Julian moved forward. He kissed Eamon, and Shoshanna and I both made small, breathy sounds. They looked beautiful together. In love. And I felt, well, great at first and then incredibly jealous. That’s what Eamon looked like when he was kissing? Where could I sign up?
They jostled apart as the ferry bumped into the pier. Julian rubbed his hands together. “Good. This was good.” He left the cabin with that hundred-watt smile, and Shoshanna followed, clapping Eamon on the shoulder with admiration.
Eamon stood there stock-still, a statue of himself.
“You still in scene?” I asked. He looked like he might need a shake back to reality.
“I’m here,” he said. “That guy has lips like a pretty, pretty girl.”
“He keeps them well moisturized, I bet.” People were hollering above, and I began to worry about getting Ryder off the boat incognito. I tried to step past Eamon and up the stairs, but he touched my elbow, leaned down, and kissed me.
His lips. On my lips.
And we lingered there. Not pulling away.
“Sorry,” he finally said. “I think I needed to…reset?”
Something inside me had stopped ticking when he put his mouth on mine. I tried to say a few nonchalant words, but the kiss had been so soft, neat. The kind of kiss two people share before the altar at their wedding rehearsal. It left me wondering if it had been another acting thing, or something else entirely.
“I think…” I managed. “I think I just kissed Julian Young vicariously?”
Eamon laughed and touched the side of my face with hesitant fingers. “He’ll take it wrong, so don’t tell him, but your lips are far better.”
SET ’EM ALL UP, KNOCK ’EM ALL DOWN
Two hours after Eamon lit me up in a dim, cramped ferry cabin, I was being thrown about the craft services van. The seat belt did nothing to combat the whippy, windy roads, and Mr. Donato drove like a fiend. Beside me, Ryder tossed his weight into each turn with delight.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I muttered.
“Peppermints for Iris!” Mr. Donato called out. The person in the passenger seat, Susan, handed back a fistful of wrapped candies. I popped one in my mouth while Ryder beamed. I’d never seen him so proud of a set of people. There was Mr. Donato—a passable stand in for Stanley Tucci—Susan, his second-in-command and a stout, fierce blond. And then Bob and Dean in the back who were definitely smoking hash during the breaks. They were quirky and fun, a bonded subset of the crew family.
“Mr. Donato has five daughters, Iris. Five!” Ryder said.
“Alice, Hero, Deirdre, Ryan, and Sierra. The eldest is nineteen and the littlest is nine,” Mr. Donato said. “The hormones in my house could wipe out a village, so when Cate Collins said, ‘Come on to Ireland with me, Paul Donato,’ I said, ‘My bags are packed!’ Oh, but I miss them,” he added, and Susan awwwed. “My wife is going to shoot me when I get back.”
Ryder laughed hard. I gave him a peppermint, enjoying how entertained he was by this Mr. Donato. I parted his hair with my fingers, and he leaned into my hand like a puppy needing a scratch. We were back to normal with one another, but also…not. It would be hard to forget how we’d both gone for the jugular yesterday. Our dad snapped like that all time, but we’d never done it before. Speaking of my dad, I checked my email. He still hadn’t responded to my message about wanting to come home, and after everything, did I still want to?
No. I wanted to be real friends with Julian and Shoshanna. More than friends with Eamon. We’d all stepped off the ferry together, and it’d felt unbelievable—even if I was hiding behind a craft services crate. The three actors had posed for the press and answered questions, and Shoshanna had winked. Eamon glanced at me too, and I wanted him to blush so bad that I think he did.
The memory of his lips was bright, leaving me warm. Was that a real kiss? Something he wanted, or did the moment just…happen? More importantly, how could I make it happen again?
When my attention came back to the car, Ryder was giggling at Mr. Donato’s lively story about the time Sierra painted Alice’s toenails with jelly. “The moral of the story is that kids get wiser as you go. Sierra stole all her sisters’ secrets, so you don’t mess with Sierra. Ryder back there probably knows all of Iris’s biggest fears. Siblings are dangerous.”
Ryder was beaming. I couldn’t resist. “All right. What’s my biggest fear, Ry?”
He wiped stray, happy tears from his cheeks with the back of his arm. “You’re afraid of people hearing you play guitar. Oh, and that Dad’ll make you stay home for college and take care of me.”
I tried to laugh, but the humor lodged in my throat, making it hard to breathe.
An hour later, we arrived at Killykeen Forest Park in County Cavan. The trees painted the horizon in scallops of green, while a meandering lake wound around everything. Then, right in the middle, a crumbling, old tower sat on a spit of island. It was Elementia. I pictured the map—the one my in-flight boyfriend had tattooed on his chest—and I was surprised to know where this very real place belonged in that made-up landscape.
We climbed out of the van, and Mr. Donato loaded my arms with sacks of potatoes. I searched everywhere for Eamon’s car, but the red rust bucket was nowhere in sight. I helped the crew set up and watched as the trailers were placed in a circle, similar to their arrangement on Inishmore, which felt sort of like…home.
The evening sky was a warm stretch of pastels as I slumped on a picnic table and watched two people in a rowboat by the island tower. They were laughing so loud that disembodied shrieks shot across the water, messing up the ambiance.
Julian sat beside me. “Thanks for your help earlier.
