Chapter 3

3

MADDIE

Saturday, March 1

M y head is pounding, and I roll over in the unfamiliar bed. Weak mid-morning light comes in from the large window, and a wooden sheep figurine that I hadn’t noticed last night casts a menacing shadow on the dresser. My exhaustion from the journey and jet lag made the few pints I had hit me so much harder than normal.

I wait for my brain to clear, and then I remember—my sisters think I’m in Saint Lucia for a month-long internship at an island resort near the man who’s supposed to be my boyfriend.

Not in Ireland doing whatever this is.

I groan and pull the heavy duvet over my head, but just for a second, as it’s hot as hell in this flat. I push it off my head.

Last night . . . oh, shit.

I asked the tall, dark, and smolderingly handsome bartender to kiss me in the hallway of the pub.

And it wasn’t just a kiss. It was an event. A party. Novellas could be written about how it felt to have that man pressed up against me, his hands almost on my ass and his tongue halfway down my throat.

But that was a kiss that should have been saved for a place where I’d leave forever the next day. The pub is literally downstairs from where I slept, and now, I’m going to have to avoid it for the entire month I’m in Dingle. Fuuuuck.

Or, maybe not avoid it? Look for a repeat kiss? Tough call.

I grab my phone, which has a full battery, thanks to an Irish charger left for me by Noreen, and see missed texts from my sisters—who think I’m on Saint Lucia time—from last night. I do a quick Google search before I open the text chain. During daylight savings time, Saint Lucia is the same time as New Jersey, but after the clocks change in the US in the fall, Saint Lucia is an hour ahead until spring. And right now, Ireland is five hours ahead of New Jersey, but apparently the clocks move in Ireland three weeks later than they do in New Jersey, so that’ll make Ireland four hours ahead.

At least Stella in London is in the same time zone as I am.

Can’t wait till I mess this up.

Reese

Did you get to Saint Lucia okay? Let us know you’re safe and sound!

Reese

And send pictures immediately! We’re supposed to get eight to twelve inches of snow overnight in Jersey

Stella

Explain in great detail how delightful the weather is. It’s cold and gray in London

Reese

I just looked it up—it’s eighty-five and sunny on Saint Lucia. I hate you!

Reese fakes it really well. I know she’s still upset from our last fight, when I told her I picked an internship in the Caribbean so I can see Blue. The joke’s on her, though—I’m not doing an internship or seeing Blue.

I notice she didn’t ask about him in her texts.

Blue was an American who had traded his days in a corporate cubicle farm to teach surf lessons in the turquoise waters of the Caribbean. I fell for him almost instantly. It was the island air, the nights listening to the waves with our toes in warm sand, and the sheer lack of clothing. Absolute bliss.

After heading back from a hot and romantic month together, Blue and I talked daily through texts and FaceTime until we met up for a long weekend in December in Miami. It was a little awkward at first since I hadn’t seen him in six weeks, but after a few hours, everything seemed great.

Until after New Year’s.

He was busy all the time. I told myself it was fine, that we didn’t have to talk every day. I didn’t let myself complain to Reese, and I didn’t want to bother Stella, who was busy with her life in London. So, when the opportunity came up, I decided to surprise him by grabbing the resort internship located on Saint Lucia.

Thank god I logged onto Instagram and found his new girl’s account before leaving. She’d tagged him multiple times while always in a bikini with a surfboard, at first posing innocently next to him, then progressing to biceps pressed together, then his arm around her shoulders, then, in the last one, they were kissing on the beach, the sunrise in the background. I was sure they’d been there all night.

We broke up over text. He called us a holiday fling.

Aunt Evelyn wanted me to change my life for the better with her bucket list and inheritance. She wanted me to volunteer for something—so I volunteered to build houses for a month. She wanted me to take a vacation—so I went to Saint Lucia, combining the volunteer work with a beach holiday. And she wanted me to use her money to build my future—so I quit my job and registered for a one-year hospitality program.

But I think I missed the point. I fell right back into my old bad habits with Blue. My great-aunt would be so disappointed.

A quick glance at the window shows gray skies outside the flat. I squeeze my eyes shut. The weather is not delightful in Dingle. It is not eighty-five degrees.

Well, maybe in this flat it is. I kick the duvet completely off my body.

Is it even safe that my sisters don’t know which continent I’m on right now? In Jersey, I’m always telling Reese where I am. I even share my location with her on the regular. What if I get kidnapped, or hospitalized, or something while I’m across the Atlantic?

And how am I going to send them proof-of-life photos that should have a white, sandy background when I’m in this awful country where it’s freaking freezing and I haven’t seen evidence of the sun?

I tap out a text as I assume at some point Reese will panic about me not responding.

Me

Sorry, passed out early last night! Safe and sound at the resort. About to go explore

Then I do the time zone math: it’s ten o’clock in the morning here and in London. Take away five hours for Jersey and six hours for Saint Lucia, so it’s five o’clock and four o’clock in the morning. Well, shit. I’ve already messed it up just by texting them.

I do a quick search for Saint Lucia sunrise photos, then another search for sunrise time and realize it’s hours away. Oops! I switch to a Saint Lucia sunset search and screenshot a few that don’t look too professional. I have some great pictures from when I was there in the fall, but my sisters have seen all of those.

Me

I’ll explore after coffee, of course! These are sunset pictures from last night

I hate that I’m lying to them. But I’m in way too deep.

I take a long, hot shower and draft Oliver’s friend an email as I eat some buttered bread and drink a gallon of water. I appreciate Noreen leaving some things for me... but good lord, I need coffee. And as soon as I send this email, I’ll venture out and find some.

To: Patrick McNulty

From: Madison Elizabeth Hart

Date: Saturday, March 1

Subject: Here in Dingle!

Hello Patrick, I’m in Dingle—surprise! I had some time free up on my calendar and thought I’d come right to the source to plan the Best Road Trip Ever (trademark pending) for all of us. Reese and Oliver deserve an amazing pre-wedding vacation, don’t you think? Anyway, it’s a secret that I’m here in Ireland, so please don’t tell Oliver or my sister.

Do you have time to meet up to talk potential itineraries? Everyone’s booked their flights to and from Ireland, so I need to fill the twelve nights they’re here with something amazing. They arrive in Dublin on Friday, April 18! Let’s do this!

Can we meet up for coffee? A drink? Maybe you can show me around Dingle?

Thanks a bunch,

Maddie

After adding a dozen emojis, I press send. There. That’s done.

I’m honestly not sure what I’m going to do with the time between now and the road trip. A month here in Dingle... then what?

I need caffeine. And headache meds.

The flat is on Main Street, and as I head down the stairs to street level, I open my map app to see what else is around besides the pub and the coffee shop Noreen mentioned. I need to buy myself a hat and some gloves, and I suppose I should’ve dressed in something other than a long dress and light puffy jacket. Like a full-body snowsuit.

I shade my face from O’Brien’s as I pass, as if the hot bartender will be peering out the pub at this very moment.

He’s not.

Dingle Brew is a cozy little café, with only a few tables pressed up against the front window. The smell of coffee beans and baked goods is delightful, and I order the largest size coffee they have and a buttery chocolate croissant.

“You a tourist? A little early in the season?” The barista is a pretty, middle-aged woman with shoulder-length brown hair, shallow wrinkles on her forehead, and well-established laugh lines around her mouth.

“I’m not really a tourist. Well, kinda. I’m here for a month.”

“Are you now?” She raises her eyebrows. “Welcome then.”

“My name’s Maddie.”

“I’m Maria. I’ll see you around then, Maddie.”

Another friend! Hooray! But I don’t want to linger, as she might do what Noreen did and ask questions about the quest I’m on in Dingle.

A man behind me steps forward and I smile at Maria before leaving the coffee shop, alternating ripping off pieces of the delicious chocolate croissant with chugging the hot drink.

Down another side street, a giant park sprawls in front of me. I glance down at my map app. Dingle Town Park. There’s a soccer game happening, and I absolutely shiver just thinking of how cold they must be in their athletic shorts and jerseys.

I pop the last bite of croissant in my mouth and wander closer. What else do I have to do? Patrick hasn’t responded to my email—it’s only been fifteen minutes—and I have literally no plans for the next, oh, two months.

For the hundredth time since boarding the plane to Dublin, I wonder what I’m doing here.

There’s a small crowd of people watching the men play, and I pause far enough away from the sideline so as not to be weird. It’s mostly women—probably all wives and girlfriends—and a couple of children. They’re all bundled up.

And me, some random tourist, in a dress and insufficiently warm jacket.

Reese’s fiancé used to play professional soccer in the UK, and actually, Patrick McNulty did, too. They were on the same team, and before Reese met Oliver in Scotland, he’d spent a year here in Dingle with his old teammate. That’s why we’re doing an Irish road trip, and that’s why it has to include Dingle and Oliver’s best friend. Patrick.

No one looks cold as they run around the field. My eyes land on the goalkeeper. He’s incredibly tall and dark and muscular, a shadow of a beard on his face. He’s standing in the goal with his arms crossed, watching the game, calm, calculating. Not sweaty. Goalie gloves cover his hands, and he starts pacing back and forth in front of the net, and OH MY GOD.

It’s the bartender from last night.

Fuck, this is a small town!

My body physically reacts to seeing him again, my knees softening like putty, heartbeat accelerating, and my hand rising to touch my lips where he kissed me.

Damn, he’s even hotter in a soccer jersey and shorts, his muscular, thick thighs straining against the fabric. That moment last night when he pushed my hair behind my ear at the bar... It was surprising, but I thought I was going to melt into a puddle on the pub floor. So when I saw him in the hallway, I said fuck it. Why am I here, if not to kiss a few hot men with accents?

Sound reasoning last night. But not as much this morning. What have I done?

I’ve had so many disasters with men. So many times, I was impulsive and let myself fall too hard, too fast. I’d get too involved, and always end up unemployed and with a broken heart.

A player from the other team breaks through the bartender’s team’s defenses and races toward the goal. The hot bartender is completely unperturbed, and when the player takes a shot, the bartender easily plucks the ball from the air.

And, oh shit , the striker is Liam, the New Dingle Brewing guy from last night. He also looks extra hot in soccer gear.

I giggle and sip my coffee. This morning just got a lot more interesting. And ridiculous. Maybe I shouldn’t spend a whole month here, considering what a mess I’ve already made. I just need to get Patrick to respond to my emails first.

But... wait. My brain whirls and makes a distant connection.

Then a closer connection.

Reese told me Patrick was a goalkeeper when he was playing professionally.

And... didn’t she also tell me he worked in a pub or at a brewery or something? I only vaguely paid attention because it didn’t matter. Patrick was my sister’s fiancé’s friend who lived in Ireland, so he was so distant to anything that mattered to me, there was no need to keep facts about him in my brain.

But I have a sinking suspicion that the bartender from last night is the same person as this goalkeeper who is the same person I emailed this morning about meeting up to plan an Irish road trip.

Fuck. Me.

The referee blows a whistle, and the bartender’s team— Patrick McNulty’s team—lets out a cheer.

So it’s not just that I made out with a man who bartends below the place I’m staying. It’s that I made out with my sister’s fiancé’s best friend.

Someone I don’t have the luxury of never seeing again.

Someone who I sent an email to this very morning.

I hold back a hysterical laugh, covering my mouth and backing away from the field before spinning around toward Main Street.

Patrick McNulty is the hot bartender I demanded a kiss from in the dark hallway. I wanted more from him. So much more. But now?

Out of sight of the field, my phone buzzes in my pocket.

Reese

Beautiful picture! Have the best time!

Oh, I am, sister, I am.

I’m going to have to face Patrick, and he’s going to realize who I am. That’s definitely happening.

A grunt sounds in my throat, and I finish the rest of the coffee, now cold and bitter. Have I already fucked up my sister’s pre-wedding road trip by kissing her fiancé’s best friend?

No. I can’t mess this up. It isn’t a job I can quit and run away from. Getting this right is the most important thing in my life right now.

Eventually, Reese and Stella will find out about me breaking up with Blue and dropping out of the hospitality program and lying about where I am.

So I need to distract them with The Road Trip To End All Road Trips. That means facing Patrick and what we did last night, and most importantly, behaving myself around him from now on.

When I’m at the door to the flat fumbling with my keys, my phone pings with an email notification.

It’s from Patrick.

To: Madison Elizabeth Hart

From: Patrick McNulty

Date: Saturday, 01 March

Subject: Re: Here in Dingle

You’re here? In Dingle? Why?

I’ve just finished with a soccer game and will be at O’Brien’s—my pub—to do some brewery paperwork later this afternoon. I’ll be there after three if you’d like to stop by. I can then refer you to approximately one thousand websites that have easy Irish road trip itineraries already prepared.

Patrick

I continue inside and collapse on the comfortable couch, wiggling my legs out of my boots. Is he fucking with me? He’s totally fucking with me. He’s not going to just send me to some website, is he? We need to make this trip extraordinary. Super special. Something that will make my family forget how much I suck.

I am not looking forward to seeing the look on his face when he realizes who I am.

I scoot into a horizontal position and pull down the soft fleece blanket from the back of the couch. My phone buzzes with texts from my sisters, but I turn it on silent and close my eyes. Exhaustion from the jet lag takes over and I drift away.

I’ll face Patrick McNulty—sexy bartender, soccer player, and hot-as-hell kisser—after I’ve had a solid nap.