Lucky This Isn't Real: MacBride Brothers Series St. Patrick's Day Fake Fiance Romance by Jamie Knight (digital e reader .TXT) 📕

feeling that the night might be fun despite Sean not being here. I was with my girls, and a new addition to our crew who I was starting to like more and more.

“The music here is lame,” Ciara announced. “It’s not what we need for a hen party.”

“Hen party?” Amy asked, her brow wrinkling.

“I guess that’s what you Americans call a bachelorette party,” Ciara explained. “I’ll be right back.”

With no effort and little influence from gravity, Ciara hopped down from the stool and went to the bartender. The bartender led her to the manager, and that meeting of minds followed with Ciara being led to a room in the back.

The song that had been playing, some dreamy, mystic thing by a traditional vocalist, the sort of music usually heard in gift shops and on relaxation CDs, came to an abrupt halt. Then rock music with folky elements filled the air instead.

“Much better,” Ciara beamed, reclaiming her stool. “There’s more to Irish music than U2 and wispy wind chimes.”

“To a wonderful wedding!” Nicole said, raising her recently arrived bottle of Guinness.

“Yes. And to the happy union of Gavin and Maggie, may they last a thousand years,” Ciara said, raising her most recent Jell-O shot.

We tapped our feet to the beat and downed several more shots.

“I love you so much,” Maggie said to me, with tipsy sincerity.

My best friend was a lightweight and was known to get drunk after one glass of wine. We all took her in a group hug, bonded for life over common links and expensive drinks.

Ciara was included in the action despite having just arrived in the country the day before. She was part of Gavin’s past, and Maggie loved Gavin, so it was a six-degrees of separation sort of thing, with very few degrees between.

Thinking of Gavin made me think of Sean. Not only the fact that he wasn’t here, but also about what he might have been like before. Ciara had probably known him for years, being a friend of the family and all.

I could think of few better sources for info on him than her. I just had to figure out how to ask her about him without seeming like too much of a stalker.

“I love Gavin so much,” Maggie announced, for the fourth or fifth time that night.

“We know, we know,” I said playfully.

In truth, I really wasn’t one to be throwing stones, having just recently acquired a lovely glass house. I might have been less vocal about it, but my attraction to Sean seemed similar to Maggie’s stated one to Gavin, though hers was, admittedly, based on a whole lot more.

They’d been together a while and knew one another inside out. But even in the very beginning, it had been fast and furious.

A punk-sounding song with flutes and violins blasted over the speakers.

“That’s Irish?” Amy asked, her nose wrinkling in distaste.

“It is,” Ciara confirmed.

“The singer, he sounds— odd.”

“He’s Serbian,” Ciara explained. “The band is called the Orthodox Celts. They spearheaded an underground scene of Serbian-made Celtic music back in the 90s.”

“And that’s authentic, is it?” Nicole asked, pointedly, her inner lawyer coming out full force.

“If their heart is in it, aye. This music is real because it’s done with love.”

Ciara placed a hand on her heart and nodded in time to the beat.

Even Nicole, who made quite a good living through arguing, couldn’t argue with her on that. I never would have taken Ciara for the sentimental type, which just went to show how people could surprise you.

After a while we decided that a change in scenery was in order. Leaving the car at McGinty’s, we went to the next pub, which, as it happened, was right across the street.

There wasn’t much of a plan as to how we would get home, but an Uber seemed most likely. Or, if we were too drunk or sleepy by then, Gavin would probably come pick us up. No way he would risk his bride-to-be possibly not making it home the night before her wedding.

There were even more people here than there had been at McGinty’s, the St. Patrick’s Day crowd apparently getting an early start. It probably also helped that this second pub had karaoke and high-alcohol Irish beer. A beautiful example of cultural exchange.

Before we could blink, Ciara was gone. We spotted her over at the signup table for karaoke, charming the pants off the guy running the machine. She came back to us with a wide smile lifting her lips.

“What did you do?” Nicole asked, almost like an accusation.

“I got us on the list. Maggie, I’m going to need your help when I go up. It’s kind of a duet.”

“What’s the song?” Maggie asked, her eyes glassy and happy.

“‘Fairytale of New York.’ Who cares if it isn’t Christmas?” Ciara’s grin bordered on evil, “Then I have all of us doing ‘I Don’t Like Mondays.’”

“I don’t think I’m nearly drunk enough for that,” Amy opined.

“That can be easily remedied,” I said.

Five more shots later and Maggie and Ciara were up on the stage, belting out my favorite Christmas song in surprisingly stable voices. I knew Maggie could sing, but Ciara could really bring it, too.

What Ciara had neglected to tell me, or had at least kept secret, was that between “Fairytale of New York” and “I Don’t Like Mondays,” both drunken sing-along standards, she had something else planned for me.

“Take Me to Church” by Hozier, who was also Irish, took a different approach. I didn’t know for sure, but I suspected she’d figured out what was happening between Sean and me.

So many of Hozier’s beautiful lyrics resonated with me on a very deep level. It was honestly a struggle not to tear up as I sang, let alone to keep my voice steady.