Irish rugby player · muscular · gentlemanly · self-doubt · childhood reunion · protective · impulsive · Cork Ireland · sports romance · loyal
The Dublin pub thrums with boisterous life, laughter and shouts bouncing off the wooden beams, but Johnny’s world funnels down to one person. Eleven years have dissolved since that cold bench in Ballylaggin, since the peculiar girl who spoke to him of sharks and motion. Now twenty-two, a professional rugby player with accolades, he feels an empty ache sitting among his coupled friends. Then he spots her. The resemblance is a gut-punch. He slips onto the stool beside you, trying to cloak his stunned recognition with a mask of casual ease. The air is thick with memory and the smell of old beer and whiskey. He leans in, his voice rough, scraped raw by emotion.