Chapter 8 #2
But she’s not going to dig into my past. Not now. Not ever.
Awkward silence descends over us as she stares forward and chews her lip, like she’s having a whole conversation in her head.
I’m sure she wouldn’t like it if I reversed the question on her.
Pestered her about her dating history and love life.
As far as I can tell, the girl doesn’t date very often.
And when she does, it apparently doesn’t go well, if Instagram posts from prats on campus are any indication.
She seems much more focused on obsessing about everyone else’s love life.
What on earth could she possibly gain from matchmaking people? And why all of this focus on falling in love? She could use
her irritating, helpful tendencies for so many other things, but instead, she chooses to funnel it all into meddling in other
people’s love lives.
Yet another thing I don’t understand about this girl.
But I know better than to ask any of these questions. I already know too much about Everly Fletcher. More than anyone realizes.
“You better head inside. You don’t want to be late for your own party,” I state, pointing to the pub entrance.
“Okay,” she says as we both slide out of the SUV. She tightens the flannel wrapped around her waist. “See you in there?” She
says it like a question, like she doesn’t believe I’m going to join her. Like I might just bugger off back up the mountain
and forget all about this party tonight because she poked the wolf and the wolf bit back.
For some strange reason, the thought of disappointing her needles something inside me, so I nod and offer a half smile over
the hood of her car. “Yeah, I’ll be right there. I’m just going to pop next door and poke around a bit. I’ll see you in a
few, Stretch.”
She smiles at my use of her nickname. Like it soothes her in some bizarre way. She gives me a little wave before heading toward
the door on the pub side, so I walk over to the grocery side, my mind wrecked with how weird this is all becoming.
In less than twenty-four hours, I went from barely speaking to my sister’s American roommate to snarling at her on the plane and to now worrying about disappointing her. I’d better get a fecking grip.
The bell above the door jingles as I walk into a shop that feels a heck of a lot different from my parents’ shop. The scent
of pine and beef jerky hits me as I make my way down the aisles, perusing what they have to offer. It’s not much, but there’s
some fresh produce in one area, milk, snacks, and canned goods in another. Not to mention alcohol and tobacco. I head over
to the health and wellness section, where I find a few bars that look like they might contain protein, so I grab a couple
and continue down the aisle in search of some pain meds. My lungs are still burning, and this headache I’ve had since my run
doesn’t seem to be leaving despite the copious amount of water I drank. It’s then that I stumble upon a very different section
of the store.
The adult section.
More specifically . . . condoms.
Or “johnnies” as we sometimes refer to them in Ireland.
I realize that I did not pack any of these, and I wonder if I should grab some while I’m here, just to be safe. It’s not as
if I know any women in the area, and I’m certainly not going to let Everly set me up. But once I start working out with the
team, it’s possible we could start going out after training. Or maybe I meet someone next door at the Mercantile. Things happen,
and it’s always good to be prepared.
My sex life at Trinity was decent. Nothing outrageous, but I did a proper job of making up for the time I lost growing up
as a scrawny kid through most of my younger years. Even in secondary school, when I finally shot up in height, I was still
so thin my mam used to say I could fall through a crack on the pavement.
Playing rugby changed that.
The weight room became a second home to me. Pair that with team training, and after a couple of years, I could finally fill
out a T-shirt and shorts decently.
The girls took notice of that at Trinity.
They took notice of the whole rugby team, if I’m being honest. Whenever we won a home match, there would be these giant “house gaffs” or house parties as they refer to them in America.
The houses were packed, messy, and loud, and all I really had to do was show up, sit on a sofa, and nurse a beer before some lass would come over and join me.
Socializing is easy when you realize all anyone ever really wants to do is talk about themselves. I’d let the girl tell me
her whole life story, and then eventually, we’d be snogging our way out the door to wherever her flat was.
It was meaningless and just a bit of fun. That’s all I was ever looking for because it was college. No sense getting tied
up in a serious relationship when our lives had barely started. I had enough to manage with my sport and my studies. The last
thing I needed was a relationship taking my focus off that.
It’s why Everly’s matchmaking shite on campus irritated me so much. Why did an eighteen-year-old American think she knew all there was to know about love?
Trinity College | Dublin, Ireland
Four Years Ago
“What’s your relationship status, Conri? If I had to guess, I’d say you have a bench full of ladies you sub in whenever you
feel like it. Am I right?” Everly Fletcher sits down beside me at Mulligans Pub with a furry notebook in hand, brows arched
with cheeky challenge.
When I say nothing to the annoying American girl I was paired with for a class project, she asks, “Bench full of guys, maybe?”
My gaze sharpens.
“Definitely heterosexual. Good to know.” She scribbles in her furry notebook, her mouth quirked with excitement.
When she’s done, she drags her gaze up and down my body.
“How tall are you, exactly? You know what? It doesn’t matter.
Any guy over six foot two wins everything.
You could list ‘just vibes’ for your career aspirations on a dating profile, but if you’re well over six foot, girls will say that makes you mysterious, not lazy. ”
I lean in just close enough to see that peach gloss on her lips. “You done talking yet?”
“Not even close,” she chirps back. “I want to invite you to my first speed-dating clinic I’m hosting here at Mulligans. The
girls would flip if I had a rugby guy show up. I know I could match you with someone amazing!”
I look her hard in the eyes. In those bright blue and naively innocent eyes that make me ache for the fact that I’ve never
looked at the world like it was all shiny and new, and reply, “There’s absolutely no way in hell I’d participate in your matchmaking
shite.”
“Why not?” she asks, leaning in close enough that I can smell her perfume. “It could be fun.”
“There is nothing fun about sitting at a pub table being forced to talk to someone on command like I’m a trained dog.”
She leans close and gives me a wee poke on the chest, bathing me in her scent for a second time and causing my cock to twitch.
“But what if you find the love of your life? Then wouldn’t that little bit of awkwardness be worth it?”
I trace the place she touched on my body and release a breath that’s weighted and full of way too much shite for a guy in
his first year at university. “Maybe some of us don’t deserve a happily ever after.”
Present Day
I scoff and shake my head at that memory.
Everly’s whole personality was matchmaking, which just angered me.
Love doesn’t protect you from being poor or struggling.
Doesn’t mean that your life is worth it or that you’ve achieved your goals.
It angered me that she thought happily ever afters were the be-all and end-all for everyone.
This American girl flittered around that university pub like she was somehow divinely gifted at finding love for people. It
was laughable. She even had a poster up on their pub wall for her dating clinic schedule at Mulligans. Ridiculous.
The craziest part? She did it all for free. It was clearly something a girl with too much money and not enough real-life problems
did with her free time.
Cut to my sister becoming roommates and fast friends with her our final year to now with me living just meters from where
she sleeps at night? It feels like the universe is having a proper go at me because no matter how hard I try, I can’t escape Everly Fletcher.
And if I want to get my brain off her and the way she subtly needles me for information while blinking that doe-eyed look
at me, or how she absentmindedly licks her lips when she’s thinking, or how her clothes show off just enough to give a view
of her curves, but not enough to be blatantly trying to show them off . . . I need to get with someone else the first chance
I get. Preferably, someone who isn’t obsessed with happily ever afters.
I reach to grab the box of condoms and freeze when a deep voice growls behind me. “I’d think long and hard before you grab
what you’re about to grab.”
My back tenses as my fingers brush the box of johnnies.
“At least he’s being smart,” another voice grumbles, this one deep as well, but a touch more playful.
A third chuckles. “It’s not smart to buy these here. The whole town will know before he’s even checked out.”
“So long as he’s not thinking about being smart with anyone we know,” the first voice chimes in again.
I slowly lower my hand and swallow the knot in my throat before turning around to face whatever fucked-up small-town shite I just dropped myself into with very little effort.
My eyes lift to find three broad, bearded beasts standing shoulder to shoulder, shooting daggers at me. They’re dressed in
various shades of flannel, all three of their arms crossed over their chests like they’re guarding the gates of hell, and
I know instantly . . . these are the Fletcher brothers.
And they’re scowling at me like I’m the shite they scrape off their boots after a long day wrestling mountain lions. Right