‘You don’t have him any more? What happened to him?’ Jo asked, her voice suitably solemn.
‘My ex happened. She got full custody in the split.’ He looked bereft.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Jo said, wrong-footed by the unexpected show of emotion.
Lorcan shrugged. ‘Yeah, it sucks. He’s a great boy, the best – no offence to your Paddy. If the truth be told, he’s probably the reason I stayed as long as I did. The relationship hadn’t been working for a while.’
‘Were you together long?’ Jo asked.
‘I was with Sophie since college. So nine years and seven months, as it happens.’
Jo’s eyes widened. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That’s a long time.’
‘Yeah, you know what they say, I’d have got less for murder.’ Lorcan laughed, but it was hollow. ‘Anyway, I’m here to clear my head, so why don’t we do that, by drinking until our heads are far from clear? You’re on your holidays from work. I’m escaping a broken heart and also work. The world is our rather shitty oyster!’
When he put it so invitingly, Jo couldn’t see any reason to refuse, so she led Lorcan Gallagher into The Blackbird bar and bistro and handed him the cocktail menu. ‘Choose your poison!’ she said.
And he did.
By the time night was falling, Jo and Lorcan had chosen several poisons and were merrily making their way home: Lorcan to his grandfather’s house, close to Ivy Lane, and Jo to her own home, which was about a ten-minute walk on a good night.
Jo could feel her lips tingle – that little hint of numbness that comes from having consumed just a little too much alcohol on an empty stomach. But she felt light and free and she had laughed more that day than she had done in weeks before. She had barely thought about her need for a new home, or whether or not she would ever make it as a writer. She had just lived in the moment and she had loved it.
To her surprise, rather than being a self-involved arse, Lorcan was good company. He not only brought out the silly, fun side of her but also listened when she talked about more serious things. When she laughed, he laughed too and it was definitely with her and not at her. They had so much in common, and not just their love for Derry Girls. Both of them felt at a crossroads in their lives and it was nice to spend time with someone of a similar age who didn’t seem to have it all figured out.
When their chat had become a little more flirty several drinks in, she tried not to overthink it and just enjoy it. He told her he loved her accent, and the colour of her hair. ‘You look just like Maureen O’Hara in The Quiet Man. I remember watching that with my grandparents when I visited. I know it’s really uncool of me to admit it, but I always loved it.’
Jo had smiled. ‘It’s a classic. Funny and romantic and cheesy all at once.’
‘That’s my recipe for a good movie,’ Lorcan had said. ‘I thought Maureen O’Hara was beautiful.’
He’d looked at her and she was sure she saw something a little more behind his eyes. Was it a connection or one too many cocktails – she couldn’t tell, but she was enjoying whatever it was.
They walked together in the balmy late-April air, as red streaks crossed the sky and the ground below her feet felt slightly springy – cushioned by alcohol.
She felt warm and fuzzy when he stepped to the outside of the footpath. ‘Grandad always told me to walk on the outside when walking with a lady. It’s the gentlemanly thing to do, or something.’
‘How’s that?’ Jo asked.
‘I think it’s in case a car comes hurtling at us and mounts the pavement. I shall gallantly lay down my life to protect you because that’s what gentlemen do.’
‘Really?’ Jo asked, intrigued by this ages-old etiquette.
‘I think so,’ Lorcan said. ‘Or it might be in case a car drives through a puddle. In which case, I’ll be the one soaked and covered in mud, and you’ll be grand. It’s not quite as dramatic, but a gallant act all the same.’
Jo laughed. ‘Indeed. Thank you for your impeccable manners. Harry would be proud.’
Lorcan coloured a little and Jo felt a little spark of something in the pit of her stomach. It was a connection she had totally not expected, but it felt just right. She didn’t think anything of it when, as they walked, she found her hand in Lorcan’s. Bizarrely, it felt perfectly natural, and more than that, it just felt nice. Jo wondered how long it had been since she had held someone’s hand? Someone who wasn’t Clara.
When they reached the bottom of her street, she stopped and looked up at him. He was head and shoulders taller than her and even though she was a proud, independent woman, just as Beyoncé had taught her, in that moment she enjoyed feeling doll-like beside him.
‘If you ever feel like throwing any of your belongings out of your bag again just to attract my attention, that might be cool,’ Lorcan said.
Jo narrowed her gaze. ‘As if! I bet you secretly unzipped my bag when I wasn’t looking.’
‘You got me,’ he laughed, with his hands up in a surrender pose. ‘I never could resist the allure of free tampons and MAC lipstick.’
‘I thought as much,’ Jo said, and she laughed – all embarrassment at the earlier incident now setting the scene for a moment – a blink-and-you’d-miss-it moment – of something more than hand-holding and friendship.
‘Take my number,’ Lorcan said. His voice was soft and low. The jokey, laddish tone was all but gone.
Jo looked up, and damn it, it might have been the sunset, or the four cocktails on an empty stomach, but she swore his eyes actually twinkled.
Having forced a breath into her lungs, Jo reached for her phone and handed it to him. ‘Here! Add it in there.’
He tapped in his details and handed the phone back to her. ‘I’ll check you out on social media too. What do you use? Twitter? Facebook? Is Insta your addiction? Let me think… you’re a TikTok girl?’
‘You’ll find me on Facebook. I’m not trendy enough to deal with Instagram or TikTok and Twitter scares me.’
‘I’ll send you a friend request,’ he said as he opened Facebook on his phone and found her name.
The notification pinged on her phone and she instantly clicked into the app to accept his request. She couldn’t help but notice the little email icon in the top corner of her phone screen letting her know she had a new message.
‘There! I’ve got you,’ she said, doing her best to ignore it and focus on the moment she was in.
She looked up at Lorcan and he smiled, before he pulled her into a quick hug and said his goodbyes, leaving her surprised to feel disappointed that a hug was all he offered.
Doing her best to ignore the very strange feelings that she was experiencing towards Lorcan, Jo focused instead on the mysterious email. It was time to see what it was, and who it was from.
She felt the colour drain from her face and she sobered up immediately. There, in her Gmail, was a message from Ewan McLachlan. Subject: ‘Your work’.
12
Men in Black
Jo stared at the email and reread the subject line at least twenty times. Each time she tried to interpret what those two words could mean. There was no exclamation mark, so maybe he wasn’t enthused. But there was no sad face emoji here. Your work, she read and then repeated it. Your work. Your work. Your work?!!??