In the Unlikely Event

The sky is a blue and orange velvet blanket. The scent of fresh earth rises from the concrete and trees, enhanced by the rain.

My head is still reeling from the hateful words Kathleen threw in my face like grenades.

Gold-digger.

Stray.

Whore.

“Earth to Rory.” Mal grabs a lamppost and spins around it like in the movies, jumping into a puddle and splashing me. “What’s eating you? Can’t be me, or you’d have a smile on your face.”

“You’re not funny,” I snap, still walking.

He catches my wrist and spins me to face him. We’re in front of his car. I don’t feel like driving. Or talking. Or breathing. I just want to go home, to America, with my tail between my legs, licking my wounds. I don’t have a family in Jersey other than Mom, and I sure as hell don’t have one here. At least I have Summer.

“What’s wrong? Did Kathleen say something to upset you?” Mal frowns, placing a hand on my shoulder.

A little voice inside my head tells me to keep my mouth shut about Kathleen’s Don Corleone speech—not because I want the best for her, but because I want the best for Mal, and he doesn’t deserve to know his childhood friend is a bitch. I have a twenty-four-hour shelf life in Ireland. I’m merely a smear of ink in the elaborate painting called his life. Why disrupt their relationship—if he’d even believe me? Besides, I saw how he looked at her. There’s no attraction there. Amusement, yes, but he’ll never be with her.

In a moment of sheer madness, I do something I’ve never done before. I slant my eyes toward her house, making sure she’s at her window, watching us.

She is.

Kathleen is messing with the top button of her cardigan. Button, unbutton. Button, unbutton. Her lips pressed together, her hawk-like eyes watching my every move.

Slowly, I raise onto my toes.

“Everything is mine. Nothing is yours.”

We’ll see about that, sister dearest.

I press my lips to Mal’s. Tentatively. Shyly. Uncertainly. I’ve never kissed a boy before. It was always the other way around. But I’m not here to enjoy the kiss. I’m here to prove a point.

His mouth, warm and soft, latches on mine delicately. He wasn’t expecting to be kissed. But he is molding into the shape of my body so we’re pushed against each other everywhere. Seconds pass. I watch Kathleen watching us kiss, my eyes wide open while Mal’s are closed. I drink from the well of Kathleen’s misery for long seconds before I sink down to the pavement, disconnecting from him. I peek behind his shoulder again. She is red, her lips so thin, they’re non-existent.

“No,” I hear Mal grunt.

I look up at his face, and something about it sucks the air out of my lungs like a vacuum. A black cloud passed over his features while I gave him that kiss. No part of him is playful or cute anymore. He looks like a demon, out for blood—thick eyebrows pulled together, eyes crackling with thunder, mouth twisted and sharp, like an icy storm.

“No?” I whisper.

“No. This is not a fecking kiss, and this is certainly not our first kiss.”

Before I know what’s happening, he pulls me at the waist and slams my back against his car. I arch and moan when his hands find my cheeks, my neck, my hair; they’re everywhere. He’s an octopus, wrapping himself around me, no longer molding, but conquering, and it’s crazy, but the rain stops abruptly, the sun peeking through the clouds.

The rays pierce my cold skin, and Mal does the rest of the job, pouring heat that swirls and dances in my stomach.

When our lips connect again, they don’t meet, they crash. He shoves his tongue into my mouth, growling. Our tongues twist together, roaming, exploring, fighting. He’s an animal, acting on a carnal instinct, devouring me like a beast. We kiss and we kiss and we kiss and boy, does he know how to kiss. He smells amazing, he tastes divine, and when his head drops to suck on my neck, my eyes widen as I remember Kathleen is still there.

She watches us through the window, tears rolling down her cheeks as her palm presses against the glass, ghost-white from the pressure she puts on it. I can feel the pressure of her touch like my skin is the glass.

Mal and I are no longer kissing. We are full-blown making out in the middle of the street, his lips closing around my tongue and sucking it into his mouth.

“Christ,” he mutters, moving his mouth to the sensitive flesh of my shoulder, dragging it up my chin and back to my lips again, still oblivious to our audience. “You burn under my fingertips, Rory. How do I give you up?”

Burn, I think. Strange choice of words, seeing how I’m always cold. But I feel it, too. The pull. The ache. It is not necessarily sweet or nice or called for. I’m aflame at the stake, a redheaded witch, watching his fire consume me.

I rip my mouth from his and mumble, “We can’t do this here.”

He kisses my mouth again. Then my nose. Then my forehead. He can’t stop. No part of him is in control.

“Let’s check you out of that money-sucking hotel and head back home. I want to spend every waking moment in you until you leave.”

“What?”

“With you. Get your mind out of the gutter, lass.”

“You put it there!” I laugh.

“You say carjacking, I say borrowing. Why are we still here discussing it?”

Dazed, I slip into the passenger seat of his car, fastening my seatbelt. Mal gets behind the wheel, revving the engine. He drank quite a bit of Guinness a few hours ago, yet he looks oddly sober. I look up one last time, catching Kathleen’s gaze. Her eyes are puffy and wet. It’s not in my nature to be a bitch, but it’s not in my nature not to fight back, either.

Mal doesn’t look back and doesn’t appear to notice Kathleen as he rolls down the road, taking a U-turn back to Dublin. Our hands touch, and there’s a moment I can’t explain. It feels like more than just our flesh links us. I tell myself it’s nothing, that I’m the only one feeling it, but then I slip my hand back between my thighs and we both shudder in unison, like someone unplugged us from an electric outlet.

To burn under your fingertips, I think, is to come alive.

During the drive, I realize what Father Doherty was talking about. I’m a gray squirrel‚ an unwanted pest who steals from the locals. The cunning, street-smart, diseased, rat-like thing. But villains are just misunderstood heroes. I learned that the day I realized my mother’s archnemesis—Glen—was the protagonist I wanted to meet the most.

I sit back and let Mal reach over, grab my hand, and lace his fingers through mine over the gearshift.

Life is too short not to kiss the one you want.

Midway into Dublin, I remember something. “Mal?”

“Princess?” he answers naturally, like we’re well-versed in conversations with each other.

“You said something was ironic, but never got to tell me what it was.”

“Did I?” He feigns innocence.

“Tell me.”

“Even if it’s no longer true?”

“Especially so.”

“Well, my name, Malachy, means angel, but Kath used to tell me I was the devil when we were teenagers, that I’d be the very thing to kill her one day. She was eighty-percent joking, I’m sure. I was always up to one shenanigan or the other. Climbing trees, lighting homemade torches, attempting to ride the cattle…”