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Saoirse

 

 

 

My da was twenty minutes late picking me up from the Garda station. I tried not to let my annoyance show as I slammed the passenger door shut behind me.

“How did it go?” he asked as we drove off.

Flashes of Diarmuid and our fight went through my head and I flushed, anger burning under my skin. If I was honest with myself, lust too.

Damn him.

Why did Diarmuid have to be so damn…damn beautiful.

I almost snorted. Even if he wasn’t built like an Irish giant, as handsome as a high king, he’d still get under my skin.

You have my skin.

And you have mine.

I shrugged and stared out of the window into the dreary autumn. Leaves of the trees that lined the sidewalks were all turning. Autumn used to be my favourite season. Used to be. “Fine.”

“That JLO of yours is trouble.”

I snapped my face towards my da and blinked, studying his face. Did he know that Diarmuid and I had a history?

“Why do you say that?” I asked as casually as possible.

My da grunted, his eyes flicking between me and the road. “Just a feeling…”

My da was lying.

I shoved that thought away. Why would my da lie to me? He wouldn’t. I was being paranoid. Diarmuid was making me paranoid.

“Well,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest, “you don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be careful what I say around him.”

My da nodded, his shoulders relaxing a touch.

“Hey,” he said, a smile lifting the corner of his mouth. “Why don’t we order a takeout pizza for dinner and watch a movie tonight?”

My heart flipped. Diarmuid and I used to do that.

Stop comparing anything everyone does to Diarmuid.

I forced a smile. A father-daughter night.

“That sounds great.”

We got back to the house and Da ordered pizza while I went up to have a shower and change into more comfortable clothes for hanging out.

It’d been almost four weeks since I first arrived. It was true that my da had been out of the house a lot since I’d come to live with him, hardly ever coming home for dinner. I woke up and he was asleep. I’d go off to my café job before he woke. At night he was never around and I made dinner and ate by myself in a lonely house, the TV on in the background for the noise.

Strangely, I missed Dublin. I knew people there even if I didn’t really call them friends. Here I was all alone. Knowing only my da.

Well, and now Diarmuid.

God…

Diarmuid Brennan.

My stomach flipped. Of all the twists of fate in the world…

Somehow, he seemed more rugged, more masculine to me. Or perhaps I was now looking at him through the eyes of a woman. When I was thirteen, all I wanted to do was to curl up next to him. But now…

As the water ran down my body in the shower I couldn’t help but think of how Diarmuid’s hands might feel on me. Even though the water was hot enough to make tea, a shiver ran down my spine.

I came downstairs after my shower in sweatpants and a long-sleeved t-shirt. It was early October and the nights were getting cool.

My da was hanging up the house phone. “Hey, pet. I didn’t know what you liked so I just ordered two supremes. Malachi’s going to pick it up on the way here.”

It wasn’t going to be a father-daughter night, then.

Malachi was the cute boy who’d been here on the day I arrived. He’d been around here a bit since I moved in. But always when my da was around. We still hadn’t gone for that bike ride yet.

“Oh, okay. What’s on a supreme?”

“Beef, onions, mushrooms, peppers, olives…”

Diarmuid always ordered pizza without olives for me. “Um, I don’t like olives but it’s fine. I can pick them off.”

My da fell into the couch, grabbing the remote. “What shall we watch?”

The doorbell rang before I could answer. “I’ll grab it.”

I opened the door and found Malachi at the threshold, holding two large pizza boxes in his hands. He grinned when he saw me, his eyes giving me a once-over. “Hello, beautiful.”

He held the boxes to one side as he leaned in to give me a kiss on the cheek, his mouth lingering on my skin, his breath smelling faintly of cigarettes underneath the rush of sweet mint.

In the living room, with my da taking up the armchair, Malachi sat next to me on the couch, closer than he needed to. I noticed my da giving us both the eye but he didn’t say anything.

“What do you want to watch?” he asked, flicking through the movie subscription channel.

“What about the latest Batman one?” I suggested.

My da wrinkled up his nose. “Aren’t you a little old for superheroes?”

I didn’t think you could ever get too old for superheroes. I sank into the couch and said nothing more.

My da stuck on some shitty war movie. I was hardly paying attention to the film. I was too engrossed with remembering how I used to watch movies with someone else.

And when Malachi’s arm went around me, a thread of disappointment went through me because I wished he was someone else.