No matter how many tarps you put down, whenever someone dies, they shite and piss themselves, and it always, always rolls off the edges of a tarp. It will then glue itself to the vehicle and permeate the interior and it’s just damned disgusting.
“I’m off then,” I say wearily, and I glance towards the door, trying to get up some enthusiasm for taking yet another arsehole to the dens’ pig pen for some much-needed recycling.
When I glance at the door though, I don’t just see the bar’s trademark dollar bill wallpapering all over the entrance and exit.
I see a woman.
Short, curvy as an 8, with tightly corkscrewed hair in shades of chestnut and auburn that have to be dyed-in, and the biggest, prettiest brown eyes I’ve ever seen.
She’s looking right at me like she knows me. And I’ve never seen her until this moment, but I know her instantly.
Because my soul recognizes her. My soul has been waiting for her all of my life.
“Oh, feck me,” I whisper.
“Not for a million dollars,” Rooker claims.
“Look now,” I tell him, not even embarrassed at the way my voice cracks. “My acushla just walked in.”
Acushla means pulse of my heart.
Rooker’s head whips up from his Hohner backpack (it holds his accordion, which he’ll be playing today) to have a see.
Uncomfortable at the attention, my rúnsearc, my secret love, takes a step back and glances at the way she came, maybe wondering if she should make an escape.
I jump the table and the half-wall that separates us in the time it takes her to glance back.
It’s safe to say my new, sudden proximity startles her. “AHH!”
“Sorry,” I soothe, hand held out to her. “Awch, mo mhuirnín, I’ve been waiting for you—” forever “—for a long time.”
Mo mhuirnín: my beloved.
She frowns and draws her hand against her leg, takes it right away from my fingers which were reaching for her. “Hi. I, uh, came in here for help.”
“I’ll help you,” I vow quickly. “I’ll help you with anything you need.”
Her eyes narrow, and she searches me thoroughly and not in the complimentary manner you’d hope for in a mate. “I need a ride.”
God bless Yanks. ‘A lift’ is what most of you mean.
In Ireland, her asking me for a ‘ride’ would involve me bucking up between her thighs, and that’s the kind of ride I want to give her, believe me. Oho, do I.
I gesture to the car park. “My mechanical steed is just over there, where ah…” Oh shite. “In that patch of sun.”
I bet the boot is smokin’.
It’s bound to smell like high hell inside. I knew I should have gotten that bloke out.
Then again, if I’d driven all the way to the dens to drop him off to the piggies, I wouldn’t be here, now, to meet my mate.
“You know, I can call an Uber,” my girl says suddenly, her voice wary.
And I realize she must have caught something in my expression; she saw my dismay or hesitation, and it’s spooked her. She has no idea that she’s perfectly safe with me. I’m not wasting time just now thinking up ways to cut her into pieces; I’m simply wondering if the scent of the dead bloke in the back half of my car is going to be a deal-breaker for her. I mean, if it’s not really how I’ve pictured our first date, surely this wasn’t in her script either.
“Finn. Take my truck,” Rooker calls.
“GOD BLESS YE, MAN,” I shout at him, twisting and catching the keys fast. Inhumanely fast. When I turn back to my colúr, my sweet dove, her eyes are wide and she’s staring at me in a new way.
“I’m a shifter,” I explain to her—and interestingly, this makes her relax. “And,” I tip my head to the window showing the car park, “I have a loving relationship with my car out there—proud as hell of Esmerelda, I swear, but I’m afraid she needs her interior detailed something awful at the moment. Anyway, here’s my I.D. if you’d trust me better to see it.” I’ve snagged my billfold from my back pocket and I’ve got it flipped open to show her my driver’s license. “I’m from just outside of Dublin, my parents still live near there, and I’d never hurt a woman. Also, I think my new favorite color is chocolate.” The exact shade of her eyes is what I’ll be in love with for the rest of my days. “What’s yours, a chroí?” My heart.