Part Three
WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?
Chapter 50
I WAS STANDING next to Colleen at a horseshoe bar that smelled faintly of an honest day’s labor. “I come here most nights after work,” she said of Mike Donahue’s Tavern. She was wearing a pink fitted jacket over a flowered dress, her long hair falling in waves around her shoulders. Colleen was working hard to become an American citizen, but I saw why this dark Irish pub with its stout on tap and olde Irish barflies made her feel at home.
I felt troubled about what was happening between us. Colleen and I had been seeing each other for about a year, and we took that fact two different ways. To Colleen, it meant “time to get off the stick.”
While we waited for our table we drank black and tans and shot darts, a beginner’s game called Round the Clock. My throwing hand was still messed up from the fight with Mosconi, and Colleen was beating the socks off me.
“You shouldn’t let me win, Jack,” she said. “I’m going to take a lot of guff for this.”
“You don’t think I’m losing on purpose, Molloy?”
“Try to hit the number eight,” she said, patting my hip.
My next flight of darts missed the mark, but I was laughing at myself, enjoying Colleen as she stood poised to throw, showing a lovely angle from her fingertips to her heel. Her first dart landed on the twenty, ending the game.
“I guess this means dinner’s on me,” I said.
She laughed and kissed me as her friend Donahue came out of the kitchen. Donahue was thirty-six and bearded. Colleen had said he was already suffering from gout.
“So this is the man who robbed us of your heart,” he said.
“Mike’s a sweet talker,” Colleen said, hanging an arm around my waist. We followed Donahue to a table in a snug corner of the back room. After we’d eaten, the waiter came out carrying a cake blazing with candles.
When all the clapping and whistling was over, I leaned across the table for a kiss. “Happy belated birthday, Molloy.” I pushed a little gold-wrapped box toward her. Colleen’s face brightened as she peeled back the tape and paper. She slowly lifted the lid on the box.
“Thank you, Jack. It’s lovely,” she said, taking out a gold wristwatch.
“It suits you, Colleen.”
“Go on then, Jack. You don’t have to say tha’ when you mean sumthin’ else,” she said.
Message received loud and clear. It’s not a ring.