His eyes met Sionn’s gaze as he came around the railing. A flicker of something burned in their depths, an interest hot enough to stoke the long-dormant fires of arousal in Sionn’s belly. The guitarist shrugged and bent over again, scooping the coins he’d earned into a faded Crown Royal bag.
The man’s ass was as incredible up close as it was when Sionn had seen it through the pub’s front windows.
“Let me guess. The old lady wants me gone.” The man’s voice was a shock, a taint of Britain roughing up his California drawl.
“So you knew my gran, then?” There was a surprise. The woman had left San Francisco to its peace more than a year ago, and before then, Leigh’d managed Finnegan’s, freeing his grandmother up from the day-to-day business. For the guitarist to actually have known Maggie Finnegan, he’d have needed to be around before she’d handed the keys over to Leigh. “Sorry to tell you this, but she passed a bit ago. I own the place now.”
The cowboy hat cocked slightly, and the man stared off into the distance before replying curiously, “That’s too bad. I think I liked her.”
It was an odd way to put it… thinking he liked her. People were never on the fence with Gran. A person either was engulfed by her gruff nonaffection or feared her wrath, but hardly anyone straight out thought about liking her.
A rolling grumble of thunder was the only warning they had before the granite-dark cloud bank turned black and let loose its rain with a pounding fury. Panicked for his instrument, the musician hopped over the railing and put the acoustic down on one of Finnegan’s café tables. Sionn grabbed the hard-shell case and handed it over, a few remaining quarters rattling back and forth on its red velvet lining.
They stood under the awning, both drenched to the bone, and watched the storm whip through the pier, driving away the late afternoon crowd. Slender waterfalls formed along the overhang, curling through the dips in its scalloped edge. The cold settled in behind the rain, and the man beside him shivered in the icy breeze, an avalanche of goose bumps covering his pale skin.
“Hang on. I’ll get you a towel,” Sionn murmured.
“Nah, I’m good.” The man removed his hat and shook off as much of the water from the brim as he could. His thick black hair was damp at the ends, curving down the length of his neck. “Just going to get wet again trying to get home.”
Empty piercings lined his left ear, and Sionn counted at least five before the hat was back on his head, the brim pulled down low again. Emptying the remaining coins from the case, he checked the velvet and obviously found it dry enough to put the guitar into the shell and latch it closed.
He didn’t know what came over him, but Sionn couldn’t have been more surprised when he said, “You can stay until it stops, boyo. Maybe get a cup of coffee inside.”
It sounded like an invitation to sit and talk, and Sionn wondered what alien bug had crawled into his brain and taken control. Other men were for sex and company while watching a game. If he wanted more, he had a pack of male cousins nearby he could do things with… if he actually wanted to do something other than work and be a hermit at home. Offering the musician a cup of Finnegan’s dark-roasted brew was as foreign a thought to him as wearing a pair of pink frilly panties.
Yet here he was, eyeing up a long drink of a musician and thinking about adding a dose of cream to his darkness.
“That shit is not going to be stopping anytime soon.” The smile Sionn was given nearly blinded him, and a hint of a dimple peeked out from under the man’s unshaven face. “No worries. I’ll head out.”
He edged past Sionn, their damp shoulders brushing as he went by. The touch was enough to send Sionn’s cock into a simmering thrum, and he gritted his teeth, sucking in a mouthful of cold air to quench the unexpected want of the man walking by him.
“You can play here. Set up on the far table if you want. We’re never so busy we need all the tables out here, and it’s going to be raining on and off for the next couple of months. It’s a good place to get tips.” After the coffee offer, Sionn was beginning to wonder if he was somehow stroking out and his mind was dancing off down a yellow brick road of its own making. He fumbled, trying to get some control of the situation, but all his tongue seemed able to offer was weak at best. “Just… try to play something other than classical. That shit puts me to sleep.”
“Duly noted. Thanks.” He tipped his fingers to the hat’s brim. “I’ll bring something else to the table tomorrow if I come by.”
“You got a name?” Sionn called out to the musician before he dashed off into the downpour. “The girls inside will want to know or they’ll just keep calling you Cowboy.”