Chapter 7: The Redhead in 14C
The plane lifted off from Rome at 7:14 a.m., and Jordan watched the city shrink beneath him—the domes and rooftops and winding streets turning into a map, then a memory, then nothing at all. He'd slept for maybe two hours the night before, and his body was running on fumes and adrenaline, that strange weightless feeling that came after too much sex and too little rest.
The seat beside him was empty. He'd booked the flight at the last minute, and the plane wasn't full, so he had the row to himself—a small mercy. He pulled the window shade down and closed his eyes, trying to will himself into unconsciousness.
It didn't work.
His mind kept circling back to the terminal, to Siobhán bent over the seat, to the way she'd looked at him after. He thought about Camille, about the rooftop, about the city spread out below them like a circuit board. He thought about the journal in his bag, still empty, still waiting.
What was he supposed to write? That he'd fucked three women in less than two weeks? That he'd become someone he didn't recognize? That the careful plan he'd spent his whole life building had crumbled into dust?
He opened his eyes and stared at the seatback in front of him.
The plane hummed. Somewhere behind him, a baby cried. The overhead light flickered like a dying star.
He must have drifted off eventually, because when he woke, the cabin was dim and the woman beside him was already there.
She hadn't been there before. He was sure of it. The seat had been empty when he'd closed his eyes—he remembered the cold plastic against his elbow, the absence of another body. But now there was a woman in the aisle seat, a blanket over her lap, a plastic cup of red wine in her hand.
She was maybe twenty-three or twenty-four, with a mess of red curls escaping from a loose ponytail. Freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks like someone had flicked a paintbrush at her. She was wearing a faded green hoodie that said "TRINITY" in cracked letters, and her eyes—bright blue, almost startling—were fixed on him with an expression that was half amusement, half challenge.
"Evening," she said.
"What time is it?"
"Half eight. You've been out for a while." She took a sip of her wine. "I was starting to think you were dead."
"Not dead. Just tired."
"Tired." She said it like she was tasting the word. "That's what they all say."
Jordan rubbed his eyes. His mouth tasted like stale coffee and regret. "How long have you been sitting there?"
"About an hour. They moved me from the back. Some kid was kicking my seat, and I threatened to teach him a lesson in manners." She shrugged. "They gave me a new seat. And free wine."
"That's how it works?"
"That's how it works when you're Irish." She held out her hand. "Sinéad."
He shook it. Her grip was firm, her palm warm. "Jordan."
"Jordan." She said it slowly, drawing out the syllables. "That's a Protestant name."
"Is it?"
"Could be. Could be Catholic. Hard to tell with you Americans." She took another sip of wine. "What brings you to Dublin?"
"I don't know yet."
"That's a dangerous answer."
"It's the only one I have."
She laughed—a loud, unguarded sound that made the man across the aisle glance over. "I like you already."
They talked for a while. Or rather, she talked, and he listened. She told him she was from Dublin, that she'd been in Rome for a week visiting her sister, that she was returning home to finish her degree in music. She told him about her father, who wanted her to be a doctor. She told him about her ex-boyfriend, who'd cheated on her with her best friend. She told him all of this like she was reciting a story she'd told a hundred times before, and he wondered if it was true or if she was just performing.
"You're quiet," she said eventually.
"I'm listening."
"That's rare." She finished her wine and set the cup on the tray table. "Most men just wait for their turn to talk."
"Maybe I'm not most men."
"Maybe you're not." She looked at him—really looked, her eyes moving over his face like she was trying to read something written there. "You look tired."
"I am tired."
"No. I mean you look tired. Like you've been running."
He didn't answer.
The cabin lights dimmed. The flight attendants disappeared behind their curtain. The baby had stopped crying, and the plane had settled into that strange, suspended silence that came somewhere over the Atlantic.
Sinéad pulled her blanket over both their laps.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Shh." She slid her hand onto his thigh. "Just be quiet."
Her fingers moved up, slow and deliberate, until they found the waistband of his jeans. She unbuttoned them with one hand—deft, practiced—and slipped inside.
He was already hard. He'd been half-hard since she'd sat down, since she'd said his name like that, since she'd looked at him with those bright blue eyes. Her hand closed around him, warm and firm, and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from making a sound.
"God," she whispered. "You're already ready, aren't you?"
"This is—"
"Shut up." She started to stroke him, slow and steady, her thumb brushing over the head. "You're going to sit there and take it, okay? And if you make a sound, I'll stop."
He nodded. His throat was dry. His heart was pounding so hard he was sure the whole plane could hear it.
"There are people," he managed.
"They're asleep. Or they don't care." She leaned closer, her lips brushing his ear. "I've been awake for twenty hours. I've had three glasses of wine. And I've been staring at your hands for the last hour, wondering what they'd feel like on my tits."
He closed his eyes.
"I want to fuck you," she whispered. "I want to feel you inside me. I want you to fill me up and leave me dripping. Does that scare you?"
"No."
"Liar." She tightened her grip, stroking faster. "You're scared. I can feel it. But you're also hard as a rock, so I guess the fear's not stopping you."
He grabbed the armrest. The plane shuddered slightly—turbulence, or maybe just his imagination—and he felt his balls tighten.
"Not yet," she said. "Don't you dare come yet."
She pulled her hand away. He opened his eyes, confused, and watched as she stood up, grabbed the blanket, and climbed into his lap.
"What are you—"
"Shut up." She draped the blanket over both of them, covering their laps, their bodies, everything. She was facing him, her knees on either side of his hips, her skirt bunched up around her waist. "You're going to fuck me. Right here. Right now."
"Are you insane?"
"Probably." She reached down and guided him inside her.
He had to clench his teeth to keep from groaning. She was hot and wet and tight, and she sank down onto him slowly, her hands gripping his shoulders, her breath warm against his neck.
"Fuck," she whispered. "That's it. That's exactly what I needed."
She started to move. Slow at first, her hips rolling, her cunt gripping him like a fist. He grabbed her ass through the blanket and pulled her closer, matching her rhythm, trying to stay quiet.
A passenger two rows back shifted in their seat.
They froze.
Jordan's heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat. Sinéad had her teeth sunk into her shoulder—his shoulder, he realized, the pain sharp and grounding—and she wasn't moving, wasn't breathing, wasn't doing anything but waiting.
The passenger coughed. Turned over. Went still.
Sinéad exhaled.
"Fuck," she whispered. "That was close."
"We should stop."
"No." She started moving again, faster now, desperate. "I'm not stopping. Not until I come."
He grabbed her hips and helped her move, his fingers digging into her flesh. The blanket was slipping, and he pulled it back up, covering them, hiding them, the only thing standing between them and discovery.
"You feel so good," she breathed. "God, you feel so good."
He couldn't answer. He couldn't think. He could only feel—the heat of her, the tightness, the way her breath came in short, sharp gasps against his ear.
She came first. Her body went rigid, her nails digging into his shoulders, her teeth finding his shoulder again and biting down hard enough to draw blood. He felt it—the sharp pain, the warmth—and it pushed him over the edge.
He came with a choked gasp, his hips bucking up, his release spilling into her. She rode him through it, her hips still moving, drawing out every last shudder.
And then she stopped.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. The plane hummed around them. The cabin was silent. The world was still.
Sinéad climbed off him, careful and deliberate, and settled back into her seat. She pulled her skirt down, adjusted the blanket, and picked up her empty wine cup like nothing had happened.
"That was fun," she said.
Jordan stared at her. His pants were still unbuttoned. His shoulder was throbbing. His heart was still racing.
"You're insane," he said.
"You said that already." She yawned and leaned her head against his shoulder. "Wake me when we land."
She fell asleep within minutes.
He sat there, frozen, staring at the seatback in front of him. The blood on his shoulder had dried into a small, dark stain. His hands were shaking.
What am I doing?
The question echoed in his skull, unanswered. He didn't know. He didn't know anything anymore. He'd come to Europe to find himself, and instead he'd become someone else entirely—someone who fucked strangers on planes and rooftops and airport restrooms, someone who didn't recognize his own reflection.
He looked at Sinéad. Her face was peaceful in sleep, her lips slightly parted, her red curls spilling across his shoulder. She looked young. Innocent. Like someone who hadn't just done what she'd done.
But she had. And so had he.
He closed his eyes and tried to sleep.
When he woke, the plane was descending. The sky outside the window was gray and thick with clouds, and the seatbelt sign was on. Sinéad was awake, scribbling something on a napkin.
She handed it to him.
"Here," she said. "My number. Look me up if you're ever in Dublin."
He looked at the napkin. Her handwriting was messy, looping, almost illegible. A phone number. Nothing else.
"Thanks," he said.
"Don't mention it." She stood up and grabbed her bag from the overhead bin. "This is my stop."
"Wait—"
But she was already gone, walking down the aisle toward the front of the plane. He watched her go, the napkin crumpled in his hand.
He never called her.
He landed in Dublin at 9:47 a.m. local time.
The airport was smaller than Rome's, quieter, and the air outside was cool and wet and smelled like rain. He stood at the curb for a long time, watching the taxis come and go, watching people embrace and argue and laugh.
He thought about Sinéad. About Camille. About Becca and Chloe and Maren and Sofia. He thought about all the women he'd met, all the moments that had felt important, all the names he was already starting to forget.
He thought about his journal, still empty, still waiting.
He found a hostel near Temple Bar and checked in. The room was small and damp and smelled like mildew, but the bed was soft, and the sheets were clean. He lay down and stared at the ceiling.
The city hummed outside—cars and voices and music, the sounds of a place that didn't care whether he stayed or left.
He closed his eyes.
He didn't sleep.
But for the first time in a long time, he didn't feel the need to.
He was here. He was alive. He was someone he didn't recognize, someone he didn't understand.
And that, he decided, was okay.
For now.
The hostel room had a window that didn't close all the way, and the wind coming off the Liffey made a sound like something breathing. Jordan lay on the narrow bed with his hands folded on his chest, listening to the city outside—taxis, drunk laughter, the distant clang of a Luas tram. His shoulder still ached where Sinéad had bitten him, a small purple bruise blooming beneath the skin.
He touched it. Pressed down. Felt the pain sharpen and fade.
Three women in two weeks. He'd never been that guy. He'd been the guy who read ahead in his textbooks and color-coded his notes and planned his study schedule two months in advance. He'd been the guy who kissed a girl at prom and then apologized for being awkward. Now he was someone who fucked strangers in airport bathrooms and got handjobs on transatlantic flights.
He sat up and pulled out his journal.
The pages were blank. All of them. The cheap notebook he'd bought at a shop near the Trevi Fountain, the one with the leather cover and the promise of documentation. He'd meant to fill it—every cathedral, every meal, every conversation. He'd meant to capture the semester abroad that wasn't a semester at all, just a pause, just a breath.
He uncapped the pen.
Nothing came.
He stared at the empty page for a long time. Then he closed the notebook and shoved it back in his bag.
The streets of Dublin were gray and soft, the kind of day that couldn't decide if it wanted to rain. Jordan walked without a destination, letting the city pull him along the way Rome had—past the Ha'penny Bridge, through Temple Bar, down narrow alleys where the pubs spilled warmth and noise onto the cobblestones. He passed a group of Americans in matching green hats and a man selling flowers and a woman arguing with a parking meter like it had personally insulted her.
He stopped at a pub called The Cobblestone and went inside.
It was dark and warm and smelled like whiskey and old wood. A few men sat at the bar watching a hurling match on a small television, and a woman with gray hair was playing a fiddle in the corner. Jordan ordered a pint of Guinness and sat at a table near the back.
The fiddle player finished her tune and launched into another one, something fast and furious that made the walls vibrate. Jordan drank his beer and listened.
"You look like a man who's lost something."
He looked up. A woman had appeared at his table—older than him, maybe thirty-five, with short dark hair and a face that had seen things. She was wearing a leather jacket and holding a pint of her own.
"Mind if I sit?"
"Go ahead."
She sat across from him and took a long drink. "You're American."
"Is it that obvious?"
"It's the shoes." She gestured at his feet. "No Irishman wears running shoes to a pub."
Jordan looked down at his sneakers. They were battered and gray, the laces fraying at the ends. "I didn't know there was a dress code."
"There isn't. But there are rules." She smiled—a quick, crooked thing. "I'm Fiona."
"Jordan."
"Jordan." She said it like she was filing it away. "What brings you to Dublin, Jordan?"
"Honestly? I'm not sure."
"That's the best reason." She finished her pint and signaled for another. "Most people come here because of a movie or a book or some idea they have about what Ireland's supposed to be. It's never what they expect."
"What is it, then?"
"It's just a place. Like anywhere else. Full of people trying to figure out how to live." She leaned back in her chair. "What are you running from?"
"Why does everyone ask me that?"
"Because you have the look."
"What look?"
"The look of someone who's been moving so fast they forgot why they started." She tapped her fingers on the table. "I've seen it before. I've worn it myself."
Jordan didn't know what to say. So he drank his beer and watched the fiddle player, and Fiona watched him the way a cat watches a bird.
"You writing a book?" she asked.
"What?"
"The notebook. I saw you with it at the hostel. You were staring at the pages like they owed you money."
"You're staying at the hostel?"
"Everyone's staying at the hostel." She shrugged. "It's cheap. And I like the noise."
He hadn't noticed her at the hostel. But then again, he hadn't noticed much of anything. He'd been too busy being someone he didn't recognize.
"I'm not writing a book," he said. "I'm trying to write something. I just don't know what."
"That's the problem with writing. You have to know what you're saying before you can say it." She finished her second pint. "You want to get out of here?"
Jordan looked at her. At the leather jacket and the short hair and the smile that was maybe a challenge and maybe just a smile. He thought about Camille on the rooftop and Siobhán in the airport and all the women he'd met and fucked and forgotten.
"Okay," he said.
They walked through the wet streets, side by side, not touching. Fiona led him to a flat on the third floor of a building that smelled like cabbage and damp plaster. The living room was small and messy—books on every surface, dishes in the sink, a guitar propped against the wall.
"You play?" he asked.
"Badly." She pulled off her jacket and threw it on the couch. "I used to think I'd be a musician. Then I turned thirty and realized I was just another person with a guitar."
"What do you do now?"
"I teach. Secondary school. History." She grabbed a bottle of wine from the counter and poured two glasses. "It pays the bills."
She handed him a glass. Their fingers brushed. She didn't pull away.
"You're thinking about something," she said.
"I'm thinking about how I don't know what I'm doing here."
"Nobody knows what they're doing here." She took a sip of wine. "That's the point."
She kissed him.
It wasn't like the others. It was slower, softer, like she was asking a question instead of demanding an answer. Her lips were warm and tasted like wine, and her hands found his waist, his back, his shoulders, pulling him closer.
"Bedroom," she said.
He followed her.
The bedroom was small and dark, lit only by the streetlight outside the window. Fiona pushed him onto the bed and climbed on top of him, her knees on either side of his hips. She pulled her shirt over her head and threw it aside.
"You're staring," she said.
"I'm admiring."
"Same thing." She unbuttoned his jeans and pulled them down, then his underwear. His cock was already hard, already aching. She looked at it and smiled. "Not bad, American."
"Thanks."
"Shut up."
She slid down his body and took him in her mouth.
The warmth was shocking—wet and tight and skilled. She worked him slowly, her tongue swirling around the head, her hand pumping the base. He groaned and grabbed the sheets.
"That's it," she murmured. "Let me hear you."
He didn't hold back. He let the sounds come—low and guttural and desperate. She took him deeper, her throat relaxing, her lips tight. He could feel himself getting close, too close.
"Stop," he said. "I don't want to come yet."
She pulled off him. "What do you want?"
"I want to fuck you."
"Then fuck me."
She crawled up his body and positioned herself over him. She was already wet—he could feel it against his thigh—and she sank down slowly, taking him inch by inch.
"Fuck," she breathed. "That's good."
She started to move. Slow at first, her hips rolling, her tits swaying inches from his face. He reached up and cupped them, feeling the weight, the warmth. She leaned down and kissed him, her tongue pushing into his mouth.
"You feel so good," he said.
"I know."
She rode him harder. The bed creaked beneath them. The streetlight flickered. He grabbed her ass and pulled her closer, matching her rhythm, driving himself deeper.
"Don't stop," she said. "Don't you fucking stop."
He didn't stop.
She came first—a long, shuddering climax that made her whole body shake. He watched her face, the way her eyes closed, the way her mouth opened on a sound she couldn't control. And then he came too, spilling into her, his vision going white.
She collapsed on top of him. They lay there for a long time, tangled and sweaty, the city humming outside.
"That was good," she said.
"Yeah."
She rolled off him and reached for a cigarette. She lit it and took a long drag, then held the pack out to him.
"Want one?"
He shook his head.
"Smart." She exhaled a cloud of smoke. "So. What's your story?"
"I told you. I don't have one."
"Everyone has one." She propped herself up on her elbow. "You're twenty-one years old, running around Europe with an empty notebook and a look like you've lost your best friend. That's a story."
He didn't answer.
"You don't have to tell me." She took another drag. "But you should tell someone."
He thought about the journal. About the blank pages. About all the things he couldn't say and didn't know how to feel.
"I came here to find myself," he said. "That's what everyone says, right? I wanted to figure out who I am outside of school and plans and expectations. I wanted to be someone different."
"And?"
"And I've been someone different. But I don't like him very much."
Fiona was quiet for a moment. Then she stubbed out her cigarette and turned to face him.
"Maybe you're not supposed to like him," she said. "Maybe you're just supposed to meet him."
Jordan looked at her. At the lines around her eyes and the gray at her temples and the calm certainty in her voice.
"That's a very teacher thing to say."
"I'm a very teacher person." She smiled. "Stay tonight. Leave in the morning. No strings."
"Okay."
She turned off the light and curled against him, her head on his chest. Within minutes, she was asleep.
Jordan lay awake, staring at the ceiling. The city hummed. The window rattled. Somewhere below, a couple was arguing about money.
He thought about the journal. The empty pages. The things he couldn't write.
He thought about Dublin, and how it wasn't the place he'd imagined, and how that was maybe the point.
He thought about the women—Camille and Siobhán and Fiona and the others—and how they were all just people trying to figure out how to live.
He thought about himself. About the person he was becoming. About whether he liked him or not.
He didn't know. But maybe that was okay.
He fell asleep with Fiona's breath warm against his neck, and when he woke, she was gone. A note on the pillow. A phone number. Nothing else.
He folded the note and put it in his pocket.
He never called her.
He left the flat and walked through the gray Dublin morning, past the flower sellers and the buskers and the men drinking pints at ten a.m. He found a cafe and ordered coffee and sat by the window, watching the rain streak down the glass.
He pulled out his journal.
He uncapped the pen.
And then he wrote.
Not much—just a few sentences. Where he was. What he'd done. How he felt. It wasn't poetry. It wasn't profound. But it was a start.
He wrote about the plane and the rooftop and the airport bathroom. He wrote about Camille's laugh and Siobhán's teeth and Fiona's calm, certain eyes. He wrote about the empty pages and what they meant and why he'd been so afraid to fill them.
When he was done, he closed the notebook and put it back in his bag.
The rain kept falling. The coffee grew cold. And Jordan sat there, watching the city, wondering where he'd go next.
He didn't know.
But for the first time, he was okay with that.