by Sienna Blake
In the living room, with my da taking up the armchair, Malachi sat next to me on the couch, closer than he needed to. I noticed my da giving us both the eye but he didn’t say anything.
“What do you want to watch?” he asked, flicking through the movie subscription channel.
“What about the latest Batman one?” I suggested.
My da wrinkled up his nose. “Aren’t you a little old for superheroes?”
I didn’t think you could ever get too old for superheroes. I sank into the couch and said nothing more.
My da stuck on some shitty war movie. I was hardly paying attention to the film. I was too engrossed with remembering how I used to watch movies with someone else.
And when Malachi’s arm went around me, a thread of disappointment went through me because I wished he was someone else.
24
____________
Diarmuid
Then—Dublin, Ireland
I fell into the couch and laid back, resting my eyes shut and enjoying the silence in having the whole house to myself. Ava had gone back to Ballyannagh, the west coast village just outside of Limerick, where we both grew up.
She’d been pissed off at me for not going back with her, but I was too damn tired from this week. I needed a bit of space from her. We’d been bickering more than usual lately and it was driving me up the wall.
I’d organised with Danny to go to the football match tomorrow at Crowe Park, Mayo versus the Dubs, but tonight was all mine.
A banging on my front door made me groan. “That’d be fucking right,” I muttered to myself. I strode to the door and swung it open, a curse on my tip of my tongue. I halted when I saw it was Saoirse, shivering in the rain. I’d given her my address just in case she ever needed it.
Now she needed it, I could see from the furrow of her brow.
She needed me.
“Saoirse?” I gently pulled her inside out of the rain. “Jesus, you’re soaked. Stay here. I’ll get you a towel.”
She stood in my hallway, shivering, as I ran to the hot press to grab the biggest, fluffiest towel we had. I hurried back and wrapped her in it, drying off the worst of the rain. We left her soaked sneakers drying in the hallway and I led her to the living room where I turned on the fireplace and sat her in front of it.
I pulled up the footstool and sat beside her, leaning forward, my elbows on my knees. “Talk to me, Saoirse.”
“My ma brought home a guy…” she swallowed. “He’s not a nice man.”
My blood boiled at the fear in her voice.
“Did he hurt you? Did he touch you?”
I will fucking kill him if he did. I swear to God I will murder him and bury his body where no one can find it.
She shook her head and my veins flooded with cool relief.
“He just scares me. I didn’t know where to go.”
“You did the right thing coming here. You can come here any time, you know that, right?”
She nodded, her eyes round and full of hope. “Can I stay here tonight?”
I hesitated for a second before I spoke. “Of course. But I gotta ring your ma to let her—”
“No.” Saoirse’s eyes widened so I could see the whites all around her irises. “Please don’t ring her.”
“I have to.” There was no question in my mind, regardless of how poorly Ms Quinn behaved as a parent. Saoirse was still under her legal care.
Saoirse grabbed my arm before I could rise up. “She won’t care where I am, I promise.”
It hurt me to think that could be the case.
“I’m not arguing with you, Saoirse,” I said firmly. “Either I ring her and let her know where you are or I take you home.”
She let go of me, sinking back into the chair and glaring at the wall.
I let out a soft sigh. Saoirse was pissed at me, but she could never stay mad at me. Letting her mother know that Saoirse was here was the right thing to do. I’d get that out of the way, then I could focus on cheering her up.
I walked into the kitchen, grabbing my phone along the way, and rang Ms Quinn’s home number.
A woman answered the phone with a crackly voice as if she’d just woken up. “Hello?”
“Ms Quinn?”
“Who’s this?” Suspicion clouded her tone.
“It’s Diarmuid Brennan. The Juvenile Liaison Officer assigned to Saoirse.”
“What she done now?”
I gritted my teeth. “Nothing. I’m calling to let you know that Saoirse’s here and she’s safe.”
There was a pause. “Well, I’m not picking her up in this bloody weather. Don’t have a car, do I?”
I swallowed the fierce retort that was begging to unleash from my tongue. “If it’s alright with you, she can stay here the night and I’ll drop her off in the morning.”
“Oh, yeah, sure, whatever. But don’t come too early.” Then she hung up on me.
I rubbed my forehead. Un-fucking-believable. Saoirse’s mother was a real piece of work. I walked slowly back into the living room.
“I told you she wouldn’t care,” came the quiet voice of the broken girl huddled in the towel.
The truth in Saoirse’s words sliced me open. What could I say? That her mother did really care for her deep down? That the woman who was supposed to love her above all others was just going through a selfish phase? That this world would stop being cruel when she grew up?
All things I knew—and she knew—were lies.
25
____________
Saoirse
Diarmuid cleared his throat. “Come on, selkie. Let’s get you into some dry clothes.”
And just like that, we agreed without speaking not to talk about my mother and her apathetic attitude towards me for the rest of the evening.
I followed him into the bathroom.
“You can have a hot shower here. Be back in a sec.” He left and returned with a pile of clothes. “You can wear these.”
I unfolded the shirt on top—a black faded Led Zeppelin shirt that I would swim in.
“I hope it’s okay,” he said. “It’s the smallest one I have.”
It was still huge.
“It’s great,” I replied, a small thrill going through me at the thought of wearing his shirt.
I unfolded the other item. It was a pair of gym shorts with a tie in the front. I eyed the slim size, then glanced at Diarmuid. There was no way that these were his.
“They’re Ava’s,” he said. He could always seem to read my mind. “She won’t mind if you wear them.”
I frowned. “Who’s Ava? Your housemate?”
Diarmuid blinked. “My…girlfriend.”
Girlfriend.
The word hit me like a blow to the chest. “You…have a girlfriend?”
“Yeah,” he said casually as if he didn’t just rip my heart into two pieces.
My chest felt heavy and sore, swollen like my thumb did when I’d accidentally caught in between the door and the doorframe. “You never told me you had a girlfriend. You’ve never talked about her.”
He rubbed his beard. “I must have.”
I shook my head adamantly. “I would have remembered if you did. You haven’t. Not one peep about her in the whole time we’ve known each other.”
“Oh. Well…I can tell you about her once you’ve showered and dressed.”
I didn’t want to hear about her. I didn’t want her to exist.
A girlfriend…
Diarmuid left, closing the door behind him, leaving me standing alone and shivering in the middle of the bathroom.
I undressed and stepped under the hot water, my head whirring. Diarmuid had a girlfriend.
A girlfriend.
He wasn’t allowed to have a girlfriend.
He was supposed to be mine.
And I, his.
After my shower, I stood naked in front of the mirror, wiping the steam off the glass with my hand. I stared at my body. It had been changing this last year. My breasts were budd
ing, my hips widening and my thighs developing shape. But I was still stuck somewhere between a girl and a woman.
Did Diarmuid’s girlfriend, this Ava, have big breasts? Did she have hips and hair between her legs?
Does she do for him all the things that my ma does for those men she brings home? Is that why he’s with her?
Is that what I have to do for him to make him like me?
My gaze fell upon the two toothbrushes in the holder, one blue one, the other was red. A stab went through me.
That was her toothbrush.
Suddenly all the evidence became like glaring beacons. The pink, sugary-smelling body wash in the shower, the two razors, the tropical shampoo and conditioner, the second towel hanging off the rack and a pale blue lace bra hanging behind the door.
Until now, I could have almost imagined that she didn’t exist.
But she was here. Even if she wasn’t here. She lived with him. She got to live here with him instead of me. I had to live with a mother who didn’t care if I didn’t come home. My belly churned, the back of my throat going bitter, tasting the foulness of my jealousy.
I grabbed her bra off the back of the door and held it up against my chest. There was so much space between the material and my tender flesh. She had big boobs. Much bigger than mine. Is that why Diarmuid liked her?
A thought went through my mind almost causing me to drop the bra. What if he more than liked her…what if he loved her? What if he was going to marry her?
There was only one way to find out.
I tossed the bra back on the hook, trying not to throw up, and turned my attention to the clothes Diarmuid had left me. I pulled on the shirt. I finished dressing and stepped out of the bathroom.
Diarmuid wasn’t in the living room. I wandered back into the corridor. Where was he?
I walked past the bathroom to the only other door at the end of this short corridor, partly open. I froze at what I saw inside. Diarmuid was naked from the waist up, unfolding a plain white shirt.
He was the most glorious man I’d ever seen. Thick torso, powerful arms, beautiful intricate ink tattooed across his back and shoulders. I wanted to run my hand across his skin, across the ridges of his abs. A buzzing grew in my lower belly. I was getting drunk off the sight of him.
I’d seen men with their shirts off; the men that Ma brought home. But none of them looked like this.
Maybe I gasped. Or maybe I let out a groan at the sight.
He looked up and his eyes locked onto mine. For a second he looked shocked, embarrassed, even. He pulled down the shirt over his beautiful body and tugged down the hem.
“Hey, I just ordered pizza to be—” He cut off as his eyes lowered to my body.
My undies were dry enough to put on again but I hadn’t put my bra back on.
“What?” I looked down at myself. His shirt swam on me but I didn’t think it looked so bad.
Diarmuid grinned as he walked towards me. “You look cute in my shirt.”
I wrinkled my nose. Cute? I wanted to look beautiful. Or sexy. But not cute.
He ruffled my hair as he passed and I grimaced.
“Just you and me tonight, selkie,” he called over his shoulder as I followed him to the living room. “Pizza will be here soon. I ordered your favourite.”
Pepperoni and jalapenos. Extra cheese. He always remembered. Did he remember Ava’s favourite pizza?
“So…” I said as I walked into the living room, arms folded. Ava. Ask him straight out if he loves her.
“So…” Diarmuid plopped onto the corner of the L-shaped couch.
“What do your tattoos mean?” I was such a coward.
He raised an eyebrow. Even he didn’t believe that was what I was planning to ask.
“Well…” he began slowly, turning one colourful arm. It looked like a jungle crammed with animals and leaves and flowers and stars. “I’ve been collecting tattoos since I was sixteen. Each one has a meaning.”
I perked up, watching him as he spoke, mesmerised by every single piece of information about him, as if each piece was another panel in a quilt I was building. Once I wove together all the pieces, he would be mine.
I came closer, drawn in by the thickness of his bicep, by the power shifting underneath his skin-like silk. Drawn in by just…him.
I reached out my hand, then drew it back
“You can touch them if you want,” he said.
I traced my fingers on a cluster of beautiful pink roses. They looked so real that I almost thought I could lean in closer and smell them.
“These roses are for my ma.”
“You don’t talk much about her,” I said.
His lip twitched. “She died when I was younger.”
A feeling lodged into my throat. I hated my ma sometimes but she was still my ma. She was one of the only people I had in this world. I don’t know what I would do or where I would go if she died.
“How much younger?” I asked him, my voice small enough that he could just pretend not to have heard it if he wanted to.
“When I was five.”
My heart ached for a five-year-old Diarmuid who had just lost his ma. It hurt when I lost my da but he didn’t die. I knew he would come back one day. “Do you remember much about her?”
He shook his head. “Just that she had the most beautiful singing voice, and she smelled like powder and roses.”
Hence, the roses. I smiled. I thought she sounded beautiful.
“So you lived with your da?”
Diarmuid’s jaw clenched as he shook his head, just once. “My ma had me when she was young. Only seventeen. We lived with my grandma, so when my ma died I just stayed with my granny until she passed away nine years later.”
He would have been fourteen. My age now.
“After that I went into foster care. Bounced around a few homes because no one could control me. I was angry at the world for taking everyone away from me. So angry.” He flexed his hands in and out of fists, and I could see the pools of anger still there, soaking around him like a bog, appearing to be solid until you tested the ground. “The world isn’t fair, selkie. You and I know it the most.”
I don’t know why I did it, but I reached out with my hand and slipped it into his. He flinched. For a second I thought that he might pull away from me. Instead his fingers closed around mine, causing my heart to warm.
“I could have ended up a criminal instead of a cop,” he said quietly. “But I didn’t.”
So could you, his unsaid words were clear in my mind.
“Why didn’t you?” I asked.
Diarmuid let out a long breath. “For a while it looked like I was headed in that direction. Until I was arrested and was assigned my very own JLO. He mentored me, gave me direction, taught me how to channel my aggression into fighting in a ring instead of on the street.”
“That’s why you’re a JLO now,” I realised.
He smiled. “I guess so.”
“Why did we get so unlucky?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.
“You and me,” he said, “are the lucky ones.”
Lucky? I snorted. “How d’ya figure that?”
“Some people are born into family. We get to choose ours. We make our own, forged out of our hearts and weaved together by our souls. And that is stronger than blood.”
“So, you and me…” I said, “we’re soul family?”
He smiled. “Yeah. We are.”
Feeling brave, I crawled onto his lap. He let me sit there.
I pushed up the sleeve of his shirt, thrilled with the feeling of pushing cloth across skin, and traced my fingers down his arm to another tattoo, loving the feeling of smooth, warm skin under my finger.
He told me the story of each tattoo on his arms, some of them his “kids” as he liked to call them, all the people he’d come across in his life who’d made an impact, no matter how small.
“I have more on my back,” he said.
I hoped he might take his shirt off again an
d I’d get to touch him there, but he didn’t.
“You don’t have one on your chest, though.” I remembered thinking that space looked empty when I saw him without his shirt on.
“You noticed, huh?”
I blushed. Perhaps I shouldn’t have revealed that I’d been looking so closely.
“I haven’t found anything I care about enough to place it there.” He placed a hand on his heart. “Over my heart. It’s a special place, you know? I can’t put any old tattoo there.”
“You don’t want to put a tattoo there for your girlfriend?” I probed.
He let out a laugh. “Who, Ava? No.”
I nibbled on my bottom lip. God, I wanted to know about her. At the same time, I didn’t want to know.
“Why not?” I asked, as casually as I could. “She’s your girlfriend, right?”
“Yeah, and she might get a tattoo…I guess.”
“But not over your heart.”
He shrugged.
My hope floated. If he wouldn’t put Ava on his heart there was still room for someone else…for me.
“And what about a tattoo for me?” I dared to ask.
His eyes flicked to me, his gaze catching me in its intensity. His lip tweaked up in a half-smile. “You want a tattoo?”
I shrugged, holding back a smile. “Maybe. If I did, where would I go?”
I held my breath. The air between us feeling like it went taut. He opened his mouth to say something.
The doorbell rang. I cursed who I guessed must be the pizza delivery guy. Diarmuid gave me an apologetic look, saved from answering, and shifted me off his lap so he could go and answer the door.
Diarmuid paid the pizza guy and came back into the living room holding the box, the smell of baked dough and melted cheese making my mouth water.
“What movie do you want to watch?” he asked.
Our eyes met. We both cracked into a grin and spoke at the same time.
“Batman!”
We ate the pizza in his living room and Diarmuid stuck on The Dark Knight, a Batman reinvention directed by Christopher Nolan. I’d not watched it but Diarmuid had promised that it was the best Batman movie he’d ever seen.
