Aoife stared at the screen until the words blurred into shapes.
Hi. It’s Ronan. (Studio by the river.) I found this on the pavement outside the hospital earlier—figured it was yours. I can drop it by if you tell me where, or you can meet me for five by the café. No pressure.
Also—sorry if this is weird. Just didn’t want you losing it.
Her thumb hovered over the keyboard like it belonged to somebody else.
Her heart, meanwhile, had decided to sprint a marathon.
She checked her bag again as if the recorder might magically appear in a side pocket, smiling at her like a joke. Nothing. Just her wallet, keys, hand cream, spare hair tie, a crushed mint, a packet of tissues she never remembered to throw away.
Aoife swallowed, dry.
The recorder wasn’t expensive, not really. Not in the way some people meant the word. But it held her—her fragments, her voice notes, the lists she made at two in the morning when her brain refused to quiet. It held the soft, private things she’d never spoken aloud to another human being.
It held the part of her that still talked to her mother like the dead could hear through plastic and batteries.
Aoife’s stomach rolled.
She got up, pacing once around the living room like movement could solve it. The flat felt too small, too quiet, too aware of her. Rain tapped the window. The kettle sat on the counter like a witness.
She looked at the phone again.
The words were already there, waiting.
Her thumb hovered over send.
She could delete it. She could pretend she never saw his message. She could put on a brave face, tell herself she’d lost the recorder, tell herself it wasn’t that deep.
It was that deep.
She hit send.
The message whooshed away, and Aoife stood there as if she’d just pushed herself off a cliff.
Immediately, shame chased the adrenaline.
What was she doing, texting a stranger? A man she’d spoken to for… what, three minutes? And in front of Niamh, like a circus act. Now here she was, in her damp flat, hair still wet from the shower, clutching her phone like it was a life raft.
Her phone buzzed.
Aoife flinched so hard she nearly dropped it.
A reply.
In the studio. We’re loading out. I can meet you outside in two. You okay?
She stared at You okay? until it felt like it had weight.
Nobody asked her that anymore in a way that didn’t feel like pity.
Aoife’s throat tightened.
She typed back.
I’ll come. Ten minutes.
Then she realised what she’d just committed to.
Leaving the flat. Going into town. Meeting him. The entire thing was absurd. She was meant to be sleeping. She was meant to be safe in bed with the curtains drawn, not walking through Galway like a sleep-deprived ghost to retrieve a piece of herself from a man she didn’t know.
But she couldn’t leave it.
Not in his hands.
Not in anyone’s hands.
Aoife shoved her phone in her pocket, pulled on jeans and a jumper with the urgency of someone dressing for an emergency. She didn’t bother with make-up. Her face was what it was—tired, pale, freckles sharper without concealment. She dragged her hair into a rough ponytail and jammed her feet into trainers.
At the door, she paused.
Her hand hovered over the light switch.
She listened.
Nothing.
Quiet.
The kind of quiet her mother had warned her not to fear.
Aoife clicked the light off anyway and stepped into the stairwell, locking the door behind her with a decisiveness that felt too loud in the building’s hush.
Outside, the air was cold and damp, the morning fully established now. The city smelled of wet stone and brewing coffee and the faint salt breath of the sea. Galway moved around her, people with umbrellas, delivery drivers, students, a woman dragging a small child who protested with dramatic misery.
Aoife walked quickly, head down, hood up.
She could feel her pulse in her throat.
She kept seeing the recorder in her mind’s eye—small, black, familiar. The way she’d held it in her palm, thumb pressed to record, whispering into it as if the plastic could hold her together.
She didn’t remember dropping it.
She tried to replay the morning. Leaving the hospital. Niamh. The river. Ronan. The studio. Toast. Tea. The kettle click in Niamh’s kitchen. Walking home.
Somewhere in that, the recorder had slipped from her.
Careless.
Stupid.
The kind of mistake her mother would’ve tutted at, then kissed her forehead for, because her mother had been the kind of woman who could scold and comfort in the same breath.
Aoife’s throat tightened again.
She turned the corner by the river, and the studio came into view—small door, plain sign, van parked out front, its back open. Men carried cases up the ramp, moving like they’d done it a thousand times. A coil of cable lay on the pavement like a black snake.
And there, outside the door, was Ronan.
He wasn’t in a hurry. He wasn’t waving her down like a hero in a romance film. He simply stood with his hands in his jacket pockets, watching the street, looking like he belonged to this part of the city the way Aoife belonged to the ward.
When he saw her, his posture shifted. Not dramatic. Just attentive.
Aoife slowed, forcing herself not to run.
Ronan stepped forward, meeting her halfway so she didn’t have to walk directly into the mouth of the studio like she was being swallowed.
“Hey,” he said, voice low. “You made it.”
Aoife stopped in front of him, breath slightly fast. “You have it?”
Ronan’s gaze flicked over her face, taking in her pallor, her tension. “Aye,” he said, and then he reached into his jacket pocket slowly, carefully, like he didn’t want to startle her.
He pulled out her recorder.
Aoife’s stomach unclenched so sharply she nearly swayed.
“There,” Ronan said. “Safe and sound.”
Aoife held out her hand without thinking, fingers tight.
Ronan didn’t place it in her palm immediately. He kept it between his fingers for a beat.
Aoife’s eyes snapped up, sharp. “What?”
Ronan’s expression didn’t change, but his voice softened. “I didn’t listen.”
Aoife went still.
“I saw it on the ground,” he continued, calm. “It was off. I picked it up. I didn’t press anything. I didn’t go looking.”
Aoife swallowed. Her throat felt raw.
“I only turned it over to see if there was a name on it,” Ronan said. “And there was—your sticker, the wee one. With the nurse badge and the stupid little heart.”
Aoife’s cheeks burned. Niamh had put that sticker on it months ago with an expression that had been half teasing, half fierce.
“Found it outside the hospital,” Ronan added. “So I figured. And then I saw you this morning and… well.”
Aoife stared at the recorder like it might bite her. She couldn’t stop suspicion from crawling up her spine. Privacy was a thing you only got if you fought for it.
Ronan watched her, steady.
“I can hand it over,” he said gently, “but I wanted to say it first. So you’d know.”
Aoife’s fingers loosened slightly.
Slowly, she took the recorder from his hand.
His fingers brushed her skin in the exchange—brief, accidental.
Aoife’s breath caught like her body was a traitor.
Ronan stepped back immediately, giving her space as if he’d felt her tension and respected it. No lingering. No trying to hold the moment.
He just said, “You alright?”
Aoife stared down at the device in her palm, thumb pressing over the record button without activating it, like she was checking reality.
“It’s… important,” she said finally, voice thin.
Ronan nodded once, as if he’d already guessed. “Aye.”
Aoife looked up. “You really didn’t listen?”
Ronan’s gaze held hers, unflinching. “I swear on my mother’s life,” he said, simple. “And she’d haunt me if I lied.”
Aoife’s mouth did something like a smile and failed.
“Also,” Ronan added, a faint hint of humour, “I’ve enough guilt in my life without adding ‘stole a nurse’s secrets’ to the list.”
Aoife huffed a breath that sounded dangerously close to a laugh.
Behind Ronan, someone called, “Ronan! You done, yeah?”
Ronan turned his head. “Two seconds.”
Then he looked back at Aoife. “Do you want to stand somewhere quieter for a minute? Away from the lads?”
Aoife’s instinct was to say no. To leave. To run.
But her body was vibrating with adrenaline, and her knees felt weak.
“A minute,” she said, grudging.
Ronan nodded, and instead of taking her inside, he guided her a few steps down toward the river, where rushing water softened everything. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t herd her. He simply walked beside her like he was offering proximity, not claiming it.
They stopped near the low stone wall. The river was fast, dark, alive.
For a moment, neither spoke.
The silence wasn’t awkward. It was careful, the kind that respected tiredness.
Aoife broke first. “How did you get my number?”
Ronan’s mouth quirked. “You’ve it written on the back.”
Aoife blinked. “I do not.”
“Flip it.”
Aoife did. Under the sticker: a strip of tape with her phone number in tiny handwriting.
Aoife stared.
“Niamh,” she muttered.
Ronan’s eyes warmed. “Friend of yours, yeah? The one with the mouth?”
Aoife’s jaw tightened. “Her mouth is a community hazard.”
Ronan laughed softly. “She seems sound.”
“She is,” Aoife admitted. “Too sound.”
Ronan nodded like he understood. “Aye. Those are the best kind.”
Aoife swallowed, fingers tightening around the recorder again.
Ronan’s gaze flicked to it. “You’ve a lot on that, don’t you.”
It wasn’t a question.
Aoife’s throat tightened. “It’s just… voice notes.”
“For work?”
“Sometimes.”
“And sometimes not,” Ronan said gently.
Aoife’s chest pulled tight.
Ronan watched her face with a steadiness she didn’t trust and wanted anyway. “You’ve been awake too long,” he added.
“Thanks, doctor.”
“I’m not diagnosing. I’m observing.”
Aoife’s lips twitched. “Are you always this cheeky?”
“Only when someone looks like they might fall over.”
Aoife should’ve left. She didn’t.
Ronan’s voice dropped. “If you want to go, go. You got your recorder back.”
Aoife stared at him, surprised by the directness.
He wasn’t trapping her in conversation. He was giving her the exit like it mattered.
Aoife’s thumb hovered over send.
She hated herself for it—the desperate need, the sudden reliance on a stranger’s decency. But the recorder sat heavy in her hand and with it the weight of the hours she’d spoken into it like confession, like a spell to keep herself intact.
She sent the message before she could overthink it.
Where are you now?
The reply came almost immediately.
By the river. You’ll see the lights. If you’re tired, I can bring it to you. No rush.
Aoife stared at the screen, suspicious of how gentle it was. People weren’t usually gentle without wanting something. She’d learned that early, in small ways and big ones, in corridors that smelled like bleach and grief.
Niamh read over her shoulder and made a noise. “He even does punctuation,” she said, impressed. “That’s husband material.”
“Shut up,” Aoife muttered, but her cheeks were hot.
“You’re going,” Niamh said flatly.
“I’m not—”
“You are. Because if you don’t, you’ll lie in bed all day imagining him playing your voice notes in a pub session for sport.”
Aoife’s stomach lurched. “He wouldn’t.”
“You don’t know that,” Niamh said. “So. Go. Collect it. Say thank you. Come home. Sleep. Easy.”
Easy. Nothing ever was.
Aoife pulled her coat on over her uniform and headed back out into the damp Galway morning with her tiredness wrapped around her like a second skin.
The city was in that strange liminal hour—too late for the night crowd, too early for the day ones. Streetlamps still on. Bins dragged out. The smell of wet stone and baking bread and river silt.
Studio by the river turned out to be exactly what it said: a narrow old building tucked near the water, windows steamed, warm light spilling onto the pavement like someone had dropped a lamp and decided to leave it there on purpose.
Aoife hesitated at the door.
Then she pushed it open.
Inside, it smelled of coffee and cables and old wood. A low hum of music sat under the air—something being tested, tuned, coaxed into shape. A young lad with headphones looked up from a desk and then looked away again, dismissing her as not his problem.
Ronan appeared from a back room as if he’d heard her heartbeat.
He wasn’t in a uniform here. Just jeans, a soft grey jumper, sleeves pushed up. Hair slightly damp like he’d walked out into the rain without caring. He looked, in the warm light, like someone who belonged to the small hours on purpose.
Aoife’s mouth went dry all over again.
“You made it,” he said, like he wasn’t surprised, like her being here was the natural order of things.
“I only came because my friend bullied me,” Aoife said, voice too sharp.
Ronan’s mouth twitched. “Fair. Bullying is an Irish love language.”
Aoife huffed. “You’re Ronan.”
“Aye.” He held out the recorder. “And you’re Aoife, apparently.”
She took it, fingers brushing his by accident. It was nothing. It was everything.
“Thanks,” Aoife said, and hated how small it sounded.
Ronan shrugged, casual. “It was on the ground. Would’ve been cruel to leave it.” His gaze flicked to her face. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”
Aoife’s eyes narrowed. “Do I.”
“A bit,” he said, unapologetic. “But you also look like you’d bite if someone tried to help. So I’m keeping my hands to myself.”
Aoife’s breath caught. “Good,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say to that.
Ronan’s eyes warmed. “You want tea?” he offered. “We’ve got a kettle that actually whistles. Proper luxury.”
The word kettle landed in her chest like a soft bruise.
Aoife’s gaze darted to the corner where, sure enough, a kettle sat on a hot plate beside mismatched mugs. Ordinary. Harmless. But it made her stomach tighten anyway, as if the universe had a sense of humour.
“I should go,” she said quickly. “I’m wrecked.”
Ronan nodded once, accepting it without sulk or pressure. “Grand.” He paused. “But you’ve got rain in your hair and you’re shivering, so maybe drink something first. Five minutes. No trap.”
Aoife hesitated.
There was something disarming about him saying the word trap. Like he understood the shape of her distrust without asking her to explain it.
She found herself nodding.
“Five,” she said. “Then I’m gone.”
Ronan smiled like he’d been given a gift. “Deal.”
He moved to the kettle with an ease that suggested he’d made tea for a lot of tired people. He filled it, flicked it on, leaned his hip against the counter and watched Aoife like she might bolt and he’d rather see it coming than stop her.
Aoife stayed standing, recorder clutched in both hands.
“Did you listen to it,” she blurted, because the question had been clawing at her since the security desk.
Ronan’s brows lifted, then his face softened. “No,” he said simply. “It wasn’t mine.”
“That’s not an answer,” Aoife said, because she couldn’t help it. “You could’ve been curious.”
“I was,” Ronan admitted, and there was no shame in it. “I’m a sound engineer. Curiosity is basically my religion. But I’m not an arsehole.”
Aoife’s throat tightened unexpectedly.
Ronan’s gaze flicked to her hands. “It’s important,” he said quietly.
Aoife swallowed. “It’s… just notes.”
“Yeah,” Ronan said, and his voice went gentle in a way that made her skin prickle. “And sometimes ‘just notes’ are the only place you’re honest.”
Aoife stared at him, alarmed. “You don’t know anything about me.”
Ronan shrugged. “I know you stood in the rain outside the hospital like you were trying not to feel your own body. I know you panicked when you realised it was missing. And I know you didn’t ask me to bring it to you—you came here anyway.” He nodded at her. “That tells me enough.”
Aoife’s mouth opened, then shut again. She hated how seen she felt.
The kettle began to tick, heating.
Ronan reached for two mugs. One had a faded Galway Arts Festival logo. The other said WORLD’S BEST DAD and had a chip in the rim. Aoife stared at it.
“You’re not a dad,” she said before she could stop herself.
Ronan glanced down at the mug and laughed under his breath. “No. It’s my mate’s. He left it here and refuses to take it home because his kid keeps trying to drink paint water out of it.”
Aoife blinked. “That’s… horrific.”
“Kids are feral,” Ronan said with a straight face. “Tiny drunk men with sticky hands.”
A laugh escaped Aoife before she could swallow it back.
Ronan’s eyes flicked up, and something softened there. “There it is,” he murmured.
Aoife’s smile collapsed instantly. “What?”
“That,” Ronan said, nodding at her. “The bit of you that isn’t braced for impact.”
Aoife’s cheeks heated. “Don’t start.”
“I’m not starting,” he said, still calm. “I’m noticing.”
The kettle whistled. The sound cut through the room like a bright thread, startling in its cheerfulness.
Ronan poured, the steam curling between them. He slid a mug towards her—festival logo—and stepped back, giving her space to take it.
Aoife wrapped her fingers around the warmth. Her hands were shaking less now, whether from caffeine promise or simply being in a room that wasn’t fluorescent.
Ronan lifted his own mug, blew on it, then leaned against the counter again. “So,” he said lightly. “Night nurse.”
Aoife’s eyes narrowed. “Sound engineer.”
“Aye.” Ronan sipped, eyes crinkling slightly. “We’re both nocturnal in different flavours.”
Aoife took a sip. It was strong, properly brewed. Not the sad hospital tea that tasted like resignation.
“Why were you outside the hospital,” she asked, because it mattered.
Ronan shrugged. “Dropping off gear for a mate in A&E,” he said. “His brother got jumped. Needed a charger and some headphones. Stupid stuff. But it makes a difference when you’re stuck under fluorescent lights.”
Aoife’s stomach tightened. “People get jumped all the time,” she said automatically, the nurse part of her filing it away as ordinary violence.
Ronan’s gaze sharpened a fraction. “Aye,” he said. “Galway likes to pretend it’s small and soft, but it’s got teeth when you look close.”
Aoife’s pulse ticked. “You sound like you’ve been bitten.”
Ronan didn’t answer for a beat. Then he smiled again, easy, and the moment smoothed over like he’d tucked it away.
Aoife didn’t trust it.
“You left a note,” she said instead. “You could’ve just handed it in and disappeared.”
Ronan shrugged. “I thought you might want to know it wasn’t taken by some gobshite. And…” He paused, then met her eyes. “I thought you might want it back fast.”
Aoife’s throat tightened. She didn’t look up.
“You’re very… decent,” she said, and it came out suspicious, like she was accusing him of fraud.
Ronan laughed softly. “Decent is the bare minimum.”
“Not for everyone,” Aoife muttered.
Ronan’s gaze stayed on her. “No,” he agreed quietly. “Not for everyone.”
Silence settled—comfortable, not interrogative. The studio hummed around them with distant voices and soft music, like the city had a heartbeat under its wet stone.
Aoife found herself breathing properly.
Then her phone buzzed.
She glanced at the screen and her body went tight again.
Unknown number.
Aoife didn’t answer. She let it ring out, staring at the screen until it stopped.
Ronan noticed. Of course he did. He didn’t ask right away. He waited, giving her the choice.
“You alright,” he said finally.
Aoife swallowed. “Yeah.”
Ronan’s mouth tilted, not believing her but not challenging her either. “If you need someone to walk you to your car,” he offered lightly, “I can do that. No weird hero thing. Just… legs and eyes.”
Aoife’s throat tightened. “I’m fine.”
Ronan lifted his mug. “Course you are.”
Aoife glared. “That’s condescending.”
“It’s admiration,” Ronan corrected, and the word hit her like warmth she didn’t have permission to want.
Aoife set her mug down, suddenly restless. “I should go.”
Ronan nodded at once. “Okay.”
No sulk. No argument. Just okay.
Aoife stood, recorder tucked safely in her coat pocket now. She hesitated. “Thanks,” she said again, quieter this time. “For… not being an arsehole.”
Ronan’s eyes crinkled. “Anytime.” He paused. “Text me when you get home, yeah? So I know you didn’t collapse face-first in the rain.”
Aoife blinked. “Why would you care.”
Ronan’s gaze held hers, steady as the river. “Because I do,” he said simply.
Aoife’s breath caught.
Before she could answer, the lad at the desk glanced up and pointed at the window.
“Ronan,” he called. “There’s a car outside. Been sitting there ages.”
Ronan’s head snapped up, the ease dropping out of him so fast Aoife felt it like a draft.
“What kind of car,” Ronan asked, voice suddenly flat.
“Black,” the lad said. “Big. Tinted windows. Creepy vibe.”
Aoife’s stomach turned.
Ronan set his mug down slowly. His jaw clenched.
Aoife’s phone buzzed again in her pocket, like it had been waiting for that exact moment.
Unknown number.
Ronan looked at her. “Aoife,” he said quietly. “Who’s ringing you.”
Aoife’s mouth went dry. “I don’t know.”
Outside, through the steamed glass, a black car idled by the kerb—still as a predator, patient as a prayer.
And in Aoife’s pocket, the recorder felt suddenly hot, as if the small hours had teeth too.