Running Back (18 page)

Chapter Eighteen

The O’Connors didn’t come back until the next Tuesday. After Mike flew to the States, the women spent the long weekend on the Aran Islands. Lauren invited me, but I figured they needed some legitimate family time. Besides, it gave me a weekend of kicking a ball around and drinking my feelings in the pub with Paul. I kind of liked doing that. Paul was refreshingly ticked off at the world, and good at grumbling about O’Connors.

But when I came back from the field Tuesday evening, I found the O’Connors in the dining room. I hovered in the hall, watching as they laughed and scarfed down a platter of scones. Anna noticed me first. “Hey!”

I stepped into the room. “How was your trip?”

Anna was off, but I couldn’t look away from Mike. He smiled, but it didn’t go much further than the surface, and I couldn’t tell if he was still angry or if we were okay. I wanted to get him alone, to talk to him, to hold him, but Anna was still talking.

“—and then we went to the Cliffs of Moher, which are the Cliffs of Insanity from
The Princess Bride
, and they’re crazy. It’s like the end of the world, and the wind made our hair looked like small monsters and you could lean into the air and it practically supported you. Did you guys find anything?”

The abrupt switch—Anna had decided it was time for her to eat, and me to talk—made me start, as did the sudden weight of all the O’Connors’ eyes. I pulled my shoulders back and tried to smile. “There’s always some things to find. We’ve come across some pottery sherds. And cattle bones. But, uh—nothing to support a harbor.”

Kate’s sympathy nearly killed me. “That’s too bad.”

“It’s still the early stages. I mean, it’s a huge amount of land to cover. And while I thought my calculations were spot on—well. I guess I shouldn’t have been trusting maps based off Roman reconstructions of Greek sources, now, should I?” I laughed. The O’Connors didn’t.

I shoved my hands in my back pockets and my eyes found Mike’s. “I was going to go for a run. I don’t know if...?”

He was already standing. Anna started to speak up, and both her sister and mother kicked her.

This time my laugh came out a little more genuine. That was my kind of subtlety.

Mike was changed and downstairs in a moment. “You’re disappointed.”

“Dumb, right? I didn’t have any guarantees.” I broke into a jog, taking the northern path. A veil of fog covered the land, so every movement was oddly fascinating and disruptive. My gut knotted up with anxiety, and I tried to handle it by increasing my pace until we cleared the top of the fog and the cliff. Below us, blankets of white rolled in from across the sea like some actual, sentient creature. Above, the waxing moon hung low and pale in the gray sky, drifting in and out of ghosting clouds. I slowed and faced him. “I missed you.”

He looked back at me. “I missed you too.”

All I wanted was to kiss him, to cling to him, but my stomach still hurt. “Are you still mad at me?”

He closed the space between us. “No.”

“
Why
were you mad at me?” I inched forward.

He stroked his fingers along my temple and behind my ear. “I didn’t want to get hurt.”

“I don’t understand.” But even so, the knots in my stomach were slowing coming undone.

He smiled wryly. “Maybe I’ll explain someday.”

And then our mouths met, and it was like we were erasing all the time and distance apart. He was warm and strong and
right
under my hands, and as we kissed the horrible tension of the last week faded away and everything made sense again.

We sat near the edge of the bluff, our legs pressed together, his arm around me. His voice had the cadence of music. “Tell me about Kilkarten.”

I sighed. “What if I was wrong? How can I have been so wrong?”

“You can’t know yet. It’s only been two weeks.”

“But what if there’s nothing?”

“Then you try again. You start over somewhere else.”

A strangled laugh came out. “How can I do that?”

He stretched his legs out before him. “I do it every year.”

It took me a moment to process what he meant. “But that’s different.”

“No, it’s not. I know exactly how it feels to want something so badly, and to fail and have to start over again. And again. To keep going even when you’re losing.”

I turned, slightly worried for him. “But it’s not your fault if you lose.”

“Sometimes it is. And it’s my career on the line. My reputation. And I have thousands of people watching. Counting on me. Hoping I’ll fail.”

“You shouldn’t carry that whole weight on your shoulders. It should be the whole team.”

“Natalie.” He shifted to face me. The moon brightened his hair to cold fire. “You shouldn’t be taking this completely on yourself, either.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do if there’s nothing.” To my embarrassment, my voice cracked and I started to sniff. “I’m sorry.” I pressed my hand to my nose and mouth, and then when that wasn’t enough, I pulled up my knees as though that would pull in my emotions. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“You’re stressed out.” He placed an arm around my shoulders and pulled me against him. His warmth seeped into me and edged out the damp air. “It’s okay.”

Was it? It didn’t get things done. Oh, it was useful enough as a way to release stress, but indulging in long crying jags always seemed pointless, when I could instead be working on how to solve the problem. “I don’t cry.”

He sounded wry. “So you’re not human?”

I laughed, and then pressed my hand to my head. “I have such a headache.”

“That’s what happens when you spend so much time trying not to cry.”

I flicked my eyes toward him. “And what would you know about that? Spend a lot of time bottling down tears?”

He leaned his head back, offering me a clear, strong profile.

I breathed out a long sigh. “No, but it’s the same when you’re bottling any emotion, isn’t it? And you keep your anger wrapped up in a charming smile.”

“No more than your anxieties are bow-tied with laughter.”

He had me. I shrugged. “Why cry when you can laugh?”

“Why yell when you can grin?”

We both stared up. “You think we’re kind of fucked up?”

“Utterly
.
”

I started laughing, and he started laughing, and then we were kissing in the cold night air. He twisted his upper body over mine, and I fell down into the grass, pricks of moisture chilling my arms until Mike’s hands swept over them.

We lay there, me curled into him. We watched the stars brighten. “I’ve spent my entire life thinking I knew what I wanted to do. I’m beginning to think I was wrong, and that scares me. It scares me to think that I might have to go to the conference and admit that there is no Ivernis, and Dr. Ceile was right and I’m just a dreamer.”

“Natalie. None of us are perfect. And you shouldn’t be scared at the conference. If there’s no site here, and you’re able to admit that without clinging to Ivernis—that’s brave. And I’ll come. So you can just pretend you’re telling me, and I’m not going to judge or care, I’ll just want to hear what you know.”

“Really?”

“I promise.”

I wanted Ivernis to be real so badly. I wanted it for so many reasons and so many people, and I’d wanted it for so many years. I wanted to find Ivernis even more when the world or Ceile or my parents told me it was impossible.

But it was nice—it was wonderful—to have someone whose focus wasn’t tied up in the site, but that simply wanted me to be happy

So I leaned over and kissed him.

* * *

“Goal!”

The ball tumbled past the posts and made a dive for the hill beyond. Finn, the conscripted goalie, watched it with some regret and more disdain. I cheered and threw my arms around Anna, who let out a squeal that could have been at her perfect kick, but probably came as protest to my sweaty hug.

I jogged over to the sidelines, swapping out with Anka for the last three minutes of play, and scooped up my water bottle, chugging it down as the clock ran out. Twelve to seven, more than enough to make Mike scowl like a child when he joined me at the sides. “Don’t be such a baby,” I called, and then undermined that with, “Losers weepers!”

“You didn’t find anything!” he shot back.

I did a small victory jig. “I found a winning score.”

He reached out and pulled me toward him. “That’s what you call scoring?”

I wanted to kiss him until his eyes shut all the way. “You’re just trying to distract me because you’re a sore loser.”

“Just try me in
real
football,” he grumbled, and then our lips touched.

I pulled back and swished the rest of my water over him.

He let out a cry, even though I knew it had to feel nice after an afternoon of running. I grinned and darted backward as he reached for me, and then sprinted full force across the field.

Mike tackled me—of course he did—but twisted so he took the brunt of the fall and cushioned my body. The impact didn’t even deter him, because a second after, he rolled over and pinned me to the ground.

He blocked out the sky. All red and gold and laughter, and my scowl had no heat. “No fair.”

He braced his arms on the ground, keeping bare inches between our bodies. “Who said I was trying to play fair?”

“Um...” I kept getting distracted by the light in his eyes. “Fair is good.”

“Scoring’s better.”

If this started, it wasn’t going to end, and if I turned my head I could see Jeremy’s shoes. I hooked Mike’s ankle and bucked him off me.

He cracked a smile as he smacked into the grass. “Damn. You’re strong.”

“I know. That was mostly leverage, though.” I rolled off him and offered him a hand up. “I’m secretly a spy.”

Laughing and teasing, we trooped over to the pub, a hot mess of bodies and sweat that Finn looked relieved to not have to handle for once. Anna promptly sat down in his line of vision and started chatting with the other teenagers she’d befriended.

It had been good to have a day of activity that wasn’t just digging through nothing. For the past five days, we’d labored intensely for zero results. We dug. We sifted. We opened new units. The frown lines deepened around Jeremy’s mouth. Grace and Duncan looked more and more dissatisfied. And I felt guilty.

But the crew seemed happy, and a game of soccer let everyone feel better. I’d always thought of archaeology as the classic work hard and party harder—after seven hours in the field, all anyone wanted to do was kick around a ball or drink loads of beer. We’d nominally played crew against locals, but really it had been everyone athletic against Mike, in a sure move to make him lose. It had put everyone in a very good mood, and now the pub rang with laughter.

I looked around the room and realized I recognized half the people, and it made a different part of my heart ache, like when you get a good book cry. I liked people tapping me on the shoulder or shouting across the room to me or a bench being so full thighs touched. I liked belonging.

Across the room Maggie sat down next to Kate, and the two women nodded stiffly. I watched as they engaged in conversation over two large mugs.

“What does your mom do?”

Mike surreptitiously moved his potatoes onto my plate. “She’s an engineer for semi-conductor chips.”

I had not been expecting that answer. “What? Wow. How do you get into that?”

“I think she started off in the field when she was young and kept advancing.”

“Does she like it?”

He hesitated. “I’m not really sure. I think it was good enough, and she had three kids to support, and it paid well.”

“But she didn’t have to support them after you were drafted.”

He looked at me. “That’s what I thought.”

I shook my head, caught sight of Maggie, and regained my line of thought. “Wait. Sorry. I meant, what does she do
here?
You know. When we’re off together or Lauren’s with Paul or Anna’s hanging out with Mary and whoever and trying to get Finn’s attention?”

“
What?
”

I rolled my eyes. “I just can’t help that you’re clueless.”

“Lauren and
Paul?
”

“Totally not a thing. Forget I said anything.”

He looked around wildly, but Lauren was chatting with Anka and her husband, and Paul was nowhere to be seen. I took Mike’s hand and pulled on it for attention. “Focus. At dinner your mom always says that she met up with someone for lunch, and I know she goes into town twice a week for yoga and to talk to that woman at the art gallery. But that doesn’t seem like much.”

“How long has this been going on?”

I sighed. “Mike. You would make the worst spy in the world.”

“You say that like it’s an actual, serious failing. Where’s Paul?”

Because it totally was. “How did she meet your dad?”

He kept scanning the pub. “She worked at the hardware store his second-cousin owned in Southie.”

We were interrupted by a red-cheeked O’Malley, who really just wanted a second of Mike’s time to gloat, and he hadn’t even been on the field. “Not so good at football, now, O’Connor.”

Mike shook his head at the older man. “You come over to the States and try our version, and then see how well you do.”

“Don’t be sore about it. I’ll buy you a pint.” Grinning like a madmen, O’Malley went off.

I propped my chin on my hand. “See? All you have to do to get people to like you is lose.”

Mike shook his head. “No one in this village takes me seriously.”

“That’s because they’re just too used to you troublesome O’Connors. But at least they buy you beer.”

“There’s that.” His eyes tracked to the side. “One sec. I have to go punch Paul in the face.”

I rolled my eyes as he climbed out of his seat. “Play nice!”

When they came back, Mike looked satisfied, and Paul looked irritated, and no one looked too banged up. In fact, they both swung their arms.

“Done playing in the dirt, boys?”

Paul scowled. “Hardly fair when he’s a professional athlete.”

“Don’t whine. It’s unattractive.”

“Not really looking to pick you up, love.”

Mike draped his arm around me. “Not your love.”