19. Finn
NINETEEN
Finn
PAST
I had a friend at university. She was studying music and wanted to become a big music executive. She once shared with me that music was the soundtrack to the human experience—an extension of our souls—and that there was a perfect song for every moment.
As Ash and I stroll down that tree-lined trail and utter the unspeakable word, I can’t shake the feeling that she might be right because suddenly, the lyrics to “Friend is a Four Letter Word” by Cake start echoing in my head like a mantra.
Because, fuck. I do not want to be friends with this woman.
Not unless it’s the kind of friend you also happen to date, marry, and make incredibly cute Irish American babies with. I feel like a pot about to boil over every second I’m around her. I’ve had my share of one-night stands and casual flings. I know what lust feels like, and while there’s no shortage of that when it comes to Ash, I still know…
This is different from anything I’ve ever felt.
We just arrived back in Galway after a long day. Tonight, the group has free time, so I’ve been giving nonstop dinner and pub recommendations since we got off the bus. When the last couple heads off toward the city center, I walk into the lobby. I need a shower and a night in. Otherwise, I’m going to wander back down here, hoping to run into Ash. Because I always do—we’re like magnets—and then we’ll spend more time together, and that torch I’m carrying for her will get even heavier.
Just as I approach the elevator, I hear that familiar voice at the reception desk and can’t help but turn back.
“Hi,” Ash, who has her back to me, greets the young woman behind the desk. “I received a message saying there was something for me at the desk. Did I lose something?”
“What is your name?”
I really should leave since she seems to have this handled, but for some reason, I stay rooted in place, watching the interaction.
“Aisling Farrell.”
“Oh!” The woman perks up. “No, you didn’t lose anything. You got a delivery! Let me go fetch it for you.”
Ash steps back as she waits. I move closer to her. She turns, and with just one glance, I can tell she’s anxious. “They say I got a package or something.” She exhales a breath. “Maybe it’s a mistake.”
I begin to ask her if maybe her mom arranged for something to be delivered from one of the shops, but before I can open my mouth, the receptionist returns, holding a huge bouquet of blood-red roses.
“What the hell?” Ash steps back as if she has just been offered a bouquet of snakes instead.
“I believe someone misses you,” the woman gushes. “Aren’t they lovely?”
“Those can’t be for me,” Ash says, her voice revealing her turmoil.
“They were delivered just an hour ago,” the woman says, pointing to the card that clearly displays her name. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
Ash nods absently.
“Thank you.” I intervene, grabbing the obnoxiously large bouquet and taking her hand. I then lead us to one of the small alcoves in the lobby, set the flowers on the coffee table, and guide Ash and me to the loveseat. Ash’s eyes are fixated on the card that juts out of the flowers.
“Do you know who they’re from?” I ask.
“I have a pretty good guess.”
“Do you want to read the card? I can just toss it if you prefer. Hell, I can trash the whole damn bouquet if you want.”
She shakes her head. “No. Maybe. But I do want to know what he wrote—otherwise…”
Otherwise, she’ll be wondering forever, and she doesn’t want him—whoever he is—to have that kind of power over her.
I nod, understanding how power plays work. My dad is the master of them, after all. I reach up to grab the crisp white card for her. I hear her take a deep breath as if she’s preparing herself for whatever lies within.
She takes the envelope from my hand and pulls the card out. I watch as her eyes glide over the words. The emotions they convey seem to spill out of her, one right after another.
Anger.
Annoyance.
Bitter pain.
A tear slips down her cheek as she lets out a humorless laugh. “Fucking asshole,” she whispers, tossing the note onto the coffee table in front of us.
Unable to help myself, I glance down.
It’s not too late.
Tomorrow is still our wedding day.
I’ll wait, Ash.
I’m not giving up on us.
“He cheated on me,” she says, and I look up to meet her watery blue eyes fixed on me. I reach up to wipe away some tears. “He cheated on me, and when I caught him in a lie, he tried to say it was my fault for abandoning him during a moment of weakness. He claimed he was just lonely—a one-time thing. The sick part was I actually believed him for a hot second.” She shook her head in disgust. “That was until the girl he hooked up with showed up at our door—all the way from Madrid. He’d moved there ahead of me for work and had apparently been sleeping with her the whole time. She thought it was love. Kind of poetic, really.”
“Jesus, Ash.”
“I just needed a few days to myself to forget what this week was supposed to be, and he won’t even let me do that.”
“How did he even know where you’d be staying?” She seemed really spooked when the receptionist brought out those flowers.
“I don’t know,” she replies, sounding a bit hesitant. “He’s somewhat well-known, but I doubt that has anything to do with it.”
“Well-known, how?” If he is a well-known computer genius, I can see that giving him an advantage. God knows, Rian could find someone in the blink of an eye. But otherwise, it’s probably a long shot.
“He’s a soccer player.”
My brow arched as I remembered her sudden discomfort on the bus when Clint and his friends mentioned the World Cup. “Professional?”
She nods.
“Would I know his name?”
“Maybe. He just transferred to Madrid from the States, but?—”
My eyes widen. “Are you talking about Theo Vasquez?”
Her breath catches. “Yes.”
American transfers made headlines in Europe. Not to mention, Clint and his friends went on about him endlessly. Clearly, they were fans. I didn’t know much about him, but like I told the lads earlier, I didn’t follow soccer nearly as closely as I did rugby.
“Well, I doubt his football clout would give him tracking abilities,” I say to her. She visibly relaxes at my lack of enthusiasm about her former fiancé. “Have you been posting online?”
She stiffens. “Yes, on Instagram.”
“Did you post any pictures of the hotel? Or post while you were at the hotel?”
“I don’t know, maybe.” She pulls out her phone and taps on the Instagram icon. One of the first posts is a picture of her mom by the water outside.
I point to it. “It’s probably geotagged with the hotel’s location.”
“God, he told me on the phone last night that he had been tracking my phone since we broke up.”
“He what?” A little Instagram stalking is one thing. But when he also happens to be tracking her and sending her flowers?
No. That’s just a hard no.
“Hand over your phone,” I demand, and the fact that she complies—trusting me without a moment’s doubt—fills my throat with emotion.
“What are you going to do?” She leans in as I begin adjusting her settings.
“First, I’m going to turn off location sharing so that gobshite can’t see where you are. This should also disable the geotags on Instagram since I turned it off for all your apps.” I finish doing this and then open her camera. She raises an eyebrow. “Now, you’re going to take a pic with your hot tour guide, post it, and get some much-needed revenge.”
She stares at me for a moment before a dazzling smile spreads across her face. Fucking stunning. “Okay, but wait a minute.” She reaches for the bouquet and plucks one of the roses out of the vase.”You don’t happen to have scissors, do you?”
I reach into my pocket and pull out my utility knife—something I always keep with me when I’m on the road. She hands me the rose, and I trim most of the stem off before stowing the knife away. I think I know what she intends to do with the rose, so I lean forward and gently tuck the hair off her shoulder with my fingers. She remains silent as I secure the tiny tendrils behind her ear, finishing with the rose. “Beautiful and diabolical,” I say with a meaningful grin.
“Well, you know what they say about a woman scorned?”
“No, what do they say?” I grab her phone and tilt it toward us.
She bites her lip before breaking into laughter. “I don’t actually remember.”
I snap the photo, and she grabs the phone to look at it. Glancing over her shoulder, I see it clear as day. Her head is tilted back, mid-laugh as joy bursts from her lips, and there’s me staring at her like she’s the fucking sun.
Friend . Four-fucking-letter word, indeed.
* * *
Aisling
After Finn helped me dump the unwanted roses and card, I found Mom, and we set out for one last night in Galway. When I asked Finn if he wanted to join us, he declined, saying he needed a night in to rest.
While I was somewhat disappointed by his answer, I was also happy to have a night alone with my mom. Aside from a few hours together in the room at night, we haven’t had much one-on-one time. And after the crazy shit Theo just pulled, I really needed some Mom time.
We wander down to the city center and find a nice pub to eat at. The walls are forest green, covered in black-and-white photos that date back decades. The place is packed, and it takes a few minutes to get seated. As we stand there, I listen to my mom strike up a conversation with a couple from Paris. I just listen and smile, loving how genuinely kind she is.
“It’s good to see you smile again,” my mom says from behind her menu after we’ve been seated.
I almost give a snarky response but choose not to. “It feels like I haven’t had anything to smile about in a long time.” Then I add, “Thank you for making me take this trip, Mom.”
She smiles to herself. “Maybe I can persuade you to come on a few more, then?”
I laugh, taking a sip of my cider. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I still have a few things to figure out when I get back, like a job and a place to live…”
When I left Theo, I moved back in with my mom. It was supposed to be temporary, but here we are, six months later, and I am still there. Also, at the time of our breakup, I had just quit my job because Theo had just started his season in Madrid, and I was supposed to be packing up our apartment and joining him.
Apparently, he couldn’t wait that long.
“I saw the picture you posted.” She sets down her menu.
“Which one?” I feign ignorance.
“He’s very nice,” she says. When I don’t respond, she adds, “And handsome.”
“Mom…”
She throws her hands up and shrugs. “What? I’m just stating facts.”
“Yes, he is incredibly handsome and smart. He’s kind and funny. But he’s also our tour guide and, therefore, off-limits. I don’t want him to lose his job because of me.”
She tilts her head, and her expression softens. “That,” she says, pointing at me as if I’ve just accomplished something significant. “That right there is all I wanted.”
My brows scrunch together in confusion. “What?”
“I know I keep telling you to go have a fling and sow some oats or whatever.”
“Gross, Mom.”
She chuckles. “But I know you. You’ve been with the same man since you were kids, and even though he didn’t deserve it, you gave him your whole heart. And then he shattered it.” I swallow a lump of emotion. “If I could get you to turn your head on this trip—even for a moment—and see there are possibilities beyond that shattered dream you’ve been clinging to, then I could breathe a little easier as a mom, knowing you’ll eventually be okay.”
“So you don’t want me to hook up with Finn?”
“Oh, I think you should climb that man like a tree.”
“Mother!”
Her laugh is contagious, and I can’t help but join in. “But I understand the need to hold back. Just remember,” she says with a wink. “He’s only our tour guide until Monday morning.”
“But then we leave?—”
She presses her lips together as if she knows something I don’t. “On Tuesday morning.”
“On Tuesday morning,” I repeat as I begin to piece together her meaning. How could I have forgotten that? Our tour ends in Dublin on Monday, and Mom and I don’t fly out for twenty-four hours.
“There’s a lot you can do in a day.”
As the waitress takes our order and the band plays in the background, I reflect not only on my mother’s words but also on Theo’s.
Despite what he may think, tomorrow is not our wedding day, even though it was meant to be.
If things had been different, I would be sitting at my rehearsal dinner right now, listening to his obnoxious friends give speeches about college and soccer while I try to avoid feeling left out since I never truly felt accepted by them. He once told me it wasn’t for lack of trying and that maybe I just had trouble making friends.
Didn’t he realize it was impossible to keep them while demanding all of my attention and time?
Mom and I engage in small talk for the rest of our meal. She shares stories about the people she’s met in our group, and I listen, though I feel like I’m only half paying attention. The moment we step back out onto the crowded Galway Street, I ask, “Can we make a stop before we head back to the hotel?”
“Sure.” She nods. “Lead the way.”
There is a lot you can do in a day.
Tomorrow, I will spend the day in the Irish countryside with my mother. I plan to take pictures, laugh, and not dwell on a wedding and a man who no longer deserves me.
For the first time in six months, I’m beginning to feel that I am exactly where I’m meant to be and that tomorrow will be a glorious day.
We walk into the jewelry shop, and the clerk glances up just as the bell above the door chimes.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes,” I tell her, finding myself smiling. I don’t need Theo to feel whole anymore. I’m choosing myself for once. “I’d like to buy a Claddagh ring.”
Thirty minutes and three hundred euros later, I’m staring at my new ring. It’s shiny, gold, and the crown is pointing inward.
Because I’m a motherfucking queen.