Just Like You Said It Would Be Page 29

  “He’s out on probation, going back to school full-time in the fall.” He still has a lot of guilt about Melanie Cheng, and probably always will, but he’s been seeing a therapist since he was released, and it seems to help. “It hasn’t been easy,” I add. “But Joss’s entire family’s been so much happier since he came home.”

  “I’m glad,” Darragh says, suddenly serious. “Look, I’m sorry about New Year’s. That I never—”

  “It was eons ago,” I cut in, my tone doggedly dismissive. “I shouldn’t have sent those texts in the first place. I let myself get carried away by nostalgia.”

  “But it was gutless of me,” he insists. “I kept putting off replying to that last text. I didn’t know what to say.” Darragh’s fingers grip his tie. “I wanted to ring you for months after you left. But it was so complicated. All the distance. I couldn’t see how we’d ever be able to work around it. Even if I could visit or you could. It seemed we’d only ever have these little bits of time together.”

  “I get it,” I say, enough bitterness in my tone that he won’t be able to miss it. “But could we not go over this at my cousin’s wedding? It’s in the past. Let’s leave it there.”

  “You’re right.” Darragh’s hand flies away from his tie and settles on his thigh. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to clear the air. But this is meant to be a party.” His other hand pats the empty spot in front of me at the table. “Can I get you something from the bar?”

  “Rum and Coke,” I suggest, hoping my parents aren’t keeping tabs on me. “Thanks.”

  A minute later he reappears with my drink and asks about film school. We toast to my York University acceptance. “That’s brilliant!” Darragh exclaims. “Fair play to you. I knew you’d get in anywhere you wanted to go, but I hadn’t heard. You must be over the moon. It’s what you always wanted.”

  “Thanks. It’s exciting. And in the meantime I’m working in this really cool indie video store.” I describe the eccentricities of The Video Vault and then Darragh fills me in on Brash Heathens news, describing the headway they’ve been making lately, especially in Dublin where they’ve developed a loyal following.

  “We have a string of gigs in Cork next month,” he adds. “And in September we’re doing a load of U.K. shows, opening for a British band called Action Figure Army. Their first album’s being released this fall. They’re being calling indie music’s next big thing.”

  “I’m happy it’s all working out for you.” All in all the conversation has gone fairly well so far and I should wish him well, get up and find some safer people to talk to. Take the money and run. Instead I say, “But no wedding date. Did she have to stay home?”

  Darragh hesitates, worry lines criss-crossing his forehead. “Rory, Kevin, and I are sharing a room. So no dates for anyone except Rory and Zoey. But I probably wouldn’t have brought one anyway.”

  I nod understandingly and as though his answer doesn’t personally impact me.

  “What about you?” he asks. “Are you seeing anyone?”

  It’s unfair to turn the question back on me when he never made his own status clear, but the poster-girl for carefree self-confidence wouldn’t quibble. “Sort of,” I say in my best matter-of-fact voice. “A film student.”

  “Sort of?” Darragh echoes.

  “Yeah, you know how that works, right? You’ve been there, done that.” Sarcasm claws at my tongue, both of us wincing at the sound of it.

  Darragh’s eyes jump to the tablecloth underneath our drinks, and I really should let this go, but my bitterness gets the better of me. “How about you?” I prod. “You didn’t say.”

  “Nobody special at the moment.” Darragh’s blue eyes pin me in place. “But you know how that works. There’ve been a few.” Anger pumps through my veins, my cheeks searing. I’m supposed to be reclaiming my self-respect and here he is throwing his sex life in my face.

  Darragh’s hand closes gently around my wrist. “You really hate me, don’t you?” His voice is like sandpaper against my skin. He could scrape me raw in seconds flat.

  “I don’t hate you.” My fist opens and closes uselessly. Flames burn my throat, but my eyes are dry.

  “It sounds like you do.”

  I don’t deny it a second time. Darragh releases my wrist and says, “When I heard you were going to be here I almost rang you. But by then it was too late, wasn’t it?”

  I swallow a mouthful of rum and Coke, not ready to say anything. I hate that I can still feel like this about him after almost a year. I hate that he let me down and that it still hasn’t made me angry enough with him to walk away and forget him.

  Darragh runs his fingers raggedly through his short hair. “I never stopped thinking about last summer. If you hadn’t left we’d still be together.”

  It’s what I want him to say, but it doesn’t feel like it should. In the end it won’t change anything. He should’ve gotten in touch with me and he didn’t. Even if he had, we still live thousands of miles apart.

  “Maybe,” I allow. “I guess we’ll never know.”

  Darragh’s restless fingers leap from his hair to his tie, skating up and down the blue silk. “I had this shite idea earlier. I asked the DJ to play The Wild Ones for us. It always makes me think of you.”

  “You mean when you asked me to dance a few minutes ago?”

  Darragh dips his head. I don’t know the song and I definitely didn’t know he’d requested it specifically for us. The thought makes me dizzy.

  “I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard it,” I tell him, my voice hollow.

  “Really? It’s a Suede classic. I must’ve listened to it a thousand times after you went.” He laughs joylessly. “It never made me feel better, but it always makes me think of you.”

  He’s right. I hate him. I do. Fuck you, Darragh, for listening to a song that reminds you of me a thousand times but never calling me.

  “If I got the DJ to play it again would you…would you dance with me then?” he asks, a note of hope in his voice.

  My hate crumbles into something more painful. I don’t know what we’re doing anymore. I’m beyond acting my poster-girl part, but none of this can go anywhere. In less than two weeks we’ll be back where we left off. It’s not that those things don’t matter, but this conversation—our minutes together—feel separate from regular life. I’m not ready for that to disappear again yet.

  “If you still want to,” I say.

  Darragh pushes his chair forcefully back and weaves determinedly through the sea of tables. I don’t know how he convinces the DJ to repeat the same song he’d played only minutes earlier, but I have to wonder if Jack has a hand in it because by the time Darragh returns nostalgic guitar chords are ringing in my ears. “Ready?” he whispers, gesturing me forward and then leading me to the dance floor.

  We’ve never danced together. I barely know how to box step.

  It turns out that doesn’t matter. One of Darragh’s hands winds around to my lower back while the other holds fast to my hand. My face sinks onto his shoulder and we move slowly together, parts of our necks and cheeks touching, and without any need for eye contact. I can’t keep track of the lyrics while we’re leaning together, feeling our hearts beat against each other’s chests. I only catch enough to know that this isn’t anything like the middle of the road love songs destined to be future theme songs for television commercials. This is disaffected, broken down and lost in a wildly romantic way that makes my pulse race behind my eyes. Then the chorus breaks through and the yearning’s so strong that I can’t feel anything but the history of us. I have to close my eyelids to keep them dry and the feeling surges worse as the song nears the end:

  “Oh, if you stay, oh, if you stay, oh, if you stay Oh, if you stay, oh, if you stay, oh, if you stay Oh, if you stay, oh, if you stay, oh, if you stay.”

  Stay. The song is us at the moment before we had to say goodbye.

  We’re still holding on to each other when the music morphs into a dance tune, Zoey and Rory
glancing at us curiously from the sidelines. I don’t know what to say, but I let go of Darragh’s hand, my eyes stinging.

  How do you make something feel finished?

  I tug at his tie, willing Darragh to say something that will turn all this into a something I can handle. But I’m the one who opens her mouth first. “You said you had a room. Take me there.” I didn’t know it would be like this. Before I got here I thought I’d be able to get through this night—this trip—without falling full-force into the past. Repair the desperate impression I’d given in January, fly back home and put things behind me.

  But now I can see it was never going to be as simple as that. Not unless one of us was serious about someone else.

  I’ll still have to walk away in the end. Only I won’t do it with his unfinished feeling rattling around inside me. What’s the point of yearning for something you can have, even if you can only have it for a few minutes? Isn’t it better to give in and take it?

  Darragh stares at me in fast-disappearing shock. “Follow me,” he says, clasping my hand tightly and beginning to guide me back through the crowd. Spotting my mother in the distance feels like a rude awakening. I shouldn’t need to worry about my parents at a time like this. Shit.

  I hang back, whispering into Darragh’s ear that he’ll need to go first and I’ll come up as soon as I can. Darragh whispers his room number in return. Then I spend nerve-racking minutes talking to my mother, who saw us dancing and seems disconcerted by the sight. The entire time we speak I’m in a heightened state of awareness, assuring her that the dance was only for old time’s sake and in no way signals that she and my dad have to worry about Darragh and me getting hot and heavy like last year.

  Uncle Frank’s the one who unknowingly aids my escape when he comes over to talk to my mother. My uncle looks more relaxed than he did at the ceremony and I stand watching him and my mother meander in the direction of the dance floor for restless seconds before I turn to bolt up to Darragh’s room.

  My fist barely has to touch the door and Darragh’s tugging me into the room with him. It has two king size beds, just like the one Zoey and I are sharing, but its elegance is compromised by the mess the boys have left behind—jeans, shirts, and socks strewn across the carpet, beds and armchair. Darragh’s draped his suit jacket over the armchair too, leaving him in his white collared shirt, aqua tie and black pants.

  Someone left the window open. A warm breeze is wafting in from outside and beyond the room I spy a flash of rolling green hills. But it doesn’t matter what’s out there; we could be anywhere in the world. My lips spring to Darragh’s, our kisses rough and greedy. His hand glides over my bare shoulder, lighting miniature fires along my skin. I hear his breath, as heavy and quick as my own. Being this close to him, feeling him touch me again, is almost too much to take.

  Then Darragh stops and strides to the door, pulling the barrel bolt across it so that not even someone with a key could get in. He stands behind me, his right hand spreading seductively out across my lower back. Then he wraps both his arms around me, his mouth coming down on my neck and shoulder.

  His hands swim restlessly up my chest. He sucks my neck and then my earlobe, his fingers busy circling and skimming my breasts, making me gasp.

  I back firmly into him, grinding against him and making him laugh. It’s such a husky sound that I have to turn and lunge for his mouth again. He walks me backwards to the closest bed, sweeping the pair of jeans and belt coiled on top of it to the floor. I sink down into the mattress, my head on the bedspread and my fingers fighting with his shirt. I can’t get it off fast enough. Darragh helps with his tie. Then he’s pulling my dress strap down, unzipping me and exposing my strapless bra. Unhooking it and cupping one naked breast while his lips land on the other. He kisses my nipple, sucks at it, pushes my dress up my legs until it’s gathered bulkily around my midriff. I hunch over on the bed, hooking my fingers around my shoes and flinging them to the ground.

  My ankles tremble when Darragh slides off the plain cotton bikini underwear that I put on this morning without thinking twice about them. He bends down between my legs, his mouth finding me. We’ve barely gotten started and I’m coming, my fingers gliding back and forth over his head, sweeping through hair too short for me to cling onto. I’m smouldering like crazy, my throat humming with it as I yank down his zipper and snake my hand into his boxers. My fingers close around him, slipping easily into a steady motion. My other hand molds itself around his waist then fans across his chest, devouring him by touch—his ribs, his abdomen, all the contours I know by heart. “Tell me you have a condom,” I gasp. We won’t be able to finish this without one. Not the way I want to.

  The gorgeous pale skin Darragh normally hides under his T-shirts blushes pink, his lips are swollen red from kissing me. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint you,” he says, eyes gleaming and his hands filling themselves with my breasts.

  These are the only two sentences we’ve said to each other since walking into the room. Everything’s happened at supersonic speed and I realize, as Darragh rolls the condom on and positions himself between my legs, sliding inside me, that he must think I’ve done this with Sahan.

  It’s not how I imagined we’d be together the first time—Darragh with his pants partially on and me still semi-wearing my formal dress, the two of us in such a hurry we can’t even wait for our clothes to come off. But it’s us and it’s real.

  I watch him move inside me, Darragh’s shoulder blades taut and his cheeks flushed, every part of him focused on what’s happening between our bodies. It smarts a little every time he thrusts, more like someone pinching in an unexpected place than genuine pain.

  His low groan and the feel of his skin against mine offset the sting. I drop my hands onto Darragh’s back, absorbing his warmth through my fingertips and rocking back against him, testing the limits of the ache. He covers the length of my neck and the underside of my jaw with hot kisses, his pace quickening as he fixes one of his hands underneath me, suddenly pushing deeper.

  I yelp and clutch at Darragh’s skin. It hurts. “Slow,” I warn him. “Slow.” It’s too much for my body to get used to all at once.

  Still inside me, Darragh holds his upper body away from mine and gazes down at me from under his dark lashes. “Sorry,” he says, threading his fingers through mine and squeezing gently. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah.” As turned on as I am, my body still needs time to adjust. “We just need to be a little less intense.”

  Darragh’s hand trails down my cheek, his body adapting to mine so that we’re moving more like we were on the dance floor. Less outward urgency, same raging emotions. He’s still watching my face as our bodies crest and fall together. Suggesting we need to slow down doesn’t automatically mean I’m a virgin, but I’m pretty sure he’s figured it out anyway; I spy the unspoken question in his eyes.

  He shudders when he comes, kisses my neck and tangles his fingers into my hair. We hold onto each other in silence for a minute, catching our breath and tangling our legs. Only then does he clear his throat and say, “You and the film student, are you…?”

  “No,” I confess. “We’re not.” And now that I’ve done it with Darragh I can’t imagine Sahan and me going through with it. Practically all Darragh has to do to melt me down is smile at full wattage and get a DJ to play something special. I’m not sorry we slept together. I wanted him so much that walking away from the opportunity would’ve been the equivalent of a starving person willingly denying themselves food.

  Darragh kisses me on the mouth. He pulls out and strips off the condom, his body his own again. When he strides into the bathroom I begin reassembling myself, snapping my bra into place and yanking my dress down to cover my legs. I’m a bit sore, but there’s no blood that I can see.

  I’m curled up on the bed in glittering midnight blue when Darragh re-enters the room smelling like mouthwash and fresh cologne. He sits on the edge of the mattress, his eyes locking on mine as he says, “Mayb
e I’m being a bit thick. But I need you to spell it out for me—was that your first time?”

  “Yeah.” I sit up, draping myself over his naked shoulders and waiting for him to tell me I should’ve said something. I don’t know why I didn’t. It’s almost like I forgot it would matter. As soon as we reached the dance floor being together this way felt inevitable, a seamless continuation of the things we’d done last summer.

  Darragh doesn’t say what I’m expecting him to. He touches my hair and kisses my shoulder, injecting extra tenderness into the actions like he probably would’ve done from the start if he’d known. “I can’t believe you’re here like this,” he says, his voice as soft as new skin. “I can’t believe that really happened just now.” He swings to face me, his fingers tracing my jawline. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I just got a little raw.”

  He kisses the end of my nose, his fingers drifting to my dress strap, inching it gently down my shoulder like we can begin all over again. “We can slow things down,” he says. “Get under the covers and lie here together.”

  But there’s no time for that. I need to get back to the reception. “I can’t,” I tell him. “I have to go. If my parents notice I’m missing…”

  “A posse will hunt us down,” Darragh finishes. “Can I see you tomorrow when you get back to Dublin?”

  Is that how he thinks things will go now that we’re in the same city and it’s convenient? A bonus two weeks of us before we go our separate ways again? Maybe that’s a natural assumption after what we’ve just done. And my body could continue like that until I fly home, without question. But even with everything Darragh told me about listening to The Wild Ones a thousand times and that we’d still be together if I’d never left Ireland, I can’t trust him with my feelings. I flash back to what he said at the table minutes ago: “But it was so complicated. All the distance. I couldn’t see how we’d ever be able to work around it.”