Page 67 of Snowed In
“Feels like a waste of your time.”
“And a ruin of yours. I hear O’Donoghue’s has a pool table now.”
I smooth out the sweater, knowing my decision even though I pretend to mull it over. “Fine.Onedrink,” I add at his triumphant look. “I’m tired.”
“Sure,” he says, all smiles now that he’s gotten his way. “Also, I had a beer with dinner, so you’re going to need to drive, and if you could stick to the nonalcoholic— Okay, see you downstairs!” He calls and ducks out of my room just before I throw a pillow at him.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, with the addition of some makeup and clothing that does not simply consist of a wearable blanket, I drive us to O’Donoghue’s, a large pub a few minutes outside of the village. Aidan spends the entire journey telling me about some big project he’s working on that I can barely understand, but I do my best to keep up since he’s clearly excited about it. Excited enough that I start to get pumped too, until we arrive at the pub, where I take one look at the parking lot and balk.
It’s busy. Busier than I thought it would be. I can’t even find space in the lot itself and have to park off the road like I see a few others doing.
As soon as we get out, Aidan swings an arm around my shoulders, the move feeling less like a show of brotherly affection and more like he’s trapping me to his side so I don’t run away. Probably because I do want to run away. Or drive away at least. But he gives a subtle flex when I try to shove him off, his arm like an iron band around me.
“What are you, like a gym bro now?”
“Work pays for it,” he says easily.
“Oh, does it? Pays for all your meals too, right?”
“You sound jealous, Meg.”
“Of working twenty-hour days? You know they give you all those perks because they never want you to leave the office, right?”
“We’re also getting beanbags next month,” he says, and I roll my eyes as we enter the pub. As soon as we do, I’m hit by the familiar smell of leather stools and spilled beer. It’s comforting. Like everyone else in the village, Isaac and I spent a lot of time here, and Mam, Aidan, and I used to come for lunch every Sunday.
The bar takes up the middle of the room, a long oval that splits the lounge in half. On one side, booths and tables occupy the space, while the other is cleared for the promised pool tables. The large television screen that usually shows sports now hasDie Hardon mute, the automated subtitles showing up a few seconds after the actors speak.
“You hungry?” Aidan asks, as we linger just inside the door.
“I guess,” I say, glancing around. “If they have anything sweet left, I wouldn’t say no to…” I trail off, tensing as I catch the eye of a tall, curvy redhead standing by the pool table. She’s staring right at me, cue stick in one hand, a soda in the other, and a look of complete shock on her face.
Sophie O’Meara. We were close once. Very close. And out of all our friends, she was the one who took my supposed betrayal of Isaac the hardest. She sent me a long text message the week after it happened. One that I deleted without reading because I took one look at the first line,breaking his heart…how could you, and felt like I was going to be sick. By the time I was strong enough to contact her a few weeks later, it was to find she’d blocked me on everything.
I still think about her sometimes. I still miss her. But if I thought remaining at the heart of our community meant she’d be privy to any and all gossip, I’d be wrong. It doesn’t look like news of Christian and I has spread as much as he’d hoped. In fact, judging by how she’s looking at me like I’ve just stepped through a magic portal, it doesn’t look like it’s spread at all.
“I thought you said no one was going to be here,” I say, as the two people she’s with, her brother Cormac, and Jason, another friend, all look our way. One by one, their smiles drop.
“I didn’t say that,” Aidan says. “I said I didn’t know if they were going to be here or not.”
“We should go.”
“What?” He sounds incredulous. “They’re your friends.”
“No, they’re not.”
But he ignores me, raising a hand in acknowledgment and doing thatheychin lift that boys do. No one does it back. No one waves. No one calls over, and after a second, Sophie leans over and whispers something urgent to the others, and my face heats so hard I’m surprised the sprinklers don’t go off.
“I told you,” I whisper, because now my brother, my cool, easygoing,just relax!brother is stiff as a board, and I know he’s surprised by their reaction.
I can’t help but feel a little justified.
Everyone always thinks I’m exaggerating. Sometimes I think I’m exaggerating. But then things like this happen, and I want nothing more than to be back in my childhood bedroom with my twenty-year-old television shows and my knitting.
“See?” I say dully. “Can we go? We can come back tomorrow and—Aidan.” Shit. I follow him as he heads to the opposite side of the pub, ignoring my obvious unhappiness as he dumps his coat in one of the booths and gestures pointedly inside.
“We’re staying,” he says, and he’s got that stubborn look on his face I remember so well.
