Page 90 of One Night Only
“It’s a maybe,” I say. It’s a no but he’ll keep pushing if I tell him that. “I should go,” I add. “Thanks for showing me around.”
“It was my pleasure. Let me professionally see you out and thank you for professionally dropping by.”
He gestures me out the door, turning off the lights as he goes, and we step into the corridor only to find two pigeons perched on the hand-railing, watching us. One immediately flies up to the next floor while the other simply stares at us before dropping its business down the stairwell.
“You know,” Declan says as he carefully ushers me past the bird’s unnerving gaze, “I’m really not going to miss this place.”
20
“There’s really nothing going on between you two?” Claire follows me down the street, squinting as we hit a patch of bright morning sunshine.
“Nothing besides work.”
“So this is just out of the goodness of your heart?”
“I’m good!” I protest. “I do charity stuff.”
“The fact that you call it charity stuff tells me you don’t.”
I pause outside O’Shea’s, turning to face her. It’s a quiet Sunday morning and I’m well aware I should be getting home from a bar and not arriving at one, but here we are. I didn’t intend to be here at all but Declan messaged again during the week asking if I’d help out, and I’d felt bad about my attitude before. He’d agreed to remain professional. There was no reason we couldn’t be professionalandfriends. And this is what friends do, isn’t it? Help each other out? Though with what exactly I’m not quite sure.
“This is the next step in our relationship,” I tell her.
“And this is your non-romantic relationship?”
“Correct. It’s professional, friendly—”
“Deluded.”
“How’s your grand plan with Mark coming along?”
She doesn’t rise to the bait. “If you’re so sure about this, why do you need me as chaperone?”
“You’re not a chaperone. I thought you wanted to get out of the apartment more.”
“P.m. not a.m.”
“Maybe you’ll meet someone,” I say, pushing open the door. “Maybe we’ll both…” I trail off as I step inside. Claire knocks into me, clipping my heel.
The bar is…not what I expected. I’m used to being here at night when it’s packed with people and the lights are down low. Now the floor is near deserted and decked out in multicolored balloons and streamers, a clashing mix of Valentine’s and St. Patrick’s Day.
“Is that a bingo table?” Claire asks.
I follow her gaze across the room to a little stage set up by the booths. It does indeed look like a bingo table. “Maybe it’s sexy bingo.”
“Are you sure this isn’t some preschooler’s fever dream?”
“He said it was a singles lunch.”
“Brunch.”
I whirl to see Declan emerging from a side corridor, carrying a stack of paper plates.
He’s wearing light-blue jeans and a branded bar shirt, plain white with a green shamrock over the heart ando’shea’swritten in slanted gold writing. A floral necklace hangs around his neck.
“There’s more where these came from,” he says when he sees me staring at it.
“What’s the theme here?”
