Chapter Four
“Devina is such a bitch!” Fred’s vehemence spilled out of the speaker and into the corners of Marissa’s room.
“It just proves she is unhappy in her own life, Fred. That is why she tries to make everyone else miserable.” Marissa was lying across her bed, flipping through a magazine while she spoke to Fred via video conference on her laptop.
“Oh, please. She doesn’t even deserve your psycho-babble. It is not our fault she married a fossil.”
“Do you think she has a bad marriage?” Marissa asked.
“Would you be happy married to Devina Uppington?” he asked her. “The whole thing was a business arrangement orchestrated by her mother to save the Uppingtons from bankruptcy, that’s all. You know her dad was convicted of tax evasion.”
“How very medieval of them,” she said.
“Enough about them. Who cares about that shrew? Tell me about Finn,” Fred said. “Did you do him?”
Marissa sighed. Fred could be so crass, but she had to love him. “No, Fred. I didn’t do him. Last night was only our second date, for chrissakes. I have never even kissed him.”
“Are you f’ing kidding me? How can you resist those lips?” He almost jumped through the computer screen.
“Well, the chance just hasn’t come up, that’s all.”
“Be careful, Mars. You’re gonna end up in the ‘friend zone’,” he warned her.
“Would that really be so bad?” she asked. “I mean, with our age difference, and him only being in town for a few months, wouldn’t it be smarter just to stay in the friend zone?” That was a possibility that she could consider.
“No, that would defeat the whole purpose,” Fred argued. “You don’t need another gorgeous friend. You have me. What you need is a boy-toy to romance you and rock your world.”
“But Fred, I am old enough to be his mother…”
“Stop,” he interrupted her.
She sighed again. “Look,” she reasoned, “We both know Devina is a bitch, but she just said what everyone else was thinking. He is too young for me. You and I were smoking cigarettes and sneaking beer when he was born…”
“First of all, you don’t know that. Any of it. Have you confirmed his age? No. He could be older than you think. Second, you don’t know what everyone else was thinking. You said everybody seemed to like Finn. Third, who the hell cares what everybody else thinks? The only opinions that matter are yours and Finn’s. And mine, of course.”
She didn’t respond.
“Marissa, don’t mess up a good thing,” Fred warned her.
“I know. You’re right. The plan is to keep it light, simple, and fun. No heavy emotions, no serious commitments. Just a six-month fling,” she recited.
“Exactly,” he agreed. “Now, I have to get off this call and finish my lesson plan for next week. We are casting for the end of the school year production, and next week will be crazy.”
“Alright Fred. Talk soon.”
“Be good, Marissa.”
She closed the laptop and reached over to pick up Callie, her stuffed owl. The keeper of her secrets.
Oh Calliech,” she said. “If only I had your wisdom. How am I going to manage this without getting my heart broken?”
* * *
“You want a clam strip?” Finn offered Marissa a taste of everything off of his captain’s platter.
“No, thank you. I’m trying to finish this huge mahi. It is bigger than my head!” Marissa laughed.
“This place probably has the best seafood I have ever eaten, and coming from an Irish fishing village that is saying a lot,” he exclaimed as he stuffed more deviled crab in his mouth.
“Yeah, when you said you were in the mood for seafood, I knew you’d love this place!” she agreed. The Oceanside Diner was one of River City’s best seafood restaurants. There was actually a seafood market downstairs, but the upper level offered casual rooftop dining. The food was right out of the ocean, as fresh as you could get, and expertly prepared. Finn had ordered the captain’s platter, which offered a sample of all of the entrees, and Marissa ordered the Blackened Mahi Mahi which came with a homemade Mango Salsa.
“I’d love to try one of those fish tacos. I didn’t get one of those on my plate.”
“Save it for another day, Finn. I’m going to have to roll you out of here as it is!”
He laughed and dipped a scallop into melted butter.
She loved seeing him like this. Loved his huge appetite, and the pleasure he took from simple things. It had been a warm January day, and the sun was beginning to set. They had spent the afternoon browsing in the little shops on Third Street, which was the “main drag” at the beach and capped the shopping trip with dinner at Oceanside.
“This reminds me a lot of the street I live on,” he said of Third Street. “My house is on the main way in Dún Laoghaire. There is a coffee house right across the street, and I have my pick of a dozen restaurants and pubs within the block.”
“It sounds nice,” she said. “Will you be glad to get back?”
“Awww, it’ll be there. Right now, I am enjoyin’ the pleasures of America,” he gave her a sideways smile and took her hand.
Store all of these memories away, Marissa, she told herself. You’re going to need them when he’s gone.
“And you’ve gone awfully quiet,” his voice brought her back to the diner.
“Huh? Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about what you said about your house. Tell me more about Dún Laoghaire.”
“Ach, well. Dún Laoghaire is about twenty minutes south of Dublin proper. It is a seaside town on Dublin Bay.”
“Does your sister live close by?” she asked.
“She lives just a few minutes away, in Killgobbin Woods.”
“Killgobbin Woods?”
“Aye. It is a suburb. Nothing around but houses and a golf course.”
“Oh. I was picturing a dark and haunted forest,” she said.
He laughed. “Now you’re describin’ Barna Woods, near where I grew up.”
“You didn’t grow up in Dublin?” she asked.
“Oh, no. I am a country boy, born and raised. I grew up in Knockferry, County Galway. I lived in Dublin when I was going to university, and then I lived in London for a few years before I moved back to Dublin for work. But Gran still lives in Knockferry. She will never leave.”
“You don’t look like any country boy I’ve ever met,” she teased.
“Ha ha, well…. I guess London and Dublin had a wee effect on me.”
They paid for their dinner and decided to walk on the beach. The moon was almost full, and the breeze blowing in off the ocean smelled of salt. They walked hand in hand along the shoreline, dodging the water as it grew closer and closer with each entrenching wave. The tide was coming in quickly. Farther down the beach, some people were tide fishing, wading out knee deep in the water and throwing their lines.
“Do you ever go fishing?” he asked her.
“Not in a very long time.” She searched her memories. “Gee, I don’t think I have been fishing since I was a little girl. My grandma used to love it, though. She and my grandfather owned a bait shop on the pier when I was very young.”
“I haven’t been in a while either. We used to go, my friends and I, when we were young. We would take sandwiches and spend all day at Lough Corrib. There are dozens of small islands scattered all over the Lough. We would take a row boat and go exploring. Do you like boats?”
“I do, very much,” she said.
“Grandda has a wee boat docked somewhere. One day we will have to go for a ride.”
She said she liked boats, but she wasn’t so sure about wee boats. She liked boats with motors and decks that preferably more than ten people could fit on comfortably. “Sounds fun,” she said.
While they continued their slow amble down the beach, Marissa pondered her previous conversation with Fred about the friend zone. Was she ready to take things up a notch, or was she better off letting things stay the way they were? There was nothing wrong with just being friends. They could even continue their friendship after he returned to Ireland. She and Fred managed to maintain their friendship and were still very close, even though he had been living in Virginia for so many years. Staying friends made sense. It was the safe choice. But his lips looked so soft, and she loved the way his mouth moved when he talked and when he smiled at her. She was dying to know how it felt to kiss those lips, how that mouth tasted. She was a woman, after all…
“You’ve grown quiet on me again,” he said softly.
“Oh, I was just thinking how much I wanted to kis…” She stopped herself. She had almost told him what she was really thinking!
“Wait, what were you thinking?” he asked.
She blushed furiously but didn’t have time to make up a different version of what she was going to say, because suddenly his lips were on hers. He took her face in his hands and turned it up to his. He kissed her softly, tentatively at first, and then it deepened into a passionate embrace as he pulled her closer to him.
Marissa realized for the first time that she was playing with fire. Finn wasn’t just some younger guy that she could play with for a few months and then forget. He was a man, a fiery Gaelic lover who obviously knew how to treat a woman. The world fell away for a moment as she surrendered to the whirlwind the kiss created inside her. Heaven help her, there was no going back now.
* * *
Why didn’t I just say I was thinking about school, or ice cream, or climate change? “I am thinking about how much I want to kiss you.” Jesus, why would that sentence actually come out of my mouth? Why do I always answer his questions so truthfully? Why can’t I lie to him? Not even one little white lie. What the hell is wrong with me?
Marissa was still reeling three hours later while she was lying in her bed. She tried to remember all the different times she had been kissed. Had she ever experienced any kiss like that one? Maybe when she was young, and kissing was a new adventure? No. After her divorce when she started dating again? No. Before she was married when she fell in love with her future husband? Definitely no.
The answer was: never. She had never felt a kiss like that one before. Romance authors would say that every kiss was unique. That was bull. Kisses were all pretty much alike when you really thought about it. But not this one. This one honestly and truly left her weak in the knees. It wasn’t just hyperbole. She had actually felt weak in her knees. Afterward, her head had felt kind of dizzy, like she was floating. She had been speechless.
What the hell? Did other people feel this way after a simple kiss? Did all the women Finn had ever kissed feel this way? What had she been missing this whole time?
* * *
Finn leaned back against the large oak tree in Grandda’s backyard, he didn’t even notice the hard bench he was sitting on. He was looking up at the sky, watching the moon travel slowly to the west. It was getting closer to the horizon now, and would probably set in the next hour. It was past two a.m., but he was far from sleepy.
That kiss had been electric. When she said she was thinking about wanting to kiss him, all logic and restraint had flown out of his head, and when he tasted her sweet lips, a fire exploded somewhere deep inside him. It was like a peaceful green meadow that had been left unnoticed for too long had been struck by a bolt of lightning and set aflame.
That she roused him there had never been any doubt. But he had begun worrying that she might not have those same feelings for him. She always kept an emotional distance. But not tonight. Tonight, she told him she wanted to kiss him, and then she kissed him like no woman had ever done. She had placed her tiny hand on the side of his face and then run her fingers through his hair. He thought he was going to faint dead away right there from the pleasure it stirred in him.
Saints preserve him, if one kiss felt like that, what would it be like to make love with such a creature? He wasn’t sure if his body and mind could handle it, but he was damn well willing to try. He took a shot of whiskey (he wasn’t lying when he told Grandda he had his own) trying to tamp down some of the embers that were threatening to re-ignite. He had already taken one cold shower tonight and he wasn’t in the mood for another one.