Author's note:

I have been ill and feeling very sorry for myself over the last few weeks, and to make it worse, my writing muse completely abandoned me (presumably out of fear of catching whatever nastiness I came down with).

However, my editing muse is made of sterner stuff, and I managed to finish a draft I had started in the run up to last Christmas when I spent waaaay too much time watching trashy holiday romances and determined that I absolutely had to write my own!

This story (and others that aren't available here) is also on AO3 where I post under the same name. And I'm on Tumblr if you want to connect there!

23 December 1998

Ash awkwardly wrangled the shopping bags in her hand towards her chest, using one of the buttons on the front of her coat to snag the edge of her sleeve. With a wiggle, she managed to push the sleeve a couple of inches up her arm to reveal her watch.

Bollocks!

She was running late. Or not late exactly... She didn't have an appointment. But if she didn't get her arse in gear, she was going to miss the Christmas present she had promised herself.

She had spent the afternoon getting her Christmas shopping sorted for the family members she'd be seeing on Christmas Day, and her hands were full of bags of presents for her cousins and cousin's spouses and whatever the hell the niece or nephew equivalents of cousins were. Presents to family back home had been posted weeks ago to ensure they arrived in time. Christmas cards had been sent at the same time, despite the odd look from the postal worker who clearly wasn't sure why anyone would be sending them before Thanksgiving. She had brazened it out, not bothering to explain the ridiculous length of time it took for anything to get to a small village in rural Ireland.

Now, after securing all those presents for everyone else, she wanted one for herself. She had been a good girl this year and she deserved one. She had been dumped a week before moving from Boston and taken it like a trooper, sucking it the fuck up and marking the five year relationship down as a learning experience. She had worked her arse off over the past six months since her move to Indianapolis to ensure her company's software project was complete in time for the pre-Christmas launch. She had foregone a social life and downtime and sometimes even sleep to get her part done on time. At least the bonus from work meant that she had money to burn as she braved Indianapolis' shopping district two days before Christmas. She would spend tonight wrapping the presents she had bought and tomorrow she would drive to her cousins. She would party and make merry, and then she'd be back to the city on the 28th to collapse and relax... and make a plan for 1999 that didn't involve quite such a dearth of human interaction outside of work.

This evening might help with the whole human interaction thing, she mused. ...if it goes to plan.

One of her few concessions to trying to maintain some semblance of a life over the past six months had been Wednesday evening trips to the comic shop a quarter of a mile from her apartment. The same comic book shop where she had first seen him.

She bit back a sigh as she thought about him. All leather and dark denim, dark wavy locks that flowed halfway down his back, warm brown eyes and a perpetually enthusiastic smile. Strong hands and arms that made her just want to walk up to him and ask him to wrap them around her. His expressive face and bombastic attitude made her think initially that he was much younger than her, but his hair was greying ever so slightly at the temples and the laugh lines around his eyes looked like they had been etched there permanently. On consideration, she thought he was close to her age, maybe a couple of years older. Either way, even if he had been in his early- to mid-twenties like she had originally guessed, she would still have noticed him. It was impossible for her not to notice him. He was gorgeous and she wanted him. For Christmas… and beyond, if possible.

She sucked cold air into her lungs as she sped down the road towards the comic shop. Today was the day she was going to get his number. Or at least his name. Or simply say hello to him. Anything that wasn't glancing mutely at him out of the corner of her eye while she perused the shelves of new comics, like a besotted schoolgirl rather than a grown woman of thirty-one years. She was going to ask him out and he was going to say... "Yes!"

Or maybe he'd say, "Sorry, I can't understand a word you're saying with your clearly non-American accent!"

Or more likely, "I'm married. Because, of course I am. I'm gorgeous and someone got here before you, you daft eejit."

But then at least she'd know. She wouldn't be pining over him like a stupid shy teenager, timing her trips to the shop to make sure they coincided with him painting figurines with his equally nerdy friends at the table in the corner of the games section. Maybe she'd even find out what the figurines were for. She'd played tabletop games that involved figurines a couple of times with friends back in Boston. The gameplay didn't really grab her but even so, she understood the appeal of customising the little figures, the attention to detail that was required to get them just right. Whatever game he played with them, she was curious. She knew most women her age would be put off by a guy who played games like that, but geeky guys appealed to her. And this guy in particular.

She had a mission this evening, and dammit, she was going to achieve it!

Of course, her mission assumed that her guy and his friends were even at the shop today. They were there every Wednesday evening normally, but two days before Christmas...? There was a good chance they had better things to be doing.

Just so long as it's not buying presents for his kids, Ash mentally crossed her fingers.

She reached the door of the shop and pushed her way inside, trying not to knock anything over with the loaded shopping bags she was carrying. She manhandled them all into one hand and used the other to pull her woolly hat off her head, teasing her long braid out from the collar of her coat. Stepping around a couple of customers, she made her way to the furthest comic shelf to get a better look at the games table. Her heart fell. He was already standing up, shrugging his leather jacket on as his friends did the same with their coats. He had a red Santa hat on over his long hair and a dark green Christmas jumper on under his jacket.

Mmmm… he looks divine. The perfect Christmas gift, almost as good as if he was wrapped in a bow.

With hugs and cries of "Merry Christmas!" he and his friends parted ways. A few of them paused to examine the shelves of comics, while the one member of the group that she was so foolishly, intensely, ridiculously interested in made his way to the door. His eyes met hers for a second as he passed her and his smile widened minutely. Ash's heart felt like it was going to explode from that barest of acknowledgements.

She turned, ready to follow him and try to get his attention again on the street, when the man who owned the shop leaned over the counter and called her name. She turned to him, trying not to seem impatient as she fought to keep enough attention on the guy, her guy, to see which direction he turned once he left the shop.

"Hi Matt. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas yourself!" Matt slammed down a small pile of comics on the counter. "Those Sandman back issues you said you were looking for. Still missing a couple but this should be most of them."

Oooh…! She hadn't expected that. A second nice present for herself, assuming the first one went anywhere. She grabbed a couple of other comics that she had been looking for from the shelf and added them to the pile that Matt had laid out for her. By the time she had paid and made enough Christmas-related small talk with him that she didn't feel rude for leaving with her stash of comics, her guy was long gone. But she had seen him turn left when he walked out the door, which meant that she had a fair idea of where he currently was. She added yet another shopping bag to her hands and hightailed it after him.

The pub was a more recent discovery than the comic shop. She had found it a couple of months after she had moved to the neighbourhood and had dropped in for a pint a couple of times at the weekends. But it had been a random Wednesday shortly before Halloween that had caused it to become a regular haunt for her. She had had a particularly gruelling day at work and after her weekly trip to the comic shop and the associated pining over the gorgeous guy in the leather jacket, she had been drawn to the pub for a drink. If nothing else, it made a change from going straight home and doing more work there until she fell asleep, as was her usual routine.

Formerly an Irish pub that had morphed into a rock bar at some point, the place played good music, poured a decent pint of Guinness, and she had been homesick on that particular Wednesday and wanting of the kind of somewhat impersonal company that a midweek pub trip could provide. She just wanted to be around people for an hour or two, not staring at a screen full of lines of code. Not necessarily even talking to anyone. Just to be yet another anonymous person in the city, having a drink and chilling out. When she had walked in the door, she almost didn't believe her eyes. Here was her gorgeous guy, in a Halloween-themed t-shirt, propping up the bar with a pint of beer in hand, grinning and chatting to the barman.

And since then, he had been there every Wednesday after he left the comic shop. And so was Ash, relaxed at a small two-person table by the window with the perfect view of her guy, a half-pint of stout in front of her that usually turned into a second one, and a comic in her hands. She always paid more attention to him that the comic she was trying vainly to read and had to re-read it later at home. But her glances at him were as subtle as she could make them. She didn't draw his eye, and he never approached her to ask if the other seat at her table was taken. And she didn't approach him, as much as she wanted to. They were at something of an impasse. Or at least she was. Apart from the occasional nod and smile, she had no idea if he even knew she existed.

Today, if he was at the pub and if she was brave or stupid enough to approach him, that impasse would finally end. And so would the little fire of the crush that she had been stoking for most of the time she had lived in this city. Either it would be doused by the real prospect of a date with him to look forward to, or it would have sputtered out as he slapped her right back to reality. Realistically, she had a pretty good idea of how this would go. Despite the lack of an obvious wedding ring, he would be married, probably with kids. Or he might not be married, but he would want kids. That was just how things were at her age.

Her ex's parting shot caught her before she could push it out of her mind. "No-one really believes when a woman says she doesn't want children, Ash. I didn't. I just kept thinking you'd come around."

Translation: "No man wants a woman who doesn't want children. Can't you just change your mind to fit what I want from life?"

She sighed, annoyed at herself for dwelling on Kevin's reason for dumping her. She couldn't blame him for wanting children, or even for taking up five years of her time before realising that that's what he really wanted. The heart wants what it wants, after all. She did however blame him for not believing her when she told him up-front and very early in their relationship that she didn't want them. Like he thought she was some kind of little ninny who didn't know her own mind. She blamed him even more for starting an affair with a woman in his office and then, of all things, getting her pregnant. That, apparently, had been the only reason he had told Ash that he had met someone else. Otherwise, he would have been quite happy to keep dating her while he cheated on her. But once his workplace fling announced that she was expecting, he had realised he really did want children and apparently Ash wasn't going to change her mind fast enough for them to do that together. Now, he and his new fiancée were expecting a Christmas baby. Well, good for them! Ho ho fucking ho!

Thank God she had already been planning the move to her company's Indianapolis office. Staying in Boston would have been too much to bear, knowing that she could bump into her ex and his new family at any time.

Pushing the whole sorry mess to a small corner of her mind and throwing a screen around it, Ash entered the bar.

Enough of that shit!

She had better things to be doing than wasting time thinking about idiot exes. She had to find if he was here…

Her heart gave a little skip. He was here!

He was sitting at his usual spot at the bar with a pint in front of him. She looked around the room. It was much busier than a typical Wednesday and the festive cheer had clearly started early. Most of the tables, including her usual one, were taken. And the few that were left wouldn't give her a good enough view of him. But there were some free seats at the bar. One was directly next to him. She fantasised about being brave enough to go straight for that one, to sit down and start a conversation with him, to finally find out his name.

Maybe she'd do just that! ...once she had some liquid courage in hand.

She approached the end of the bar that was furthest from him and had the most stools free. The bar itself was shaped like a U so by placing herself here, they would be facing each other, albeit with fifteen feet of space, a full bar and a couple of barmen between them. The usual Wednesday barman approached her and picked up a glass. "Half-pint of the black stuff?"

She gave him a grin, trying to seem braver than she felt. "D'you know what? It's Christmas. Make it a pint!"

He started to pour as she dumped her bags on the floor, pulled off her coat and propped herself up on a barstool.

The downside of drinking stout was that procuring a decent glass of it wasn't a quick process. By the time the barman had completed the two-part pour and her pint had settled, Ash was distraught to find that the seat next to her guy had been filled.

Ugh, why did I wait?!

She bit back her annoyance. At least, it hadn't been filled by a hot blonde. The man sitting next to her guy looked like he was in his fifties. He had his hand on her guy's shoulder and was smiling broadly as he said something to him. She flicked her attention momentarily back to the barman as he handed her the change from the note she had paid with. "Thanks."

A head of dirty blond hair popped up suddenly from under the bar. The second barman. He had been fixing something beneath one of the taps. As he rose to his full height, he cut off her view of her guy, and leaned towards her with a grin on his face. "Kerry, right?!"

She met his eye. "Oh…! Uh, yeah. Killarney." Or close enough as makes no difference.

"Ha! Galway. City not the county." Now that he said it, she could hear his accent. "Connor." He offered her his hand.

She took his hand to shake. "Ash… ah, Aisling."

"Aisling. A vision!" he declared as he repeated her name back to her smoothly and she felt an unexpected burst of pleasure at the exchange. It was nice, being able to use her full name and not having the other person give her an odd look and insist on calling her Ashley. After a couple of years in Boston, she had given up on using Aisling completely and started to go by Ash. Most people probably still thought her full name was Ashley but she didn't care so long as she didn't have to have the painful bloody conversation yet again.

Annoyingly, the barman was still blocking her view of her guy but regardless, it was nice to have another Irish person to talk to and she found herself starting a conversation. "Have you been working here long?" She dropped the slow speech and over-enunciation she used when she was talking to Americans, letting her natural accent take over fully for the first time in almost a year.

"I moved over in August. My brother got me the job and I've been working here since. Usually weekends but with the pre-Christmas rush, I'm on whatever shifts they give me. What about yourself?" He lazily wiped an already clean glass with a towel as he spoke to her.

"I moved here six months ago. Before that, it was several years in Boston. And before that, London." She shrugged.

Connor's eyes widened and she realised he was probably younger than she had first estimated. Maybe late twenties at a push. He stepped back to lean his back against the shelf of liquor bottles. His movement cleared her view to the end of the bar and she could see her guy again. He was staring at the rings on his hands as the older man next to him talked his ear off. His smile had dimmed a little now.

"Are ya heading home for Christmas?" Connor drew her attention back to him with the question.

She sipped her pint, enjoying the creamy flavour of the stout that gave way to a tinny aftertaste as she swallowed. She shook her head. "I've got extended family here. I'm driving down to them tomorrow. Flights home are extortionate this time of year so, I dunno… maybe I'll get home before The Millennium." She shrugged again.

Her guy was twirling the large ring on his thumb, playing it up and down over the knuckle. She watched as he played with the ring. He had beautiful hands. The rings came off when he was in the comic shop, she guessed to allow him more dexterity while he painted. They were nearly always back on his fingers by the time he made it to the pub. Ash idly wondered if he took them off or left them on when he took someone to bed and then had to force herself to drop that line of thought and concentrate on whatever the barman had said to her. They chatted a bit more, as she kept an eye on her guy. At one point, her guy looked up and caught her eye and she swore there was the slightest tug to the corner of his mouth as he did so.

He's probably just smirking at the stupid woman sitting across from him who oh-so-fucking-obviously has a crush on him and won't stop staring.

Eventually, Ash noticed the other barman was struggling with the number of orders piling up. "Uh, I think you've got some customers." She gestured towards a group waiting to order drinks. Connor suddenly seemed to realise he was here to work rather than chat and left Ash to her own devices for a while. She glanced at her guy again.

I should really stop calling him that… He's not mine.

She wanted him to be though. He shrugged at something one of the other men down his end of the bar said and his Christmas jumper pulled taut over his chest. Mmmm…

Her mouth watered and she covered it by taking another sip from her pint. She wondered if he had a physical job or spent time in the gym. He didn't seem to be overly built, but he had good muscle tone from what she could see. He had beautiful arms to go with his beautiful hands. Tonight, he had rolled his sleeves up to just below his elbows, showing off his forearms. Supple skin, tight muscles and prominent veins that ran the length of his forearms to the backs of his hands. And a couple of tattoos peaking through. Ash imagined what it would feel like to have those arms wrapped around her. She bet they'd be strong, not too tight, warm… warming.

She sighed dreamily.

For crying out loud, get your arse in gear! Get back to the plan. Ask him out, her brain prodded her. But it looked like the man beside her guy had ordered another couple of pints for them both, and they were settled in for the evening.

Ash finished her pint and raised her glass in front of her, tapping the side to indicate she'd have another one. Connor returned to her with a fresh pint in his hand soon afterwards and then resumed his place leaning against the shelf as the rush of customers died down. As their conversation continued, she realised that the tone had changed. Connor had become flirty and for a few minutes of careful responses on her part, Ash struggled to understand why. He was barely in the country six months. Most Irish guys in that position wouldn't have any interest in dating an Irish woman when they'd just left a country full of them. There were so many American women for them to chase instead. Women who would respond better to their roguish charm. Women who, unlike her, hadn't been raised around the charm of Irish men from birth and therefore couldn't pick apart the bullshit within minutes.

By the time Ash was halfway through her second pint, she was almost certain that Connor was using her for practice. Keeping his skills warm through use, and what better way than to pit them against a real challenge, a woman who'd grown up in a country full of rogues and charmers? She guessed if he could pull her, he'd be patting himself on the back, happy that a few months surrounded by softer targets hadn't ruined his skills. By the time she was three quarters of the way down her glass, she was tired and sick of it. The older man next to her guy showed no signs of moving, and whatever notion she had of asking her guy out or even speaking to him before Christmas was dying before her eyes.

As Conner stepped away to serve more customers, movement at the end of the bar caught her eye. Her guy had stood up from his stool. Stretching his arms above his head and wrapping both hands around his elbows, he tensed his muscles and yawned into his shoulder. The movement hiked his jumper up a couple of inches, giving Ash a view of a sliver of his stomach above his belt. Pale skin bisected by the dark line of the happy trail that disappeared into his jeans. A view she would have swooned over on a more hopeful night. But by now, she had lost whatever hope she had been harbouring of speaking to him. He dropped his arms and jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the gents' toilets. The older man nodded after him as her guy disappeared in the direction he had pointed.

As Connor reappeared, tilting his head towards her pint and asking "Another one?", Fairytale of New York started playing from the speakers above the bar and that answered that question for Ash. The pub had mostly steered clear of Christmas music so far tonight, sticking with rock and metal, with a definite lean towards Irish or American Irish bands. But Fairytale was too good to miss out on apparently and almost immediately a group sat at one of the tables launched into the opening lines. Ash winced as she felt a blast of homesickness and hate so overwhelming that for a second she thought she was going to throw up. Homesickness, not for Ireland, but for her time in Boston. And hatred for her ex for driving her away from it. Even if the decision to move had been hers, he was the reason she had had to move here on her own.

She shook her head at the barman and forced a smile onto her face. "No, thanks. I've got to head out early tomorrow. Need a clear head for the drive." She dropped off the barstool and pulled her coat on.

As she shuffled her bags together into a couple of almost manageable handfuls, he leaned over the bar. "Well, enjoy your Christmas!" She almost flashed him a genuine smile at that, until he followed up with, "And if you want some company for New Years… I'll be working, of course, but you know, after the bar closes."

"No thanks." She called out a general "Merry Christmas!" to everyone at the bar before disappearing out through the front door. As she trudged home under the weight of her purchases, she tried to push the defeated feeling out of her chest.

There's always January. I can ask him out then, she told herself, knowing that it wouldn't happen.

It wasn't like she was incapable of asking guys out or even holding conversations with them. She'd never been spectacularly good at flirting but she was engaging and smart and funny. She could talk to men… normally. It was just that this particular man was different. She had built him up so much in her head that the idea that she could treat him like another human being was absurd.

She sighed. Maybe she should give up on him, start going to the comic shop on a different day of the week and find another pub. She should probably just accept the inevitable, that she had been overtaken by a burst of Christmas courage and once the season was gone, so would any notion that she would be brave enough to speak to her crush.

Author's note: For anyone who isn't too sure of their Irish geography, Kerry and Galway are counties in the Republic, and Killarney is a town in Kerry.

Also, Aisling means vision or dream in the Irish language, hence Connor's response when Ash tells him her name.