Page 49 of An Irish Summer

“Whatever you have to tell yourself.”

“Good night, Collin,” I said, ducking into my room and closing my door.

“Sweet dreams,” he called from the other side, so cheerful I almost had to laugh. Almost.

Chapter 13

“Right, then,” Collin said as we approached his truck. “We’re really doing this?”

“I thought you were a man of your word.”

We squinted at each other for a second against the bright morning sun before he wordlessly handed over his keys.

“Thanks a million,” I said, smiling at his eye roll.

A few days of distance (and Rhiannon’s departure) evaporated the tension from that night in the bathroom, so I decided to follow through with our plans to drive the Wild Atlantic Way.

Collin was right; there were things I wanted to know about him. About his history, about whether he treats every woman who passes through the Wanderer the same. About what the hell we were doing here.

“All right, so it’s a manual transmission, yeah?” he said as I hopped into the driver’s seat. “So to turn it on, step on the clutch and the brake, there.” I did as I was told, fighting a smile. “Then you put it in gear, so push this up and to the left, then ease off the clutch and—”

Before he had a chance to finish speaking, I sped out of the parking spot.

“Christ, Chelsea,” Collin said, grabbing the handle on the door. “What the hell are ya doing?”

“You didn’t think you were teaching me to drive stick, did you?” I threw it into second gear, pulling up to the road. I may have been confident in driving the truck, but I definitely wasn’t confident in doing it on the opposite side of the street.

“God,” he shook his head as he laughed. “It’s your goal to keep making me look like a fool, then, is it?”

“I mean, if the shoe fits...”

I could feel him staring at me, incredulous, but I didn’t risk a glance across the truck. I had to stay focused.

“All right, then, if you’re so confident, why don’t ya get out on the road there?”

I looked back and forth at the passing traffic, trying to determine both when I had an opening and exactly which way to pull out. And if I wasn’t nervous enough, I had the weight of Collin’s gaze boring into the side of my head.

“Not so easy, is it?”

“It’s your truck we’re in,” I reminded him. “So if I crash it because you’d rather make fun of me than be helpful, that’s on you.”

“That’s dark, Chelsea.”

“It’s true.”

“Right, then,” he said, clapping his hands together and focusing on the road. “In the interest of not getting us killed, I think I’ll help you out a bit.”

“Chivalry isn’t dead after all?”

“Stop faffin’ about,” he said. “Focus on the road.”

“Yes, sir.”

Once I had a window between cars, I pulled onto the left-hand side of the road, but not without an involuntary scream.

“You’re fine,” Collin encouraged. “Grand, even. I’ll tell you what to do next.”

I continued driving in silence, trying not to think about how nice it would be to always have someone telling you what to do next.

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