Love of the Irish, Part 2 (of 3)

By Katie Fitzgerald ...

Molly and her step dancing troupe were near the very beginning of the parade, so by four o’clock on St. Patrick’s Day afternoon, they were done. Standing at the side of the road, they watched the rest of the floats and performers march by, and chatted amongst themselves.

In the distance, Molly heard a xylophone playing a tune she recognized from St. Patrick’s Day parades of the past. As she listened, she realized her friend Shannon, standing next to her, was singing letters of the alphabet along to the music. “H-A-double-R-I…”

Molly snapped to attention. “Why are you spelling that?” she asked, feeling a surge of fear go through her. She had not said a single word about her crush on Sean to anyone - she tried to avoid admitting it even to herself - so why was her friend singing his last name?

“You don’t know this song? George M. Cohan?” Shannon shook her head. “I guess not everyone’s parents play old St. Patrick’s Day music during the entire month of March.” She finished off the chorus, belting the last line: “Harrigan, that’s me!” She turned to Molly. “It’s going to be stuck in my head for the whole night now.”

Mine too. Sean Harrigan was already continuously on Molly’s mind since he gave her that silly little leprechaun toy at work the other night. Having his name set to music was only going to make it harder to shake him off. But for her sanity’s sake, she had to. Falling in love with friends only worked if you stayed in love, and she had recently experienced firsthand what happened when you didn’t. Her break-up with Duncan had nearly killed her, and she didn’t think she could handle another one.

The xylophone shifted to another tune – “The Wearing of the Green” according to Shannon – and Molly’s thoughts were interrupted by Siobhan, another of the dancers, who seemed to have appointed herself in charge of the plans for the evening. “We’re going out after this,” she told Molly and Shannon. “O’Malley’s, I think.” She looked at Molly. “You work there, right? Is the food good?”

“Yeah, sure, it’s good.” The words fell from her mouth with businesslike calm even as her insides threatened to riot. The last place she wanted to go in her dance costume was work. Siobhan had no idea the way some of the regulars would react to Molly’s curly hair extensions and form-fitting bodice. She’d never live it down.

“The bartender is nice to look at, too,” Siobhan said conspiratorially, and Shannon agreed. And there was Molly’s other problem. Not only would she have to see Sean if she went to O’Malley’s she’d also have to witness all of her friends ogling and flirting with him while she pretended not to notice he was attractive.

“I’m not really up for bar food, honestly,” Molly said, figuring the way to get out of this was to be upfront about her plan to go home and stick to it. “You know, I see it all week long.”

Siobhan sighed as though this was the letdown of the century, but easygoing Shannon simply shrugged. “Do you think you could drive me over there, though?” she asked. “Craig dropped me off on his way to work, and he can’t meet us until later.”

Molly figured this was the best way to be a team player, and since Shannon’s husband would be meeting up with her, she wouldn’t feel guilty for leaving her at the bar. Surely she could pull into the lot, let a passenger out, and zip away without being seen.

When they got into her car a little while later, Shannon didn’t say a word about Molly not wanting to come out. Instead, she poked at the little leprechaun which Molly had placed on her dashboard solely because she didn’t know where else to put it, and certainly not for any sentimental reasons involving an adorable barman. “Aww. Where did he come from?”

“I caught him in a leprechaun trap,” Molly said without missing a beat. She pulled the car out onto the road, following the same route she took to work every day. “Now I’m just waiting for my pot of gold.”

Shannon laughed. “And here I thought maybe you had a new boyfriend who was giving you cute gifts.”

Molly felt her cheeks growing warm. “Just a friend,” she said. A sweet, kind, handsome, wonderful friend. But a friend. Friend friend friend, she reminded herself.

Shannon, who wasn’t one to pry, simply said, “If you say so.”

In front of O’Malley’s, Molly’s plan went into effect quite easily. Shannon said goodbye and climbed out of the car, and Molly was about to turn the car back out onto the road when her phone buzzed from the glove compartment, where she’d placed it during the parade.

Braking for a moment, she snatched it up and swiped the display. The text message that appeared on the screen was from Sean. It read: HANG ON A SECOND. I’M COMING OUT TO SEE YOU.

Thinking of the boxes of tissues she’d gone through when Duncan ended their relationship, and the weight she’d lost due to sheer lack of appetite, Molly saw in her mind’s eye what she ought to do. She should leave Sean on read, go pick up Chinese, and head home to her apartment where there was zero chance of falling in love with anyone. It would be better for everyone in the long run.

But as she went to put her foot on the gas, she glimpsed the tall, muscular figure of Sean stepping through the front door of the pub and striding toward her car. He raised his hand to wave, and in spite of everything she had just told herself about the danger of falling for another friend, a grin came to her lips. Just the sight of him, the knowledge that he had dropped everything when he saw her car, the presence of that ridiculous little leprechaun he’d picked out just for her…

“If this is a disaster,” she told the little bearded figurine. “I will feed you to my neighbor’s dog.” Then she raised her hand to return Sean’s wave and reached for the handle, ready to open the door to whatever the night would hold.

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Katie Fitzgerald is the author of Library Lovebirds, an ebook collection of bookish romances, and a novel in flash, The Bennetts Bloom. Her short stories and flash fiction appear online at Spark Flash Fiction and Micromance Magazine, as well as in various anthologies. She is a 2024 Sparkie Award recipient for Best Romantic Suspense and a nominee for the Pushcart Prize and the Cupid Prize. A graduate of Vassar College and a trained librarian, Katie resides in Maryland with her husband and five kids.