“Oh, Christ,” she groaned, and lowered her head to the table. “Fine, let’s do this,” she said with her hands on her hips like a superhero. Daniel laughed and got out of the booth to take her hand and lead her to the dance floor.
They found an open spot towards the back and took each other in an embrace. Daniel’s left hand held her right hand, high and respectable, probably because her dad was watching them.
They danced quietly for a bit on the noisy dance floor. Some of the other dancers were swaying quietly too but the ones in the middle seemed to have already had a couple of drinks to help them with their courage on the dance floor and were not quite following the beat of the music but were having fun nonetheless.
“Have I told you how amazing you are today?” Daniel asked as they continued swaying softly to the beat.
“Hmmm, yes but it’s always good to hear it again,” Caitlin said and shot him a dazzling smile.
“Well, Caitlin Murphy- you are amazing,” he said and leaned in to kiss her forehead. “I should have seen it years ago but I’m glad I’ve finally wised up a bit.”
“I wouldn’t gothatfar,” Caitlin joked back. “But thank you. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think you would have had a shot back then. I mean, it’s nice to say these things, and to dream, but we should be honest.”
“What? Why do you think that?” Daniel said, clearly taken aback.
“Do you not remember the infamous playground incident?” she asked.
“Which one? There were a few,” he said with a grin.
“The one where the dog ran onto the playground and started trying to seesaw with the other kids?” Caitlin said.
“Oh yeah, I remember that. The kids were all trying to just ignore it so it would go away but the dog was bigger than most of them and kept pushing them off the seat so it could get on the seesaw. What was so special about that?” he asked quizzically.
“Well, I was one of the kids that was on the seesaw and the dog tried to push me off but I pushed back. It got a little bit upset and chomped down on my hairbow and shook a bit before the teachers could get there and pull me away from the dog. That was how the whole thing ended because they got him out of there after that.” Caitlin shook her head, remembering.
“Okay, but what does that have to do with me?” Daniel asked, still not understanding the connection.
“While the teachers were taking the dog away, I was sitting on the gravel crying about the whole thing and trying to get the bow out of my hair. You and your friends came over and said ‘Don’t worry about fixing your hair. The dog probably made it better.’ I was already so shaken up about it and that just made me cry harder.” Caitlin dropped her gaze as she finished.
“I remember the dog coming and it causing some chaos but I don’t remember that part,” Daniel said, shaking his head. He took his hand off her waist and put it under her chin to pull her gaze to meet his. “I’m really sorry, Caitlin. I hate that I said that to you. I was probably just trying to look cool to Sean and Robert honestly.”
“I’m not still mad about it, silly,” Caitlin said with a laugh to lighten the mood. “It was almost twenty years ago now. I just don’t think we would have been boyfriend and girlfriend back then is all.”
“Well I’m sorry anyways,” he said. “But that’s because I saw you as just another kid at the time. It was years later that I saw you as agirl,” he said, emphasizing with his tone and eyes.
“Oh really, and when was that?” Caitlin said, a bit surprised.
“It was right over there,” he said, nodding his head back towards the stairs in the other corner of the pub. “You were coming down for your first high school dance - Homecoming, I think - and you wore an emerald-green dress that matched your gorgeous eyes perfectly. It was the moment that I knew you were the most beautiful woman in the world,” he said and leaned his forehead against hers.
Caitlin closed her eyes and took in the words. She remembered that dress well. It was the first time that she had felt like a grown woman. She had only tried that dress on at the store and it fit perfectly, like it was made just for her. She couldn’t remember much about the dance or even if she had a date to it, but she never forgot that dress.
She felt her heart swell with such affection that she pressed her head to his shoulders. She stood there, swaying to the low hum of a song she’d never heard before, and as it drew to a close her head jerked up.
“Wait, I know this one!” she exclaimed as Ed Sheeran’s Galway Girl pumped through the speakers.
As soon as she recognized it, the other guests did too, and a wave of dancing bodies swarmed to the floor, knocking Caitlin off balance.
“Woah there, are you okay?” Daniel asked before casting a chilling glare to the tourist who plowed into her.
“Yes, I’m okay.” She laughed as he pulled her from the dance floor and back toward the drinks that waited for them.
As they approached, they saw that their drinks had arrived and they both took a long drink as they settled in.
“How did everything go?” her dad asked as they drank deeply, surprisingly parched.
“Really well, up until the song changed anyways,” Caitlin said and looked up to Daniel as he draped an arm around her shoulder.
“Glad to hear it,” her father said, and turned his gaze back to the party.
