Siobhan lay a few notes on the bar.
"What're you doing?!" cried Brendan, but it was clear from his face that he knew full well. Did Assumpta detect a look of admiration?
"Taking your advice," Siobhan chirped - flushed with pride, or blushing? "Lodging a bet on Sunday."
"You won't be able to collect!" Padraig said.
"Will if I bet against meself!" said Siobhan.
"You can't do that!" Brian boomed. "Assumpta!"
"No rule said she couldn't," Michael said gently. "She could collect tomorrow unless someone else fell through right at the stroke of midnight."
"Are you sure Father Clifford can't stay the night here?" Donal blurted.
"Bog off," the publican dismissed him, too loudly.
Assumpta marked the betting board to a mixed chorus of laughter, applause, and complaints. She tried to appear furious at the vet's diabolical scheme, but the shocked expressions on some others' faces were too amusing to resist. She caught sight of Peter across the room, bouncing Kieran and beaming as well.
Now the boy's parents walked back in. Assumpta towelled off the wet dog, motioning for Peter to distract Ambrose as she broke the news to Niamh, and as Siobhan collected her ill-gotten gains.
Peter caught the message. Assumpta watched him lead Ambrose into the men's toilets, gesturing to Kieran as if to suggest the need of a change. The gard grabbed the bag of baby supplies and followed.
Back in the bar, Niamh ponied up and consoled herself with a peppermint. "Half through the season, anyway. Longer than I thought Kathleen would last."
"Season's still young," Siobhan said, lining her pocketbook.
"Oh, that woman'll hold it together through the Second Coming if she thinks the Church is looking," Padraig sighed.
"Thought she sang loudest when Father Mac was looking," said Assumpta.
"We all thought for sure it'd be Father Clifford," said Liam, looking eerily insightful for the first time...well, ever.
The regulars resumed their awkward dance of quietly looking at the nearest boring thing.
Assumpta felt her blood run cold. "Well," she finally said. "We can see now you were up in the night, can't we?" She bowed into the kitchen to regain her composure. The kitchen didn't work; the bar was still pin-drop quiet, she could tell through the door. She slipped out the back into the rain.
Peter emerged into the pub again with the Egan boys - the younger now cleaner and drier, and the elder seeming more at ease than he had in some time. Noticing the publican was absent and the crowd suddenly much quieter, he merely nodded at them and stepped back outside. Whatever turn the discussion had just taken, he decided he didn't really care to know. He needed to get home, needed to find a place to hide the scraps burning a hole in his pocket...
Heading up the street, he glanced down the alley and saw she was propped against the side of the building, staring up into the downpour like a fool. He walked toward her, trying to think of a way to ask yet another question whose answer wasn't his to know.
She spoke first, not meeting his eyes. "Siobhan won the pool, if you were wondering."
"I thought she gave up gambling."
"Wagered against herself."
He smiled wryly. "Quite the evil mastermind."
"Yeah." She still wouldn't look at him.
"You should go inside," he muttered.
"In a minute."
"Are the regulars doing your head in?"
"You might be." Ah, but now she looked in his eyes. "Heading home?"
"I ought to." He made no move to go.
"Okay." Neither did she.
"Assumpta, you'll freeze in this."
Her eyes narrowed. "Cold showers, right? Good for the soul?"
"I gave up..." he stopped himself, thinking of just how badly his resolve had slipped in the mornings since Michael gave that order. He felt his skin heat up again - a bit embarrassment, a bit fury, a bit desire.
What are you doing?!
Give in. You need this.
He moved closer, fixed her gaze harder.
It was enough to break her. "I'm sorry," she said. "None of my business."
"Hasn't stopped anyone else," he said desperately, turning his eyes and then his shoulders away from her.
She clasped his wrist. "Wait."
They were both wet through by now. He wanted to put his coat on her, but she still had him by the hand, had her thumb against his pulse. She kept opening her mouth slightly, and then striking whatever it was she was about to say. He kept thinking of the letter, of both of them now knowing too much of the other's mind...
"I have to get back inside," she whispered.
"I miss you," he heard himself breathe back.
"Peter-"
What do you want? he felt like asking. But he knew. What she wanted was in pieces in his pocket. Knowing this made resistance impossible.
He leaned in. "You gave up self-denial?"
"I thought so," she said.
"Prove it," he begged, lips close enough to brush her own.
She turned her head, reminding him that they stood in broad daylight (well, what daylight the storm allowed them) and anyone could pass by at any moment, unlikely though it seemed in this weather. The spell broke now.
"It's Sunday," she said lamely, retreating inside.
He headed for home, thoroughly drenched and utterly dizzy.
Assumpta took a tea towel to her hair and gave her makeup a quick retouch before stepping back into the bar. Both efforts seemed futile, but the customers didn't seem to notice. In fact, Niamh had taken the liberty of putting on the radio. The awkward silence of moments ago was already forgotten in a wash of music and craic. The victorious Siobhan appeared to have purchased a round for everyone, undeniably duplicitous yet still magnanimous to a fault.
The fact that the radio DJ had chosen this moment to play "Why Don't We Do it in the Road" seemed lost on everyone else. To the publican, it felt as if the events of the last few minutes were printed on her forehead.
"Niamh, do you mind?" Assumpta wailed. Her barmaid ignored this, instead making shameless eyes at Ambrose as she bit suggestively into a chocolate bar.
Assumpta remembered now the fortune cookie from the night before, as yet unopened under the bar. She tore into the cellophane and broke the hard, stale shell:
"Look for the dream that keeps coming back. It is your destiny."
Whatever the hell that means, she thought.
This time, Peter was naked in the confessional, and Assumpta just barely visible on the other side. The panel between them was crumbling - no, it was made of paper, and she was peeling it away one bit at a time.
"Is it true?" he asked her.
"Is what true?"
"What you wrote. About me."
"Sure you've known how I felt all along."
He was stunned by this. "No."
"You had your suspicions." She tore off another strip of paper, and he could see she was naked as well. He felt a familiar strange pairing of impulses, to devour and protect her, both at once.
"Does it make any difference?" she said.
"Well, of course it makes a difference."
"Does it change what you'll do?"
He couldn't answer.
"Peter," she said, pulling at the edge of the last scrap of paper, "what are you giving up?"
"Snooping in rubbish bins."
She pressed against him. It was exquisite. It was agony. "Bit late for that. What are you giving up?"
"Cold showers."
"That's not a sacrifice. What are you giving up?"
"Hiding," he whispered. The walls of the box collapsed around them. Neither looked to see if anyone was watching them.
He awoke just as their mouths were about to meet. He rose at half-five, stuffed a few folded notes into his already-packed mite box, and indulged in an unrepentantly hot shower.