by Esme Devlin
He sits up in bed and leans on his arm, and I turn around to face him.
I can’t really see him, but I can feel his breath on my cheeks.
He pushes the hair back from my forehead and pauses for a beat. “What brought this on?”
“Your cock jabbing me in the back,” I tell him.
“I’m not a saint,” he says, chuckling and bending down to plant a kiss on my forehead. “But I’m not an animal either. I’m not going to do that. Not tonight, at least.”
“Good.” I turn back over in bed, and he lies down and snuggles back into me.
“Agreed,” he says, giving my breast a squeeze, like he just can’t help himself, before he settles down and we both drift off to sleep.
Chapter 10
SHAUN
I’m late to lunch because I have to explain to Mrs Kemp why I’ve turned up without her three-thousand word essay that was due today.
She’s clearly champing at the bit to get a read of it, because she doesn’t give two fucks about the fact my dog has gone missing.
I don’t know if the tale of my Mrs’ abduction and last nights vigilante court case would have been more or less believable than the missing dog, but either way she keeps me back and by the time I get to the table, the rest of them are already there.
And so are Lacey and Stevie, which I was not expecting. I grab myself two ham rolls and take a seat at the table next to Lacey.
“What’s happening?” I ask the group, giving Lace a quick peck on the cheek after I pull my chair in.
“You’re late,” Calvin says.
“Sorry, honey, could you not start without me?” I say dryly.
Calvin chuckles and goes back to eating.
An uneasy silence falls over the table and I suspect it’s because everyone wants to talk about last night, but they don’t know if they can — what with Lacey being sat here. If the fact I’ve just kissed her, and she’s not scratched my eyeballs out isn’t enough for them, then I don’t know what will be.
“What did you do with him last night?” I ask Calvin.
He puts his fork down and glances over at Lacey while he swallows his food.
I look over at Lace, then back to him. “She’s fine. Talked her round just as she was about to phone the blues and twos on your arses.”
Calvin chuckles, smiling at Lacey. “Snitches get stitches, doll.”
“Can you swim with concrete blocks on?” Doeboy teases. “Asking for a friend.”
She laughs and shakes her head at them. “I didn’t know, alright? Bunch of wankers! Did he get help?”
Calvin shrugs. “Left him on his dad’s doorstep and chapped the door.”
I nod my approval. “Good laddie. I’m assuming he’s pulled a sicky?”
“I’m assuming he’ll be pulling one all week going by the state of his leg,” Stevie says.
“I’m assuming he should be thankful she never dropped it right on his cock,” Doeboy says, chuckling. “I genuinely thought for a wee second she was going to.”
Tony laughs. “Aye, I think I might be more scared of Heather than I am of Shaun now.”
I laugh at him. “Never knew she had that in her.”
Stevie shrugs opposite me. “Anyone would have done the same.”
I look over at Lacey but she’s just pushing her food around on her plate.
“Anyway… what’s the plans for the weekend?” I ask them, trying to change the subject.
“Dunno about you, but all that violence has me right in the mood for a party,” Doeboy says.
Stevie snorts and shakes her head. “You are disgusting.”
“Coming to think of it, are we not due a stag-do? One last roll of the dice before you become a married man?” Tony asks, flashing me a smile.
I almost choke on my roll and look over at Lacey to see her reaction. She’s looking down at her food, and when she catches me watching her she shuts the lid on her box of chips and stands up.
“Toilet,” she explains. “I’ll catch you later.”
And then she’s off, the tray in her hand and heading for the bin.
“Lace?” I shout after her but she keeps walking. I push my chair out, slapping Tony across the ear. “You’re a fucking mouth, do you know that?”
He laughs it off. “You better run, son.”
I don’t run, but I do walk briskly. She’s already at the set of double doors and by the time I reach them, I’ve not got a clue which direction she went.
I head along the corridor, in case she wasn’t actually lying about going to the toilet.
“Shaun.”
I’m that busy looking for her light blonde head, that I miss the dark black one that’s standing right in front of me.
“Rosheen… sorry doll, I’m a wee bit busy the now,” I tell her, trying to walk around her. She steps to the side and blocks my path, and I look down at her.
“You’re always busy. You’ve not replied to my messages,” she says, her hand snaking up and resting on my chest.
I take a step back and her arm falls. “I replied to the first one, telling you to leave me be. How many times do you want me to repeat that?”
She takes a step back from me as if I’ve stunned her. “So that’s it then? Five years and you end it just like that, in a text message?”
Is she on glue? “Five years? What the fuck are you on about?”
“I’ve known you for five years. I’m on about you dropping me the second that little slut walked in the door?” She spits the words at me and I’m at a loss.
We weren’t together, and somehow she’s gotten it into her head that we were.
I don’t have time for this, but if I don’t deal with it now, properly, I’ll probably never hear the end of it.
“Don’t pretend like you wouldn’t have done the same to me,” I tell her. “And don’t bullshit me either, Lacey might buy your shite but you’re forgetting I actually lived it. Can you explain how you try for a baby while simultaneously wearing a jonny? You can’t call ‘us’ anything more than two friends fucking. Occasionally.”
“I didn’t think you wanted anything more! If I’d known you wanted to settle down, then I would have. I thought when you eventually grew up, it would be for us,” she says, her voice breaking a bit at the end.
I’d maybe feel an ounce of sympathy for her if I believed she was genuine. She’s not, though. She only wants me now because she thinks she can’t have me, and she’s used to using me as a trophy on her arm, while still being free to do as she pleases elsewhere. “Aye well, you know what thought did, eh? Laid a brick and thought a house would build. You thought wrong, Rosheen.”
“Why? What makes her so special?” she demands.
I shrug. “Can’t put my finger on it. But if you want my advice, maybe try to not be such a bitch in future.”
I walk past her and I don’t look back. There’s only ten minutes left of lunch and I still need to find Lacey.
I stop a lassie who’s just coming out of the girls’ toilets and ask her if she’s seen Lacey Tyler in there, but she shakes her head at me.
Thinking I’ll try the wall, I head out of the main entrance and turn the corner before I catch sight of her blonde hair. She has her back to me, and I go over, sitting down on the wall beside her.
“Knew you didn’t need the toilet,” I tell her, trying to keep my tone light.
She glances up at me and does this little half smile. “I told Stevie it was a bad idea sitting with you all, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“They can’t help themselves,” I say with a shrug.
“Why did you tell them? I never told you yes, and now they’re talking about stag parties. Stevie will have me dress shopping next,” she says.
“My dad told their dads… and honestly, I’m confident you will say yes.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance.”
I nudge her playfully. “Still not a yes then?”
She
turns to face me. “Not a yes… but I’ll join your team.”
“Okay, I know I was the one who started the team shit, but just so we’re clear can you let me know exactly what that means?”
She sighs. “It means I’ll make an effort.”
“Jesus. Don’t over-exert yourself, darlin.”
She laughs at me. “I’ll make an effort with trusting you and… whatever this is. But I’m not going to marry you.”
“So wait a wee second… you were thinking about it when you weren’t making an effort, and now you’re making an effort it’s a straight up no? Can we go back to you not making an effort cause I think I liked that better?”
“It’s a no because it’s stupid. It’s running before we can walk. Liam’s not going to be walking anywhere soon, let alone down an aisle with me. So you can just calm your jams for a bit.”
Calm your jams. I chuckle at her because I can’t help myself, but this is no time to be laughing. She underestimates everyone, except me, it would seem.
“Listen, I can’t force you to do this, but your dad and Liam’s dad can. And they will. I think you’re making a mistake.”
She shrugs. “Maybe I am… what’s the worst that can happen, though?”
“What’s the worst that can happen if you say yes to me?”
“I don’t trust you yet,” she says, avoiding the question.
“Did you trust your dad?”
“I think so.”
“And did you die when he broke that trust? No, you didn’t. You learned a valuable life lesson.”
She gives me a funny look that has me thinking she might be agreeing with me, so I decide to push on.
“What if it’s not a real marriage?” I ask her. “You said you weren‘t really going to marry Liam, you were just going to let everyone think you had. So why don’t we do the same?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting a win-win situation. We’ll do a handfast.”
“What the fuck is that?”
I laugh at her little confused face. “It’s like a wedding, but after a year you can decide if you still want to be married, or you can walk away no questions asked. They can’t force you to marry Liam if you‘re already married, and you don’t have to actually get married. See, win — win. ”
“Is that even legal?”
“Eh… not since like, a good few years ago. Doesn’t matter though, my dad will respect it and so will Liam’s.”
She pauses for a minute while she thinks about it. “Alright.”
“Alright?”
“Alright, but I have a condition. And I might have more conditions once I‘ve thought about it properly.”
“Christ, are you always this stubborn?”
“You’ll learn to live with it, apparently,” she says, winking at me. “I’m going to stay at Stevie’s house.”
I eye her up and down for a minute.
I don’t want her to. I like having her with me. Mrs Kemp clearly doesn’t — I’ve done fuck all homework since last week — but I feel like it’s good for me. It’s good for both of us.
I can compromise if it means getting what I want, though.
“You’ll come for sleepovers?”
“Would saying no even be an option?”
I laugh at her. “Alright, done. I’ll get my gran to grab your stuff from your house and take it over to Stevie’s tonight. Anything else?”
“Not right now,” she says as the bell rings in the distance. “But I’ll be adding conditions as I see fit.”
She hops off the wall and starts walking towards the entrance, and I follow her. “What about my conditions?” I shout.
She turns around to face me and giggles. “Write them down for me in Spanish or Gaelic or whatever and I’ll remember to never translate them.”
I chuckle, shaking my head and pushing her up the path. I take the back of her neck with my hand and bend down while we walk, so my mouth is right in her ear. “Anymore of your cheek and I’ll have you wearing your ankles for earrings darlin’.”
She spins around and slams herself into my chest, looking up at me while she flicks her eyebrows. “Oooooh really?” she says sarcastically, as if my threat means nothing to her. “You can think about that tonight in your cold lonely bed, then. Enjoy yourself, darlin’.”
Chapter 11
LACEY
I’m sitting at Stevie’s desk trying to get my English Lit homework finished when the doorbell rings. She jumps up from her spot on the bed and pushes back the blinds to see who it is.
“Alice,” she announces from the window.
So the boy came good.
We head down the stairs and I follow her out to the car where Alice has a boot full of my things.
“Shaun didn’t say what you wanted or how much to pack so I just went with my gut and brought a little of everything,” she tells me.
I smile at her. “Thank you.” She brushes her hand away, and Stevie and I grab a bag each. “Did my dad say anything to you?”
Alice shuts the boot and comes over to the pavement to stand beside us, sighing a little. “Just that he thinks this is ridiculous and you’ll come to your senses soon enough. I just shrugged at him and he let me be.”
I nod a few times, trying hard not to let the emotion that I’m feeling show on my face.
I don’t know what reaction I was looking for. I suppose half of me wishes he would see the error of his ways and back down, and the other half of me wishes he would fight harder to stop me from going. Two opposite things, but one of them would show he cared about me, and the other one would show he actually wanted me around.
“You’re doing the right thing, you know that, pet?” Alice says.
My thoughts had drifted off to space for a second there, and she pulled me back into reality by resting a hand on my shoulder.
I’m still confused about how to feel about Alice. On the one hand, she went behind my back; she let me confide in her without telling me she was Shaun’s grandmother. I still don’t know exactly how much she helped him back in the beginning when we ‘hated’ each other, or whatever it was.
But she seems to care about me, in her own warped way, and at the moment people who care about me are in short supply.
“I didn’t really have a choice, to be honest,” I tell her.
She smiles at me. “I’m sure I told you that, did I not? But that doesn’t mean you can’t make the best of a bad situation.”
“I’m effectively homeless — no offence Stevie—”
“None taken,” she shoots back.
“Orphaned, and about to marry a man who… marry a man at eighteen. If you can find a silver lining in any of that, then I’m all ears,” I say to Alice.
“Your homeless, aye. But you have a friend right there who’s happy to take you in, and if that ever changes then I wouldn’t see you out on the streets. You’re not orphaned; your father is alive and well. All he’s done is proved that he wasn’t much of a father in the first place,” she says, with a tone that sounds awfully like she’s chastening me. “And as for the marriage, well… the timing may not be right but even the most foolish of notions can be worthwhile if done for the right reasons.”
“That’s my point though,” I tell her. “I don’t think it’s being done for the right reasons.”
Alice shrugs at me. “Well, who am I to argue with you? I’ll see you on Sunday.” She walks around the car and opens the door.
“Sunday?” I shout after her.
“Aye, I always cook on Sundays. Stevie, you’re welcome to come too, pet.”
She gets in the car and shuts the door before I can reply, and the pair of us take the bags up the stairs.
I put them down in the corner of the room because there’s not even space in Stevies wardrobe to unpack. I no longer have any urge to get on with my English Lit homework, so I slump my ass down on Stevie’s bed and let out a sigh.
Stevie watches me for a second and then comes and sit
s beside me, linking our arms and giving my hand a squeeze. “Things will be okay, you know that, right?”
I give her a nod and a weak smile. “I suppose it can only get better, huh?”
“Well, they do say that. I like the way Alice thinks though, glass half full and all that. Just think of it as one big sleepover. Imagine the gossip sessions we can have? We’ll put on face-masks and eat cookies in bed and watch chick-flicks every night.”
“And never get any homework done, ever,” I tell her, raising my eyebrows.
“No, I think having you here will be good for me in that sense!” She gives me a nudge and giggles.
I smile back at her. “It’s not you or being here or anything like that. Honestly, you and your parents have been so nice to me,” I tell her.
And I mean it.
I haven’t even known Stevie that long, and she didn’t think twice when I plucked up the courage to ask her. It was just a straight up yes. No questions asked.
And her parents have been great — cooking my dinner, offering to switch her brother’s games room around so I can use it as a bedroom if I need to. It’s a little surreal, learning this is how normal families function. Having a dad who’s here, who cooks dinner for everyone and asks them about their day. “I couldn’t ask for any better! It’s the other stuff. My dad. The Shaun situation.”
“We’re calling Shaun ‘the situation’ now?” Stevie says with a chuckle, obviously trying to lighten the mood.
“Shaun the hurricane,” I suggest, laughing back.
“Shaun the shit,” she tells me.
I smile at her. “Fitting.”
“You must like him though. I mean, to agree to all this,” she says. Her tone is careful, but she doesn’t have to be. I feel like now things are clearer in my head, it’s easier to talk about them.
“I guess I do…” I say. “I know it’s odd. I mean we both saw him last night. I was convinced I wanted nothing more to do with him. But he did explain, he opened up and told me things he’s never told anyone. He has this way of making my head spin from hate to love in a second, and I guess I decided to give him a chance.”
