Page 15 of On The Rocks

“I should’ve gone to that grooming class my aunt arranged,” I murmured regretfully.

Em let out a loud snort. “The bitch arranged it on the day you had that big test. You were right not to go.”

“I know,” I whispered. “But now I’m about to see Callum ‘love god’ O’Shea wearing a shit-colored meringue, with hair that looks like I stuck my finger in an outlet. He’s gonna take one look at me and run for the hills.” My heart clenched painfully. “I want him to like me the same way I like him, Em, but he’ll just see what my aunt wants him to see. He’ll think I’m a mess, and then I’ll be even more humiliated than usual.”

“Maeve,” she murmured. “Calm down. If you get stressed, you’ll get hives, and you don’t want your husband-to-be to have to look at big red welts on your neck and chest.”

“Oh my God,” I cried, my hand pressing my hammering heart. “I’m gonna get hives. Callum’s gonna jilt me because of hives.”

“Maeve!” Em snapped. “Chill.”

“Do something, Em,” I wailed. “I’m freaking out.”

“Breathe with me,” my friend ordered. “Come on, lie on your back and breathe through your nose and out your mouth.”

I dropped onto my bed and sucked air in and out until, eventually, my heart rate slowed. “I can’t believe this is happening, Em. I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. Aunt Orla will be annoyed if I don’t wear this shit meringue, but it’s humiliating.”

There was a brief silence before Emily said, “Right. Let’s break this down. Patrick came to you a few weeks ago and said Callum had asked if he could court you.”

“Right,” I concurred.

“Then yesterday, Patrick came back to you and said the courtship’s off. Callum needs a wife, and you’re it.”

I jerked a nod, even though she couldn’t see me. “Exactly.”

“So, think about it,” Em murmured. “Callum asked for you. Callum wants you. You already said he saw you at your aunt’s birthday party, when you had to wear the snot-green frothy creation that cut off the circulation to your tits. He’s seen the goods, and he wants the goods, shitty dresses and all.”

I paused.

Emily had a point; Callum had already seen me at my worst. My interests didn’t extend to the latest fashion and makeup trends. I was an archeologist; I went on digs and sat in dark rooms, painstakingly dusting tiny mud particles from old pieces of crockery. Wearing designer clothes would not only be pointless but also uncomfortable. Welly boots, combat pants, and raincoats were more my speed.

My lack of interest in fashion gave my aunt Orla the excuse to buy my clothes, and she ensured I looked like shit. Her two daughters had the best, while I had the ugliest, most ridiculous things she could find.

It hadn’t bothered me before—I wasn’t a beautiful woman anyway, so what I wore didn’t matter to me. You could put lipstick on a pig, but it would still be a pig, so what was the point in trying? Except now, Callum O’Shea—the man that every girl in my circle would’ve scratched each other’s eyes out for—was on the scene, looking for a wife.

I would’ve loved to feel pretty and confident for him instead of feeling like the booby prize, especially since he embodied the word gorgeous.

He was over six feet tall, which appealed to me on every level. All my tentative boyfriends had been shorter, and I found with Callum that I loved tipping my head back to gaze into his dancing blue eyes. The man had something about him, an inner strength and confidence, which was evidenced by the surety in every movement he made.

I fell a little bit in love with him when I was sixteen, and he was twenty-five. Lorcan, his dad, brought him and his brothers over to the house one summer. The men had a game of baseball in the garden, and immediately, I was mesmerized.

Some of the guys took their T-shirts off—Callum included—and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him. Even at that age, he was beautiful. His biceps bulged every time he swung the bat, and his tanned body rippled. He had muscles I never knew existed. My thighs clenched when I noticed the jut of his hipbones, pointing down toward a pronounced V, which disappeared under the low waistband of his shorts. His chest had a smattering of fine hair spreading across his pectorals that ran down his stomach in a thin line, which, again, disappeared into the waistband of his shorts.

Every girl there that day, as well as me, stared at Callum or one of his two brothers. I got talking to Donovan, who had a permanent smirk plastered across his face and the gift of the gab. I remembered thinking how he must’ve kissed the Blarney Stone because he had me giggling like the schoolgirl I was—and I wasn’t usually the giggling type. Tadhg was quieter and more watchful, with a cute, handsome baby face, but he still had an easy charm about him, which the younger girls loved.

All three boys were a hit, but it was Callum’s quiet strength that made a lasting impression on me.

The only problem was he was so far out of my league that I couldn’t even speak to him. The words didn’t form in my mouth properly, and my throat turned so dry that my voice became a squeak. He made me so nervous that I stayed away and just stared at him from a distance for the next fifteen years or so.

After that, Lorcan stopped bringing the boys around so much, but I never forgot Callum or the way he made me feel that day, as if I’d finally woken up from a long dream.

I’d had boyfriends since, mainly guys from college. Still, every relationship fizzled out before it got too serious because I found it difficult to connect. I lost both my parents young, and perhaps the trauma of it broke something inside me because the prospect of getting close to anybody made me nervous, though still not as anxious as getting close to Callum.

“He probably only asked for me because Erin and Shannon have already been promised,” I surmised. “I’m not glamorous or sexy.”

“You’re gorgeous in your own way,” she insisted. “And super smart.”

I snorted. “I love who I am, Em, but I know I’m not glamorous. I don’t know what to do with my hair, and fashion may as well be quantum physics for all I know about it. I’m not social unless it’s with you or people who love what I love. I’m crappy in social situations, and I get tongue-tied around beautiful Irish men, especially one in particular called Callum O’Shea, but I try and be pretty on the inside.”

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