Chapter Four #3
I tilted my head back, wrinkling my nose up at the sky. There was no reason to objectify the man, just because I’d felt that tug low in my belly even from the way he’d said that opening line. The bus not come? I liked the way his accent made that last word curl in on itself.
Maybe Mari had the right idea with her vibrator dates.
My brain was so far in the clouds—or in the gutter, more like—that I was truly shocked when I looked back down and saw the object of my thoughts stalking back across the street like he was almost angry. Uh-oh. Had he somehow read my mind?
“Here,” he said, dropping a brown paper bag next to me on the wall so forcefully it nearly tipped over and fell off the other side. “You take that.”
It was so abrupt, my first instinct was that I wanted nothing to do with whatever was in the brown paper bag. Who just threw a bag at someone? Not at me, to be fair, but still. Close enough.
“No thank you,” I said, picking it up to hand it back to him.
“Take it,” he insisted. “I’ll get another one.”
“I don’t want it.”
He muttered something under his breath that sounded like a curse, grabbing the bag from my hand. “We’ll share it, then,” he said, reaching inside to grab something, which he thrust toward me. “Here.”
It was half a sandwich, wrapped in wax paper.
I was—I realized suddenly, almost painfully—starving.
I couldn’t remember ever having a dream like this before, where I was so aware of my body and how it felt.
Those hunger pangs in my stomach, the way my palms still stung from the stone wall, even that lick of desire I’d felt for those few moments I’d watched this man walk away.
I had to avert my eyes as I took the sandwich from him, as though he might be able to see the hunger there that wasn’t only about food.
“Thank you,” I said, wishing that I didn’t sound so grudging. I really did appreciate the offering. He just made it so hard to appreciate when he made even kindness feel like a bit of an affront. I inclined my head toward the empty space on the wall next to me. “Feel free to sit.”
“What?”
“If you’re going to share your lunch,” I said. “You may as well sit down.”
He’d probably meant to head back without spending any more time with me, but I was gratified when he did eventually take the other half of the sandwich out of the bag and lean against the stone wall.
The sandwich turned out to be a simple egg and cheddar, with some kind of spicy aioli that made it practically gourmet as far as I was concerned.
I closed my eyes to enjoy the way the flavors blended together, hearty and tangy and full, and couldn’t help but give a little sigh as I swallowed my first bite.
When I opened my eyes again, the mechanic was looking down at the sandwich in his own hands like he didn’t know what to do with it.
“It’s really good,” I said. “Thank you again.”
He’d finally taken a bite of his own, so he just grunted in response.
“I’m Jess, by the way,” I said, then thought of the last time I’d introduced myself, the confusion that had ensued over what should’ve been the least confusing name.
“Short for Jessica, although I haven’t gone by that since I was in second grade and there were so many of us we had to add initials to the end of our names. So now I’m just Jess.”
His gaze slid over mine, caught briefly, before he looked away. It took him a minute before he swallowed and said, “Eamonn.”
“Eamonn?”
“Yeah, Eamonn.”
It was an unusual name, at least where I came from, but I tried to think of where I’d heard it recently. “Like Damon without the D?”
“Like Eamonn,” he said, “with two n’s.”
He’d already polished off his half of the sandwich, and he pushed himself away from the wall, like he was about to leave.
I really, really didn’t want him to leave.
It hit me then, where I’d heard his name before.
The odds were astronomical, like when you said you’d gone to a certain college and then people always wanted to know if you knew this person or that person who’d probably graduated years before in a completely different program.
But, well. I was already living in the twilight zone. What would be one more coincidence?
“Do you have a brother in America, by any chance?” I asked. “Niall?”
When his gaze snapped to mine, this time it was sharp and intent. “Why?”
The way he said that word, I knew it was a yes. “And you have sisters,” I said, struggling to remember their names. “Two older, Katherine and Siobhán.”
“Kathleen,” he corrected, but it seemed to fly out of his mouth automatically, like he hadn’t meant to say it.
“Right,” I said. “And then there are the youngest twins, something and Rachel. Claire? Was that it?”
I’d miscalculated. I’d thought this would seem kind of funny, a what-a-small-world type of moment, but I could see that I’d genuinely freaked him out. There was such tension coiled in his shoulders, and now he was looking at me like I was the dangerous one.
“How the fuck do you know that?” he asked. “Who are you?”