Go Luck Yourself (Royals and Romance, #2)

by Sara Raasch

“He actually is a douche.” But as soon as I say it, I wince. Whether he’s a douche, I feel bad I caused someone to be smeared like this. Unless he’s stealing from us. Then fuck him.

“And send me that video. I’m going to put it in one of those digital photo frames and set it above my fireplace.” “Piss off.” “And I’ll engrave it to say Baby’s First Political Incident.”

What do you want, Kris?” My gaze swings to Coal and Hex, heads close, talking quietly and smiling like fools in love.

“Mm, he is dreamy. Those cheekbones.” “Right?” My eyes pop wide and I fumble. “I mean, no, not the dreamy bit. He opened his mouth, and any dreaminess went full nightmare.” Iris’s arched eyebrow sharpens. “Uh-huh. Sure it did.”

“Once more,” I whisper. He smiles. “Unto the breach.”

I know its intent is to represent his home, but all I can think is that he’s trying to look like a ginger Chris Evans from Knives Out. He does look like a ginger Chris Evans from Knives Out. Motherfucker.

If that’s what we’re doing, my whole personality is writing and self-doubt.

“You’re in Ireland. That’s what we got here, repentance and Guinness.”

Finn

So it is definitely her behind the magic stealing

“Fuck me,” I groan to my plate. Loch doesn’t hesitate. “Only if you say please.”

Wonder. That’s the feeling. Like all these books hold possibilities and if I pick the right one, I’ll get swept away somewhere better and righter and truer.

Loch’s fingers tighten on mine. His thumb strokes over the back of my hand and I launch stratospheric.

Smithwick’s ale.

Fuck yeah! I love a Smithwick's Red Ale!

“It’s a celebration of our people. A celebration of their survival in the face of political and religious instability. In the face of starvation and oppression and the fucking English’s attempts at genocide. It’s everyone from Queen Medb to Grace O’Malley to Mary Robinson. It has na always been that, I know, and there are problematic parts to be sure. I mentioned earlier the luck of the Irish? The phrase itself came from racist pricks who thought Irish success could only be because of luck, rather than any skill; but even that’s na fair. We do have luck, in our folklore and pantheons. We were built on luck long before arseholes bastardized it. St. Patrick’s Day has become the one thing we agree on even when we’re divided, even when we’re scattered across the globe. So we embrace the bad with the good, because you would na only see someone as the shite they’ve overcome, but as the fact that they did overcome it at all. My Holiday is a uniting thread of who we are and what we’re capable of

I don’t know. I don’t know. I should know. I do know. I know that his kiss tasted like all the dreams I waxed on about in the writing I don’t do anymore, the words I wove while trying to imagine Iris but all I imagined was a fantasy, an ending. He tasted like those fantasies. He felt like those endings. It’s him.

Just for you, I’ll try to make my emotional breakdowns form a poetic, complete story arc.

Nothing beautiful is ever forced.

I’m stretched bubble thin for him.

It yanked me out of a half-life I’d been living. If I don’t kiss you again I feel like every nerve in my body will wither away. That single kiss was more transformative, more vast, more excruciatingly important than anything that’s ever happened to me

Bridge to Terabithia.

Ah yes, every child's first experence with heartbreak and unhappy endings

Goddamn those sweaters. Like he’s a sexy, mysterious lighthouse fisherman.

“You aren’t an awakening,” I whisper. “You’re the whole dawn. And I can’t believe I ever thought I’d seen the sun before you.”

I imagine myself both a bird and an egg, building this nest of creativity around my unformed and delicate soul, nurturing it with stories I still love. I barely leave my room, but even in that solitude, I’m taking up more space than I’ve ever allowed myself. I move and the air bruises.