Chapter 2

Sean biked home and arrived, exhausted, at some time between midnight and dawn. He was glad that he didn't have work the next day; the happiness of the last evening wouldn't keep him awake through the day. He opened one of the main doors to the Keep slowly, carefully, so the creaking wouldn't wake up Tom and Mrs. Bridges. As the door opened, and the scant light from outside spilled into the Keep, he saw his cousin there, sitting on the couch wide awake in his pajamas and robe, staring directly at the doorway where Sean stood.

"Good lord," Sean muttered with a start. "Tom, what are you doing down here?"

"Waiting for you," replied Tom.

"Waiting for me?!" whispered Sean. "It must be four in the morning!"

"I want to know what you did with Maeve that kept you out so late."

"Now, Tom, that's something you may not want to know..."

"But I do want to know, Sean. How was your night with Maeve?"

"We had a very good time," Sean whispered firmly, proceeding into the hall to hang up his jacket. "Though most of the time was spent riding between here and her university. She lives in Omagh, you know."

"Yes, I know that. She mentioned it when you had her down here last."

"Please tell me at least Mrs. Bridges is asleep?"

"She is. Now, tell me, what did you do with her?"

Sean's first impulse was to tell Tom he'd given Mrs. Bridges a peck on the cheek just before he left, but he knew that would only keep the conversation going longer, and he wanted nothing more than to be in bed. Preferably in bed with Maeve, but then, he couldn't have everything. "I took her to see a bunch of silly little films, then we had a few bites at a tavern. Then I took her home. Why do you want to know all this?"

"Because you're my cousin, Sean, and it's not often you're out this late with a girl."

*Touché.*

"So I want to know how you're doing," Tom finished.

"I'm doing quite well with her, thank you. But couldn't this have waited until after dawn? I know you don't do anything, so you can sleep whenever you want, but maybe four in the morning's not such a good time for the rest of us?"

Tom brushed off Sean's response to his thinly veiled insult. "But I was so curious I couldn't wait that long."

*That's a lie, and even he knows he's not fooling me,* thought Sean. "Fine. Now can I please go to bed?"

"Don't let me stand in your way."

As Sean walked up the stairs to his room, he could only think, *I am not giving him tips on how to win Maeve out from under me. He does that well enough on his own.*

It was the following Thursday that Sean came home from work and Mrs. Bridges told him there had been a phone call for him that day.

"A young lady named Maeve. She said you knew her number," she told him.

Sean had seen that Tom's car wasn't there when he got home, so he obviously wasn't in the Keep. Where he was or what he was doing, Sean didn't know or very much care; as long as he wasn't on his way to Maeve's dormitory or arranging the sale of a ton of opium on the streets of Dublin, Tom's being away was just fine by Sean.

He dropped his jacket on his favorite chair in the main hall and ran to the phone in the kitchen.

"Thank you, Mrs. Bridges. Can you excuse me for a few minutes?"

"Oh. Yes, of course. Please tell me when you're all finished down here. I'll be upstairs dusting the guest rooms in the meantime."

Sean dialed Maeve's number while Mrs. Bridges got out of earshot. He was relieved to hear Maeve's voice say, "Hello?"

"Hello, Maeve, Mrs. Bridges said you called for me today?"

There was a pause. "Is this Sean?" she asked.

*Stupid boy. You could've thought to tell her that first.* "Yes, it's Sean. I'm sorry. But, did you call for me today?"

"Yes, and I'm sorry, too. I suppose it slipped my mind that you'd be at work," she said.

"That's all right. Now I'm here, so what was it you wanted to talk about?" He slid up onto the counter, just next to the refrigerator, to wait for what she'd say.

"Tom asked to take me out yesterday," said Maeve.

Sean slumped into a heap so that he nearly fell right back off the counter. "Oh, he did?"

"Yes. He says he has something special in mind this Saturday. And I had a wonderful time with you last weekend, and I haven't yet given him an answer, but I do find him charming, so I wanted to know if...you wouldn't mind if I said yes?" She had that tentative, hopeful tone in her voice. It was clear that she needed to hear an answer right away.

Sean sat there doubled over on the kitchen counter and paused with the telephone receiver held up to his ear for a moment. His first thought was that Tom had wasted no time in going after Maeve once Sean had established that he liked her. His second thought was that this time, he had the chance to tell her No, I don't want you to go out with him. But then, what would happen if he said that? Would she actually heed his word, or was that merely a formality, a show of courtesy to avoid hurting his feelings? Even if she did refuse Tom that first time, would she keep on saying no to him? He knew that Tom would most definitely ask her out again, even if she turned him down this time. If she continued to turn him down while going out with Sean, what would that do to their relationship? Would she start to think of him as the man who wouldn't let her give his charming cousin a chance? Would she wonder what he was so afraid of? What kind of a shadow would that cast over their next date, if they had another one?

"If you like Tom, and he's asked you on a date, then you should say yes," Sean finally said, straightening back up.

"You don't mind, then?"

"No, I don't mind. Just promise me one thing."

"What is it?"

"Don't forget about me," he said.

"Sean, it'll take a lot more than one night with your cousin to make me forget you," she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

He smiled along with her, and relaxed his posture. "I certainly hope so. Listen, you don't have to ask me for permission if you want to let my cousin take you somewhere. It's not my place to stand in your way."

"I know, but since I just went out with you days ago, and this is your cousin who lives with you asking me out now, I thought it only right..." there was a sigh, a sudden closed-mouth exhalation on the other end. "I just want you to know I still like you. Does that make sense?"

"Of course it does, Maeve. Don't worry about it. We've only had one date together, so if you want to give Tom a chance, then you should."

"Ah, thank you, Sean," Maeve said brightly. "I hope to see you again."

When he hung up, Sean could still hear her words, "It'll take a lot more than one night with your cousin to make me forget you," ringing in his head. She didn't know Tom very well yet, he thought. Then again, he had to admit, she was still thinking about him. Even if Tom won her over, Sean knew, at least he had a fighting chance. He found Mrs. Bridges upstairs and told her he was finished in the kitchen.

That evening after Tom came home, Sean found him alone in his room, again where Mrs. Bridges wouldn't hear them.

"Where did you get Maeve's phone number from?" Sean asked.

"Dear cousin, you gave it to me. Why, did she return my call today?"

"When did I give you her number, Tom?"

"You wrote it down on a piece of paper and forgot to take it out of your pocket," he answered.

"What, are you going through my pockets now?"

"Not at all. It was bound to end up in the laundry, you know."

"And since when do you ever do laundry?"

"It fell out of your pocket while Mrs. Bridges was carrying the laundry downstairs, Sean. I found it on the floor. It's back in your room now, on your chest of drawers so you won't forget her number," he explained. "Now, did Maeve return my call today?"

"Not exactly," said Sean. For a fleeting moment, he considered letting it drop there, to wait and see what Tom would do with no knowledge of how Maeve felt about him. But he wouldn't do that to Maeve. "You should give her another call, though."

Tom looked quizzically at Sean, but then shook it off. "Very well, then. I will."

That Saturday afternoon, at a little after four o'clock, Sean convinced Mrs. Bridges that the Keep was quite clean enough for the day, and that she should sit down with him for a friendly game of poker, no betting involved. He was just dealing out the first hand, on the coffee table in the main hall, when Tom breezed through the room in his best suit.

"Why, Tom, where are you going, looking so dapper?" asked Mrs. Bridges. Even Tom, who rarely left the Keep without looking, as Mrs. Bridges had just said, "dapper," only looked that good on special occasions.

"Going to pick up Maeve," he answered.

"Have a good time, then," she said. After Tom walked out the door and they could hear his car starting up, she asked Sean, "Is that the same Maeve that you took to the movies last weekend?"

"Same one."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she sighed, patting his shoulder. "I thought this one would last longer for you."

"No, don't worry," Sean assured her, picking up his hand of cards. "Remember that phone call for me on Thursday? I'm still in the running. And with Tom taking her somewhere looking like that, I've got at least another, I don't know, six hours before she casts me out of her mind."

Mrs. Bridges chuckled, and picked up her cards. Sean put on his best poker face while he racked his brain.

*By all the saints in heaven. What is he doing with her tonight?*

Tom arrived at Maeve's dorm at six-fifteen that evening. He'd told her during their last phone conversation that he was taking her somewhere special, and she was dressed accordingly. She came downstairs in a long sleek blue dress overlaid in chiffon, with her hair pinned up in a perfect roll behind her head. He'd had some suave greeting in mind for when he first saw her, but when the moment came, the words wouldn't come out. Instead, he simply held out his arm, which she took, and he walked her out to the car.

"Close your eyes," he said once they were inside the car, the first thing he'd said to her since he'd arrived.

"Why? Where are we going?" she inquired.

"It's a surprise. I don't want you to know where we're headed until we're there."

"If you say so," said Maeve, in a slightly skeptical tone, and closed her eyes.

Tom started the car and continued driving north.

"Can I open my eyes yet?" she asked, for the third time, after they got into the city.

"No," he answered. "It won't be until we're out of the car." He didn't tell her they were almost at their destination.

Finally, he parked the car on a street facing the building, and took her hand to help her out. Maeve shivered as she stepped out of the car in the chilly October evening air; she tightened her lacy shawl around her shoulders, but it didn't help much. Tom saw her shivering and shrugged off his jacket to lay it over her shawl.

"Thank you," Maeve said through chattering teeth, her eyes still closed.

"It is chilly, isn't it?" Tom remarked. He draped one arm over the small of her back to guide her towards the building, while fumbling around in his pocket with the other hand to get their tickets out. He walked them in quickly, because without his jacket, he was feeling cold, too.

Maeve relaxed visibly once they reached the warmth of the lobby, then tensed up again from the din of hundreds of conversations and the smell of dozens of kinds of perfume. "Tom, where are we?!" she demanded.

"Okay, you can open your eyes now," he said.

Maeve's eyes popped open, and her whole face opened up into an awestruck smile as she recognized the lobby of the concert hall in Belfast.

"Tom, I don't believe it!"

She didn't see it, but Tom let out a sigh, relieved to see how pleased she was at his choice of venue.

"We're here to see The Magic Flute," he told her.

"That's wonderful," she said, and laced her arm through his again to head into the auditorium.

They were still holding hands at the end of the show.

"Tom, this is the nicest surprise I've ever gotten," said Maeve as they left the building.

"I thought you might like to see your home city," he said, while pulling her closer to keep them both warmer. "What would you like to do now?"

"First, I want to get back in the car," she said. "It's freezing out here."

They walked faster towards the street where Tom's car was parked. "Very well," he laughed. "What after that, then?"

"Let's go back to Omagh. Don't misunderstand, I love that you brought me back up here for the evening, but I come back for holidays, and I left the city to go to university for a reason. There's a place near the university where we could go."

"Then by all means, let's go there."

He dropped her off back at her room just after midnight. They stood in the hall at her door, where Maeve gave Tom's jacket back to him.

"I had a wonderful time tonight," said Maeve. "How did you know I loved that concert hall so much?"

"It was a very lucky guess," said Tom, stroking her shoulders and upper arms through her shawl. "I'm happy to hear you enjoyed it."

"Good night, Tom," she said, and stepped in closer to kiss him.

With his arms around her and feeling her hand pass through his hair, Tom briefly thought about taking her back to Cassidy Keep to make love to her. But only briefly, because "Good night" meant she'd have none of that, and besides, it was only their first date. There would be other times, and he could wait for her.

The next morning, Tom swaggered into the kitchen looking like they were all playing poker, and he knew exactly what cards they were holding. Sean was already there eating breakfast; Mrs. Bridges was at the stove. She said good morning to Tom and flipped a waffle and some creamed chipped beef onto a plate for him.

"Thank you," he said to her, then turned to Sean. "Sleep well?" he asked as he sat down.

"Well enough," Sean replied. "Where did you take Maeve last night?"

"Yes, Tom, what was the occasion?" Mrs. Bridges asked as she sat down with them.

"Nothing really, just a little opera in Belfast," he smirked.

*Damn it,* thought Sean. *He trumped my date but good.*

"Well, that sounds splendid, Tom," said Mrs. Bridges. "I'll bet you two had a lovely time together." She shot a look towards Sean, and he tried to think of what it was. Sympathy? Apology? Dread?

"Oh, we did." He didn't mention the at least three times Maeve had brought up Sean at supper the night before.

It was early October when they met Maeve. They kept on going like that, taking turns going out with her, through October and November and into December. Neither of them asked her to choose between the two of them, though she sometimes expressed guilt over "riding two horses"(1) and "stringing [them] along" by continuing to date them both so steadily and simultaneously. Still, neither cousin objected to this arrangement, just as long as she was still interested in him. She ended up at Cassidy Keep at the beginning of her Christmas holiday. Originally, she was supposed to only stay the weekend, but on the morning of the day that she'd planned to go back home, something happened.

"Snow!" Sean yelled when he opened the main doors that morning and was greeted by vast swirls, carpets and threads of white in the courtyard. It was an especially mild winter they'd been having, and that much snow in one night was not something any of them were expecting, though Mrs. Bridges had predicted the night before that it was about to get much colder. "Tom, look at this!" he shouted in the direction of the stairs.

"What is it?" Tom grumbled while stalking out of his room. From his vantage point at the top of the staircase, he could see Sean, but didn't get much of a view of the outside. "Sean, what's so glorious outside? Isn't it drafty enough in here already?"

"No! Come see what it's doing out here!"

Tom shrugged, stumbled down the stairs, and pulled on his coat and gloves to join Sean in front of the doorway. "Yes, this is unexpected," he conceded, standing beside his cousin to enjoy the view.

They closed the doors so they wouldn't be responsible for their housekeeper's death by pneumonia, and mere seconds later SMACK, went an orange-sized snowball between Sean's eyes, another second and CRUNCH, a new one on Tom's cheek.

They hurried to wipe the snow out of their eyes, noses and mouths while looking around the courtyard for their assailant. Sure enough, Maeve leaned giggling out from behind the big oak tree.

"I'll go this way, you go that way!" Sean instructed while running away from Tom, and this time, the older cousin didn't mind doing as he was told. Maeve scurried away from the tree, laughing uncontrollably, and didn't stop when two snowballs hit the back of her head. More cold white projectiles flew through the air in different directions.

Finally, the men got on either side of Maeve so the three of them stood in a roughly straight line. Tom threw one intended for Maeve, but she ducked, and it hit Sean squarely on the chin. Tom fell over laughing, and Sean and Maeve both pelted him.

"What are you three doing out here?!" Mrs. Bridges demanded, appearing at the doorway wrapped in her shawl. She let out an "Eek!" as she ducked behind the door to avoid the three snowballs coming her way.

Having chased Mrs. Bridges back inside, the three young people went on trying to see who could frost someone else the most. After Tom ran far enough away from the other two to have himself sufficiently hidden, Sean grabbed Maeve and ran around the Keep with her screaming in his arms. He went inside through a back entrance and carried her up the stairs to his room, where he tossed her, laughing, on his bed.

"What are we, twelve years old now?" Maeve remarked.

"We're allowed a snowball fight now and then, no harm in that," said Sean while taking off his hat and gloves. "But you'd know that, since you started it!" He took a flying leap to land beside her on the bed.

"You two make it so easy! All lined up in plain sight and standing there like a couple of deer in headlights, you practically hit yourselves!"

Sean turned on his side to face her and wrapped his free arm around her. "And you lying in wait had nothing to do with it, I suppose?"

Maeve turned to face him and shifted in closer. "Absolutely nothing," she said before kissing him.

Tom came out from his hiding place with an arsenal of snowballs balanced in the crook of one arm, ready to stage an ambush, only to find that his targets were nowhere to be found. "Where did those two---Sean, I'll get you for this."

Sean helped Maeve out of her gloves and opened up her coat while their tongues twisted around each other. His hand slid under the coat and up her back; she did the same with him. Maeve rolled them around until she was on top, Sean rolled some more in the same direction, until they slipped off the side of the bed. He jerked around on the way down so they'd land on his back, which he soon came to regret.

"Ow!" he gasped when his head hit the floor. There was a throw rug beside the bed that cushioned their fall, but there was cold stone under the rug, and the small layer of dense fiber could only help so much.

"Sean, are you okay?" asked Maeve, getting up and pulling him by the hand to encourage him to do the same.

"I'll live," he grunted, with his eyes squeezed shut and other hand behind his head.

"Come on, let's put some ice on that."

She led him down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Mrs. Bridges was washing dishes. Upon seeing the two of them coming, she turned off the water and ran out, hands still dripping wet, in the other direction.

"Mrs. Bridges, we're sorry, we just got carried away!" Maeve called after her.

"Don't worry, she'll be back in the spirit by this evening," said Sean, still holding the spot where his head had broken their fall.

Maeve sat him down at the kitchen table and gathered some ice in a dishtowel, which she pushed into his hand. Just then, they heard the main doors close again as a snow-frosted Tom lumbered in. He leaned against the doorway to the kitchen and wanted to know, "What happened here?"

"We fell off the bed," Maeve admitted sheepishly. "Sean broke our fall."

"Don't look at me that way, Tom. You would've done the same."

They all knew Sean was referring to taking Maeve inside to make out with her, not to falling off the bed, and Tom knew it was true, except for one thing. If Tom had been the one to take Maeve inside, they would have still been in his room. Still, he decided to change the subject.

"Was today the day you were planning to go back home, Maeve?"

"Yes; will you be able to drive me home this afternoon?"

"I probably can," he shrugged. "But it might not be safe in this weather."

"So, can you drive me home or not?" Maeve asked impatiently. "If not, I should call my parents and tell them what's going on so they don't worry."

"I think we should at least wait until it stops coming down."

"Or I could take you home," Sean offered.

"I appreciate that, but I've driven your bike. It'll go straight into a ditch the moment we hit the slightest bit of ice, especially when the cops start chasing us in Ulster," Maeve smiled. "It'll be best if Tom takes me home."

"Then I'll take you home. Let me know when's a good time to go."

The drive back to Belfast was fortunately uneventful, and they arrived at the Rourkes' house that evening. Maeve was the youngest of six, and all her older siblings had already come home to visit, so Tom had to park in front of a house two doors down, for all the cars parked in front of Maeve's parents'.

"Would you like to come inside, get acquainted with everyone?" Maeve offered as Tom pulled up the parking brake.

She was inviting him to meet her family. This was a good sign. Still, Tom wasn't yet ready to show the face he'd been showing Maeve to a whole house full of strangers. "I'd better not. I wouldn't want to intrude on your family's gathering."

"It wouldn't be an intrusion; you just brought me home!"

"But if I go in, I'll end up staying too long, and I want to get back home before it gets too late. Not that I wouldn't like to meet your family, it's just..."

"No, that makes sense," said Maeve, while opening up her door. "Would you open the trunk for me?"

"Of course," said Tom. He opened up his door and got out between passing cars, and unlocked the trunk to take out Maeve's suitcase. He started towards her house with it in hand, but she stood in front of him and grasped its handle.

"Tom, what are you doing?" she asked, smiling gently.

"I'm carrying your bag inside. That's still allowed, isn't it?"

"Of course it's still allowed, but I can carry it myself."

"Yes, but I want to do it for you."

"You don't need to prove to me that you're a gentleman, Tom; I have no doubt of it. But remember what you said about staying too long?"

He let go of the suitcase handle. "I suppose you're right. Happy Christmas, then."

"Happy Christmas to you, too," she said. Then, just as Tom was about to bring up her falling off the bed with Sean and ask if he would get a kiss, too, she leaned in, and he did.

*I shouldn't have brought that up, anyway,* he thought as they kissed. *It's not a good sign if I have to bring up what she does with my cousin.*

Their lips parted, and, barely an inch from his face, she whispered, "Thank you."

(1) Yes, I am aware that this sounds filthy. Commence the smut jokes...now.