On arriving back home from the kindergarten, Ryan did something he had previously sworn to himself he would never do, not under any circumstances: he had taken out his phone, called his mother’s number and begged her to arrange a meeting with any of the girls she had ‘selected’ for him. His only conditions were: the girl couldn’t be a lawyer and the appointment had to be as soon as possible.
His mother, poor thing, had refrained from asking questions and had immediately started organising a blind date for the following day; the person she had chosen was a very pretty girl called Ireland, a twenty-eight year old interior designer. She thought that at the very least she could hope for a positive outcome in that her son’s apartment really was in need of some serious attention. Apart from the girl’s name, which sounded a tad excessive even for someone of Irish origins, the only thing wrong with the whole situation was the place where the date was actually going to take place: his parents’ bar. His mother had apologized, saying that she just couldn’t come up with anything better, given how urgent it was. But she had given Ryan the girl’s phone number – that way they could choose a different location if he wanted. Ryan, though, couldn’t think of anything more stressful than calling Ireland on the phone, so he had resigned himself to meeting her at the family’s bar, which was at the corner between Third and Twentieth and almost hidden from the street. He was there at nine thirty sharp, as agreed.
He had asked Niel to go with him, since Niel sometimes helped Finn, his brother, who was the full-time manager of the pub, having already taken over their parents’ place a few years earlier. As one would expect, though, that evening the whole family had assembled behind the bar. Even Kieran had found time to come and tease him.
“God, they’re really all here,” he complained to Niel.
“Well, what did you expect? You must have known there was a good chance they would be. If you wanted more privacy, you should have gone somewhere else for your date.”
Ryan hated having to admit that his brother was right.
“Yeah – looks like I really asked for it.”
Niel tapped his shoulder. “Come on, let’s have a drink to that. Mum, Dad, Finn, Kieran – good evening everybody.”
“I see you’re here too. You just couldn’t miss the show, could you?” Ryan’s younger brother asked.
“Why would I? What, am I not allowed to enjoy all the fun like everybody else? Hey, I’ve got every right to take part in this momentous event – I am a member of this family too, you know!” he joked.
“In that case, what are you waiting for? Come out from behind the counter – from here you have an almost perfect view of all the tables!” Kieran told him.
Niel shook his head and started looking around the bar, which was almost full, as it was every evening. Their clientele was predominantly relaxed looking people, not really the trendy types – more the type of people who knew how to enjoy a good pint of Guinness and a chat and didn’t really appreciate useless frills.
Ryan was sitting at the bar with his back to the entrance, so he didn’t see the four people enter. But Niel saw them very well, and he opened his eyes wide in wonder before bursting into delighted laughter. He turned back towards Ryan, who was having a beer.
“Brother, I’m getting a feeling that this might really be your lucky evening,” he said cryptically.
Ryan looked back at him grimly.
“What do you know that I don’t?” he snapped immediately.
*
Niel couldn’t stop laughing. “Me? What would I know?”
“Yeah, you, asshole. What the hell are you laughing about? Has this famous girl already turned up without me realizing?” he asked, peering around the room. Suddenly, his eyes paused on the four people Niel had seen entering the bar not long before, who were now sitting at one of the tables at the back of the room. Ryan couldn’t avoid closing his eyes for a moment and swearing in a way he wasn’t supposed to. His mother scolded him immediately.
“I don’t believe it,” he mumbled. “Is this your doing?” he asked Niel in a threatening tone. His brother was still trying to stop laughing.
“I had absolutely nothing to do with it!” his brother protested, with his eyes full of tears. “Trust me, I don’t think she’s even realized you’re here!”
Truth be told, it appeared that Niel was right: Amalia had entered the bar and walked through it without even noticing him. Ryan had the strange sensation that something really unpleasant was happening in his stomach. He chose to blame the meat pie he had eaten just an hour before. Despite his best intentions, he turned to look at Amalia and Kayla again, who were accompanied by two dandies… Two of those men who are always trying so very hard to show off. They were sitting peacefully at their table, completely oblivious to his presence.
“Who are those guys?” Niel asked him, having decided to go on about it until his brother completely lost his mind.
“How the hell would I know?” was Ryan’s grouchy answer, before he resumed staring at the scene. Kayla seemed to be glued to the guy at her side, while Amalia was trying rather ineffectively to keep the idiot sitting next to her at a safe distance.
“Who are those people?” Finn asked.
“Nobody you’re interested in,” Ryan answered, just as Niel said “Amalia.”
At the sound of that name, the many members of the O’Moore family turned to stare at her.
“Will you all stop looking at her, for God’s sake?” Ryan asked them angrily. But nobody paid him any attention… That was nothing new, but after all these years he was out of practice.
“Is it the blonde one?” Kieran asked Niel, who confirmed it by nodding his head ostentatiously. “Of course, I knew it would be! – she looks like a pain in the ass, so perfect for Ryan’s tastes.”
Ryan lifted his head with a sudden movement and frowned at his brother. “On the contrary – I don’t like her at all,” he grunted slowly.
Exactly at that moment, a lovely red-haired girl approached the counter. “Good evening. Are you Mrs O’Moore?” the girl asked Ryan’s mother timidly.
“Ireland?” she answered immediately.
“Yeah, that’s me,” she confirmed, taking her gloves off and unbuttoning her coat.
“Oh my dear girl, I’m so happy to meet you. You aunt’s told me so many wonderful things about you.”
The girl blushed instantly. “Oh, my aunty’s always saying ridiculously nice things about me, she goes way over the top. But, please, don’t tell her I said that!”
Mrs O’Moore gave her a friendly smile.
“Well, my dear, these are my sons: Kieran, Finn, Niel and Ryan, of course.”
When he heard his name, Ryan bit the bullet, stood up and introduced himself properly.
“Hello,” he said, offering her his hand. She took it with some hesitation, unable to control her growing embarrassment. Those first five seconds were more than enough for Ryan to realize that such a shy girl would never be able to stand her ground against him. But he had put her and himself in that grotesque situation, and now he had no choice but to go through with it. “Shall we sit somewhere?” he asked gallantly, gesturing to a small table near the counter. He pretended not to have realized that by sitting at that particular table he would be able to watch Amalia. From the corner of his eye, he was able to see that his brother Finn had approached the Fab Four and asked for their orders. He was so busy eavesdropping that he didn’t hear Ireland asking him something.
“Pardon me?” he said, feeling somewhat guilty.
“I said: so you’re an Assistant District Attorney, right?” she repeated. He clearly made her nervous.
“Erm yes, I am. What about you?” he asked, forcing himself to focus his attention on her.
“I’m an interior designer,” she said proudly.
At that point, they had said everything that they already knew about each other.
“That’s great. You know, I think I really need an interior designer’s help with my apartment. I really don’t have time to go shopping for furniture.”
She smiled at him very gently, but it was obvious that he had just said something inappropriate. Ireland hadn’t come there to talk about work. In any case, she pretended that everything was fine and took one of her business cards from her bag and gave it to him.
“Here, so you can call me when you need to talk about your apartment.”
The message couldn’t have been clearer. Ryan took a breath, searching for some inspiration to pick up the conversation again. He tried very hard not to, but he couldn’t resist it: he raised his eyes and looked over Ireland’s shoulder, towards the table where his brother had just taken a tray with four beers. So Amalia did drink beer, he thought. Since when?
“Is there anything wrong?” Ireland asked, turning her head too.
“No, nothing at all,” Ryan answered quickly. But the girl had already seen what Ryan was looking at.
“Are they friends of yours?” she asked, observing the scene.
“No, one of the girls is an… an acquaintance of mine,” he answered, feeling uncomfortable. He was even starting to sweat.
“Would you like to go over and say ‘hi’ to her?” she proposed, maybe hoping that by doing so he would quit that stupid behavior quickly.
“Absolutely not, there’s really no need to go over there and say ‘hi’…” he said anxiously. “Let’s just think about ourselves.” Luckily for him, right at that moment Finn came over for their orders.
“So what can I get you, guys?” he asked in a friendly voice. Ryan reflected on how good his brother was at interacting with people. Ireland asked for a fruit juice, while Ryan asked for another Guinness. After that, they were alone again, and with nothing to talk about.
“So, do you like working for the District Attorney?” she asked, clearly desperate to make conversation.
Ryan was so ashamed of himself that he wished he could just vanish.
“Yes, I do. I like it a lot,” he answered like an imbecile, not knowing what else to add. They spent another thirty seconds in silence, and then he suddenly stood up from his chair.
“Can you excuse me for a moment? I must make a phone call,” he told her. He found Niel and pleaded with him: “I really need some fresh air, and this thing is not going well at all. Could you be a pal and entertain her for five minutes? Please?”
Niel gave him a vaguely compassionate smile, but decided to co-operate. “Of course. I’m quite happy to have a chat with a beautiful woman. Pity that the same can’t be said about you…”
Ryan grunted in acknowledgement and then headed off for the restroom to find temporary refuge. Some cold water on his face might help, he thought. Anyway, it couldn’t go any worse than it already was doing. He would have liked to be able to say that walking past the bar he resisted the temptation to glance at Amalia one last time.
But, although an expert at denying the obvious, he couldn’t deny that.
“So you’re a lawyer, right?” Jack asked her again, for the second time in ten minutes. And he asked in exactly the same tone and wearing exactly the same hideous smile as before. Kayla would be paying her back for that terrible evening for a long time, thought Amalia.
“Yes, still. I haven’t changed jobs since the last time you asked,” she answered. She was perfectly aware she sounded like a bitch, but enough was enough.
As she expected, he didn’t react at all. Men like him would never fight back. They wouldn’t even notice the sarcasm, as so little information ever reached their brains. And people still speculated about how bitchy women could be, she thought. Amalia would have really liked to ask these people to spend some time with men like these, just to see how they would behave in her shoes.
But she was actually angry with herself for having let her friend drag her along on that double date. Kayla fancied Mike – God know why, but she did – and he wouldn’t go anywhere without his beloved best buddy, and that was why, for the sake of her friendship with Kayla, Amalia had been forced to sacrifice her evening. But after about half an hour of inane conversation, she had really had enough of the whole situation. Moreover, she was trying hard, and with little success, to stop thinking of that kiss from Ryan at the kindergarten. She hadn’t met many men in her life who were able to kiss her that way, and that was why she was having such a hard time forgetting about it. Her mind was so focused on the Assistant D.A. that she even thought that the waiter who brought them their beers looked like Ryan. He had the same eyes, she noticed – they were that same light green that she had thought was unique, but which clearly wasn’t actually all that rare.
See? There are plenty of people in New York with the same green eyes, she thought, so stop thinking about him now! In desperation, she raised her eyes to the ceiling while Jack continued to regale her with tales of his own importance – when she suddenly noticed the people at a table near the counter. The guy sitting with a pretty red-haired girl looked a lot like Niel. It was funny: now it wasn’t just the waiter who reminded her of Ryan, now she was even seeing his brother’s double. Amalia began to think that she was going to need a good therapist if those visions didn’t stop soon. Luckily, Manhattan was full of therapists – in fact, it almost seemed like the number of lawyers was somehow linked to the number of therapists…
“Sorry,” she said, interrupting Jack’s monologue, “I really need to go to the restroom.”
He was perplexed for a moment at her request, then nodded.
“Sure, of course…” he said, before moving aside to allow her to get past him and leave the booth.
She reached the counter and had the embarrassing feeling that everyone was staring at her. Was she just imagining it?
“Can I help you?” a pretty woman asked her, in a way Amalia thought was excessively kind. “What can you we do for you?”
“Err, I was actually looking for the restroom,” she answered nervously.
The young man behind the bar burst out laughing. What on earth was so funny about going to the restroom? The barman who had served her earlier elbowed him viciously to make him shut up.
“It’s that way,” the woman answered, pointing to a door, while the young man continued struggling to suppress his laughter. Amalia shook her head in disbelief and walked towards the toilet. The evening was getting stranger and stranger.
When she reached the door, she tried to open it, but it seemed to be locked. She tried again, but there was no way of opening it.
“Is anyone in there?” she asked, while knocking.
From behind the door, she could hear water running.
“Just a moment, please,” a male voice answered. And of course she thought it was Ryan’s voice.
“God, I must have completely lost my mind,” she said to herself. “I really need to find a good therapist – and fast.”
About twenty seconds later the door opened. Amalia lifted her eyes up and almost passed out when she saw him standing there.
“Ryan?” she asked in shock, before mumbling, “Nah – you can’t be Ryan. You’re just a trick my mind is playing on me…”
“Of course I’m Ryan, who the hell else would I be?” he asked in exasperation, seemingly not at all surprised to see her. “Are you saying you know so many people who look just like me that you don’t recognize me?”
*
Amalia decided it was best not to answer that. After her initial surprise passed, she found the strength to speak.
“What are you doing here?”
“What I am doing here? This is my parents’ bar, for your information. So the question is: what are you doing here?”
“Err – having a drink?” she suggested, completely taken aback by his grouchiness. “What else would I be doing in a bar?”
“And did you really have to choose my parents’ bar?”
He was questioning her in the same severe tone he probably used with suspects.
“I didn’t have a clue this was your parents’ bar! And I didn’t see the sign saying ‘Ryan’s parents’ bar – no trespassing’ outside,” she complained. “I live in the East Village, we went for a walk and we ended up here. What’s so wrong with that? Or do you want to appeal to the court against all of life’s strange little coincidences?”
He took a breath and tried to calm down. “There’s nothing wrong with it, of course. I’m sorry. It’s just… it’s just that this must be the worst evening I’ve had in a while.”
“What? Because you saw me?” she asked, slightly offended.
Ryan raised his eyes up to the roof.
“No, damn it!, that’s not what I meant! God, I can’t seem to say anything right lately. No, of course I didn’t mean seeing you ruined my evening! It has nothing to do with you. I think I am having a few problems, and I’m sure I’m going to have even more of them now…” he confided, pointing to the bar, where the whole family had assembled to observe them. And now they weren’t even trying to hide their curiosity!
“Wow, there’s a lot of them,” she commented sympathetically.
Ryan couldn’t help but laugh.
“Sometimes there are really way too many of them,” he admitted. Then he turned his eyes back to Amalia, who was wearing a fitted woollen dress with a swooping neckline and a fabulous brooch on one side. If he had seen a brooch like that on any other woman, he would have assumed it was just costume jewellery, but Amalia was Amalia, so he was absolutely certain the diamonds were real.
“You look… nice,” he admitted, almost unwillingly.
She smiled at him. “Thank you.”
“Are you here with someone?” he asked, pretending that he didn’t know.
“Yes, I’m with Kayla, her current sweetheart and his best buddy,” she revealed unenthusiastically. “What about you?”
“I’m on a date. With a girl.”
Amalia tried not to look too shocked by the revelation. “Oh, right. Sure. Well, in that case, I’ll leave you to your date,” she said quickly, trying very hard to ignore the sudden empty feeling.
Apparently forgetting your meals and not eating was really bad for her stomach… “Ok, bye now, see you later,” she said to get rid of him before disappearing into the toilet.
Ryan didn’t know what to do next. He noticed that she had forgotten to lock the door. He looked at the handle, then at the counter, where the whole family was still observing him, then again at the handle.
“What the hell…” he said angrily, opening the door with determination, stepping inside and closing it behind him violently. Amalia was by the sink, washing her hands and started at the sudden intrusion.
“Did you forget something?” she asked. Her heart was pounding, partly from the shock and partly because Ryan always seemed to have that effect on her lately.
“Yes, I did forget something – I really did,” he answered, while approaching her with long strides and grabbing her wrist. Amalia put up no resistance and found herself enveloped in, and overwhelmed by, his embrace. In a matter of seconds, Ryan’s lips had planted themselves on hers, and immediately afterwards made them their own. They staggered in their embrace until Amalia’s back banged against the bathroom door.
“Oh my God, I’m sorry,” he said, mortified by the frenzy that seemed to have possessed him.
Amalia couldn’t help laughing. “Instead of apologizing, why don’t you carry on with what you were doing a few moments ago?”
She put her hands round his neck and started caressing it, before moving them up to his hair, which was much silkier than she had expected.
They separated from each other for a moment only to breathe with some difficulty.
“My family are going to tear me to pieces for this,” he whispered, while kissing her neck.
“Hmmm…” was her reply.
“You make me completely lose my mind,” he said accusingly, while caressing the leg she was using to hold him tightly to her.
Amalia didn’t reply, she took his head in her hands and re-united the lips that were unwilling to waste any more time in pointless pleasantries.
They were getting dangerously close to the point of no return when they were interrupted by someone knocking at the door.
“Ryan? Is everything alright in there?” asked his brother Finn from behind the door. “If I were you I would get a hold of myself and come out before Mum calls a priest. I’m sorry to inform you that you’re about two minutes away from a phone call to Father O’Connelly.”
“Jesus…” mumbled Ryan, interrupting his kiss. He banged his head against the door again and again, without releasing his grip on her. “I’m going to need more than two minutes, Finn,” he pointed out.
Amalia extricated herself from their embrace and, after a quick glance at his crotch, burst into laughter and said, “Yeah, I can confirm that he’s going to need more than two minutes.”
From the other side of the door, Finn sighed.
“I’d rather not know all the details, if you two don’t mind. But I think I know a very efficient way of solving this problem: Ryan, Mum wants to know if Amalia would like to join us for lunch tomorrow,” he said, as though it was no big deal.
“Oh, God, no!” snapped Ryan immediately.
They could hear Finn laughing. “Hey, you got yourself into this mess, buddy. And, by the way, Niel wants to know if he can take Ireland for a drink somewhere else. Apparently, unlike you, he doesn’t want to put on a show for our parents’ entertainment.”
“That bastard…” Ryan whispered, approaching the tap to splash his face with some cold water. For the second time in fifteen minutes.
Amalia observed him for a second, not knowing exactly what to think about what had just happened. Ryan seemed quite upset. And, well, he had just done something pretty surprising, for him.
“Maybe I should go out first…” she proposed.
Ryan lifted his head to look at her.
“It’ll take them about half a second to realize that we were making out. Your lips make that very clear.”
“I’m sorry to disagree with you, but we should consider ourselves lucky if they think you were only kissing me and nothing more,” she said with a laugh.
He sighed in resignation.
“Ok, go then. But don’t let them stop you, please! I will be with you in… in a few minutes.”
Amalia ran her hands through her hair and headed towards the door feeling quite self-confident. She pulled it open, trying to avoid thinking about what was awaiting her outside.
Finn was still hanging around.
“I’m Finn, by the way – nice to meet you,” he said, holding out his hand.
Amalia shook it with conviction. “So those really were Ryan’s eyes,” she observed with surprise. She felt almost relieved, because it meant she hadn’t completely lost her mind – yet.
Finn wasn’t offended, though.
“Actually, they are my grandfather’s eyes – I guess Ryan and I just sort of share them,” he revealed.
“Well, I think I should get back to my friends now…” Amalia said, to justify trying to escape from him.
“Of course,” he said, holding out his hand in the direction of her table. But to get there, she had to walk past the bar, where the rest of the family stood waiting to see her parade past them.
“I’m a little bit scared,” she confessed to Finn, who was still standing there.
Luckily for her, he showed some pity and said, “Come on – I’ll come with you.”
As they walked in front of them all, Amalia smiled as you might to any unknown person. They returned the compliment, although they were terribly disappointed not to be able to question her. When she reached her table, Jack stood up to allow her to take her seat. It seemed he hadn’t noticed anything strange at all – on the contrary, he resumed his monologue from the point where he was interrupted. Amalia didn’t look annoyed any more. His continuous talking freed her up to enjoy the scene developing in front of her eyes: Ryan, who had finally made it out of the restroom, was holding his hands up as though he was refusing to answer his family’s invasive questions. He went to the small table where the man who not only looked like Niel, but actually was Niel, had taken the red-haired girls’ coat and was helping her into it. It looked as though Ryan was apologizing to her, and a few minutes later, the red-haired girl and Niel were leaving the bar together. Ryan sat down at the table and stared at Amalia while he finished his brother’s beer. His eyes were so intense that she blushed.
She was so distracted she hadn’t noticed Jack edging closer to her again, daring even to put an arm around her shoulders. Ryan’s reaction to that gesture was almost immediate: he stood up and practically marched over to their table.
“Good evening, everybody,” he said, looking at Amalia. His tone was anything but friendly.
Not without a struggle, Kayla managed to separate herself from Mike and raised her eyes.
“Oh, Ryan, it’s you,” she said in a tone that to Amalia didn’t sound surprised at all.
“What does she mean with ‘oh, Ryan’?” she thought angrily. Then she remembered that the choice of bar had been Kayla’s decision, and, after putting two and two together, she decided it was highly unlikely that her friend had chosen it completely by chance from among the thousands in Manhattan. She was a journalist after all, and she had all the means necessary to obtain certain information.
Jack was wise enough to feel intimidated by Ryan and quickly took his arm from Amalia’s shoulders – but, apparently, not quickly enough.
“Will you take your hands off her?” Ryan asked him, very rudely.
Jack looked at Ryan first, then at Amalia. “Is he a friend of yours?” he asked, a confused expression on his face.
“Er, yeah… something like that…” she confirmed.
Jack was an idiot for sure, but he was not so much of an idiot that he didn’t understand the situation, especially since the guy in front of him was at least six inches taller than him and weighed about twenty pounds less.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have to make an urgent phone call,” he said, and made for the door.
At that point, Kayla nudged Mike violently and said, “I guess we’d better get going too, I am pretty tired,” without even trying to pretend she wasn’t lying.
Amalia stared at her incredulously.
“Ryan, you can take Amalia home, right?” Kayla asked him, and as if she hadn’t done and said enough, she even gave him a wink, making Amalia almost want to crawl under the table in embarrassment.
“Of course, no problem,” he said, while he watched Kayla and her partner put their coats on and leave the pub in a flash.
Once they were alone, they stared at each other in silence for a while. “I think we were set up,” she said seriously.
“Yeah, I think so too,” he answered, confirming her suspicions. “But we can’t stay here any longer. That lot will soon start climbing over the bar and rushing over here to ask us questions.”
“Oh, God,” answered Amalia. “But we can’t just run away like two kids!”
“Well, actually,” Ryan admitted, “that was exactly what I was planning…”
“Maybe we could just be faster than them. Listen, let’s put our coats on, and when we’re about to leave the pub, you introduce me to all of them. It’ll be a quick, clean job and it won’t be too painful.”
He looked at her skeptically, but didn’t reply. They put their coats on and went over to the bar to say goodbye. “Mum, Dad – Amalia and I are going. But I thought I would introduce her to you properly before we went. Amalia, this is my dad, this is my mom, and these two clowns are my brothers Kieran and Finn, whom you’ve already met. Everybody: this is Amalia,” he said abruptly. “And now we’re really going.”
They were almost out of the door when Ryan heard his mother shouting: “Remember we’re all having lunch together tomorrow!”
He shuddered at the idea and lifted a hand to wave goodbye. He really didn’t understand how on earth he could have thought that moving so close to his family was a good idea.