"Oh." Up went Mick's eyebrows again. "They're quite a lot younger than you, then. I've a brother and a sister but we're all clustered together, myself in the middle and themselves barely two years older and younger than me."
"I was a surprise right after our parents got married," Irina agreed. "So Daria and Sofie are only four years apart, but I'm eight years older than Dar. But I think the age gaps kind of gave us all some time to be ourselves, you know?"
"I don't," he said with a grin. "I had to fight for my place to be myself. The lad who can't sing."
"You seem to be doing all right at it," Irina said with a smile of her own. "Not to press the point, but thank youagainfor the dress. It's so pretty." She smoothed her hand over the skirt as Mick shook his head.
"It's my pleasure."
"Also thank you for telling me the truth about the price," Irina added thoughtfully. "I bet your friend would have lied to me if you'd wanted her to."
"She asked if I did," Mick admitted. "I thought that would be a dick move."
Warmth and a feeling of safety rushed over Irina, making her sigh with contentment. "Not everybody would see it that way, though. Lots of people would see spending more than I was comfortable with as kind of a…like, a romantic power move, or something." She made a face as she finished the sentence, and to her surprise, so did Mick.
"If you're using power moves, it's not romance. And that's from a lad who does power moves—well, not for a living, but a hobby." He mimed picking up a weight bar and lifting it over his head. "I'd rather listen to what a woman wanted than pull that kind of shite. If you'd said no to the cost, I'd not have bought it for you. I'm glad you let me, though," he added more softly. "You're lovely altogether."
"And you're gorgeous, so we make a great couple, don't we?" Irina beamed at him, thenooohed as the meal arrived. It looked glorious and smelled better, some kind of white fish in a delicate sauce, and her stomach rumbled with hunger. For the next several minutes most of their conversation centered around 'oh my god' and 'this is delicious' as they traded bites, as Mick had ordered a chicken dish to her fish. Irina crunched into skinny, salty fries—chips, according to the Irish—and rolled her eyes with happiness. "Okay, between shopping and dinner, I may be prepared to let you organize my life for, like, ever."
Mick assumed an expression of mock-panic. "I don't think there are enough nice restaurants in Cork to keep introducing you to something new and delicious every night for your whole life."
Irina giggled. "I bet that no matter how flush your bank account is, there's not enough in it to buy me a new four hundred dollar dress every day, either. I'll accept the occasional splurge and, like, pizza or tacos or something the rest of the time."
"I have bad news about Irish tacos. Mexican food is not our strength, as a nation."
"Mmmm. I'll have to make tacos, then. I do an all right Tex-Mex dish. But we're okay on the pizza front?"
Mick smiled. "I think we can handle that, yeah. We've good Indian restaurants, though!"
"I know nothing of Indian food."
Mick's eyes lit up. "Oh. Amazing. I know where we're going for dinner tomorrow. You'll eat until you pop."
"Then we might have to wait until Sunday, because I'm dancing tomorrow," Irina pointed out. "The last thing I want to do is eat so much I explode on stage."
"A fair point. Though if you're going to, point yourself at the arsehole I talked to during the photo shoot today. Did I not tell ye about him?" Mick asked as Irina lifted her eyebrows again. "You were right about one of the judges not liking foreigners doing Irish dance, let's put that way. No idea if he's got something about Americans in particular, but he was all in a twist over the international competition including more than dancers from the Republic and the North."
"That's like the World Series being a competition between American baseball teams, isn't it?"
"Not quite, but close. Wearetwo different countries on the same island. It's complicated," Mick said with the air of a man who had just updated his relationship status and now had to explain the details to his mother.
"I'll work with the simple explanation," Irina promised. "Unless we're having dessert."
"I vote for dessert, but also to not spend it explaining Irish civil war politics when I could be talking about," Mick took a deep breath, "almostanythingelse. It's barely even right to call it civil war politics," he added in a mumble, and Irina fought down a giggle.
"Dessert but no politics. Gotcha. Someday I'll understand it all, maybe."
"You'll be doing better than half the scholars of the subject if you do," Mick said in a tone that suggested he wasn't entirely kidding. "They didn't call it 'The Irish Question' for nothing. Although that was a British…you know what, never mind."
Irina grinned. "I'll mind one of those honeycomb brownies instead, how's that? What," she protested as Mick quirked a heavy eyebrow. "You've got me tuned into this whole honeycomb thing!"
"Well done me. Yes, excellent plan. Altogether brilliant." He signaled to the server, and a few minutes later they were presented with her brownie and an incredibly delicate-looking blackberry mousse for Mick. They both regarded the tiny, beautiful mousse before Irina, thoughtfully, said, "Do you need to order, say, four more of those?"
"Let me check." Mick took a bite, groaned, and nodded. "Yes. Yes, I do. It's brilliant. Try a bite."
"If I try a bite it'll be gone!"
"If it's gone I'll order another!" And he did, too. Two more, in fact, as Irina nibbled her way through her more-substantial brownie. Mick did pause to take a picture of the mousse before he finished the final one, saying, "I want a shirt in this color. It's lovely."
