‘Yeah.’ She happy sighed. ‘He made it his mission to win them over and he had them charmed within a month.’
‘How?’
‘Persistence, promises that he wouldn’tdefile me—’ She waggled her eyebrows. ‘My mother’s words. And eye-watering politeness.’
‘Wait.’ Sweeney frowned. ‘You guys didn’t…?’
‘Oh, he defiled me.’ More eyebrow gymnastics. ‘He defiled megood.’
They both burst out laughing at the lewdness in Mai’s tone as she continued. ‘I think minding his p’s and q’s was probably his biggest challenge.’
‘I bet,’ Sweeney said. ‘You do know he’s taught the girls how to sign asshole?’
‘Hey,’ Fin protested on a half laugh. Boozy Sweeney had loose lips. Also very lovely lips. Kissable lips. But he digressed… ‘I told you that in confidence.’
‘Uff, please,’ Mai dismissed. ‘Of course I do. But being insulted in AUSLAN is a lot less than that little asshole deserves.’
Sweeney raised her wineglass. ‘Amen to that.’
They were all clinking their glasses together as Donny arrived back at the table. ‘What’d I miss?’
‘Me, about to play,’ Mai said as she slipped out of the booth seat, allowing Donny in. She glanced at Fin and Sweeney. ‘Come on, you two. If I’m playing a Christmas song in April, you’re dancing.’
She weaved through the crowd, heading for the small platform in the far corner of the pub where her violin sat on a bar stool. With a mere foot elevation, it was hardly a stage, just big enough to hold a couple of musicians, but when someone was playing, all eyes turned in that direction.
‘Well.’ Sweeney took a gulp of her wine before plonking the glass on the table. ‘That seems only fair.’ She slid out of the booth and held out her hand to Fin. ‘Would you do me the honour, kind sir?’
Fin’s breath caught in his throat as she smiled down at him, her fingers wiggling. A light overhead tipped the ends of her dark loose tendrils in a golden yellow and she was wearing a floaty skirt cinched in at the waist by a big belt, and she was looking at him like she always had, like he was one of the best parts of her life.
Grinning, he took her hand as he sidled out of the booth, bowing over it as he got to his feet and, swept up in the moment, dropped a playful kiss on her knuckles. Then one on her wrist. Then two more up her arm before he met her gaze, his lips buzzing. Sweeney’s eyes were dancing, her lips softly parted and shiny. ‘It would be my pleasure, fair lady.’
She led him through the crowd and he followed willingly as the opening notes of the violin cut through the noise in the bar and the crowd started singing about Christmas eve in a New York City drunk tank.
Twenty-Three
Six days later, Sweeney was inserting a key card into the slot of a hotel room door 1700 kilometres north of Ballyshannon. It had been alooongday thanks to multiple flight delays caused by a snap nationwide baggage handling strike.
What a surprise, what with it being Easter and all…
Consequently, the bus had just dropped them off at their budget hotel, almost eight hours later than scheduled. Not that the kids, still brimming with energy, seemed to mind. All of them had been buzzing from the moment they’d stepped foot on the hired bus that had driven them from Ballyshannon to Tullamarine.
Even with having at least one parent or guardian in tow, they’d brought new meaning to the term herding cats. Cats hopped up on the excitement of a plane trip and the upcoming comp and red dye number what-the-fuck-ever from the jelly beans that the airline staff at the gate and on the flight kept dishing out to thelittle cutiesin their green Banshees jerseys.
Given their bad luck, it should have been no surprise to Sweeney that when the door swung open there was only one bed. Becauseof coursethere was.
‘Well, shit,’ Fin said from behind her.
A hysterical gurgle rose in the back of her throat.Yup.But hey, why not? Why not complete the feeling that she and Fin were trapped on the set of a rom-com by throwing in one more juicy trope?
It had been a foregone conclusion that she and Fin would be sharing a room and Sweeney had made her peace with the concept. Mai had booked everyone’s accommodation and there was no way around asking for separate rooms without raising suspicion. Ditto for two beds. But Sweeney had assumed that, like most budget hotels that were in the family friendly market, therewouldbe more than one bed.
They edged into the stuffy room, both staring at the bed as the door shut behind them with a soft click. To be fair, as if to make up for the lack of another bed, itwashuge—definitely king size.
Somehow, that didn’t help.
‘Maybe we can check into a different hotel?’ Fin murmured.
Sweeney dragged her eyes off the blindingly white, blissfully cool-looking bedspread. ‘On the Easter weekend?’ she said, her gaze drilling into his profile as he continued to stare at the bed as though it was a pit of vipers. ‘At the Gold Coast. With school holidays and probably all the hotels in the immediate vicinity taken up with people involved in the comp?’
