Chapter 11 #2
“It’s a hard one in your language. It’s De Thuaidh.” His lips both curled and pressed together as he pronounced his last name in a way that Sierra knew she would never be able to recreate.
But her mind caught on something else he had said. “In my language?” Sierra asked, as they turned a corner and headed toward the library, both of them twisting and stepping aside as other students passed by them.
“Yes, in English. It’s much easier for Gaelic speakers to pronounce.”
That reminded Sierra of something else she found weird about Aodhan. “How did you learn old Gaelic anyway?”
“My family all speaks it. It’s much more common where I am from.”
“They speak old Gaelic in Culkeeny?”
Aodhan shook his head, stopping to open the door to the library for her, placing his large hand against the top of the glass so she could walk underneath. “Not in Culkeeny, but in my village, yes.”
“How did you learn to speak English so well, then?”
“Everyone in my village has to learn it in school in addition to Gaelic.”
Sierra and Aodhan made their way back to the employee area, Sierra lifted a hand to Mona, who was at the checkout desk, in greeting as they passed.
“I believe it’s my turn to ask some questions,” Aodhan said as they entered the employee break room.
Sierra winced as she removed her jacket. He was right, she couldn’t demand he talk about himself and not do the same in return, even though she hated it. “I guess.”
She looked over to find Aodhan’s eyes on her. “That makes you nervous. Why?”
Sierra looked around the room, glad to see it was empty of other employees. “I just don’t like talking about myself, or my family, or…my condition.”
“Okay, we don’t have to talk about those things then.” He hung Sierra’s jacket on a hook for her. “Where are you from?”
“Dallas, it’s a city in Texas in the United States.”
He nodded. “I’ve heard of it.” Sierra looked at her jacket on the hook, before putting her messenger bag in a cubby and heading for a cart in the hall. Aodhan followed. “Why did you come to Ireland?”
Sierra pretended to be busy grabbing a cart. She knew it was a normal question and that he couldn’t know how uncomfortable it made her feel, but before she could answer, he surprised her with the next words out of his mouth. “That makes you uncomfortable, why?”
“You’re very intuitive, I see.” Sierra began pushing the cart to the section where she would be shelving the books.
“When I want to be,” Aodhan corrected. The two began working in silence, but Aodhan wasn’t going to let his unanswered question go. “So, I’ll ask again: why did you come here?”
Sierra sighed. “To get away from my family.”
Aodhan put down the book he was shelving. “Why? Do they hurt you?”
Sierra shook her head, touched by his concern for her well-being. “Not physically, but my mother is very controlling and not very understanding.”
Aodhan didn’t say anything, so Sierra continued, switching the subject. “What about your parents? Do you guys get along?”
“For the most part,” he replied. “I’ve been an adult for a long time, so…”
Sierra nearly dropped the book she was holding. “I thought your Tinder profile said you were 25?”
A weird look ghosted over Aodhan’s features, but before Sierra could properly analyze it, it was gone. “Yes, I am 25. I guess I’ve just felt like an adult for a long time.”
Sierra was about to respond, but she was forced to swallow her question, nearly choking as Mona walked up. “Hey Sierra, would you mind covering the checkout? Sheila is ill.”
“Of course! I’ll head over there now.” Sierra set the book she was holding back on the cart and turned to follow Mona. “See you later,” she said awkwardly to Aodhan, mentally slapping herself for how idiotic she probably sounded.
Mona led her over to the main register and helped her get logged in to the checkout screen.
Sierra had manned the checkout desk before, but it had been a while.
She much preferred shelving, and the students who normally ran the checkout apparently preferred it, so everyone was happy.
Except like today, when someone got sick.
The only nice thing about managing the checkout is that you were allowed to work on homework or read if it wasn’t busy. Sierra thought about going to grab her textbook to study but decided she deserved a little time between customers just to think.
As the afternoon hours stretched into the evening, Sierra found herself thinking about all the things Aodhan had said over the course of the day, as well as what he had said during their previous encounters.
At one point, she took out her phone to see where exactly Culkeeny was, wrinkling her brow as she realized it was on the very northern tip of Ireland.
She zoomed in on the map, hoping to see small villages nearby that could show where Aodhan was from.
Not seeing any small villages on her map at all, Sierra decided to try a different tactic and googled if there were any villages still speaking old Gaelic in Ireland, and unsurprisingly, there were not.
Sierra looked up from her phone to glance around the library, which was quickly darkening as the light of the setting sun faded, hoping to see Aodhan around. But, in true Aodhan fashion, he wasn’t in her line of sight from where she sat at the register.
Turning back to her phone, Sierra tried a different tactic, typing Aodhan’s last name, or what she thought was his last name, in the search bar of Google. He had said his father was in politics, so she figured something had to come up.
Nothing did.
There were a few actors with a similar first name, Aodhan, but she didn’t see anything about the last name. She tried just the last name next, and to her surprise, it came up with some results.
It wasn’t a family or even a person; rather, it was a translation. De Thuaidh was old Irish for “northwards.”
Sierra groaned. Aodhan was totally playing her.
Before she could dive into another internet rabbit hole, a few students came up to check out some books, and Sierra had to tuck her phone into her pocket.
They each had several books, one of which was reference only, which Sierra had to explain to the student that she couldn’t check out.
This led to an argument, and before she knew it, she was calling over Mona to settle the dispute.
Mona settled it quickly, somehow explaining it better than Sierra had. After the students exited, she turned toward Sierra. “Why don’t you take your break? Since I’m already here.”
Sierra nodded, sliding off the stool and heading to the breakroom to grab her jacket. Along the way, she looked down each aisle to see if she spotted Aodhan anywhere, but he wasn’t there. She would find him later.
She entered the breakroom, grabbed her jacket and wallet, since once again she had not packed food for herself, and headed for the kiosk.
As she passed through the library, she looked for Aodhan once more, but he and his distinctive black beanie were nowhere in sight.
Sierra stood in line to purchase her sandwich, wondering whether she should confront Aodhan again. Clearly, something fishy was going on because there was no village that spoke old Gaelic, and she sincerely doubted that a village existed that wasn’t on the map; this was 2024, after all.
That got Sierra thinking about the other weird thing Aodhan had said. He said he had been an adult for ‘a while’ but last Sierra checked, she was 25 and still didn’t feel like a real adult most days. Which meant he was probably older than 25 and had lied on his Tinder profile.
Sierra ate her sandwich in a daze, her mind spinning in circles. She didn’t know why, but she kept thinking of the line in the Twilight movie where Bella had asked Edward how long he had been 17, and he had said ‘a while.’
Sierra knew it was crazy, but she couldn’t brush off the feeling that she was on the right track to solving the mystery that was Aodhan as she tossed her sandwich wrapper in the trash and headed back into the library.
Tossing her jacket on a different hook than it had been on before, she headed for the fiction section, going straight to the M shelf where she knew Stephanie Meyer’s famous book would be.
She had just slid one of the three library copies of Twilight out of its spot when a large hand stopped her.
“What are you doing?”
It was Aodhan.
Sierra slid the book back into its spot, seeing as his hand was blocking her from getting it out anyway. “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about doing a little reading.”
“You hate reading.” It wasn’t a question.
Sierra bit her lip, unsure of what to say, when she realized she had never told Aodhan that she didn’t like reading, just Tyler. “How did you know that?” she questioned.
“Tyler told me.” He crossed his arms over his muscular chest, leaning his muscular shoulder against the bookshelf. “So why are you interested in that book?”
“No reason.” Sierra bit her lip nervously and glanced at her phone, noticing her break was almost over. “I’ve just seen the movie and thought I might like the book, but now that I think about it, I’ll never be able to get through a book that big, so I should just head back to the checkout. Later.”
Before he could say anything else, she rushed back to the register, taking over from Mona. Once she was situated, she looked back at where Aodhan had been, but he was, once again, somewhere out of sight.
There was definitely something weird going on.
The only reason Aodhan wouldn’t want her to check out Twilight would be if he had something to hide.
And she was pretty sure, at this point, that he was hiding something.
Whether or not that meant he was a vampire, she was unsure, but she was going to find out.