The Player and the Pixie(76)

With that single look I knew, regardless of my best intentions and weeks of espousing the benefits of distance, Sean and I were far from over.





Chapter Seventeen


@SeanCassinova Throw me a goddamn parade.

@THEBryanLeech to @SeanCassinova You mean a pity party?

@SeanCassinova to @THEBryanLeech Go fuck yourself.

@THEBryanLeech to @SeanCassinova Too late :-D



*Sean*

“That’s a bad idea,” Bryan said, standing next to me, a lurking pariah. Clearly, he’d noticed the mutual eye ogling between Lucy and me.

I responded without sparing my teammate a glance. “If I wanted your opinion, I would have asked for it.” I hadn’t seen Lucy in weeks, and was hungry for the sight of her. I wasn’t craving goody-goody censure from our team’s bad egg.

Well . . . the other bad egg.

“First his girlfriend, now his sister? Tsk,” Bryan tut-tutted, though his tut-tutting was slurred and sloppy. “Why don’t you lay off, eh? It’s his feckin’ wedding. Give him a bloody break, ferchissakes.”

Most of our teammates were pissed—some more than others—yet I wasn’t even buzzed. I’d made a conscious decision to maintain my sobriety. I’d meant it when I’d texted Lucy that I didn’t want to make things hard for her with her brother. If I’d drunk to excess then I was liable to do just that.

I’d lost count of the number of times I’d nearly announced my intentions to claim Lucy as my own. But I hadn’t, not yet. Instead, I’d bitten my tongue or excused myself.

Basically, I’d been a saint.

“Not everything is about Mother Fitzpatrick,” I mumbled, though I hadn’t yet looked away from Lucy. But then she hadn’t yet looked away from me. An enchanting smile still lingered on her lips and behind her eyes.

Christ, I’d missed her. The last month had been the longest of my life.

Aside from the first two weeks after my departure, we’d texted every day but she’d never sent a picture of herself, always memes or shots of arseholes coming on to her, purposefully misspelling her name on coffee cups. I’d missed seeing her. I’d almost asked her to send a picture, but she’d drawn a line before I left. A line I didn’t know how to cross without storming over it and begging her on my hands and knees to give this—us—a chance.

In other words, I didn’t know how not to be a fool with Lucy Fitzpatrick. And oddly, I didn’t care.

Nevertheless, I had no pictures of her or of us together, a sad fact I planned on remedying as soon as possible.

“You’re a fecking eejit.” Bryan chuckled, forcefully pushing my shoulder.

“Am I?”

He didn’t respond at once and I sensed his inebriated attention shift away from me, several seconds passing before he admitted, “She’s hot.”

“She’s beautiful.” My declaration a pointed contradiction to his underwhelming assessment.

Bryan nodded, presumably now inspecting Lucy with a critical eye. “Pretty in an odd, freaky sort of way.”

My frown was immediate, hating his description, but I maintained my hold on Lucy’s gaze.

She wasn’t odd. She was unique.

She wasn’t freaky. She was free-spirited.

She was enchanting.

Breathtaking.

Wonderful.

Perfect.

And if we didn’t stop staring at each other we would soon be drawing more attention than just Bryan Leech’s inebriated opinions.

But Lucy was no longer smiling at me. Her gaze had intensified, grown solemn, almost tortured. She felt the pull—of that I was certain. Now, if only I could arrange for a well-timed push . . .

Bryan snorted inelegantly, interrupting my thoughts. “It doesn’t matter if she looks like Helen of bleedin’ Troy. That bird is off limits—off limits to me, to all these other arsehole wankers here, and most especially off limits to you.”

Bryan’s giant hand circled the air around us then landed on my shoulder—a heavy, meaningful weight. He gave me a little shake to emphasize his point.

Of course, arsehole wankers was both an accurate description of our teammates and a term of endearment. And the rest of his words were true as well. Lucy Fitzpatrick was off limits in the same way Eilish was off limits to those barbarians.

You don’t fuck with family, literally or figuratively. It was against the rules of decent behavior. Then again, I’d purposefully set out to break the rules with Lucy—which, by the way, had backfired quite spectacularly. And I’d never been a poster boy for decency.

I’d always maintained that decency was entirely overrated.

Now frowning and looking decidedly affected, Lucy tore her eyes from mine, her gaze falling to the street. She appeared to be confused, if not overwhelmed by her thoughts. I wanted to go to her.