*
At nine o’clock the next night, Fin was a little lubed. Murphy’s was jammed, the booths full, the bar lined three deep, patrons standing around in clutches, beers in hand, leaning in to each other to be heard over the general hubbub and the sporadic sets of music. His mother was behind the bar, as was his Aunt Catherine, who’d just sent over the sixth round—two pints of Guinness, two glasses of red—in a couple of hours.
Fin wasn’t the only one feeling a little loose tonight, though. Donny and Mai, completely indulging on a rare child-free night out, were also merry. Thanks to a booze-soaked three years at the Conservatorium of Music, Mai had assured him that her violin playing only got better the more she had to drink and, if the smoking rendition of ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’ she’d just finished to much applause was any indication, he wondered why she didn’t just always stay a little bit hammered.
Sweeney was also delightfully tipsy. After a week where they’d alternated between performative public affection and a private pretence of normalcy, it was good to hear her laugh and chat and meet his eye without any trace of this weird newvibemaking every glance feel loaded. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes all sparkly and both her dangly earrings and her lip gloss shone in the overhead light.
She was like a goddamn glitter ball and it was such a relief. It felt like they were back in the BBK (before beach kiss) days and it gave him confidence that no matter what happened the next ten days or so, they’d be alright. They could be Fin and Sweeney, they could be themselves again.
Even if they had to get boozy.
‘I reckon it’s time, Mai,’ Sweeney said as she sipped her glass of red wine.
Lifting an eyebrow, Mai asked, ‘Time for what?’
‘Time for some Pogues.’
Mai had been entertaining the pub on and off for a couple of hours. She’d played a multitude of Irish jigs and popular songs, from ‘Molly Malone’ to ‘The Wild Colonial Boy’ to ‘The Fields of Athenry’. A few sea shanties had even made their way into the mix, along with more modern songs like ‘Zombie’ and ‘Galway Girl’—the Steve Earle one as well as the Ed Sheeran.
And everyone in Murphy’s had erupted into song when she’d played ‘Danny Boy’.
Mai sighed dramatically at her husband. ‘Honey, why doesn’t anyone ever ask me to play The Chaconne in D minor anymore? I slay at that.’
Donny grinned. ‘You can play that for me later, baby.’
Quirking an eyebrow, Mai shot Donny an indulgent look. ‘It goes for seventeen minutes. You’ll be asleep in two.’
‘Not if you’re naked.’
Sweeney almost snorted her wine up her nose as Mai grinned and affectionately said, ‘Deviant.’
‘Takes one to know one,’ he replied, kissing his wife in a way that was definitely not suitable for public consumption.
Had he been sober, Fin had no doubt this would have been an exceptionally awkward moment for him and Sweeney sitting opposite in the booth, but it wasn’t. Fin just rolled his eyes at her and she laughed out loud, her eyes twinkling.
Praise be to the makers of beer and red wine.
‘Okay.’ Donny unhanded his wife. ‘If you’re going to play another eight-minute song—’
‘Four and a half,’ Mai corrected.
‘Whatevs.’ He waved a hand, dismissing the extra three and a half minutes. ‘I’m going to hit the head.’
Mai snort-laughed. ‘Okay, Captain Ahab.’
That earned her another quick peck on the mouth as Donny slid out of the booth and headed for the gents. ‘You shouldn’t crack the seal, man,’ Fin called after his cousin, which earned him a cheery middle finger.
‘The man has a Woolworths bladder,’ Mai murmured as she watched him go.
‘What on earth did you ever see in that deviant?’ Sweeney asked good-naturedly, using Mai’s term of endearment back at her, as she picked up her wineglass.
Mai got that faraway look on her face, a small smile lifting the corners of her mouth. ‘He made me laugh.’
‘That’s it?’ Sweeney put the wine down again. ‘No auras? No fireworks? No choir of angels? He just… made you laugh?’
‘If you think a quiet, geeky, only-child, violin protégée didn’t need some laughs in her life you have no idea what it’s like growing up with a Korean mother. Donny was a revelation.’ She smiled dreamily. ‘My parents hated him on sight.’
‘But they love him now,’ Fin said.
