Under The Irish Moon
Under The Irish Moon
Miss Evermore Turner is a lover of historical romance novels with dashing handsome heroes and castles. When her Black-Women-Love-Romance book club plans a trip to Ireland she jumps at the once in a lifetime chance. While she is there she meets ruggedly handsome, Dylan Reid, a motorcycle riding doctor who falls for her at first sight. As their relationship blossoms everybody is happy for her-except her best friend Grant—and he's not the only one.
Miss Evermore Turner is a lover of historical romance novels with dashing handsome heroes and castles. When her Black-Women-Love-Romance book club plans a trip to Ireland she jumps at the once in a lifetime chance. While she is there she meets ruggedly handsome, Dylan Reid, a motorcycle riding doctor who falls for her at first sight. As their relationship blossoms everybody is happy for her-except her best friend Grant—and he's not the only one.
Chapter 1
A Friend in Need
So busy taking care of everyone else, Evermore Turner hadn’t given her upcoming birthday a moment’s thought. True enough it was a month away, but with each passing day, much like her life, time was flying by. She was going to be the dreaded 3-0. How did life sneak up on her like that? And what had she accomplished in her 30 years? A lot, she thought to herself as she sat on the bench waiting for a friend. She was a nurse who enjoyed reading and travelling and was a head above many of her girlfriends who had been waylaid by a man, or had children before they were ready. So it ultimately took them a little bit longer to complete their degrees—Evermore got the sense that one or two of her friends resented her freedom and her blasé approach to men and relationships. Especially her friend Brandi, who had a young child, a little girl named Octavia. But motherhood didn’t slow her down. Her main objective in life was having fun and an occasional underhanded remark towards Evermore from Brandi often drew a sideways look from Evermore. But Ev’, as she was called, enjoyed hanging with Brandi just the same. Evermore couldn’t wait for her milestone party. She was planning on leaving her 20s with a bang. Just then, her phone rang.
“Hey, girl! you make those reservations yet?” Brandi asked over the phone.
“No, I was just going to before you called,” Evermore said.
“So what’s the plan?” Brandi asked. “You know I want to be there. I need to know in advance. My boss’s funky behind gives me a hard time anytime I have to request off,” Brandi said, sounding irritated.
“I’m thinking a week before my birthday,” said Evermore. Gina’s is the same day as mine, and I don’t want any hassles, and I don’t want people torn between us.
“I’m thinking an evening cruise on the river. The Majesty River boat cruise is nice, the food is
good and it’s reasonable. Trina said she would do the cake.”
“Oh—that’s good; I like that idea,” Brandi said. “So what are your plans for today?
“I was thinking about going to the movies.”
“Oh, I didn’t tell you? Grant and I are going to Eastern Market. I need to get some flowers
and he’s going to help me landscape,” Evermore said.
“His girlfriend is letting him,” Brandi said and stifled a laugh.
“Girl, I don’t know what her deal is; I don’t want Grant. I don’t know why people don’t
believe me when I tell them we are strictly friends,” Evermore said.
“Now, Ev’, this is Brandi you’re talking to. You and Grant dated in high school,” she reminded Evermore.
“And, what is that supposed to mean?” Evermore asked.
“I just think you guys are on some bull crap,” her friend said. Evermore didn’t get a chance to ask her to explain herself because her phone rang.
“Hey, Ev’,” Grant said.
“It’s Grant. I have to get off. We’ll talk later,” Evermore told Brandi and switched back over to Grant.
She glanced at her watch and continued to wait for Grant. He had been her best friend since high school. Back in the day, they were the couple to watch. He was tall with medium brown skin, athletically built and beautiful according to a good many of her friends who wanted him in the worst way. Evermore and Grant dated briefly before she realized he felt more like a brother to her. Every year for flower day at Eastern market, they would meet up for lunch and walk the sheds looking for deals, and vibrant color flowers for her backyard. She was the designer and he was the brawn—Evermore had purchased her house three years earlier in the Langston-Rosedale neighborhood. It was a four-bedroom colonial and she had it all to herself—well, she and Sweetie, her orange tabby.
“Hey,” Evermore and Grant said in unison when he walked up to her. They embraced and went into their favorite restaurant.
“How is Ronni?”
Ronni was short for Veronica. Evermore asked regarding his girlfriend.
“She’s fine,” he said and shrugged his shoulders.
Evermore was ok with his girlfriend, but his girlfriend didn’t like their friendship. Evermore and Grant had a bond that everybody else could see but them. They always maintained that they were strictly friends, nothing more. But that didn’t stop ‘Ronni from being jealous and picking a fight with Evermore every chance she got.
After piling her purchases into his trunk, Grant followed her home and helped her unload the flowers and promised to help her in her garden the following day. Evermore had already made a blueprint of the plans for it and couldn’t wait to get started. She’d purchased a wrought iron bench, a fire pit and even a pretty emerald green gazing ball weeks earlier. She’d always had an affinity for green and even going to Ireland was on her bucket list. She caught flak from peers, for wanting to go to Ireland and not the continent of Africa—which was also on her bucket list.
“You need to explore the mother land, the place where you came from,” a woman in her book club group had told her one evening. Evermore shut her up when she asked her when she planned to travel to Africa. The woman’s answer was “I don’t travel outside of the United States,” the woman had said. It was enough for her to ignore people in the future for giving her a hard time over travelling where she wanted to travel.
Perhaps one day, she thought as she looked at her purchases.
The following day
“Ev,” Grant said into the phone, “I won’t be able to come over and help after all.” He gave a bogus excuse, but deep down inside Evermore knew. His girlfriend Ronni, had put her foot down and gave him an ultimatum. ‘Ronni had been patient, waiting for him to get a clue, but he never did.
“It’s either her or me,” “Ronni yelled at him that night.
“Evermore and I are friends,” he told her. You knew that going in. If you can’t deal with that, then, I don’t know what to tell you.” That was the wrong response.
“If Evermore is that important to you, then you can go to her,” Ronni fired at him, just missing him with a shoe that she hurled in his direction. He got his keys, left and got into his car. Ronni ran upstairs and grabbed up a pile of his clothes and threw them from the second floor window—onto the sidewalk below. Her yelling out the window calling him and Evermore all kinds of bitches and hoes alerted the neighbors, who came outside or peeped out their windows to see what the commotion was. Grant got out of his car and picked up his clothes, forgetting his dignity for the moment. Just then, one of his Gators hit him on the side of his head, eliciting laughter from the crowd that had surrounded him.
“Dog, that cold,” he heard one of the men say behind him, which erupted in more laughter. Grant was so mad he was about to run back into the house to handle Ronni, but decided against it. The possibility of spending the night in jail, not to mention he wasn’t the type to strike a woman no matter how bad he was provoked. He picked up the last of his things thrown out on the lawn-got back into his car and drove to the end of the street and sat to collect his thoughts. He was just about to head to a hotel when his phone rang. It was Evermore.
“Hey, Grant, how’s it going,” she asked.
“Great, he said masking the severity of the situation he was in. She started chirping along about the progress of her garden when he interrupted.
“Um, actually I’m not doing so great—Ronni and I had an argument and I was about to head to the Marriott downtown.
“Grant, no, I got this big house, why don’t you come here. If you want to talk about what happened tonight, fine, if not, I’m still here for you,” she said.
Grant thought about it a minute. Evermore was the reason the argument happened in the first place.
“Ok,” he said.
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