I nodded, turning to look the barmaid in the eye. “And whiskey. Keep our glasses filled.”
The barmaid stood still for a moment, staring at me like she’d seen a ghost. Her hair was black and her eyes were blue, but they didn’t hold the same power as my wife’s. “Kelly,” she repeated.
I grinned at her, and her breathing picked up. “Not the first time you’ve seen a man who looks like me,” I said. “Tell me where he is.”
“Who?” she said, lying through her teeth. Her hands shook against the old counter. Her left hand had a gold band on it.
“Killian Kelly,” I said, flagging down the man working next to her. “Two glasses. Whiskey.” Then I looked back at her. “You can tell me now.” I shrugged. “Or I wait.”
“Fair warning,” my wife muttered, taking her glass from the barman. “He has the patience of a saint.”
“You’ll be waiting a long fucking time,” the barmaid said, suddenly venomous. Her “fucking” sounded like “fecking.”
“Doubtful. Once the live music starts.”
Her eyes widened. “He doesn’t want to see you.”
I relaxed, putting an arm behind my wife’s seat, taking a drink of my whiskey. A man came from the back room holding a guitar, and the barmaid scrambled to get out from behind the bar, pushing through the crowd.
A man who looked just like me rolled his wheelchair toward the stage, the crowd patting him on the back, letting him through, before he rolled up the incline and took his spot in front of the light.
The barmaid hadn’t been quick enough. His entrance had blocked her from reaching him in time. She stood in front of the stage, waving at him, but he only waved back. He started to sing. Instead of watching him, though, my eyes were on my wife. Her eyes were glued to the stage, and when she finally turned to me, she grabbed for her whiskey and downed it in one shot.
“He sings,” she said, her breath like straight fire that went to my lungs.
I nodded.
“He canreallysing,” she said. Not,he’s in a wheelchair;hesings.
“Seems like music is a thing with Irish twins,” I said.
“Can you sing?”
“Just because I can doesn’t mean I do,” I said.
“That’s not really an answer.”
“If it has stripes and teeth like a tiger—” I shrugged “—it is one, darlin’.”
She watched my face, her shock and curiosity waning the longer she did, and then she turned back to the stage. I turned to my food, eating what the barman had brought out. Every once in a while she’d take a bite or two, but she hardly ate anything.
She was still on strike.
Letting my napkin fall to the plate, I sighed, turning toward the stage. He had moved on to the slow, tear-jerking shit. My wife’s shoulders seemed slumped. Slowly turning her stool toward me, I found tears slipping down her cheeks. She didn’t even bother wiping them.
“This song is for you,” she whispered, putting a hand to her throat. She was purposely controlling her breathing, trying not to lose her shit over his shit.
“Nothing is fucking for me,” I said, downing another glass of whiskey. “I only exist in songs, in dreams, to him.”
The song finished to applause, and after thanking the crowd, he rolled off the stage, meeting the barmaid. She leaned down, and as soon as she did, he grabbed her face and kissed her. When he pulled away, a smile strained the corners of his mouth, and it was always fucking weird to see my face with that kind of freedom on it.
The easy smile melted as soon as her mouth came close to his ear. His eyes narrowed, and he started searching. It didn’t take him long to find me.
I lifted my hand and grinned—but it wasn’t fucking friendly. I was up against a wall, a version of me that I loved more than myself, and I had to harden my resolve toward the rejection.
The crowd parted for him as he moved toward me faster than he could have if his legs worked. He came to a stop right next to my stool.
“When did this happen?” I said before he could say anything. “Last I checked, in your profession, kissing romantically was forbidden. You did write in your ‘Dear Brother’ letter that you were moving back to Ireland to become a priest.”
