“But what? Don’t you like it as much as you’d used to?”
“I love dancing. But coming here and finding out I’m the understudy for the understudy is just…I don’t know. It’s not quite the gig I’d hoped it would be. But once you got your foot in the door, it gets easier to land other parts. It’s just that I can’t see myself doing this forever, you know? The girls are all so… superficial. So, New York.”
“What’s wrong with being New York?” Conner smirked.
“Nothing, I guess. But I miss the guys from the bar. That damn nagging Ed, the Mills cousins who never let me get on with my work without asking for a stupid joke. Pops… ugh, I miss Pops.” She wiped a tear from under her eye.
“And?” Conner nudged her shoulder.
“And I miss Brennan,” she confessed while nudging him back with her shoulder.
“In my line of work, I often come across people with regrets, Bun. People get sick or die without a moment’s notice. Just like that—gone.” He snapped his fingers.
“You’re such a happy camper, Con.” She scoffed.
“It’s true. Come and do a night in the ER with me. After a day you’ll agree with me you need to grab life by the balls.”
“And squeeze them!” Errin shouted as she pantomimed squeezing a ball in her hand.
“Ouch, you’re hurting my eyes, Bun.” He laughed along with her.
After they’d calmed down he continued, “But grabbing life by the balls doesn’t need to mean being on stage and dance. It might mean for you to take a chance on love. To go back on what you’d always believed to be your destiny and going after the love of your life instead. It might even scare you more.”
She unlocked her phone for the millionth time in the past days to stare at the picture of her and Brennan at Thomas Tavern. It showed a smiling couple in love.
Yes, in love. The warmth in his eyes as he looked her in the eyes while laughing out loud, was a pure testimony of his feelings. Pops pressed during their farewell lunch about his grandson’s feelings for her.
Not that Brennan tried to hide anything from her. She’d run thousands of miles away from his intenseness, and it made her heart ache even more for Brennan.
A monumental part of her was missing. She’d left a piece of her heart in Austin that would always belong to that grumbling yet caring and sexy bar owner.
She hadn’t been the fun loving, loud Errin in Jersey these last few days.
Instead, at her mother’s kitchen table sat a watered-down version. An Errin that simply existed but didn’t live like she grabbed life by the nuts.
She looked over at Conner and pantomimed squeezing again, making him shoulder check her once again.
“See? Even talking about him brings back the sister I used to know.”
“Can someone turn this shit down?” Brennan shouted upon entering the dust-filled pub with his hands packed with wooden panels.
He held the door open with his backside so Declan could squeeze himself through. Dec brought in the stacks of wood for Keenan’s project, the recent custom made bar.
Aiden walked over from the far end where the pool tables normally stood, to where Keenan was hammering on the new booths on the long side of the pub. Aiden gave his brother a playful shove and turned down the music.
“Here you go, Cuz,” Dec said.
“Thanks man,” Keenan said as he perched himself off from the floor.
“You’ll be deaf at forty,” Brennan said as he joined his brother and two cousins.
Aiden snickered while taking the three upper stacks from his hands, but Keenan huffed a breath and said, “Ah, I take it ye still heard nothin’ from her?”
“Fuck off,” Brennan said.
“Why don’t you just call her?” Keenan said.
Aiden elbowed his brother in the stomach to stop him from pressing further on the subject.