Everyone’s eyes and ears fall onto us, trying to pick out the details of our relationship from among the chaos of the pub.
“It was the same for me,” Sean admits. “I was jealous, and never interested in meeting him.”
“Then what happened?” the ghost-loving colleague asks.
“We met at an event,” Sean says. “We talked, and…”
“And you liked each other,” his colleague suggests.
We both laugh. “We couldn’t stand each other,” Sean confesses. “It took a while for us to understand each other, to… Like each other.”
“And a kiss,” I say, smiling at the memory of that first time. “And since then…” I look at Sean, his eyes begging to know that this is all true, not just a story I’ve invented for this evening. “Since then, I haven’t been able to get rid of him.” I grab his hand on the table and bring it to my lips. I watch Sean blush as I kiss it.
“Oh, my God! You two are like something out of a rom-com. You know, one of those Christmas rom-com you watch just to make fun of it, but by the end you can’t help but love it!” his colleague says, making the whole table laugh.
Everyone loses themselves in their own conversations, and it’s as if Sean and I had got up and walked away from all the others. Noise floats in the background, the live band playing, the heat of his face and the heat in my chest. Then there are eyes. Eyes that ask to believe, eyes that hope they don’t have to pretend anymore.
“Do you want to get some air, Mr. Quinn?”
Sean nods, and we both get to our feet and excuse ourselves. We walk away, shoving through the throngs of people in the pub. Once we get to the door, I push it open and let Sean out first, resting my hand on his back as a shiver of pure adrenaline strikes us both: a shiver only the two of us can feel.
We step outside and the sting of the cold December air hits us. Sean shivers in his shirt and I take off my jacket, wrapping it over his shoulders.
“Thank you,” he smiles, embarrassed.
“They taught me to always be a gentleman.”
“Your parents?”
I shake my head. “Granny. And Larry.”
Sean smiles again.
“I haven’t been a gentleman like this for a while.”
“Really? So you’re usually more of a…?”
“You can say it, Mr. Quinn. I was a one-night stand kind of guy.”
“You were?”
I don’t answer his question. My gaze wanders off, out to the road in front of us.
“There was nothing to fill the void. I felt like I was drowning and couldn’t reach the surface, no matter how much I wanted to.”
“A void that he left?”
I nod.
“What happened between the two of you?”
“I wasn’t enough for him.”
“Because you didn’t study Medicine?”
“No. Because someone else was enough instead.”
“What do you mean?”
