She blinked.That’swhat Fin had been worrying about as he’d obsessively clicked from one YouTube clip to the next today? Fin the maths brain, computer nerd, astronomy nut who was living his best life on the other side of the world. Fin, who hadneversucked at anything. Except maybe girls. And he’d sure as hell made up for that.
‘You won’t.’
‘Oh yeah?’ An eyebrow lifted, giving him a certain rakishness he would have killed for as a teenager. ‘How can you be so sure?’
‘The fact that you’re thinking about it? Second guessing yourself? That you actuallycarethat you might? It’s been my experience in life that people who reallydosuck have very little self-awareness of the fact.’
He laughed. ‘True.’
‘And seriously, you couldn’t suck any worse than Donny. At least you can run without falling on your face.’
Another laugh. More of a chuckle, really, all deep and low, resonating around the confines of the car in a rumble that raised all the fine hairs on her body.
‘So what you’re saying is, just don’t fall over and I’ll already be ahead.’
Sweeney smiled. ‘Leaps and bounds.’
‘That’s a pretty low bar, don’t you think?’
She shrugged. ‘They’re five and six, Fin. Half of them probably can’t even wipe their own butts.’
‘True.’ He returned his attention to the windscreen. ‘Uh oh.’ He sat back in his seat. ‘They’ve discovered us.’
Sweeney frowned as she, too, turned her attention to the grounds. People were looking in their direction. Some were pointing. Others were nudging.FFS.‘Guess that’s our cue,’ she said, unclicking her seatbelt. ‘If we don’t get out there now, they’re going to wonder what we’ve been doing in here.’
‘You think they’re going to think we’ve been making out?’ He quirked that eyebrow again. ‘Isn’t that what engaged couples are supposed to do?’
The thought of making out with Fin made her itchy under her skin so she didn’t give it any oxygen inside her fertile imagination. She did, after all, think inpictures. Always had.
‘Sure, but it’ll get back to our mothers and—’
In a flash, Fin unclicked his seatbelt. ‘Say no more. We don’t need to give those two any more ideas.’
Sweeney grinned. It was ridiculous that at the age of thirty-two they were both still a little afraid of the loose cannons that were their mothers.
But they were.
*
Mai greeted Sweeney with a hug when she arrived at the sideline. Fin had made a beeline for Donny, who had proudly announced he was going to be Fin’ssecond. Clearly more practised with children, Donny made a game out of performing the introductions between Fin and his new little charges.
Sweeney only vaguely registered any of it as she set up her camera gear. She never travelled anywhere without a full kit, so she had everything on hand she would need. As she erected the tripod, Mai prattled about Instagram and Facebook access. ‘You free for a drink after or tomorrow night? Before you leave. I’d like to pick your brain about social media strategy. You have so many followers and your posts always seem to go viral.’
‘Um, sure,’ she said, distracted, as she snapped off a couple of test shots of the kids in the middle, huddled around Fin and Donny.
Satisfied with them, she asked, ‘How many in the team?’ as she deleted the images.
It had been a long while since Sweeney had anything to do with the AFL/soccer hybrid that ran green through the veins and arteries of all the locals, so the details were hazy. She remembered some things, though. The field was bigger than a soccer pitch—Michael had always boasted about that. But it was smaller than an AFL one. The ball was round but could be carried and hand passed as well as kicked. And the goal was a football/soccer net combo, allowing goals to be either kicked between the posts or slammed into the net below.
‘There are fifteen players on the field per side at any one time,’ Mai supplied. ‘There are twenty on the team for subs and such, but we’re down one with Owen’s little girl not here. The team is mixed at this age as the rules are different for the littlies just starting out. We have twelve boys and seven girls. The GFA—’
‘The what now?’ Sweeney asked as she glanced up from the viewfinder.
‘The Gaelic Football Association,’ Mai supplied. ‘They’re the governing body. They set the rules and standards for things like the line markings and the width of the goalposts.’
Listening to Mai speak, it was hard to believe that she had a master’s degree in fine arts and music from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. ‘I bet you never thought you’d know so much about Gaelic football a decade ago when you first got involved with that one.’ Sweeney tipped her head at Donny.
Mai hooted out a laugh. ‘No. I did not. Nor did I know that a decade of intensive classical violin training would make me the most popular person in an Irish pub on any given night.’
