Page 30 of Charlie
“Why didn’t you connect with me?”
“You were in a relationship.”
She sat back and leaned against the window to face me. “I wish you had, though.”
She was so pretty with her long brown hair cascading down her shoulders and those eyes that had caught my attention the first time I saw her. Even now that I got to study them up close, I still couldn’t decide if they were blue, gray, or green. “Can I ask you a question?
“Sure.”
“What color are your eyes?”
She smiled. “My dad calls them marble balls because they are a bit of everything. It’s freaky.”
“No, not freaky. I told you. You have beautiful eyes.”
She smiled and reached for my hand again. “Can I make a confession?”
“Ahh… you’re finally ready to tell me what your fetish is. Let’s hear it then.”
“No, there was something else I was going to confess.”
“Geez, how many confessions can one woman have?” I teased and intertwined our fingers.
“My friends and I all thought you were super handsome and unattainable back at Harvard. That night at the bar they wouldn’t stop asking me about you.”
“It was the alcohol. You were all drunk and cross-eyed.”
Liv shook her head. “No. I think it’s because we were used to guys hitting on us, while you would hardly make eye contact. Sydney figured you were gay, but either way, you didn’t seem interested in any of us. The problem was I couldn’t get you out of my head, and I spent hours at the coffee shop, hoping you’d come by again.”
I frowned in confusion. “You did?”
“Yes. I tried searching for you on social media but the only men named Charles McCann that I could find were older or living abroad.”
“Damn. I wish I’d known.”
“Well, now you do.”
“Yeah. Now I do.” My heart rate was going at too high a pace for someone sitting still. The ball was in my court now, but it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since we first met at the university and we were moving incredibly fast. “Liv, I’m not sure what to say, except there’s definitely a mutual attraction here, but the thing is…”
The tension on her face when I said the wordbutwas cute. “You promised me that if I came on this tour, you’d tell me about your fetish.”
Liv studied me with humor playing in her eyes. “It’s not easy to talk about that sort of thing. Maybe it would be better if I showed you.”
“Showed me?” I cleared my throat, which suddenly felt swollen, and then I whispered, “Are you suggesting sex?” My tics were acting up and my heart was racing when Liv leaned in and gently bit my earlobe.
“When we get to the abbey, I’ll show you.”
CHAPTER 7
Kilmacduagh Abbey
Liv
“In a minute, you’ll see the old abbey to your left. Don’t be afraid to wander around or crisscross the graveyards; that’s perfectly acceptable here in Ireland. Notice something peculiar about the large tower that you should all see now? The entrance is seven meters up from the ground. That’s because of the Vikings who used to raid our lands. The monks would use a ladder and when the Vikings came, the monks would barricade themselves in the tower, which by the way is over thirty meters high. That impressive height makes it the tallest pre-modern building here in Ireland.”
“When was the abbey built?” Charles asked.
“The abbey is from the seventh century although the stone ruins you see now are from around the tenth century.”
