Finding Fraser(20)

A dark-haired girl beside the blonde who was quite clearly the worse for the wine she’d been drinking suddenly shrieked with laughter. “Ye slay me, Laoghaire,” she cried, practically snorting wine out of her nose. “Ye fookin’ slay me!”

Okay, okay, so I know she wasn’t really saying “Laoghaire”. Lawrie vs Leery, right? But, still, it’s pretty close.

Close enough to make a person jump a little, bump the wobbly table and maybe spill their beer into their lap. I managed to grab the glass as it teetered, but not before half the contents washed in a golden wave that shone briefly in the low light of the pub before soaking the entire crotch of my jeans.

I may have let out a little cry of despair.

But I have to say, in retrospect, that this wasn’t all bad. Because the young man Not-Really-Laoghaire had been talking to thought it was his fault.

One minute I was staring in disbelief as my only pair of jeans—with me in them—took on a look usually associated with severe incontinence. And the next, a large young man was swabbing my leg dry.

Very large.

With fair hair that might have been reddish before it was highlighted.

I had barely a moment to think that this was the closest thing I’d had to a sexual experience with a man in more than a year, when he spoke. “Ach, I’m so sorry, Miss. My chair must’ve hit your table …”

“It’s—it’s okay,” I said, unwilling to cop to the fact I’d spilled my own beer onto my own self. “It’s a wobbly table,” I added, in a tiny concession to honesty.

He paused at the sound of my voice, handful of soggy napkins in midair. “Ach, worse still—and you a visitor, too.” His forehead crumpled with concern.

“Really, it’s okay. It woke me up. I’m massively jetlagged, and I need my senses about me to make it back to the place I’m staying.”

“That may be true,” he said, his big brown eyes boring into mine. “But let me at least buy you another beer.”

I shook my head, but he was already waving at the server. She waved back and he placed his large hands on the table and shook it critically.

“Righ’,” he said. “I’ll just have a look …” and vanished beneath the table.

In a second he bobbed up again. “That’s seen it,” he said. “The ol’ beer mat solution.”

I peered into the gloom under the table, and sure enough, he’d folded a couple of cardboard coasters and jammed them under one of the table legs. I gave the table a shake. “I think you’ve got it.”

He smiled and blinked both his eyes at me. “Trust me, Miss,” he said. “Ah’m a mechanic.”

I laughed. “Really?”

“That I am. And you—are an American. Are ye a student?”

I nodded, and glanced over his shoulder. The two girls he was with seemed oblivious to the fact he’d moved over to sit beside me. They were deep in conversation; the dark-haired girl who had, just seconds before, been shrieking with laughter was now openly weeping, eyeliner streaking down her face.

“Yes, American, but not a student. Just here visiting for a while. Is—is your friend okay?”

He waved a dismissive hand. “Ach, she’s no’ really my friend. Friend of a friend, yeh ken? And a wee bit pickled for my tastes, for all that. But tell us about yerself—whereabouts in America are ye from? New York City?”

“Chicago, actually. It’s further …”

“West. Yeah, I know it. Jazz and blues, Charlie Parker and the Bulls.”

I ogled him. “You follow basketball? I thought it was only soccer over here—and cricket.”

He looked pained, and slapped a hand to his heart. “Ach, don’t paint us with that brush. Pansy Englishmen’s game, that one. Now, rugby—there’s a game a man can sink his teeth into. But yeah, next to rugby, it’s the NBA all the way for me.”

He leaned back on his stool and looked at me appraisingly. If I hadn’t been sleep-deprived and stinking of beer I probably would have fainted on the spot, but even as it was, I had to fight the urge to lick him. Tall, fair hair in an over-grown crew cut, warm brown eyes. The sleeves of his sweater were rolled back over well-muscled forearms. The server returned and dropped two fresh beer mats on the table, followed by a replacement of my half pint and a pint of Guinness for him. He held up the beer to me.

“To Michael Jordan and charming American visitors,” he said.

I tried to look away from his forearms and clinked his glass with my own.

“So, what is it ye do in Chicago, Miss Yankee?”

“I—uh …” I began, stalling a little, when suddenly the dark-haired girl’s streaked face appeared over the shoulder of my new tablemate.