well, you’re helping them right along.” She leaned forward, bracing her hands against her thighs. “Okay. Here’s the plan. We’ll call it Operation Irish Boyfriend. You find an Irish boyfriend.”
“Great! What’s the plan?”
“That’s it. Go and find a boyfriend.”
“Hey, I’m finding a connection between ancient Rome and Ireland. I need a more detailed plan than that. I expect it in my inbox by Thursday.”