Chapter 10 #2
In fact, Sweeney was so damn proud of it, she decided to share it from the Banshees Insta account to her own Insta stories before she went to sleep that night.
Her grid wasn’t an option. It was her own to do with as she wanted, but she used it as a professional space for carefully curated breathtaking scenery shots meant to inspire and motivate.
Her stories were different. She often used them for more personal titbits, knowing they’d be gone from public display in twenty-four hours.
She captioned it Coach Fin Murphy #kingofthekids.
In a text box she wrote: My home-town team. These little #BallyshannonBanshees are heading to an interstate #gaelicfootball competition in a few weeks. If you can spare a dollar or two to help them and their support crew get there, tap for more.
Sweeney was still high on compliments as she put her phone on charge and climbed into bed that night.
For a day that had turned out drastically different to the way it was supposed to, she felt remarkably good.
Yes, she was stuck in Ballyshannon for a little while longer, still fake engaged to her childhood bestie, but the excitement she felt about getting those photos right today hummed through her body like an exposed wire, fizzing and sparking.
When was the last time a photography session had been this … thrilling? She loved her job and it was such a privilege to be paid to go to some of the most stunning places on the planet. But it hadn’t given her this kind of buzz for a very long time.
And, a smile fixed to her face, she rode that buzz straight into the land of nod.
*
That smile was not on her face when her phone rang at just before six the next morning. She answered it without looking at who the caller was because she’d figured it’d be Veronica updating her on the situation. When one worked for a global travel bureau, time zones were inconsequential.
‘Sweeney?’
‘Mai?’ She wanted to say, ‘What the ever-loving hell, don’t you own a damn clock?’, but surely the other woman wouldn’t ring this early on a Saturday morning—or any day, for that matter—for something superfluous.
‘Oh my god, Sweeney!’
There was a certain level of screech to Mai’s voice that was like nails down a chalkboard. ‘What? Is everything okay?’
‘Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!’
Sweeney didn’t know if Mai was having a stroke or if she’d somehow woken up in an Archie and Jughead comic. ‘Mai Murphy, it’s not even six o’clock, I swear if you don’t start speaking in real words, I’m hanging up.’
‘The photo, Sweeney. Since you shared it on your stories last night, it’s gone viral. Like, exploded everywhere viral. The GoFundMe page has reached its goal and exceeded it by almost twenty thousand dollars.’
Sweeney sat bolt upright in bed. ‘What?’
‘Admittedly it was a fairly modest goal but holy shit, Sweeney!’
Holy shit indeed. Sweeney’s posts from her grid often went viral thanks to her three hundred thousand followers, but none of her stories had ever made such a splash.
‘How many impressions?’
‘Well, I obviously can’t see your stats, but the Banshees post has close to forty thousand likes and been shared almost a thousand times.’
Bloody hell. ‘Are you shitting me right now?’ Sweeney put the phone on speaker and navigated to her Insta stories. ‘Did Donny put you up to this?’
‘What’s Donny done?’ Fin asked, standing in her doorway all sleep rumpled.
Sweeney wasn’t sure if the audible ring on her phone had disturbed him or if he could hear Mai screaming from all the way in his room. Considering they’d no doubt heard her in Perth, it was probably the latter.
‘Would I shit you about this?’ Mai’s indignant tone echoed around the room.
Tapping on the stats for the story, Sweeney was gobsmacked to see it had almost double the likes Mai mentioned.
‘What’s happened?’ Fin demanded.
‘The photo—your photo—went viral overnight. Donations have flooded in and the GoFundMe page has now surpassed its goal.’
Mai, clearly not worried that Sweeney and Fin were talking, kept prattling in her ear, her excited chatter emanating from the phone in bouncy sound waves.
‘The DMs are flooded with media requests. From radio and newspapers and television. The ABC wants to send a news crew to talk with you guys at training on Monday afternoon. The Aaa, Bee, freaking Cee,’ Mai emphasised.
It was Fin’s turn to what. ‘What?’
‘There’s even a message from that Stephen Colbert guy, but I think that’s just one of those creepy old dudes trying to get me to take pictures of my boobs. Or a bot. Definitely fake, anyway.’
Sweeney caught Fin’s gaze. Fake. Just like them.
‘We can’t thank you enough, Sweeney,’ Mai said.
‘For taking those photos and sharing last night’s one to your stories.
We’ll be able to invest in new jerseys for all the kids now and freeze membership fees for a while, which should really help ease the cost burden on families.
And fix up some things around the grounds and the club house that have been neglected since everyone lost their jobs in Covid and then inflation went crazy.
We could maybe even make some headway on that second field Michael always wanted to do. ’
Still looking at Fin, Sweeney nodded. For as long as she could remember, a second field had been Michael’s big dream. But, as he was fond of saying, If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. And they’d made do with the one.
‘Of course,’ she said when she realised Mai had drawn breath and it was her turn to talk. ‘I’m just happy it worked out so well.’
‘Oh, is it wrong of me to hope that volcano I’ve never heard of keeps erupting?
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could stay for a few weeks?
You could go to the Gold Coast as our official photographer.
Hell—’ Mai laughed. ‘We could pay you now. Donny and I will be there. The four of us could go out to dinner together at some posh place on the beach. It’d be so much fun. ’
Sweeney didn’t ask how Mai knew about the volcano.
She’d only known about it and its ramifications for her travel plans for twelve hours and hadn’t told anyone but Fin.
And, of course, the mothers knew. No doubt Rhonda had told her sister and so it had gone on, spreading like wildfire through the family tree thanks to the WhatsApp group.
And, because Donny clearly knew, too, so would all of Ballyshannon by day’s end.
‘Um,’ Sweeney said as Fin threw her a what the look.
She shrugged. Like she knew what wacky shit married couples thought was a good time. Did Mai seriously think the four of them were going to get matching Murphy Time shirts and double date their way through the Gold Coast?
‘That … does sound … fun,’ Sweeney said slowly.
Fin cocked an eyebrow at her blatant lie and mimed her nose growing. He was lingering in the doorway with his shoulder shoved into the jamb. It was such a casually virile pose for a guy who didn’t have the typical attributes she associated with virility.
Casual or otherwise.
No super bulgy muscles. No linebacker shoulders. No thick chest hair peeping out the top of his shirt. None of the blatant machismo she’d seen aplenty on gym bros the one day a year she generally tortured herself with an exercise regime.
Yes, it was January 1st.
And yet, suddenly her body was very aware of his.
How tall he was, how sexy-spiky his whiskers had felt when he’d kissed her a week ago today, the smile playing on lips that knew how to draw a weird sound from the back of her throat, the thick fall of his hair and the way his shirt sat soft against his abs.
But more than that was his confidence. The way he lounged like that, so sure of himself.
The way he walked through the world now.
Not with the swagger of a conqueror but as though he was finally comfortable in his own skin.
Hell, if that wasn’t the most fascinating thing of all. It was just plain befuddling.
She shot him a cranky look. Partly for the Pinocchio impersonation, partly because damn it, why did he have to suddenly be so freaking virile?
‘I don’t think I’m going to be here that long, though,’ she said to Mai, pulling her gaze off Fin and her head back into the conversation.
‘Maybe not,’ Mai chirped, ‘but I’m going to be keeping my fingers crossed anyway. Now.’ Her voice turned brisk. ‘I really should go. All these messages aren’t going to answer themselves!’
After a quick goodbye, the phone went dead and Sweeney navigated to her Insta again to avoid looking at Fin.
She noticed her DMs had also blown up and gave them a quick scan.
There were the standard messages from friends and acquaintances about the actual photograph, the usual flurry of weirdos that ranged from requests for money to proposals of marriage or various sex acts, and those enquiring whether she’d consider photographing their wedding. For free.
This time, though, there was a surprising amount inquiring about the #kingofthekids and his relationship status.
‘Viral, huh? Go you.’
Sweeney flicked her gaze up, waving the compliment away. ‘I think that might have more to do with the subject matter.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘There’s a lot of people sliding into my DMs wanting the lowdown on you.’
Fin laughed then, when he realised she wasn’t joking, he straightened. ‘Really?’
Smiling at his incredulity, she started to read them out loud.
‘Damn, Sweeney, he can coach me any day.’ She scrolled to the next one.
‘Does Coach Fin have a significant other? If he doesn’t, tell him I’m interested in the position.
And then—’ Her thumbs worked the screen to find it.
‘There’s this one—Girlfriend, that man be fiiiine.
If you ain’t doing him a) you need to check yourself in for a brain scan and b) do you mind if I do? ’
For a moment, Fin stared in disbelief, then he burst out laughing. He had such a great laugh—deep and rich. Add incredulous into the mix and Sweeney couldn’t help but join him.
‘Oh my god,’ he said through his laughter. ‘Is it just me or do you feel like we’re living in a completely alternate universe right now?’
‘The one where you’re hot and in demand?’
He gestured up and down his body in a dramatic sweep. ‘That goes without saying.’
It was impossible not to smile at his level of confidence—or to recognise how much it cranked up his attractiveness.
All those years as kids when she’d assured him he would grow into his head and that teenage girls could be idiots and one day they would swoon over him had finally come true.
Coach Fin Murphy, king of the kids, had arrived.
She was both proud and also a teensy bit … jealous? Of all the women fawning over him now, when she’ d been in his corner all along.
‘I meant,’ he continued, ‘the one where we’re fully grown independent adults completely in charge of our lives, yet are somehow stuck back in our home town, in our’—he waved his hand in the air—‘childhood bedrooms, guilted into a fake engagement by our mothers, who told us our entire lives that lying never got anyone anywhere but, despite that, are later today going to the bakery for a cake tasting?’
‘Oh, that one.’ Sweeney laughed. Rhonda and Connie, who were supposed to be helping them keep everything on the down low, had not informed them of that little titbit.
Mai had innocently spilled it at training yesterday afternoon.
But the volcano situation had taken precedence over parents who had suddenly taken leave of their senses.
‘They’ll have us registered for a gift service next.’
‘It does feel a little surreal,’ she admitted.
‘Surreal? Please, we’re living in a Dali painting right now.’
‘The one with the spindly elephants?’
‘The one with the melting clocks.’
She laughed again. Oh yes, more appropriate given how warped time had become. She was in Fin’s old bedroom, for crying out loud. ‘Well, surreal or not, it’s our reality right now.’
He pushed off the door jamb and straightened. ‘Tea? Or gin?’
Sweeney grinned. ‘Tea.’ Although gin was pretty damn tempting. Who knew being fake engaged would turn them into alcoholics?