11. Lorcan
Lorcan
O’Rourke’s has had occasional upgrades throughout the years, but the family pub started by my grandparents retains the same atmosphere as always—old wood, hops, and almost a hundred years of good times, celebrations, and drinking away sorrows. My family's history is soaked into the walls.
"Everyone," I announce, “Gather ‘round. Employee meeting.”
Sully emerges from the back with a case of limes on his shoulder, Susie from the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron. Brianna, already behind the bar cutting fruit, looks up with a slow, flirty smile.
I put a hand on the small of Maeve's back.
"This is Maeve," I say. "My wife."
Susie's mouth drops open. Sully sets the limes down very carefully.
"Wife," Sully repeats.
I hold up my hand to show off my wedding ring. “As of last Saturday, I’m a married man.”
There are a few heartfelt congratulations before I continue.
“Maeve will be working here starting today, so listen closely. Whatever she needs, she gets. Whatever she asks, you do. She outranks me."
"She what?" Susie says.
"She outranks me in the chain of command."
Maeve's ears go pink. “Lorcan, don't," she hisses.
"Already did." I grin at her. "No take-backs."
Sully, my day bartender, wipes his hand on his apron and offers it to Maeve.
“Sully, if she and I disagree about anything, who's right?"
Sully’s been happily married for twenty years and doesn't hesitate. "She does."
"There it is. Written in stone."
Susie crosses the floor and grabs both Maeve's hands like they're old friends, which is very Susie. "Oh, honey, congratulations. And good luck. He's a handful."
"I'm a delight," I counter.
"He rearranged the entire walk-in at two in the morning last month because a case of Guinness was facing the wrong way."
"That's called standards."
"That's called a sickness," Sully mumbles.
Susie gives a lame impersonation of me. "Labels out. Always labels out."
And that's about how the next three hours go.
I put her on the register with Sully, and she picks it up in twenty minutes, then he begins teaching her to mix drinks.
When the regulars start filtering in, I introduce her around. Old Tommy Byrne, who's had the same stool since 1997. Aileen and Fitz, who’ve argued about hurling matches for decades. Mrs. Devlin, who, at eighty-one, comes in for a nightly sherry and to remind me her niece is still single.
I introduce Maeve to each of them.
"Your wife," Tommy says, squinting. "You? Married?"
"Shocking, I know."
Mrs. Devlin takes Maeve's face in both papery hands and looks at her hard, then pats her cheek. "Good," she pronounces. "He needs someone with a spine."
Maeve doesn't know what to do with that.
But here's what I can't stop noticing. She's happy. And she laughed. Twice now. Once when Fitz and Aileen argued over a 1994 penalty—he called her a gobshite, she called him an eejit—and once when I dropped a lime wedge down my own collar.
I want to hear her laugh like that every day for the rest of my life.
I'm sitting at a table in the corner watching her pour a row of shots with her tongue between her teeth, thinking exactly that, when Brianna plops her ass down in my lap.
She swings a leg over the chair and lands on my thighs, her arm looping around my neck, and her hips fitted against me like she's done it a hundred times, which she most certainly has not.
"Boss," she purrs. "You didn't tell me you got married."
I take hold of her wrist, lift her arm off my neck—not gently—and I stand up, which knocks her backward and onto her feet.
"Lorcan—”
"I’m a married man. I have been clear with you. I have been clear with everybody in this establishment." My voice doesn't rise. It never has to.
Her cheeks go red. "It was a joke.”
"It wasn't funny." I glance down the bar.
Maeve is dead still, eyes down, hands flat on the bar top.
"I made vows in front of a priest, and I meant every word.
I don't cheat, I don't flirt, and I don't let any other women put a hand on me in front of my wife or behind her back.
If that's a problem for you, Susie can make the schedule work without you. "
"No. No, it's not a problem." Her chin's wobbling now. "Sorry."
"Then we're done here. Get back to work."
I watch her head back to the floor to take drink orders, and when I turn back to search for my wife, she’s gone.
Sully nods his head toward the back door.
When I step out into the cool evening air, Maeve is leaning against the brick wall, staring up at the emerging stars.
She seems wary, as if she’s bracing herself.
I stand next to her and lean back against the building.
"So," Maeve says, her voice brittle. “You and Brianna—”
“Are not a thing."
Fucking Brianna.
"Maeve, I've had a life. I'm not going to pretend otherwise, and you'd know I was lying if I did.”
I turn to face her fully now, because this matters, and I want her looking into my eyes when I say it.
“When I stood at that altar and made my vows to you and to God, I meant them. My name's been on a lot of ugly things, Maeve, but it's never—not once—been on a broken promise."
I hold her gaze for a long moment.
The crease between her brows is there again. I tap it with a finger.
"Stop that," she says.
"Never."
She shakes her head like she’s exasperated, but she's fighting a smile.
"Come on, Mrs. O'Rourke.” I pull her into my arms and kiss the top of her head. Let's go home."