Page 5 of Unreasonably Yours

“Cute as in it's actually cute,” Toni says.

I lean across the table a bit, lowering my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “If it was the other, this was my cousin's suggestion, so I won't be offended.”

“Dinner was your cousin's suggestion, huh?” She takes a shallow sip of her cocktail. “If you happen to be referring to the tall blonde, she could tap in, and I wouldn't be mad.”

I place a hand over my heart. “If I were a less evolved man, that might hurt.”

“But you're above that sorta thing.”

“Exactly.” I wonder if she knows how powerful the dimple on her right cheek, that pops up with every little smirk, is. “But I refuse to give Ginelle credit for the whole idea. Dinner? All me. I just didn't quite have the logistics locked down.”

“And she generously volunteered to help?”

“Enthusiastically.”

“Invested in your social life, is she? ”

I snort into my whiskey. “Invested is a nice way to put it.” Toni cocks her head questioning. “That side of my family is very Italian, very Catholic, and very nosy. If meddling were an Olympic sport, they'd all be gold.”

“You and your cousin just happen to work at the same bar, or...?” Toni asks.

“It's my family's place. For better or worse, it usually means a lot of family running things.”

“Do you like it?”

I can't help the wistful smile. “Much to my inner teenager's dismay, I love it.” I'd gone to extreme lengths to avoid ending up right where I was now. Funny how things work.

“Our teenage selves didn't have fully developed frontal lobes, it's ok for them to be a little let down sometimes.”

While teenage Cillian may be disappointed about our career path, he would not be let down by the woman across from us. “What about you? Would teenage Toni be ok with her choice of career?”

Toni doesn't answer immediately, taking her time to consider. She levels her dark eyes on me. “Do you want the honest answer or the easy one?”

Something about the way she asks sends a thrill through me. Most folks weren't willing to be so forward, especially not with someone they just met. “Honest. Always.”

She nods. “Teenage me wouldn't care about the career. She'd just be shocked we made it to thirty-three.”

It's the kind of answer that gives the smallest glimpse at her inner workings, a nod to the origins of the grit I’d seen in her earlier.

“On behalf of both our teenage selves, we're all glad you did.”

“I'm glad, too,” she pauses, “even on days when various body parts decide to randomly malfunction.”

I chuckle. “I'd say it gets better, but I try not to lie.” My body hurts more days than it doesn't, though that has more to do with spending almost eight years of my life being shot at and blown up for no good reason than my thirty-seven years.

Even so, I was still happy to be here, something I couldn't always say. “It is still worth it, though.”

“Noted,” Toni says, a smile lifting her round cheeks.

“What would the easy answer have been?” I ask.

She swishes her cocktail in her mouth before swallowing. “She'd have no idea what the hell a marketing consultant does, so I think the confusion would outweigh any disappointment.”

“Huh.” The sound slips out before I can stop it.

“What?”

“I just—” I take in her cropped tank, the collection of metal in her ears, and the large peony tattoos covering her shoulders and sneaking down her arms. “I wouldn't have pegged you for the corporate type.”

“And what would you have pegged me for?”

“A creative. Visual art of some kind.” It's fast, but I know I don't imagine the flicker of pain in her eyes or the subtle way she seems to fold in on herself. Just as fast as it appeared, that easy self-assurance slips back over her.

“Sorry to disappoint.”

I scoff. “I doubt you've ever been within a hundred miles of disappointing.”

“Oof. I'm either a master of deception, or you're not great at reading people.” She finishes her cocktail. “Bad trait for a bartender.”

“Manager, thank you very much.” Our appetizers arrive, shifting our focus for a bit.

I pivot us back, enjoying excavating small pieces of this woman far more than the cheese tray we'd ordered. “What would you know about being a good bartender anyway?”

“Had to get through college somehow, and OnlyFans didn't exist yet.” She pops a grape into her mouth, clearly savoring it. “You'd be hard pressed to find a service job I haven't done.”

“Stripping not your thing?” I ask and immediately regret it. Toni just huffs a laugh.

“Too niche a market.”

“You'd be surprised.” Be it the woman or the whiskey, something had completely removed the filter between my brain and my mouth.

“I really wouldn't. Loyal fanbase.” Toni settles back into her chair a bit, shoulders squaring, that dimple making another appearance as she pins me with a stare I'd almost call challenging. “Just not always the majority.”

I can practically taste the stupidity on my tongue. I want to tell her I'd make sure she'd never spare a thought about the majority again because if she let me between those perfect thighs, I'd?—

The entrées arriving save me from myself.

Our dinner chat is much safer. Though I notice her efforts to keep the focus on me, pivoting away from anything that gives her a chance to show too much of herself.

By the time the server is clearing our plates, she knows that my dad is mostly retired, leaving the bar running to me and my older brother, Michael.

She knows Michael handles the books for the bar, while I handle the day-to-day, and that three of our cousins work for us.

I tell her about Lucy and Oliver, my two best friends who are practically family.

That my parents still live in the house I grew up in, and that they are, in fact, still blissfully in love.

As for her? She has an older brother, ten years her senior, but she pushes us away from that with a comment about her drink.

I know she grew up in Texas, but as to where exactly, we manage not to get into it.

I observe that she loves an espresso martini and leans salty over sweet. Beyond that, she remains a mystery.

The moment she takes a bite of the cheesecake we agreed to share, I ask a question that's been burning in the back of my brain for hours now. “At the bar, you said you needed a big change. Why?”

Toni's eyes widen a bit, and she chews a little longer than necessary. I don't do anything to break the silence. Just let it hang.

Please, give me something real. Let me see you. I beg silently, keeping my foolish mouth busy with the creamy sweetness of the dessert.

She licks her bottom lip. It makes me want to bargain, tell her she doesn't have to answer anything as long as she lets me know what that mouth tastes like.

Before I can give in to my lesser self, she answers. “I had been with someone for a while. We broke up. And...” She trails off, but I don't dare interrupt. “And the opportunity to get away from it all presented itself, so I took it.”

“Recently?”

She shrugs. “End of last year. I don't know if seven-ish months ago is recent.”

“When the hurt is big enough, it is.” I know all too well how long it can take to heal from a breakup, especially a bad one. “How’d Somerville, of all places, become your getaway?” I love my hometown, but it tends to get overshadowed by its more prestigious neighbors, Boston and Cambridge.

This earns me a tiny smile, and even that is enough to set my gut fluttering. “A woman I knew from the co-working space I used had a cousin who needed someone to take over her lease. Figured two thousand miles was enough distance between me and my problems.”

“And you'd never been here?”

“Never even set foot in New England,” she admits .

I don't try to hide my surprise. It's one thing to move to a place you're at least a little familiar with, another entirely to dive headlong into the unknown. “That's bold.”

“One way to put it,” she says with a sardonic laugh.

“How would you put it?”

“I don't know.” Her focus slips to somewhere in the middle distance, her teeth catching her bottom lip. “I've heard variations on reckless. Crazy. Unreasonable.” She spits the last word like it leaves a bad taste in her mouth.

“Most brazen decisions are a little of all those things.” Her expression softens. “But that's what other people have said. I don't care about them. I want to know how you view it.”

Toni opens her mouth only to snap it shut. She lets out a deep sigh. “Necessary.”

I nod, lifting my glass. “To necessary changes.”

“To brazen ones.” She hesitates before touching her glass to mine. “Sláinte?”

I couldn't stop the smile that question summoned if my life depended on it. “Sláinte.”