Chapter 3 #2
Thanks to my overbearing and seemingly scundered father, my phone’s turned off in my handbag. I tried to take off from Ballygally Castle without my sisters in tow, but that was the deal. Either they came with me, or I didn’t get to flee the scene.
Bláthnaid would have been right there with them if she didn’t go from the wedding to the airport.
She’s going to Canada with her ma to visit some family over there.
She’s been looking forward to it for months, and when she offered to stay and miss her flight, I know with all my heart she meant it, but I sent her to enjoy her trip.
A few friends offered to come along for a piss-up as well, but I didn’t want a big group of us to draw attention to ourselves. I mean, at least not more than this poofy, white dress in a bar on a Saturday morning will.
Aoife grabs a serviette and asks a passing server for a pen. She writes Hot Girl Healing at the top of the napkin and underlines it so much the pen tears through the fragile tissue.
Ouch.
“I can’t believe you played through the end of the season with all of this on your plate.” Clíodhna doesn’t come right out and blame me for losing the title, but there’s a look in her eye that says she remembers just how distracted and angry I was during the last few games on the pitch.
Hard not to remember how hot I was running considering I bagged myself a yellow card and ten minutes in the sin bin during the biggest game of our season for charging someone with my shoulder.
I’d call bullshit and say the refs were blind, but my shoulder hurt for days after I stuck it into Aisling McLoughlin—the inside center for the Swords Serpents. I resist the urge to rub the joint at the memory. I was mad, I’m still mad, but Aisling didn’t deserve to take the brunt of it.
I make a mental note to reach out and apologize to her. She’s probably seen me on the internet by now, so she’ll know why I lost my shit on the pitch, but maybe if I say sorry it’ll make me feel a bit better.
“She needs to get laid.” Clíodhna, Clee for short, sips her drink, before pointing at me.
“In like the next thirty days, before she turns thirty.” She points at the paper on the table.
“Don’t give her an open-ended goal because you know what she’s like.
Make it closed and non-negotiable. She needs to bang someone to change the fact that that wanker is the only man she’s ever been with. ”
My face heats as Aoife writes the number one on the torn napkin, then with a grin adds fuck a stranger next to it.
My jaw drops open as I shake my head from side to side.
“N-n-no. I reject your list.” Despite the words coming quickly from my mouth, my eyes wander around the room, lingering on a tall, dark, and handsome stranger at the bar.
He’s got broad shoulders, a strong, handsome profile, and there’s something just a bit gruff and ready about him.
I admit, the list is in its infancy, barely off the ground, but I’m already queasy at the idea of getting naked in front of another person. Though, considering my gin consumption, that might be because of the alcohol.
My sisters both look at me with a mix of amusement, sympathy, and our mother’s challenging glint. “When was the last time you had sex?” Aoife spears her borrowed pen at me.
My face heats.
I roll my lips between my teeth because I’m not telling my sisters it’s been months. Not just the couple of months that I’ve known about George’s crimes, but far longer. So long, I don’t want to do the math to find the exact date, because I probably could.
I cringe.
Is it possible for a vagina to self-seal? For a hymen to regrow if you leave it for long enough? Christ alive.
“That’s what I thought.” Clíodhna smirks. “You definitely need to get dicked. Good dicked.”
“And fast.” Aoife bites down on her straw. “Rip the plaster off. Get back on the horse. Yadda, yadda.”
They’re not wrong. It’s not my favorite thing in the world.
I mean, I don’t have anything really to compare it to, but George seems unable to get off if I’m not on top, and while I’m an athlete and have the stamina and core strength to make it work…
I’d like to not have to do all the work all the time.
I’m also not sure he truly knows where my clit is. It must be different for Isla because she’s a horndog, and there’s no way she settles for a sub-par lover.
I told George I didn’t want to have sex again until after the wedding, you know, building the anticipation and excitement for the big day.
We weren’t saving ourselves for our wedding day or anything like that.
I bet my mother has been saying decades of the rosary every Sunday at mass since she walked into my bedroom and found me on top of him when we were seventeen years old.
Wincing at the memory makes my jaw ache. Mum wasn’t supposed to be home that morning, and she got a quare view of my bare arse for her trouble. We never spoke about it. I tried, but she waved me off, the embarrassment and discomfort of talking to me about sex was just too much for dear old Mum.
But it’s been there in her eyes over the years, every time she saw us together.
Sexually, I always thought I was the problem; my body was dysfunctional, missing whatever buttons it needs to reach those pleasurable highs I read about in my favorite romance novels from book club.
So, the idea of finding someone else to sleep with in the next four weeks, in the month leading up to my thirtieth birthday, makes my stomach hurt. How do you even find someone to sleep with at almost thirty years old? Do they have an app for that? Does Larne even have eligible bachelors?
Going into town always sounds like a good idea at the time, but when you have to get dressed up and drive into Belfast… ugh… all you really want to do is curl up on the sofa with a cuppa and an episode of Blue Lights.
I groan, dropping my head onto the table next to my quickly emptying glass with a hard thud. “I can’t do that. I can’t.”
“Of course you can. Why can’t you?” Aoife taps her pen in my direction.
“Catharsis via the clit.” Clíodhna nods. “It’s a known recovery technique from asshole exes, Rhi. Bonus points if it’s his best friend, brother, and double points if it’s his archnemesis.”
“Or his dad.” Aoife shudders at the idea.
George Senior isn’t a catch either, and I’d never do that to his mum.
Not to mention, George is such a wet fucking blanket that he doesn’t have the spine to have a nemesis.
Or rather didn’t, until now. He will rue the day he ever fucked me over, if it’s the last thing I do.
That has to be the drink talking. I’m not normally so emboldened, but it sounds like a good idea, right? Other than ruin his life in front of his family… I mean… I feel like I could do more.
I pause. Is he even worth the effort of rue-ing the day? Should I just… nothing him? I’m not sure.
“Oh. My. God. Is your fanny overgrown?” Aoife’s face falls. “Has it been that long? Has your virginity grown back?” She stares at me expectantly with those piercing, Morrigan family eyes.
“It’s June, Rhiannon, surely be to God you’ve at least shaved your legs for your own wedding.
If not for your wedding, then at least for the two weeks of sunshine we get over the summer.
When it arrives, you can’t be wasting precious sunshine time having to get the razor out.
” Her eyes widen at my silence then she holds up her hand inferring my answer without me having to say a word.
“It’s fine. It’s fine.” She puts her hand over mine and gives me a tender squeeze. “We’ll get you an appointment with Cheryl at Smooth Criminals. You’ll come out as smooth as a baby’s arse.”
All I can do is shake my head in disbelief. My sisters don’t even let me answer, or object, they also don’t ask for my input on their now super-duper important Eat, Pray, Love list for me to accomplish in the next thirty days.
It takes about fifteen minutes and another round of cocktails, but by the end of it, they’ve got a list of things they say I need to do to get over George and Isla’s betrayal, before I turn thirty, on a stack of napkins.
If only that’s how it worked. Thirty days of doing shit written on a napkin list and you’re magically cured of whatever your ailment is.
Betrayal.
You embarrassed me, Rhiannon.
I swallow down the lump threatening to block my throat.
After another drink, a warm buzz spreads through me, making my head feel light and a little dizzy, but also inspired, like I’m ready to take on the world.
There’s a very real possibility that none of us will remember this in the morning, so what’s the worst that can happen?
With a steady breath and a shaky grin, I sign my name at the end of the list and commit to at least giving it a shot, because God knows, I can’t let those bastards bring me down any further, right?