Last Call at the Local (Love, Lists & Fancy Ships, #3)

by Sarah Grunder Ruiz

“You can’t deny he’s very floofy,” I say. “It’s scientific.” “Ah, yes. What we have here is the magnificent Felis floofyis, the fiercest and, dare I say, floofiest of felines.”

I set my phone on the bar and turn toward him. “Do they all mean something?” The man looks at me as if he has no idea what I’m talking about. Which, of course, he doesn’t. “Your tattoos,” I explain.

“I think I bored him,” I say. “Nah,” the man replies. “There must be something interesting about you. Sebastian doesn’t sit beside just anyone.” Something about the way he looks at me makes my brain short-circuit. “Are you flirting with me?” When the man laughs, it makes me want to laugh too. “I wasn’t, but I can if you’d like.”

“If you’ll give me your hand, please,” he says. “Why?” I drop my eyes to his extended hand and find that even the underside of his arm is filled with color. His tattoos are of things that shouldn’t go together but somehow do—two candy hearts, a pair of scissors, the ghosts from Pac-Man. “Can’t say. It’s for the flirting.” Half of my brain says this is a bad idea. The other half doesn’t particularly care. When he smiles, I decide to go with the latter half and tell the first half to shut it.

“Would you be opposed to me continuing to flirt with you by buying you a drink?” My day has been spectacularly shitty, but at least it’s taken a positive turn. “With a job like mine, it’s unthinkable to turn down free drinks,” I say. “Free anything, really. Except drugs, of course. It’s surprising how often I’m offered free drugs.” Jack raises his eyebrows. “That’s not to say I buy drugs. I don’t. What I mean is I don’t do drugs, free or otherwise.” I pause to take a quick breath. “What I’m trying to say is, yes, you can buy me a drink, though you might not want to now.” His eyes linger on mine for a moment before he responds. “I still want to,” he says. “Oh, well, that’s good news.”

You can’t assume everyone is your friend, my inner voice warns. But I can’t help it. If I like someone, it doesn’t matter if I’ve known them for five minutes or five years. They’re a friend until proven otherwise.

The way Krista’s face lit up as she talked about falling in love with hooping reminded me of how I feel whenever I hold my guitar. As I listened to her, I wondered if I look that happy when I talk about music, and if so, why no one back home understands that I simply can’t do anything else?

But after twenty-eight years of living with ADHD, I’m so used to making these little mistakes, so used to frustrating the people in my life with them unintentionally, that even the tiny ones feel huge because they’re a reminder that I fall so short of what is expected.

If I continue before collecting myself, I might cry, and I hate crying in front of other people, though it happens all the time. I’ve been in some scary situations over the last year, but nothing like that. One minute I was standing there, holding out my hand to a stranger, and the next I was on the ground. But as pissed off as I am at the guy who stole my things, I’m even angrier with myself. I made one mistake after another. I should’ve done more research before coming to Cobh. I know not to turn my back on my things even for a second. I shouldn’t have put myself in a position where I was alone and vulnerable. It was stupid and careless, and I’m lucky all the guy wanted was my stuff.

“And do you play your own music?” “Sometimes.” “What’s that look about?” “What look?” “You’ve got this . . . pinched look about you.” I scrunch my eyebrows a few times. “Better?” “Do you not like your own music or something?” “It’s not that,” I say. “I just . . . well, it’s not for everyone.” Jack squints at me. “And how’s that different from any other type of music?” I blink at him. I’d never really thought of it that way. “I guess it’s not.”

What if rejection ruins my love for music? What if I can’t get over the failure? I’ve got enough failure in my life already. Music is my one sure thing. If I lose my love for it, what do I have? It’s why I’ve never finished recording a song before. I have a few snippets. A chorus here. A hook there. Maybe a verse or two. But nothing longer than a minute or so. If I don’t finish a recording, I don’t have to think about what to do with it.

I clap a hand over my mouth, and Jack’s eyes widen. “Sorry. Sorry. I’m oversharing, aren’t I?” Jack shrugs. “I asked you a question. You answered it. Maybe it’s just the right amount of sharing.” “Depends on the person I’m talking to.” “Or maybe it depends on you and how much you want to say. Maybe you’re the only one who knows if it’s oversharing or just . . . sharing.”

What Jack said unnerved me a bit. Not in a bad way. It just wasn’t what I expected. Usually when I apologize for going on like that, people laugh it off or say it’s okay. No one has ever suggested that I wasn’t oversharing.

I lean toward him. “You should keep me updated either way, so I don’t have to wonder. The uncertainty might kill me.” “There’s nothing worse than uncertainty,” he says. “So I suppose I’ll have to update you regularly.”

I have a hard time believing that. It can be a challenge for me to give anyone my full and undivided attention. It’s not personal. My brain is just a shitty computer. The browser is perpetually frozen on a tab for music. The error message This webpage is using significant memory is ever present. No matter what I do, thoughts of music are as persistent as pop-up ads. It’s caused me real problems. It’s hard to force-quit my thoughts, and, unlike an actual computer, I can’t reboot my brain, or replace my faulty frontal lobe, or upgrade to a new one. Most of the time, I feel as if I’m running a different operating system than everyone else. But sometimes, like right now, I meet someone who manages to minimize the music tab. Someone I can tune in to with such ease that I want to abandon the small talk and jump right into the good stuff. Hopes, fears, all the things that make someone who they really are. It can be too much. I know that. I can be too much. But hopefully, when I click with someone like that, they feel it too. They might even be a little too much themselves.

“They’re just ideas,” she finally says. “You can have them free of charge. You don’t want my help. I’m a mess. Like, in every way.” A mess in every way. Someone must have made her see herself that way, and whoever it is, I hate them.

“This is . . . very generous of you, and it sounds wonderful, but . . .” She looks up at me again. “You don’t even know me.” “Well, Raine, you seem like an easy person to know.” And that’s the thing, isn’t it? She doesn’t feel like a stranger at all. It’s as if all of her is right there on the surface. Like if you wanted to know something about her, all you’d have to do is ask.

“Probably. But . . . don’t take this as me not wanting the job, but there’s got to be someone better qualified than me.” Jesus, this girl is definitely a musician. She sounds like a broken record. “If you don’t want the job because you’re not interested in it, that’s fine. But if doubting yourself is the only thing holding you back, then take the job. Everything else we can figure out together.”

I’m slightly disappointed when I discover the place I can stay tonight isn’t Jack’s but Ollie’s. “You look like a highlighter,” Jack says to Ollie’s wife when she joins us at the pub a half hour after he calls her. She replies without hesitation. “Someone’s got to be the bright one in this family.”

“Well, that makes much more sense. Jack has never been one to mix business with pleasure. He’s surprisingly upright for someone who is always causing mischief. And you two clearly have something going on, so this must be an issue of morality, not desire.” Jack splutters on his beer. “Neen,” Ollie, who has returned for the tail end of this mortifying conversation, says. Nina gives him an exasperated look. “What? I’m just trying to get to the bottom of things. He’s asking us to host a pretty woman we don’t know in our home, when he would obviously rather have her in his, and I would like to know why. I don’t see the issue here.” I try not to laugh, but a giggle escapes me.

“Listen, you, I am trying to be an upstanding citizen. Don’t make it any harder than it already is.”

Haven’t you heard? They say the people of County Cork are the cleverest in all of Ireland.” “By they,” Nina says, “he means the people of County Cork.”

When I see homes like this—imperfect but clearly loved—it makes my chest ache. I want to have a place like this. Somewhere to belong. A place that’s mine, where I can be myself with people who understand me and like me just the way I am. People who don’t wish I was someone else.

Really, what was in those drinks? Because I have never been attracted to a man’s partially obscured shins before.

He takes almost everything seriously. Whereas I treat every interaction as if it’s some sort of game. Probably because everything feels like a game to me. On bad days, it feels like a game with nonsensical rules. Rules I know don’t actually have consequences, but rules I have to follow nonetheless. It’s exhausting.

When she lifts her gaze to mine, the first thing I think is, I’ve fucked up, because it’s at that exact moment I realize I’m going to be undone by this girl.

But my problem isn’t that I don’t think. It’s that my brain only has two modes: think everything all at once and make sense of none of it, or think about one thing obsessively at the expense of whatever actually needs my attention. The point being, I am always thinking. Just never about the right things.

New Raine manages to stick around for two whole days. And then, despite living directly above the pub, New Raine manages to be fifteen minutes late to work. Because believe it or not, simply writing a morning routine is not enough to make me a new person. Believe it or not, I have to actually follow it. And not just once, every day. Which wasn’t so bad at first. But today, when I went to find a ten-minute yoga routine, I somehow ended up watching cat videos with Sebastian and stumbled upon a T-shirt cat tent tutorial. It looked easy and like a much better use of my time than yoga. But of course it was not easy, and by the time I realized it was going to take up my entire morning before work, it was too late. I was in it. I kept glancing at my phone, telling myself I could finish this later. I needed to get in the shower. I needed to organize the note on my phone with all my ideas for the pub before my meeting with Jack. But I just couldn’t move. I kept mentally revising how long it would take me to do things. I didn’t really need five whole minutes for a shower if I was just washing my body, right? (Wrong.) It wouldn’t take more than sixty seconds to toss on a shirt, cardigan, and jeans, right? (Wrong.)

“That happens more often than I’d like to admit,” I say. Jack picks up a pen from the desk and twirls it between his fingers. “Which part of what just happened are you talking about?”

Raine looks at me, then at Dave, and then down at the guitar in her hands. I think there are tears in her eyes, but she blinks them away before I can be certain. “Thank you,” she says. “Really, you have no idea what this means to me.” “Ah, but I do, darling,” Dave says. “You have that look.” “What look?” “The look of a musician.”

You’ve gotta believe in what you make, otherwise why would anyone else?”

I must be a masochist. There’s no other explanation for why I would torture myself like this. Why else would I have her so close? Why else would I willingly drown myself in her when I know I won’t—can’t—do anything about it?

Ollie turns to me. “Why don’t you make a post to let everyone know we’ll be opening late today?” he says. It takes everything in me not to cry in frustration in front of Nina and Ollie. I nod and take a seat at the nearest table, grateful for an excuse to keep my head down. I stare at my phone, but the tears blur my vision so that I can’t even do this small task Ollie has asked of me. I’m over it. All the little costs of having ADHD that add up in the long run. Lost customers. Overdue bills. Replacement phone chargers. Time spent looking for things. The way it makes me feel, like a child. As if everyone else is a real adult and I’m just pretending. The frustration that I can’t do the simple, everyday things that most people can. Like laundry, and making phone calls, and remembering to take out something from the freezer for dinner. It’s the missed deadlines for opportunities I could’ve had. The broken relationships. How people think I’m lazy and selfish. How they think I don’t care. How I think I’m lazy and selfish, even though I know I care.

“No, I’m . . .” I look up at the ceiling to try and blink back tears. When I finally find my voice again, it’s just above a whisper. “I’m just really, really sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . I wanted to help.” I sigh down at my hands. “I told Jack I was a mess. He didn’t listen to me.” “Yeah, you’re a mess,” Nina says. The words surprise me. I glance up at her and her usually severe expression softens into a smile. “And so am I. And so is Oliver, for that matter. I swear the man can’t take off a pair of shoes without leaving them in a heap. The point is, everyone’s a mess. Your messes just happen to be quite literal. Those are the best kind, believe me.”

“It’s not silly. It makes sense to me. I did make a living jabbing ink into people’s skin. Now I do it selling alcohol. Imagine the world without art or music?” I look up at her. “Imagine Ireland without alcohol.” She laughs.

The best thing about Sebastian is that he always knows when I’m upset. He knows, and yet he can comfort me without worrying, or trying to help, or judging me. He doesn’t wonder if he did something that caused me to be this way, like Mum and Ollie do. He just lets me know that he sees what I’m dealing with. He’s just . . . there. Which is really all I want.

“You don’t have to stay,” she says. I look from her to the pub. I hate feeling like I want to come inside with her but can’t. I hate that my own head is driving me away from everything I want. “I’d love to stay for a while, it’s just . . .” “A bad brain day.” I laugh. “A bad brain day. I like that. And . . . yeah, that’s exactly the sort of day I’m having.”

I look over at her, but her eyes are on the music. Her hand in mine doesn’t take the thoughts away or make me feel better. But it gives me something to hold on to when I have no idea if I’ll sink or swim. It’s a reminder of why I’m putting myself through this torture. I’m not well. I haven’t been able to admit that, not even to myself. I’m not well. But I’m going to get better.

Jack takes the cat in his arms and scratches him between the ears. “Hey, Princess Ugly,” he says. “Have you been taking good care of Raine?” “I thought I was the one taking care of him.” Jack glances at me before returning his attention to Sebastian. “Should we keep letting her think that?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. It wasn’t always this bad. I was in recovery for a long time but . . .” He turns away from me and rubs a hand over his face. “I haven’t told anyone this. I haven’t even wanted to admit it to myself. It was just small stuff at first but . . . I think I may be having a bit of a . . . relapse.” A bit of a relapse. How very like Jack to minimize his own problems.

“What your thoughts are about . . . that’s no one’s business.” I say. “You don’t owe that to anyone. You and your thoughts are not the same thing.

I have no idea what’s going on. Spontaneous visits are not Clara. Skipping school is not Clara. Displays of vulnerability are not Clara. At least, that hasn’t been Clara for a long time. I have no idea who this person is, but whoever she is, I’m worried about her.

“Are you all right?” Jack asks. “No idea.” I open the fridge and stare inside it, but I keep forgetting to actually look at what’s there.

“Well, it’s a good thing, okay? You smell nice and it makes my brain happy. And I hope it makes you happy that you’ve gotten me to admit that.” “As a matter of fact, it does make me happy.” “You know, most people try to keep me from going on tangents,” I say. “You practically shove me into them.” “I like to see where that brain of yours will go. It’s a surprise every time. And I like seeing you in my jumper.”

I should feel relieved, but I don’t. I’m exhausted. I’m so fucking tired of every good moment being darkened by doubt.

I want to tell her I’ve found it, but what if something goes wrong? I don’t want to get her hopes up, only for her to be more disappointed than ever. That, and I want to see the look on her face when she finds out she doesn’t have to replace her guitar. She doesn’t have to replace her guitar. The elation I felt a moment ago fades. The guitar is the last big thing Raine needs. I told her she didn’t have to stay all twelve weeks if she had all her gear, but she said that with the guitars she was thinking of getting, she’d have to work the full twelve weeks to save up for it. But now she won’t have to replace her guitar. She won’t have to work at the pub anymore.

It would only buy me a bit more time with her, but time is exactly what I need. Time to figure out what these feelings mean. Time to figure out what I want. To figure out what she wants. You realize you’re bending over backward to make this work, right? Please tell me you know this makes absolutely no sense. That’s what Ollie said the night Raine and I met, and everything turned out great. Why wouldn’t this be the same?

I push away the unreasonable jealousy I feel. I can be extra sensitive to rejection, even when it isn’t actually rejection.

Just because Clara is fitting in great already doesn’t mean you don’t, the voice of reason says. I mentally roll my eyes. I hate when the voice of reason is so . . . reasonable.

None of it matters, because none of it is real, but suddenly I feel as if I’m reliving high school and college all over again.