He raised an eyebrow, a smirk curling the corners of his lips, and I shoved him for his indecent thoughts. “You know what I meant. God,” I huffed, rolling my eyes. “Men.”
His laughter settled and he shimmied closer to me on the bench, so my knee was touching his hip. Seriousness came down over his gaze like a theater curtain, slow and steady, as he studied what felt like the entirety of my face. Before he lowered his eyes to my hair, I realized we had almost the same color of eyes. Almost black in low lighting but when the sun captured them, they glowed warmer, like dark mahogany.
Jim curled a finger around a strand in my ponytail and played with it as he began to talk. “My dad’s mum was Irish, my grandfather Scottish, and as my dad would tell it, they were both fiercely proud of their heritage. They passed away when I was four. Car crash.” His eyes flicked to mine for a second, as if to check my reaction, before they drifted back to watching his fingers play with my hair. “When my dad was born, my grandad suggested to my gran that they call him Donovan McAlister. Donovan was my gran’s maiden name.
“So, Roddy and I were on the I-70, heading toward Route 66 in Illinois. From there we were going to drive the whole thing. We stopped for gas, and I saw a help-wanted ad on a bulletin board there. For a supermarket in Donovan.” He gave the lake a sheepish smile. “Fuckin’ stupid, I know…It…I felt like we needed tae come here.”
“That’s not stupid,” I reassured him.
Jim turned to give me another one of those searching looks of his. “No…I’m starting to think it wasn’t.”
I squirmed under his intensity, unable to hold his gaze because he overwhelmed me. As cool as he was, as much as I liked his accent and thought he was cute, I wasn’t prepared for Jim McAlister or the way he looked at me like he’d been struck by lightning.
“What was your dad like?”
“He was the funniest guy I knew.” Jim’s voice was filled with a mix of humor and grief that made my chest ache for him. “And he had time for nearly everybody. If someone needed help, it was never a problem, it was never too much. I was his best pal.”
His smile trembled, and a bright sheen appeared in his eyes. I reached for his hand and held it between both of mine, and it seemed to strengthen Jim, the sheen disappearing, his smile relaxing. “He taught me that family always comes first. That family is more important than how much money I make or fame or any of that shite. He made me feel like it was awright no’ tae be ambitious about career but tae be ambitious about life. About finding the right girl and startin’ a family.”
I had never heard a boy talk of those things before, or at least prioritize those things. I also noticed his accent thickening as he reminisced about his dad. Like he was relaxing with me. “He sounds like a good man.”
“Aye.” He nodded but something cooled in his expression. “But he wasnae perfect, and everyone seems to have swept that under the rug.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mum, specifically. Don’t get me wrong. He loved her but he was a bit of a selfish bastard when it came to her. He never took her anywhere or spent much time wi’ her. He always went out tae the pub wi’ his mates but left Mum at home. Then he got pissed off if she wasnae there when he got home. Like she wasnae supposed tae have a life without him…” He shot me a quiet look I didn’t understand until he spoke again. “And he cheated on her and from what I heard, it wasnae just sex. He fell in love wi’ someone else. My parents nearly split up. In the end he chose Mum, but I don’t think she ever really forgave him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“But she acts now like he was a saint.” Anger had edged into his words. “I… just… I loved my dad, and I forgive him for no’ being perfect because none of us are… but I want tae remember my dad, no’ the glossed-over version of him, ye know?”
I nodded, squeezing his hand.
“Does that make me a bad person?”
“God, no.”
Jim exhaled slowly and looked back out at the water. I studied his profile, noting the tension had eased from his jaw, from his shoulders. As he watched a bird skirt low over the water and fly off into the trees, he said, “I’m glad I met ye, Nora O’Brien.”
“Yeah?”
He looked at me again and then gently removed his hand from between mine but only so he could slide it around my shoulder. “I’d like to stay a little longer, if that’s okay.”
“Sure, I still have a few hours before I need to get back for work.”
“No,” he laughed softly, shaking his head. “No, I meant… I’d like to stay in Donovan a little longer. Beyond today.”
Suddenly, I knew what he was asking, and despite feeling intimidated by the desire in Jim’s eyes, I was also intrigued by his foreignness. He came from a place so different from Donovan. I’d seen it on TV and in movies, but I still couldn’t imagine what life was like in the city he’d grown up in. Part of me didn’t even care. What I mostly cared about was that it was so far away from Indiana, so mysterious and tantalizing, like an adventure waiting to happen an ocean away from my plain little life. And Jim was a part of that.
I nodded, not quite ready to let go of him, either.
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