He deposited his stack of glasses on the bar and ordered a double vodka and soda. It was his least favourite drink in the entire world, but with a belly full of pizza, it was the best of a bad bunch. He slurped half of it down in one long swallow, then scanned the bar. Recently, his gaze had seemed to land on Ollie without his trying, but he couldn’t find him now. Jumbo was still there. Ben too. But Ollie was nowhere to be seen.
“Hey.”
Shay jumped. Spun around like a part-time ballet dancer who should’ve stuck to the day job.
Ollie was right behind him, smirking, one gorgeous hand wrapped around a pint of something dark, the other with an unlit cigarette dangling from his fingers. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
It was hard to hear him over the music. Shay stepped closer, leaning in. “What?”
“I said, sorry to sneak up on you. It’s pretty loud in here.”
Ollie’s accent was thicker than usual, his speech slower. He was as drunk as Shay wanted to be, and God, if it didn’t suit him. The pink tinge to his usually sharp eyes fit perfectly with the dark scruff on his jaw, and his softened features made him seem almost boyish.I wonder how old he is.
Asking seemed rude. So Shay didn’t. He didn’t say anything. Just stared until Ollie frowned and turned away.
Shit.
Shay grabbed Ollie’s arm. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
Ollie wrenched his arm back before Shay could finish. “It’s fine. I’ll leave you to it.”
He backed away before melting into the crowd like he’d never been there at all.
Anxiety built in Shay’s gut, roiling with the heavy dinner and vodka he’d put away until he was sure he’d be sick.I fucked up. But how? What had he done that had spooked Ollie so badly? He replayed their brief encounter on a loop in his head, but the longer he stood alone in the packed bar, the less clear it became.I need to find him. Shay pictured the unlit cigarette in Ollie’s hand, downed his drink, and ducked outside.
Ollie was on a bench by a war memorial, elbows on his knees, gazing at the ground as he smoked. Everything about him screamed to be left alone, but Shay was drunk and stupid and hurdled the back of the bench anyway.
He landed in a sitting position way too close to Ollie.
Oops.
Ollie didn’t look up, just offered Shay a drag on his half-finished smoke.
Shay waved it away. “You’re a clever man, and a weird one.”
Ollie made a sound low in his throat. “If you say so.”
“Don’t be a dick.”
“What do you want, Shay?”
Now there was a question. Shay leaned forwards, mirroring Ollie’s pose. “I don’t know.”
Ollie nodded as if it made perfect sense. He flicked his cigarette butt into a nearby bin and stood. “Come for a walk?”
Lacking any brighter ideas, Shay stood too. There was frost on the ground. He stepped towards Ollie. His boot slipped on an icy patch and sent him lurching into Ollie.
Ollie caught him, his hands fire around Shay’s wrists until he let go and slid an arm around Shay’s waist. “Come on, you fucking hooligan. Let’s go.”
Chapter Seven
Ollie hadofficially lost his mind. There was no other explanation as to why he was stumbling drunkenly through the centre of Belfast with his least messed-up arm clamped around Shay Maloney’s sinful waist. It wasn’t the beer. Couldn’t be because he got drunk all the time and always wound up alone.
They meandered along a busy street until they turned a corner into a side road that was quieter. Shay didn’t speak, and Ollie was glad of it. The chaos in his mind was loud enough without adding Shay’s beautiful voice into the mix.
He thought about lighting another fag, but Shay didn’t smoke. It hadn’t seemed to matter before. For some reason, it did now.
“You didn’t come to the gigs.”
