3
CIARA
I take a deep breath and push the pub door open with a bit of difficulty because of the strong wind that’s out tonight. I’m worn out by a day spent in the basement painting the walls and I still smell of paint and white spirit, not to mention being covered in the paint splashes I’ve got on my clothes. I didn’t even bother to change before coming.
I take a few steps inside and look around, disoriented by the noise here and tired from a hard day’s work and from sheer exhaustion, when I see Erin get to her feet and she nods at me. I approach the table where she’s waiting for me together with Alex and Rain.
“You made it!” she says, smiling at me. “We’d almost given up on you.”
“I’m sorry for being late, I was all tied up.”
“I can see that,” Erin says, pointing to the paint splashes still on my hands. “I hope that’ll wash off in time for the wedding.”
“Oh, sure it will,” I lie. I guess that my hands will never be their natural color again.
“How are things going?”
“Full speed ahead.”
“Are you still hoping to become a teacher?” Rain asks hopefully.
“Um-hmm.” I feel a bit embarrassed to talk with her about my dream of teaching art at school. I know that she used to be a teacher before the terrible accident and that she’s not able to go back to a job she had always dreamed of doing.
“You’ll love it, the children are…”
And then she is no longer able to control her emotions and a tear falls straight down her neck into her T-shirt.
I feel guilty for making her feel sad, but Erin smiles at me in reassurance and tries to change the subject.
“Will you have something to drink?” she asks, standing up and yelling something over my shoulder.
I instinctively turn around as if there were a greater force making me do it. As if all of my body were responding to a call that onlyheis able to send.
And I see him, standing at the bar, looking right at us.
His posture is tense, as if he were on alert. His arms are folded over his chest, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows, his forearms exposed and his veins raised. His mouth is slightly crooked in a grin which is just noticeable in his shaggy, sexy beard. He has that hard look in his eyes, and yet it’s magnetic…
Good Lord, help me.
He’s looking in this direction, I can feel his eyes on me as if he were looking at me for the first time as Ciara and not as Patrick’s little sister. A shiver of excitement runs through each part of me. He continues looking at me without moving a muscle. Not even the pat on the back my brother gives him seems to shake him.
He is paralyzed by my presence just as I am in his.
And it’s strange because we’ve known each other forever and have been close many times and spoken, joked around and he’s even made fun of me and angered me like no one else, but never, ever in all these years has he ever looked at me in this way.
I push away the illusion that has just risen in my heart and I turn towards the girls with a forced smile. I do not look at him again and when my beer arrives, I dive into it without thinking twice, emptying half of it in one gulp.
I feel his eyes burning into my back and hope fills me, hardening every centimeter of my skin. I shouldn’t feel like this, I have no right to and more than that, I shouldn’t feed something that I put to rest a long, long time ago, because I’ve always known in my heart and in my head that Aaron was off-limits, that I should never get close to him and what’s more, he should never do the same with me.
And yet, something happened the other night. A boundary was crossed. The plan was deviated and here I am again hoping that he wouldn’t look at me like a stupid little girl with a crush on him, but as a woman.
A woman who has desires.
“D-do you feel alright?” Rain asks, stuttering. “Y-you look p-pale.”
“Fantastic,” I lie without sounding convincing. “So, what are we talking about tonight?”
Erin sits up straight on her stool and starts showing us her plans for the bridesmaids: Rain, Alex and poor old me. My sister Amanda pulled out of attending the wedding, leaving me the designated family representative.
