One
Raine
When I step inside the pub, the first thing I notice is the music. It's punchy, with layered vocals and a thrumming bass that makes me want to hum along, even though I don't know the words. The Local is emptier than I'd expect for a pub on a Friday night in Ireland, but maybe this is normal. The only thing I know about Cobh is that it was the last port of call for the Titanic before it sank. That and, according to a woman I met in Dublin who makes her living hula-hooping, the cruise ship terminal is an excellent spot for busking.
I cross the pub, take a seat at the bar, and after ordering a Guinness from a polite but grumpy-looking bartender, pull my phone from the pocket of my coat to use my song-finder app. When the screen doesn't illuminate, I instinctively reach for the giant backpack I always keep by my side, only to remember that I no longer have my backpack. Or my guitar. Or the travel case I use to carry my gear. Or any of my gear, for that matter. No street amp. No microphone stand. No phone charger.
I am usually calm in a crisis, probably because I'm so good at getting into one. But my face is numb after searching for my stolen things in the January cold, and I am one wrong turn from snapping like a too-tight guitar string.
The problem: I am stuck in this town I know nothing about, with nothing to my name but the contents of my pockets. Lip balm. My train ticket to Cobh from Dublin. A Ziploc bag with some cash from my guitar case. A foot tambourine. Old napkins with scribbled lyrics. Old receipts with scribbled lyrics. A piece of chewed gum inside of a crumpled receipt. (A lot of receipts, really.) My passport and phone, thank God.
The solution? Yet to be determined.
When the song ends, I'm resigned to the fact that I will never know the name of it. Just as I am resigned to the fact that after a year abroad, I will likely be moving back to Boston sooner than I planned.
The bartender fills my pint glass halfway, then sets it aside and disappears through a door to the kitchen. While I wait, I peer around the pub. It's clean and well-lit but sparsely decorated. Other than two Irish flags on the ceiling, a chalkboard menu, and some black-and-white photos of boats and buildings, it's not decorated at all. And speaking of sparse, there's hardly anyone else here. I wish I'd stumbled upon somewhere livelier to take my mind off of things, but now that I'm seated, I simply don't have the will to get up.
The bartender returns a few minutes later and sets my Guinness before me. "There you are, love," he says.
I thank him, but he only grunts and disappears to the kitchen again.
As I drink my pint, I prod my dead phone with a finger. I don't want to call my parents, but I need to. There's only so long I can put it off . I try to focus on the music playing overhead, but I'm stuck in a loop of negative thoughts. The humiliation of calling my parents and asking for help. The humiliation of returning home and moving in with them until I can get back on my feet. The humiliation of I told you so.
I've just finished my beer and am working up the motivation to hunt down a store that sells phone chargers when I'm startled by a blur of movement to my right. When I turn, I find the largest black cat I've ever seen perched on the barstool beside me.
"Oh, hello," I say. The cat swishes its tail lazily behind it, staring at me with its large green eyes.
It might just be the beer, but I'm already in love with this cat. I dangle my hand in front of it and say, "Aren't you incredibly floofy? You're a little late though. I've already had all my bad luck for the day. At least, I hope I have."
The cat blinks at me, then makes a trilling sound, almost like a bird.
"I bet you get the bad-luck thing all the time, don't you? I'm sure it's not true. You're probably a very lucky cat."
The cat chirps again. It rubs its face against my hand, so I give it a scratch beneath its chin. "Speaking of luck, you don't happen to have a phone charger, do you, floofy boy? Or girl. I don't want to assume."
I nearly fall off my stool when a voice answers me. "He doesn't, but there's usually one behind the bar."
When I look up, a man is lowering himself onto the stool on the other side of the cat. He swipes the beanie from his head and stuffs it into the pocket of his coat, then runs a hand through his dark hair. When he faces me, I decide that I was right, this cat is lucky, because with clear blue eyes and an easy expression, this man is . . . hot.
He props an elbow on the bar, posture confident and casual, like he owns the place. He's sex on a stool, and I bet he knows it. I take in the swoop of hair that falls into his eyes, the black peacoat and black jeans and black wingtip boots, and decide that this sophisticated-bad-boy look really does it for me.
"I like your . . ." Everything, I think. "Boots," I say, and immediately want to punch myself in the face. Of all the things that shoot out of my mouth, I couldn't find something more charming than I like your boots? Seems I haven't become any more worldly since leaving home.
"Thank you," the man says.
He gives me a bemused smile, and I soon realize the cat has pulled away from me and I've been scratching at nothing but air for the last few seconds. I grab my pint glass and take a sip, but it's empty except for a few drops of liquid. Any game I had (minuscule, tiny, almost non existent) has abandoned me in my time of need.
The man pushes the hair from his eyes and looks at my dingy brown hiking boots with faded red laces. "I like your boots too," he says.
I can't tell if he's serious or not. These boots have taken a beating. I really need a new pair, though I probably won't need hiking boots much back home. My parents will use their connections to get me an office job at a clinic or something, and instead of hiking boots, I'll be buying something sensible, though I don't see how heels and pointy-toed flats are more sensible than traction and arch support.
The man nods to the cat. "He's a boy, but you can call him whatever you like. He doesn't care. Isn't that right, Princess Ugly?"
I wiggle my toes in my perfectly sensible, if dingy, hiking boots. "That's quite the name."
He shoots me a playful smile. "His real name is Sebastian, but floofy boy works too."
I've fantasized plenty of times about meeting a cute local and falling into a whirlwind travel romance, but none of those fantasies ever began with the cute local catching me in conversation with a cat. "You can't deny he's very floofy," I say. "It's scientific."
"Ah, yes. What we have here is the magnificent Felis floofyis, the fiercest and, dare I say, floofiest of felines." When Sebastian chirps at him, he gives the cat a scratch between its ears before lifting his eyes to mine. "So the phone charger. Do you want to borrow it?"
Right. I tap my fingers along the screen of my dead phone with a sigh. "I don't want to be a bother."
"I know the owner," the man says. "He won't mind." Before I can tell him not to worry about it, he reaches behind the bar, face twisting in concentration as he gropes blindly for the charger.
"Really, don't trouble yourself. I'll just-"
"There," he says, a victorious look on his face when he sits back down, phone charger in hand.
I look from him to the charger. I don't make a habit of borrowing other people's things without asking. Hell, I won't even touch them, not even if said thing is in my way and probably a fire hazard. (A lesson I learned the hard way after being screamed at in a hostel.) But the bartender is nowhere in sight, and I really do need the charger. I've already missed the last train to Cork, where the nearest hostel is located, and I have no idea how I'll get there without my phone.
"And you're sure the owner won't mind?"
"Positive." When the man holds out the charger, the cat takes a swipe at it with a paw. "Quit it, Bash." The cat meows but leaves the charger alone when the man hands it to me. "There's an outlet right there beneath the bar," he says.
"Thanks." I plug in the charger, and when the battery icon lights up on my phone, I feel both relief and dread. I can't put off calling my parents for much longer. Maybe the cat can conjure up my missing things if I ask nicely enough.
I'm searching for a hostel with vacancies when the man shrugs off his coat and hangs it on a hook beneath the bar. He pushes up the sleeves of his black button-down, and I'm distracted by the colorful tattoos that cover his forearms. He must be heavily tattooed beyond his arms too, because when I look him over again, I notice the hilt of a dagger peeking out from the collar of his shirt.
I set my phone on the bar and turn toward him. "Do they all mean something?"
The man looks at me as if he has no idea what I'm talking about. Which, of course, he doesn't.
"Your tattoos," I explain.
"Oh." He holds his arms in front of himself as if he's never seen them before. "They do." He stretches a forearm out on the bar. "This one," he says, pointing to a portrait of a ginger cat with flowers around it, "is because I like cats."
I scan his arm. There are so many tattoos that it's hard to know where to start. A three-headed dragon. A pint glass. The structural formula of a chemical compound I can't recall the name of at the moment because my brain has obviously stopped working. "I can't tell if you're joking or not."
He scratches behind one of Sebastian's ears. "I'd never joke about my tattoos," he says. "I really do like cats."
I want to ask him more about the cats and if this tattoo is of a particular cat, but then Sebastian yawns and leaps from the stool. He crosses the pub and turns his green eyes back on us for a moment before disappearing into another room and out of sight.
"I think I bored him," I say.
"Nah," the man replies. "There must be something interesting about you. Sebastian doesn't sit beside just anyone."
Something about the way he looks at me makes my brain short-circuit. "Are you flirting with me?"
When the man laughs, it makes me want to laugh too. "I wasn't, but I can if you'd like."
I'm sure it's a joke, but after everything that's happened today, I'm feeling like a mess and not a hot one. Besides, it isn't every day a gorgeous tattooed Irishman offers to flirt with me, joke or not. Who am I to reject the universe when it sends something good my way?
"You know what? That would be nice. I'm having a bad day." I adjust myself on the stool to tuck one leg beneath my butt. "That's if you're serious about the offer."
A smile twitches at his lips when he looks me over. "I'm serious," he says.
I turn to face him. "Well then, let's see what you've got."
When he moves to the stool beside me, my heart ticks away like a metronome that's set a bit too fast.
"If you'll give me your hand, please," he says.
"Why?" I drop my eyes to his extended hand and find that even the underside of his arm is filled with color. His tattoos are of things that shouldn't go together but somehow do-two candy hearts, a pair of scissors, the ghosts from Pac-Man.
"Can't say. It's for the flirting."
Half of my brain says this is a bad idea. The other half doesn't particularly care. When he smiles, I decide to go with the latter half and tell the first half to shut it.
I place my hand in his, and the contact makes my skin sing. I know this is just for some pretend flirting, but human touch is not in high supply when you travel the world all by yourself. Except for on the Paris Metro, but that's an entirely different experience. If my skin is singing anything there, it's "Don't Stand So Close to Me."
The man flips my hand so that it rests palm-up on top of his. "Let's see . . ." His index finger drifts lightly along the center of my palm. "Interesting. Says here that you are very beautiful."
It's a cheesy line, but I smile anyway. "How lovely of my hand to say so."
The man lifts his gaze to mine. "I also think you're very beautiful, by the way."
"I'm glad everyone is in agreement, then," I say, trying to play it cool when, really, I'm melting more than a protein bar that's worked its way to the bottom of my backpack.
He laughs, then looks at my hand again. "You've got a big life-changing adventure coming up. That sounds fun."
"Or ominous."
He shakes his head. "It very clearly says the adventure is going to be fun." He tilts my palm beneath the light of the bare bulb that hangs above us. "You're a creative soul. An artist of some sort . . ." He squints at me. "Are you a musician?"
If I thought my heart was racing before, it's nothing compared to now. "How did you know that?"
"It's all here in your hand."
I stare at my hand. "I'm not sure if it's what you were going for, but I'm a little freaked out."
"Don't freak out." His touch is gentle when it skims across my fingertips. "I've tattooed a lot of musicians. The calluses gave you away. You've also got a tambourine poking out of your pocket. It jingles every time you move."
I look down at my pocket where, sure enough, my foot tambourine is in plain view. "You're a tattoo artist?"
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