Redeeming 6: Boys of Tommen #4

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, when I finally woke a little after ten, it was to an empty bed and a childless house.

The note on my bedside locker, in Molloy’s familiar scrawl told me all that I needed to know.

Hey stud,

If you’re wondering why I’m writing this down instead of texting you, it’s because I’m out of credit. Oh, and if you’re wondering why the house smells like bleach, and your money is all budgeted for the week in cute envelopes, it’s because I’ve been up since 4am. Hope you don’t mind.

Anyway, Sean woke up and came into your room around 6am, but you looked so exhausted, and it’s the first time I’ve seen you actually get a good night’s sleep, that I decided to take him and the boys out, and let you have a lie in.

We’ve been to the shops to grab a few supplies. It’s all unpacked and in the cupboards.

We’re going to the GAA pitch now. Tadhg wants to show me his ‘mad skills’ and Ollie wants to hit the playground afterwards.

I’ll bring them back around 1pm before my shift at work.

Don’t forget to give Shan her birthday presents. And give her a big squishy sweet sixteenth birthday hug from me.

I know you’re really busy, but could you swing by my house after the kids are in bed tonight? There’s something I really need to talk to you about.

I love you,

Aoife. x

P.S: don’t stop trying, Joe.

The house was spotless, the fridge was packed, the cupboards were full, and I felt sick to my stomach over it.

Good intentions or not, it wasn’t my girlfriend’s job to look after my family and put food on the table, it was mine, and I didn’t need her taking on my shit for me.

Especially since I was having such a hard time trying to make sense of why she would even want to.

Any other girl would have run for the hills the minute they felt the full weight of my excess baggage.

Not Molloy, though.

No, instead, she waded into the middle of my bullshit with bags of shopping and budgeting solutions. And then she slapped coats and hats on three quarters of said baggage and took them to the fucking playground.

She’d left both her car and twenty quid from her purse behind for me to take Shannon out for a birthday breakfast.

I didn’t understand her actions, and I understood her reasons for said actions even less.

Shannon, on the other hand, wasn’t one bit surprised by my girlfriend’s weird as fuck behavior. On the contrary, she reveled in my discomfort, finding it absolutely fucking hilarious that I had somehow come under the thumb of a girl with bigger balls than I had. Taking delight in my discomfort, my sister goaded and tormented me with notions of wedding rings and forever, making it perfectly clear that she was a solid fan of my girlfriend.

Her smug grin wasn’t long evaporating when a phone call from Gibsie had us driving back to lover boy’s house to return the phone he’d left in the backseat last night.

Yeah, Shannon’s tune had taken a drastic change by the time I parked up outside the manor, and it was my turn to revel in her discomfort.

Refusing point blank to get out of the car, I gave up on trying to convince her otherwise, and left her to it.

Strolling into a mansion of a foyer, I followed the sound of voices down an impressive hallway, and finally found both lads in the kitchen, looking a little lost for wear, and a lot hungover.

“You should have a tour guide at the front door,” I said, walking into his kitchen, phone in hand. “This house is like a museum.”

“That it is,” Gibsie agreed, giving me a friendly wave, from his perch in front of a fancy-ass range stove. “Welcome to the manor.”

The manor was right.

He could sell tickets to an open viewing of this place, and folks where I came from would arrive in throngs.

“Thanks for this.” Kav stood up and walked over to where I was standing in the doorway. “Appreciate you driving all the way over with it,” he said, polite as ever, as he pocketed his phone.

I shrugged. “Yeah, well, I was promised food.”

Taking his measure in the clear light of day, I begrudgingly admitted was a lot less appealing.

Clocking in just under 6’1, I had plenty of height to play with, but this fucker was simply enormous. Clearly, whatever his mother had fed him growing up, looked a lot different to the menu I’d been eating from.

“And King Clit was very persuasive,” I drawled, amused by the name Gibsie was stored under on his phone. “How’s my food coming along, chef?”

“Faster than a whore at a brothel, good sir,” Gibsie called over his shoulder, not missing a beat. “Egg?”

“Lad.” I shook my head, taking in the state of him – and the grease splattered tiles around him – as he attempted to fry a few rashers on a griddle pan. “Are you old enough to use the cooker without your mammy?”

“I doubt it,” he replied honestly. “It’s my first time.”

Another splatter of grease flew at his face, causing him to yelp like a wounded dog.

“Give me that thing before you hurt yourself,” I ordered, taking the spatula from him. “Fucking private school boys.” Mopping up the splatters with a nearby tea towel, I slung it over my shoulder, and worked to salvage the meat disintegrating on the pan. “Used to having everything done for ye.”

“Shit, Kav, I was wrong,” Gibsie chuckled, hovering over my shoulder like a child waiting for a slice of birthday cake to be cut. “This fucker right here is the daddy.”

“Give me some plates,” I instructed, annoyed by how close he was – literally breathing on me. “And some personal space.”

“On it,” he chuckled good-naturedly.

What a strange bastard.

“Do me a favor, will ya?” I said then, looking over my shoulder at Kavanagh. “Go and check on my sister, will ya?”

He was instantly alert now, hangover forgotten. “Shannon?”

“Yeah.” Nodding, I took the plate that Gibsie was holding out for me, and started to pile the rashers on it. “She’s out in the car.”

“Why would you leave her in the car?” he demanded. “It’s freezing outside.”

“Because she wouldn’t come in for me,” I replied calmly. “You can try to get her to come inside yourself if you want, but she’s not budging.”

He didn’t answer me.

Because he was too busy diving for the door.

I smirked.

“Lad,” Gibsie snickered, nudging my shoulder with his. “I think my best friend is a small bit obsessed with your sister.”

“What did I tell ya about personal space?” I snapped, and then waited for him to take a safe step back, before cracking an egg into the pan. “But yeah, I reckon my sister is a small bit obsessed with your best friend, too.”

“Aw shucks,” he mused, eyes dancing with mischief. “Isn’t young love fun?”

“Hm,” was all I muttered in response.

‘Yeah, well, word of warning, Joey the hurler,” he chuckled. “If shit gets serious between them, which I have a feeling it already is, then your shy baby sister’s world is about to turn on its axis.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

Not one fucking bit.

“Explain.”

“Kav doesn’t ride waves unless he’s sure of the tide.”

“Okay; explain in plain English.”

“Alright.” Gibsie grinned. “Kav clearly wants your sister. Your sister clearly wants Kav. Maybe there’s a little more than just wanting each other going on here. Who knows? Either way, he’s someone whose intentions you take seriously.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously,” Gibsie confirmed. “Everything about Kav’s world is serious, stable, and selected since birth. His future is set in stone, and his plans are cemented in front of him, without an inch of moving space. So, if he’s moving shit around to make space for her, if he’s even considering putting her slap bang in the middle of those plans, then it’s not an accident. He’s about as spontaneous as a dustpan and brush, lad. So, if he decides to go there with your sister, you can be sure that he’ll have put together an entire thesis of the pros and cons of making such a move beforehand. Johnny’s careful, lad, and he’s stable, and when he makes a decision, it’s done intentionally and with permanence in mind.”

I listened to what he was telling me, and had a feeling that, in Gibsie’s own fucked up way, he was trying to let me know that I could trust his friend not to hurt my sister, and that no harm would come to Shannon when she was with Johnny.

“And this is the same fella you thought you could get to smoke a joint,” I joked, tone laced with amusement. “This serious-thinking, predictable, non-spontaneous giant of a lad is the one you and Biggs thought ye could loosen up?”

“I said that Kav was a serious-thinker,” Gibsie chuckled, holding his hands. “Me? I’m spontaneous as fuck, lad.”

“You’re a strange one,” I said, and then had to, once again, ward him off with the spatula. “Would ya step back?”

“Why?”

“I don’t fucking like people breathing down my neck.”

“I wasn’t breathing down your neck,” he replied. “I was admiring your cooking skills.”

“Well, admire from a distance,” I warned. “At least three feet would be preferable.”

“Fine,” he grumbled. “Are you heading back into Ballylaggin town after eating?”

“I live in town,” I deadpanned. “So, that’s the plan.”

“Could I bum a lift?”

“Where to?”

“Biddies. I left my car there last night.”

“Yeah, grand.”

“Good man yourself,” he replied, hovering again. “And that bacon smells fucking excellent.” He leaned in over my shoulder to sniff the pan. “Jesus, I’m starving.”

“You’re doing it again,” I bit out, roughly shrugging him off. “Don’t fucking touch me, lad. I won’t tell you again.”

“What?” he huffed out defensively. “I can’t help it if I’m friendly.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“Not what?”

“Friendly.”

“Ah, I don’t know about that,” he laughed. “Given a bit of time to get to know each other, I think we could be the best of friends.”

“That will never happen,” I warned, glaring at him. “You’re a mad, posh bastard, with a personality that, quite frankly, unsettles the fuck out of me.” Switching off the stove, I grabbed two plates, laden down with food, walked over to the nearby island, and set them down. “Meanwhile, I’m a short-tempered asshole, with neither the patience nor the temperament to handle a person such as yourself in my life.”

“Well, I think you’re wrong,” Gibsie replied, handing me a fork, and taking up position on the stool next to mine. “I think we could love each other.”

I gaped at him. “You’re a freak.”

“Oh, relax,” he chuckled. “I meant like brothers.”

“I already have four,” I said flatly. “Don’t need anymore.”

‘See,” he chuckled, tearing a rasher in half and stuffing it into his mouth. “You’re already opening up to me about your family. We’re bonding.”

‘We aren’t bonding,’ I argued, stabbing my fried egg with my fork. ‘We will never bond.’

Thankfully, Kav returned to the kitchen then, and what do you know, he had my little sister in tow.

“Hey, it’s little Shannon. Did Johnny manage to coax you inside or was it the smell of my fucking amazing cooking that drew you in?” Gibsie joked.

“It’s raining,” Shannon mumbled, sidling exceptionally close to a fella she considered to only be a friend.

As I bantered back and forth with the strange one, I watched as Kavanagh fussed over my sister, and I had to admit that he was the first person I had ever seen put a genuine smile on her face.

They looked fucking ridiculous together, with her barely reaching his chest bone in height. They were worlds apart and polar opposites, but the way they were looking at each other assured me that neither one of them gave one iota of a shit for the small details.

Yeah, I could smell the sexual tension from here. It was almost as bad as the god-awful wet dog smell coming from her.

Apparently, she’d been knocked on her ass outside by his dogs.

Deciding to fuck with them a little further, I asked lover boy if he had a change of clothes she could borrow, and to watch a lad, who pummeled grown men into the ground on a weekly basis, turn bright red like that was fucking hilarious.

“Johnny, she can take a shower here, can’t she?” Gibsie, who was equally amused by what was unfolding before us, decided to ask.

“What?” Shannon squeaked, wide-eyed and red-faced.

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” Kav replied, clearing his throat several times before adding, “If she wants.”

“Good idea,” I joined in by adding. “Wash that wet dog smell off ya before we have to drive home in small confines.”

“I don’t smell.”

“You stink,” we replied in unison.

“Fuck off the pair of ye, and leave her alone,” lover boy came to the rescue and warned. “She doesn’t smell bad at all.”

“You don’t smell it because you’re immune,” Gibsie explained. “He lets the mutt sleep on his bed every night.”

Johnny narrowed his eyes, outraged. “Call my dog a mutt again and you’ll be wearing that frying pan.”

Gibsie held his hands up and laughed. “My sincerest apologies, lad. I never meant to insult your precious pooch.”

“I am so sorry about this,” Shannon choked out, looking up at Kav like he hung the moon. “I don’t have to shower in your house—’

“Ah, yeah you fucking do,” I interrupted, earning a snicker of encouragement from Gibsie. “I meant it when I said you’re not getting into Aoife’s car like that. I could run a drag off ya with the state you’re in.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Kav muttered, catching ahold of my sister’s hand, before the pair of them disappeared down the hallway.

“Ah, that was brilliant,” Gibsie sighed in contentment. “He’s probably up there shitting pebbles because this wasn’t part of his concrete plan.”

A reluctant smile breached my lips and I shook my head, concentrating on clearing my plate. “So, what’s the story with you and your buddy’s sister?”

“Who?” he asked. “Claire?”

I nodded.

“She’s my intended,” he came right out and said, without a hint of embarrassment.

“The fuck?”

“It’s true,” he urged, eyes wide and full of sincerity. “We’re betrothed.”

“Since when?”

“Since she was four and I was six, and I promised her that I would marry her.”

“So, in other words, you signed your life away on a child’s promise?”

“What can I say?” He shrugged before adding, “I’m a man of my word.”

I gave him a curious look. “Explain.”

“Hugh and I were in first class over at St. Paul’s, an all-boys school, so Claire was sent to the mixed school across town.”

“Sacred Heart Primary School,” I filled in with a nod. “The same one myself and Shannon went to.”

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” he said, smiling fondly at the memory. “It was Claire’s first day in junior infants, and she had come home in floods of tears. I was out front kicking a ball around with Hughie when she stumbled off the school bus at the end of our road, and all I could see was a mountain of blonde curls, as she raced up the driveway towards us.”

“Why was she crying?”

“Apparently, some little shit in senior infants told her that she had to be his girlfriend.” Gibsie threw his head back and laughed. “And when she told him that she didn’t want to be his girlfriend, he pulled her hair and told the class that she ate bogies.”

“What a little prick,” I chuckled.

“She was so upset, lad.” Gibsie laughed. “Honest to God, you’ve never seen devastation like it.”

“What did her brother do?”

“Hughie told her to tell him to fuck off.”

“I’m guessing that’s not what you did?”

Eyes twinkling with mischief, Gibsie opened his mouth to answer me when Kav came bulldozing into the kitchen, with a face like thunder.

“I’ve a question, Joey the hurler.”

The sheer fucking condescension dripping from his tone had my back up in an instant. “Go for it, mister rugby.”

“I need a minute, Gibs,” Kav snapped, and without a word, his dopey pal strolled out of the kitchen, closing the door behind himself. “Now.” Kav folded his arms across his chest and glowered at me. “Who the fuck is putting their hands on your sister?”

Well, shit.

No one ever had the balls to ask such a forthright question.

Nobody ever asked because they didn’t want to get involved, and, even if they did ask, they didn’t want the truth. That’s how it had been for as far back as I could remember. With teachers, trainers, neighbors, hell, even the Gards didn’t want to know.

The only person in our lives that had ever taken the time to dig deeper, to push further, was Molloy.

Until now.

“Yeah, you heard me,” Kav pushed, unwilling to back the fuck down like I was used to. “I found her on her hands and knees at school on Friday, throwing her guts up,” he continued to say. “Something’s happening to her, and I want to know what it is.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to fix it.”

“Why?”

“Because no one should be putting their goddamn anything on her!” he snarled, losing that perfectly polished exterior. “Fuck!”

“What did she tell you?”

“That she fell over Legos.” He threw his hands up in frustration. “Fucking Legos.”

“If Shannon says that’s what happened, then that’s what happened.”

“No – no!” he as good as roared, losing his cool completely, as he held up a hand and battled to control his temper. Something I was all too familiar with. “Don’t give me that shit. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen her with marks. What’s happening to her?”

Leaning back on my stool, I studied the lad who had injected himself into my sister’s life – and potentially all of our lives.

He was standing in front of me, asking for the answers I couldn’t give.

The helpless tone in his voice struck a chord with me.

Because I knew that tone.

I knew that desperation.

I felt it daily.

“Who is hurting your sister?” he repeated, as desperation and frustration fused together inside of him.

This fucker cared.

He cared an awful lot.

“Is it those pricks from school?” he pushed. “Was it them? Those girls?” His voice cracked and he took a deep breath before asking, “Is she hurting herself?” His eyes hardened like blue steel when he hissed, “Are you hurting her?”

All I could do in this moment was arch a brow.

He had some pair on him to say that to my face, and the only reason I wasn’t gunning for blood for the hideous fucking accusation was because his feelings for my sister were written all over his face.

“Lad, you better start talking because brother or no brother, I will kick your ass.”

He could try.

Johnny Kavanagh might have the upper hand in the physical stakes, but I had a feeling that a fella as stable and sound of mind as him, having grown up in a home like this, never had to fight for survival quite like I had.

He’d been raised like a fucking prince, with countless portraits and pictures of him adorning the walls of his family home, while I’d been born into hell and dragged up on the streets.

There was a killer instinct required to survive as far as I had, and that meant it didn’t matter how much of an underdog I ranked in a fight. The only way that I would ever back down or quit was if my heart stopped beating. So, if he planned on throwing down with me, then he needed to be prepared to kill me because I would never stop getting back up.

Not for my father.

Not for him.

Not for any other fucker on this planet.

The fact that it was genuine concern for my sister that evoked his threatening behavior, had me keeping my head in a way that was unheard of for me. Still, something deep inside of me instructed me to do it.

He wasn’t the enemy.

Not today, at least.

“You’ll need to talk to Shannon,” I finally said. “I can’t give you the answers you want.”

“Yes, you can,” Kav shot back, imploring me with his eyes to speak up. “Just open your mouth and speak!”

“No.” I shook my head. “I can’t and I won’t. If she trusts you enough, she’ll tell you. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t. Either way, it’s not my call.”

“Not your call?” He looked incensed at that. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like,” I bit out. “It means that it’s not my call. But I can assure you that I have never put my hands on my sister. Or any woman, for that matter.”

“I want to know what’s going on here, Lynch. If she’s being bullied or some shit like that, then I can help. I can fix this if you just tell me.”

“You can fix this?”

“For her?” He nodded vehemently. “Absolutely.”

“You like her.” I tilted my head to one side, studying him. “Maybe even more than like her.”

He didn’t deny it.

Good.

Another tick for him.

“I want to know what’s happened,” he tried to reason. “I need to.”

Maybe his buddy was right about this lad sticking around. His words certainly displayed a level of permanence.

“Listen, I’d love to tell you,” I replied. “I’d have no goddamn problem laying it all out there for you. I have nothing to hide.”

As I spoke the words, I realized that they were my truth.

Because something had happened inside of me, something fucking strange, and I was growing weary of lying.

Of covering up.

Of constantly watching my back and the backs of my siblings.

It was no life to live, and I didn’t want it anymore.

I never had.

“But she won’t want me to do that,” I tried to explain to him. “Shannon would die if she thought anyone knew her business. After all the shit that went down for her at BCS, she wants that clean slate at Tommen – and I want that for her, too.”

“So, she is being bullied,” Kav choked out, missing the mark entirely, and looking physically sick at the thought. “Someone at Tommen.” He shook his head, looking lost. “Or at her old school.”

I sighed heavily. “Listen, Kavanagh, if you want to know what goes on in that head of hers, then be worth it.”

“Be worth it?” He glared at me. “Be worth what?”

He knew exactly what I meant.

If he wanted in, like he so desperately seemed to, then he needed to earn that entry pass from Shannon.

I couldn’t give it to him.

Even though, a weird part of me strongly wanted to.

Because, even though I’d long given up on protecting myself, and having spent years failing to protect my siblings, I was starting to come to terms with the possibility that I wasn’t doing the right thing for them.

That keeping quiet wasn’t the right thing.

Maybe I had taken too many blows to the head at the hands of our father, or maybe it was Molloy getting inside my head, but keeping my mouth shut was starting to look, in my mind, less like protecting my siblings, and more like enabling my parents.

Still, the memory of Darren’s abuse continued to imprison me, keeping the fear alive just enough to keep my tongue at bay.

“You’re a smart guy,” was all I replied. “You’ll figure it out.”

Kav shook his head again. “I don’t—”

My phone rang out loudly in my pocket, stalling him, and I quickly pulled it out, only for my heart to fall into my ass when I saw the name flashing across the screen.

Dad.

Fury enveloped me then and I held a hand up to warn Kavanagh to keep his goddamn mouth shut as I pressed the answer button and put the phone to my ear.

“Joey, it’s me.”

“What the fuck do you want?” I sneered, thoroughly disgusted that he even thought that mine was a number he could call.

The sound of his voice had every hair on my body standing on end.

It didn’t matter to me that he sounded sober.

Everything about this man, drunk or otherwise, made my skin crawl.

I almost fell off the stool when I heard him say, “I’m phoning you to let you know that I’m coming home with—”

“No, you were told,” I cut him off, pacing the kitchen, trying to keep my shit to myself all while I was losing the very same shit. You were goddamn told there was no coming home. “There’s no coming back.”

“What happened the other night was a mistake,” I heard him say, tone level. “I didn’t mean to hurt your mother. It was a heat of the moment thing. You understand.”

He didn’t mean to hurt Mam? I understand? What about Shannon? Had he meant to hurt her when he pummeled her face with his fist? Of course he fucking meant to.

Believing that he didn’t mean to do something that he had repeatedly done throughout the course of our lives was the definition of insanity. “I don’t give two shits how sorry you are.”

“Would ya just shut that hole in your mouth and listen to me for a second—”

“No!”

The last time I sat down and listened to him attempt to absolve himself of any wrong doing was more than eight years ago, shortly after witnessing him brutally rape my mother against the same table we were forced to eat at every day since.

I’d taken a hurley to him in my pathetic attempt to protect her, and the fight that ensued had been so loud and vicious that the neighbors called the Gards.

As a result, the social workers had been called in, and I had been forced by the very woman I had tried to protect to sit at that same kitchen table that still remained in our house, and listen to her abuser reel off a convincing tale of how the ring on her finger gave him dominion over her body and mind.

I had instantly called bullshit on that and was then treated to an in-depth and graphic play by play of what happened to a small boy when he went into care by my father.

Darren, being the diligent and conscientious son, having endured the suffering had been spared the warning.

So was Shannon and the small boys.

Not me, though.

Not the black sheep of the family.

The liability.

The fuck-up.

I lost my childhood that day.

I’d never had much of one to begin with, but whatever innocence that had been there, all of my boyhood hopes and dreams, had been snuffed out in an instant.

Mentally and physically scarred to the point where I couldn’t picture myself trusting another human being. Terrorized with grave details about what would be done to me if I didn’t keep my mouth shut, or worse, what would happen to Shannon and Tadhg, I’d buckled under the pressure and lied through my teeth like the good solider I’d been trained to be.

From day one, my reluctance to commit to Molloy never had a thing to do with my ability to love her, and everything to do with the fear of loving her the wrong way.

The fucked-up part was that I couldn’t see then what I was starting to see now, that I was trying to protect those kids from rapists, by living with one.

Because that’s what he was.

He was a fucking rapist.

The things he did.

The pain he caused.

The lives he ruined.

No, I would never listen to another excuse that man made again.

“Your mother is in the hospital,” Dad said, dragging my thoughts back to the present, and bringing with it a flood of panic. “She had a bleed the other night. A bad one.”

I gripped the phone so tight; I thought the skin around my knuckles might crack. “She’s where?”

“Are ya deaf, Joey? I said she’s in the fucking hospital,” he barked. “Placental abruption, apparently.”

Jesus Christ. I felt faint as I pressed a hand to my brow. “When did that happen?”

“Friday night,” he replied, confirming my worst fears. “The hospital rang me to come in to be with her.”

My heart sank into my ass.

I was calling her a cunt while she was bleeding out in the hospital.

“She went in with bleeding, but when they went to examine her, her waters broke,” he added, sounding genuinely human for once. “She, ah, she was in a bad way with the bleeding, so they took her down to theatre to sort it. According to the consultant, it can happen in older women who’ve had a lot of children, and your mother had a c-section on Tadhg.”

“And the baby?” I heard myself squeeze out.

“What do you think, ya bollox?” he snapped. “It’s fucking dead, isn’t it? It wasn’t much bigger than the size of my hand.”

Jesus Christ.

“It?” I choked out, feeling my legs tremble beneath me. “It?”

“What do ya want me to call it; your brother?” he demanded.

So, it was a boy.

A baby brother.

Jesus.

“It’s fucking gone, and that’s that,” Dad snapped. “No point in getting worked up over something we can’t change.”

I didn’t know what I wanted him to say, but calling the baby ‘it’ made me feel physically sick.

“Your mother’s in a bad way here,” he continued to say. “They’re discharging her, but she won’t leave the hospital.” He exhaled a frustrated breath before adding, “She won’t leave it.”

Stop calling him it, I wanted to scream, but my current company caused me to refrain. “What the fuck do you want me to say?”

“Well, first thing’s first, you can get rid of that sorrowful tone of voice,” he snapped. “Why would you be sad? It’s not like you were happy about it.”

“Why would I be sad?” I shook my head in disgust. Was he serious?

“You didn’t want her to have another baby, and now there isn’t one,” he bit out, tone accusing. “This suits you down to the ground, boy, so you might as well be honest about it.”

Yeah, I didn’t want them to have another child, but that didn’t mean that I wanted my mother to lose her baby.

I didn’t want my baby brother to die.

I would never want that.

But I couldn’t stop myself from hissing the words, “It’s a goddamn relief is what it is,” down the line – and I meant it, but not for the reasons he thought.

The baby would be spared the pain of ever being carried through the threshold of hell that was our home.

The baby would never feel the sting of our father’s slap, or the pain of our mother’s lack of emotion.

There would be one less sibling to protect, to worry about, to feed, to nurture, and I would be a liar if I pretended otherwise.

As resentful as I had been about the pregnancy, that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t have loved him just the same as I loved the rest of them. My heart would have expanded, and my arms would have stretched that little bit further to fit him in.

“I need you to come over here and talk some sense into your mother,” Dad continued. “You know what she’s like. How her mind drifts away under pressure. You’ve always been able to bring her back when she checks out like this.”

“Fine,” I replied, tone tight.

“We’re at St. Finbarr’s in the city,” he added. “You know where that is, don’t ya?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there.”

“Grand,” he said with a relieved sigh. “Because I don’t know what to do with her. She’s just crying and rocking and I can’t be fucking handling her when she’s in one of these moods.”

“I just said I’d be there, didn’t I?” I snapped, repressing the urge to roar when I found Kavanagh watching me like a hawk. “I’ll be there.”

“When?” Dad pushed. “How soon can ya be here? Because I’m not fucking around, boy, I’m close to losing my patience with her. I want to get home and have a shave and a shower. I can’t be sitting here, watching her crying into a box.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Good lad,” he said, tone approving. “Be quick about it—”

Numb, I hung up and slid my phone back in my pocket and looked at Kavanagh. “I need to take off.”

“Take off?” he demanded. “Where?”

“I have somewhere I need to be,” I mumbled, completely fucking reeling.

“Hold the fuck up,” he warned, blocking the doorway. “Your sister is upstairs in my shower.”

“Yeah.” I shook my head and blew out a pained breath. “I’m going to need you to hold onto her for me.”

“Hold onto her?” He looked at me like I’d just lost my mind. “You just want me to hold onto your sister?”

“That’s what I said, wasn’t it?”

“You’re not saying anything,” Kav hissed, furious. “That’s the problem. You’re not telling me shit!”

“I did tell you,” I snarled, losing my cool now. I didn’t have time for this shit. “I told you to ask Shannon!”

“So, you’re what?” His eyes bulged in his head. “You just going to leave her here?” It sure beat the alternative. “For how long?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Yeah, I don’t fucking know,” I snapped, just about done with his bullshit. “Is that a problem?”

“It’s not a problem that she’s here,” Kav was quick to state, “It’s a problem that you’re leaving her here, and I have no goddamn idea of what to tell her.”

“Fine,” I lost my cool and spat. “Tell my sister that our father called. Tell her that our mother had a miscarriage on Friday night, and he’s on the way home from the hospital with her now.”

He had the good grace to flinch. “Shite.”

“You have no fucking idea,” I seethed, shoving past him and stalking down the hallway to swing the front door open. No goddamn clue.

“Do you want me to bring her straight home?” he asked, trailing after me, anger gone now, replaced with awkward sympathy. Fuck him. I didn’t want his sympathy. I didn’t need it either. “Or should I take her to the hospital to see your mother—’

“I want you to hold fucking onto her!” I roared, turning around to face him. “Can you do that, Johnny Kavanagh?” I clutched the front door with a death grip as I met his gaze head on. “Can you look after my sister for me?” Or have I read you all wrong?

“Yes.” He nodded stiffly. “I can.”

“Good.” I nodded stiffly. Reaching into my pocket, I grabbed my phone and held it out to him. “I’ll call you when I can to sort out picking her up. Just… just keep her until I can call you, okay?”

Without a word, he took it and added his number to my contacts.

I nodded stiffly and slid it back into my pocket before calling out, “Gussie, I’m leaving now if you want a spin into town for your car.”

“Everything okay?” he asked, head popping around the living room door.

Too fucked up to think straight, I turned around and walked away, feeling like my feet didn’t belong to me, as I somehow managed to trudge across the gravel and collapse into the driver’s seat of Molloy’s car.

“It’s Gibsie.”

I turned to watch him climb into passenger seat beside me. “What?”

“My name,” he explained, fastening his seatbelt, and withdrawing a box of cigarettes from his pocket. “It’s Gibsie, not Gussie.”

“Right, yeah. Gibsie.” I started the engine and tore off down the driveway, gratefully accepting the cigarette he had sparked up and was holding out for me. “Cheers.”

“No worries, lad,” he mused, sparking up a cigarette of his own. “Looked like you needed one.” Shrugging, he added, “It’s only nicotine, I’m afraid.”

“That’ll do.”

“For now,” he joked in a lighthearted tone.

“Yeah,” I bit out, as that carnal urge of desperation and need reared its ugly head at the thought. “For now.”