Better Late Than. Ch. 3. by emilyagilbert
I hold my hands up to the fact I could not resist writing a final chapter, so Aydin could have his own adventure. He was such an enabler to Connor and Luc, I decided that he deserved it.
(Cough, Cough. You don’t have to read it all at once, you know!)
Tess O-Meter Green.
NB: Remember, Aydin is pronounced Aye-Dun.
-X
Aydin leaned on the bar. His chin on his palm. His mind wandering.
He had been back nearly three weeks and was over the jet lag. But the pub was quiet, as in empty, and he felt a little blurgh.
Post holiday blues maybe?
Trying to cheer himself up, he cast his mind back to nearly eight weeks ago.
Luc had been back at work, although all of the regulars were careful not to let him talk too much, and he still had faint bruising around his neck.
Aydin was fine. Fabulous. Totally back to normal. If it wasn’t for the crushing headaches, which still came at alarming regularity and felled him.
Connor had dragged him to the doctor three times, despite both the doctor and Gently reassuring them that it was normal post-concussion and would fade in time.
Another sudden headache and near collapse and Aydin had found himself waking up the following morning in the spare room. Again.
Only this time Connor had been waiting for him. He sat Aydin down and informed him that he was taking some time off. Taking a vacation. Having a proper rest.
Aydin smirked to himself in the quiet pub.
He had been so mad. Plus he had no spare money, so what was he going to do? Sit around in his apartment for a week.
Then Connor. Generous, amazing, sweet, Connor had told him his plan.
Since becoming business partners, Connor and Aydin had taken the pub on leaps and bounds. And Aydin wasn’t shy to admit a lot of the money-spinners had been his ideas.
They had two funds for extra profit.
One went into extra loan payments, and they had already brought their estimated payment time down by nearly a year.
The other was a fund for emergencies, repairs, replacements, and new projects. It was their safety net. Their avoidance of new debt. And it was pretty healthy.
When Connor started talking, Aydin quickly realized that a late night, silly conversation a week before, had in fact been Connor and Luc sneakily fact finding.
What would you do if you won the lottery and had a month off work.
Damn it. He had fallen for it as well. It was those guileless big brown eyes of Luc’s that were to blame.
Connor had apologized that he could only manage to give him three weeks. But explained about his friend, Lucy. A travel agent who had mapped out a plan. A flight plan that kept going in the same direction around the world.
Ireland, Thailand, and San Francisco. Three weeks.
Aydin had objected, of course he had, that’s not what the fund was for.
Then Connor had played his ace.
In time, maybe a couple of years, he would do the same. Take a trip, take the time, fund it from their pot, and probably take Luc as he was thinking, maybe, honeymoon.
Which would leave Aydin holding the fort and short staffed.
Once he had got over the excitement that Connor was thinking marriage. And been sworn to secrecy. And made Connor cross his heart and swear on the ongoing reliability of their Guinness supplier, that Connor would take his turn.
Aydin had agreed.
Less than two weeks later, he was on his way.
-X
Landing at Dublin, Aydin had been completely unprepared for how he would feel. The heavy ache in his heart. He was trembling as he grabbed his bags (grateful they were all there).
When he walked into arrivals, he stopped in shock.
Nearly every member of his crazy family was stood, taking up half the available space.
There was a big cheer as he walked out, and no less than eight kids rushed him, darting around innocent bystanders, some of whom nearly went flying.
Apart from a few in-law’s who probably had not been able to get time off work, pretty much everyone was there. Not his Pa, but then he hated car trips and it was nearly four hours.
They must have gotten up at arse-hole o’clock.
The older kids stayed with the adults and just waved, yelled, and cheered.
“Did you bring Hershey’s?” Finn demanded, reaching him first and tugging at his sleeve.
In answer, Aydin just passed him the smaller bag that contained approximately 10 kg of American chocolate, “Share, be fair.”
A chorus of ‘Thanks, Uncle Aydin’ etc rang out as all, apart from one kid with hair the exact same colour as his, dived into the bag. Disgruntled tourists weaved around them, dragging heavy cases.
Aydin spotted a Garda officer heading towards the large group. He dumped his bags and picked up his nephew. Also called Aydin, but known as Young Aydin.
“Hey, Handsome Aydin.”
“Uncle Aydin. I love you.” Young Aydin’s arms gripped his neck.
Aww. What could be a better welcome than that?
His brother Charles (no one knew where the name Charles had come from, they all assumed their Ma and Pa must have been drunk) came over to grab his remaining bags, since Aydin had his arms full of his son.
“Hey, kiddo.”
“What the hell you do? Hire a minibus?”
“Actually, we did!”
Aydin just laughed and headed over where his Ma was flirting with the officer. Flirting her way out of trouble.
At seventy-four, she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
He stood in a loose group hug with his siblings.
His parents had started quite young and gone, boy (Callum), girl (Aoife), boy (Charles), girl (Shauna), and then fourteen years later, along came Aydin (oops) when his Mom was 45.
It was always bizarre to Aydin to think that his eldest brother, Callum was fifty-two now, had a child only a year younger than him.
Speaking of, Aydin grinned as the twenty-eight year old Aidan (which had been Callum’s idea of being funny when his son was born a year after his youngest brother), liberated the chocolate bag from Finn’s greedy fingers.
“One piece for the bus,” he told them. “Or you’ll be sick.”
“Aydin, are you going to choose some chocolate?” Aydin asked and watched as the lad carefully considered his options before pointing at a good sized bar. Smart kid.
“I’ll keep it until you’re on the bus,” Aiden told him. “So you don’t get chocolate all over your Uncle Aydin!”
Young Aydin nodded happily and laid his head on Aydin’s shoulder.
“You sleepy?”
A nod.
“What time did you leave Ballycotton?”
“It was dark,” Finn told him around a mouthful of chocolate, with a disgusted look on his face.
“You didn’t have to come,” Shauna told him, and the look turned to shock. Finn glared at his mom grumpily and slid his sticky hand into Aydin’s.
“I wanted to see you, Uncle Aydin.”
“See me, or check if I had brought chocolate?”
Finn smiled, all innocence. “Both.”
Chuckling, Aydin turned back to his Ma as she raised her arms for a hug. Automatically including both Aydin’s.
“Ma,” Aydin felt his voice catch a little. He hadn’t seen her in nearly two years.
“Ah, my baby,” she kissed him. “Let’s get this hoard out of here before this handsome young man has to arrest us.”
The handsome young man in question, blushed but looked grateful. “Thanks, Mrs Flanagan.”