Despite the cloud of uncertainty over the future of Dooley’s, it was comforting to be there.
* * *
—
IT WAS INCREDIBLY FOOLISH for Sasha to suggest that she and Nathan meet at Dooley’s bar on the South Side of Chicago. She’d known that as soon as she’d hit send on the text. But she’d been annoyed that Nathan left it to her to find a place for them to go even after he’d been the one to ask her out. Besides, Nathan worked for the baseball franchise on the South Side, and Dooley’s was convenient to his office.
Sasha was blowing this one tiny thing out of proportion because she didn’t want to like him. Her friend Bridget had given her the side-eye when she’d complained. Easy to do when one was affianced to the one non-terrible billionaire on the face of the planet.
Even Hannah was giving him a break. “Maybe he was trying to be polite,” she’d said with a shrug. A year and a half ago, her best friend would have lit into a soliloquy about how suspicious it was he couldn’t make such a simple suggestion, but times had changed. Hannah was deeply in love with her handsome, brilliant, patient, and kind husband.
And Sasha was still alone. And dating. And hating every single second of it.
She didn’t hate it enough to not put care into it—especially if Father Patrick happened to be filling in as the bartender. If Patrick was there, maybe she could direct some of the lust he inspired in her at Nathan and try to spark something. And, if Patrick was reading a dusty leather tome all alone in his priestly cell—not that she’d imagined this scenario often at all—then Nathan would benefit from her efforts to look nice.
Winning all around.
When she walked in the bar, her gaze was immediately drawn to the man behind the bar.
Patrick was there, sans collar, with his sleeves rolled and his hairy forearms revealed all the way up to his elbows. Dear God in heaven, please forgive me. He was so gorgeous that she lost a step. When he looked up and grimaced at her, she could have been knocked over by a flutter of wings from a butterfly across the planet.
Coming here was a worse idea than she’d thought when making the venue suggestion. She should have listened to her better angels—the ones that she’d tied up and gagged in the recesses of her mind when sending that text.
She didn’t know how long she stood there, waiting for her sense to return. But she knew that it hadn’t returned when Nathan appeared in front of her out of nowhere.
He even did that thing where he waved a hand in her face. “Are you okay?”
No, she was absolutely not okay. She was deeply not okay. She was aflame with desire to lick a priest’s forearms while she was supposed to be on a date with another man.
She was not okay, and she’d done this entirely to herself.
But instead of saying all that, she put on her “I’m dying to be your best girl” smile—another Finerghty woman classic—and said, “Just fine.” She shook her head and knew that her long, dark hair would fall nicely over her shoulders and her pretty, pink silk blouse. “A long day is all.”
Nathan smiled at her, and it was so sweet that she made a valiant attempt to forget about the man standing behind the bar, who was pointedly not looking at her.
This guy was way too nice for her to sort-of-kind-of use him to try to resolve her crush on Father Patrick—which wouldn’t work anyway. “Listen, do you want to go someplace else?”
“No way.” Nathan looked around the dark bar, with its quiet booths and dark wood and stained-glass beer advertisements. “I love this place.” He winked at her, which caused an internal cringe. “Points for picking it out.”
Gross. Why did guys always insist on giving points for things? It was as though overcompetitive, hyper-toxic masculinity had to bleed its way into everything. She tried to remember what her therapist had told her about making snap judgments about people and how that limited her. She took a deep breath and imagined that maybe his father hadn’t shown him enough affection. If things worked out, she could tell him she hated the points thing later on.
Regardless of him giving her points for something he should have done and the questionable wink, she let Nathan steer her into a corner booth, where she sat with her back to the bar.
Not being able to see Patrick had to help. She would try to give this man with a nice smile and a pressed shirt a chance. He had a good job, wore a nice watch, and he was right there. It would be a lot easier to convince herself of the appeal of his availability with her back to Patrick.
Nathan went over to the bar and ordered them drinks. Sasha did her level best not to turn around and scrutinize both men side by side. That would be a terrible idea. And she was mostly successful. She didn’t turn around until Nathan put down his card and said, “Keep it open.”
He must have thought that this was going to last for longer than one drink. Sasha girded her loins for two hours of small talk, then shook her head. She was just here to get to know him better. A first date was low stakes. She tried to reframe it as something that could be fun. When had she stopped being curious about other people?
Probably around the same time that she’d gone on her thousandth first date. Still, she could pretend. One thing that she would have to keep from her upbringing was faking it until she made it.
When Nathan returned to the table, she put on her best smile and said, “Thank you,” even though he hadn’t asked her what she wanted. She took a sip of her vodka and soda, and it was strong. Must be Patrick looking out for her.
Must not think of Patrick.
She smiled at Nathan. “So, tell me about your job.”
When he started detailing the finer points of ticket sales for a professional baseball team for ten minutes, she blocked out everything else.
* * *
—
PATRICK DIDN’T LIKE THAT Sasha was in his dad’s bar. He didn’t like that she would be here any night, and he really didn’t like that she was here the night he’d happened to agree to fill in for his dad. And he really didn’t like that she was here with a date. Generally, he needed to brace to see the woman. Like, before the wedding last Saturday, he’d run an extra two miles in the hopes that he wouldn’t react to her. Because he shouldn’t even be thinking about her.
He knew he couldn’t avoid her because she was his best friend’s wife’s best friend. They were bound to run into each other, unless he avoided his best friend, and that wasn’t going to happen.
Sasha got under his skin. There was something about her shiny perfection that irked him. And she was very beautiful and made him think of things that were not helpful for a priest to think of.
When they’d first met a couple years ago, he’d thought he had died and was encountering an angel. Her face was pale and almost cherubic—with a ski-slope nose and a cleft in her chin. She was almost too beautiful to look at straight on.