by Sienna Blake
There was someone in my house.
Liam Byrne had seen my messages to Saoirse.
He’d come back to finish the job.
I grabbed a golf club out of the back of my car before approaching the front door, club raised behind me.
I neared the door and heard the sound of someone’s voice inside. A man’s voice. But it was too muffled to distinguish what he was saying. I heard another voice, also male.
There must be two of them.
Two of them I could take on.
I reached my front step. The door swung open and I prepared to swing.
There stood Danny and Declan.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I yelled, dropping the club by my side, “you two scared the shite out of me.”
“What’s the criac?” Danny asked. His six-foot-two frame was covered in his usual ripped black denim, dark hair wild like it’d been windswept, leather cuff around his wrist, grey shirt sticking out of the bottom of his black sweater giving his rock look a polished edge.
“Welcome home, asshole.” Declan grinned from behind Danny’s shoulder. He was the shortest of us at six foot but by far the stockiest, his muscles bulging out from his long-sleeved grey Everlast hoodie, designer sneakers on his feet that probably cost more than my weekly salary.
“How long were you two dicks sitting in the dark like creepers waiting for me?” I asked.
“Too long,” Danny said. “Get inside, you’re letting the cold in.”
They moved aside so I could get inside, flicking the lights on and leaning the golf club in the coat stand.
I shrugged my coat off and dropped my keys into the bowl near the door. “How the fuck did you two get in here?”
Declan pointed at Danny as he strode through my living room and disappeared into my kitchen. Danny tried for an innocent grin.
I shook my head. “You breaking and entering into places again?”
“No, officer.” Danny raised his hands up in the air, then smirked. “Only in case of emergencies.”
“Oh yeah? What’s the fucking emergency that you had to break into my house?”
Danny raised an eyebrow. “Are you serious, bro?”
“He’s only got piss-weak pale ale here, that’s the fuckin’ emergency,” Declan called from my kitchen, undoubtedly from my fridge.
I threw my hands up. “If I’d have known you two freaks were coming I’d have bought something stronger. Or installed an alarm system.”
I glared at Danny then Declan, now strolling out of my kitchen with three bottles of a local IPA and a bottle opener in his other hand. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here?”
Declan snorted as he handed me an open beer. “Nice to see you too, asshole. Thanks for rearranging your fight tour so you could come see me, buttwipe.”
I was being such a shit. My shoulders sagged. “Sorry. I am being a grumpy fuck.”
“Even more of a grumpy fuck than I am,” Danny said, clinking his beer against mine. “And that’s saying something.”
“But we still love ya, Diar,” Dex said.
“Otherwise we wouldn’t be here,” Danny said.
“It’s a nice surprise,” I muttered, uneasy with sentimentality. “Thanks for coming. Although some notice would have been nice.”
Dex snorted. “You would have found some excuse not to have us here if we gave you any notice.”
Dex took the armchair in my living room, his huge frame taking up the whole seat, leaving Danny and me to flop down onto the two ends of the couch.
I fought the uneasy feeling. I downed half my beer bottle and smacked my lips. “Why are you here again?”
“We’re concerned about you,” Danny said.
“Yeah, concerned,” Dex echoed.
“This is an intervention of sorts.”
“We thought you needed a boy’s night to sort ye shit out.” Declan finished his beer and made a face. “We definitely need something stronger than that piss if we’re going to go all night.” He grinned, pulling out a bottle of aged whiskey from his side. “Good thing I brought this along with me.”
I rolled my eyes. “There’s nothing to be concerned about.”
Danny snorted. “Please, out of the three of us, I’m supposed to be the morose one. And lately you’ve out-morosed me.”
“Who’s broken your heart?” Dex asked, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. “Is it that Ava again? God,” he smacked his fist into his palm, “if she was a dude I’d go down there and break her balls.”
“It’s not Ava,” I said.
“Then who is it? What’s the problem, dude?” Dex said.
Danny caught my eye. He tilted his head towards Declan as if to say, go on. Tell him.
Declan noticed the look we exchanged. He pointed at Danny. “You fucking know.” Declan turned to me. “He fucking knows, doesn’t he? Motherfucker why am I the last to know about shit? Tell me. Right fucking now.”
I let out a groan and rubbed my face. “It’s nothing.”
“Fuck off, it’s nothing.”
“Go on, Diarmuid,” Danny said, “out of the three of us, he’s the person least to judge.”
“Yeah,” Declan said, nodding, “no Judge-y Mcjudge here.”
Danny let out a snort. “Because you’ve probably done worse.”
“Hey, I haven’t—” Declan grinned. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
Danny rolled his eyes. Then threw a bottle cap at me. “Tell him, ye pussy.”
Alright, dammit. I could have gone without saying it out loud.
Just say it. Like a Band-Aid.
“There’s a…” girl, “woman…she just gets me. She sees me. And…she’s smart as hell, funny, sexy as sin…” I let out a groan as images of Saoirse slammed through my body.
“Damn,” Dex said, “give me her number.”
I growled, my hands flexing into fists.
Danny whacked me on my shoulder. “He’s joking, fool.”
I forced myself to relax, but the urge to smack one of my best friends in the face for even suggesting he’d hit on Saoirse still clung to me.
“Oh shit,” Dex said, his eyes widening at me. “You’re in love with her.”
Love.
God, I wasn’t ready for that word yet.
“I like her. A lot. Okay, it’s more than like,” I admitted.
“And…?” Declan asked. “She doesn’t like you?”
“No. She does.” Fuck me, she does. “That’s the problem.”
Declan blinked at me. “I don’t get it. You like her. She likes you. Wham, bam, babies.”
“She’s seventeen,” I blurted out.
Declan frowned. Then he raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got your knickers in a twist about that? Seventeen’s legal here, you dope.”
“She’s one of my JLO kids.”
Declan’s eyes popped open. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
“Damn.” Declan shook his head. “You’re even more depraved than I am. I need to step up my game.”
Danny let out a laugh.
I let out a groan. “This isn’t funny.”
“It’s pretty funny. How the mighty moral Diarmuid has fallen. Taken down by a pretty little jailbait.”
“Come here and say that again, Mr World Title,” I growled. “I might not be able to win against you but I’d fucking make it hurt like hell on the way down.”
“Diar,” Danny said, looking like he was getting ready to jump in between the two of us, “Dex is only joking around. You know it’s the only way this unsophisticated fool can communicate.” He shot Declan a dirty look as if to say quit it, idiot.
“Honestly, Diarmuid,” Declan said, his palms raised in surrender, “you’re making a bigger deal out of this than it is.”
“I could lose my job.”
Declan tilted his head. “True. But would that really be the end of the world? I mean, you hate the bureaucracy of the place. And you’ve been saying for years you’ve been wanting
to start your own gym. Maybe this is your chance?”
I rolled my eyes. “I could go to jail, fool.”
“Only if you get caught,” Declan pointed a finger at me and winked.
I groaned. “It’s not just about me. God, imagine what everyone would say about her. You know how conservative it is here. She’s already fighting enough prejudice without my ancient ass adding another one.”
“Fuck everyone,” Dex said. “People are fucking sheep. If she makes you happy, then fucking go for it.”
I glanced at Danny, wondering if this advice was soaking into him, too.
“Don’t,” Dex pointed a finger at me, “end your life with more regrets than chances taken.”
Danny raised his bottle. “Life advice from the Philosophy of Dex.”
Declan winked at Danny and he raised his own bottle.
“I don’t know…” I said.
“I do,” Declan said, turning to me. “I haven’t seen you talk about anyone like this before. Not even when you met Ava.” He leaned forward. “She could be The One, couldn’t she?”
I sank my face into my hands because I couldn’t stand to look at either of them. Then I nodded.
“Then fucking go for it.”
I rubbed my face, then sagged back into the couch.
Danny let out a whistle. “Who knew?”
“Who knew what?” I asked.
“That Dex-y was such a bleeding-heart romantic.”
“Fuck off,” Dex said, chucking a pillow at Danny and missing. “You are the fucking hopeless romantic, Mr Writer of Sad Love Songs.”
Danny snorted.
“Hey. Hey,” Dex said, bouncing in his chair. “What’s better than banging a seventeen year old?” He looked expectantly between Danny and me.
I let out a groan. “Please, don’t.”
“Give up?”
“I will give up on life if you finish that joke.”
“Party pooper.” Dex threw a pillow at me. “Danny?”
Danny scratched his chin. “Go on, then. What’s better than banging a seventeen year old?”
I smothered my own face with the pillow but it wasn’t enough to filter out Declan’s answer.
“Banging seven ten year olds!”
Danny made a face.
I shook my head at Dex. “You are truly disgusting.”
He grinned. “Why, thank you.”
Later that night, after I sent a roaring drunk Declan back to his hotel via cab, I set Danny up with blankets and pillows for a night on the couch. Danny settled onto the couch, the ends of his legs hanging off the end.
“Thanks for coming, Danny.”
“No bother. You’d do the same for me.”
“How is your thing going?” I asked. “With that girl?”
He just shook his head. I don’t want to talk about it, written all over his face.
I understood. Danny would talk about it when he was ready.
I lay in my bed, my head spinning from too many beers and later, shots of whiskey. I was still churning over Declan and Danny’s advice to get over myself and give it a go with Saoirse.
In a few days she would no longer underage.
But I was still married. She was still a decade younger than me. And it was forbidden for me to get involved with anyone from the JLO program.
My wants twisted with my morals, like Daniel fighting with the devil, long into my dreams.
59
____________
Saoirse
“You didn’t have to do this, Da,” I said, smoothing down my skirt as my da drove his car through the bumpy dirt road that led to the farmhouse on the back of his property.
“Why wouldn’t I want to throw my little girl a birthday party? It’s not every day she turns eighteen.” He patted my knee and shot me a grin.
I forced a smile back. Actually, I didn’t turn eighteen until tomorrow, which was a few hours away still.
Truthfully, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to come. But I couldn’t miss my own party. I wouldn’t know anyone at this party. Sure, a few of them I knew from working at the lab. But they were all my da’s friends. I knew Malachi. But he’d stayed clear of me since Diarmuid scared him off at the fight night.
I couldn’t invite any of the friends I’d made at the café I’d been fired from, not that I wanted to anyway, they proved themselves to be fair-weather friends.
Moina couldn’t come from Dublin because she had to work.
And the only other person I cared about, I hadn’t heard from in months except for one brief texting session that he ended abruptly.
My da pulled up in front of a grey stone, two-level building, the surrounding field grown wild with grass and weeds. There were already dozens of cars and bikes parked haphazardly across the front lawn, now brown and dry.
I slid out of the car, fussing with my black strapless dress. I’d bought it with the money my da had given me this morning as a birthday present, a huge stack of fifty-euro bills counting up to a thousand euro. I knew better than to leave that much money lying around so I cashed it as soon as I could into my bank account—the one I’d gotten as soon as I turned sixteen.
The living room was spilling out with bodies. The air was thick with the smell of pot and I wrinkled my nose at it. On the glass table was a bowl full of blue pills, several bongs and a pile of white powder. Empty beer bottles and shot glasses littered the carpet around the table.
“Look alive, you fuckers,” my da said, stepping into the room with his arms out wide, “the boss is back.”
A cheer went up throughout the room. My da walked through the living room, getting back slaps and cheek kisses from the girls, leaving me standing at the edge.
“That’s my baby girl, Saoirse,” he yelled, pointing at me, “make her feel welcome.”
Everyone yelled out hello, one of the girls sending me a wave, a few of the men giving me appreciative looks. Suddenly my dress felt too clingy, like every curve of mine was being shown off and I wasn’t sure I liked who was looking at it.
“Let’s get you a drink, honey,” one of them said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “Or would you rather something…stronger?”
He was at least my da’s age, his eyes glazed, his pupils dilated. Kinda cute I guess, if you ignored his crooked teeth.
I looked around for my da. But I couldn’t see him. He must have gone out the back garden where I could see through the open back door that more people stood around a bonfire.
I was feeling less and less like this was a birthday party he’d organised just for me.
“What’ll it be?” Crooked Teeth asked. “Coke? Meth? H?”
“Um, just a drink, please.”
He dragged me into the tiny kitchen, overloaded with more bottles than a liquor store.
“You’re a very pretty lady,” he said, his eyes on my cleavage so that he managed to spill half of the rum and Coke he was pouring for me.
“I’m seventeen,” I snapped. At least until midnight, which was only a few hours away.
His grin widened as he handed me my drink. “Oh, you are fresh, aren’t you?”
I snatched my drink away from his hand, my palm sticky from where the drink had spilled down the sides. “I need to find my da.”
He grabbed my arm. “I can be your daddy, girl.”
Ew, gross. I wanted to barf. “Let go of me.”
I shoved him back and he let go of me, laughing. “I was only joking. Come back.”
I turned and ran through the living room, looking for a friendly face. A loud sniff went through the air as one of the girls sitting around the living room table snorted a huge line of white powder.
She held her nose pinched with one hand and waved at me with the other. Her voice came out nasally. “Liam’s girl. Come here and have some.”
“Er, maybe later.”
I spotted a couple in the far armchair I hadn’t noticed before, her top around her waist and his mouth around her tit, her grinding on his lap. His eye
s opened and locked onto mine. Holy shit. I ducked out of the living room before he could ask me to “come here and have some” too.
I stumbled out into the back garden, the heat from the bonfire blasting against my cheeks. Where the hell was my da?
I spotted him standing with a few other men, Jase and Malachi included, all of them sharing a glass pipe, taking turns burning down the crystal in the bulb and blowing out the thick white sour-smelling smoke.
My stomach churned.
This was what I was contributing to with my work in his lab. This debauchery and waste of lives.
My da spotted me and waved for me to come over. He should have been furious that all these people were doing all these horrible illegal things in front of his seventeen-year-old daughter. But he wasn’t. “Saoirse. Come here, baby girl.”
My eyes watered. I could have lied and said that it was from the bonfire smoke. But then again, who would I be lying to?
I dropped the sticky plastic cup of bubbly amber liquid, turned and ran, ignoring the calls behind me. I ran through the house, out the front and down the road, my bag slapping against my thighs. I ran even though I was wearing high-heel shoes and could trip at any minute, twisting my ankle or breaking my neck.
I ran until I was on the road. Until I realised I had no place to run to.
“Whatever happens between us, I want you to know you can always call me if you get stuck without a ride. No matter what time. Even if I’m not your JLO anymore.”
Nowhere except…one.
Twenty minutes later Diarmuid pulled up beside me on this dirt road. I almost cried with relief when I saw the familiar truck.
I slid in, sucking in a breath to see him again. He was wearing sweatpants, his t-shirt on inside out, his shoulder-length hair tucked under a cap. He must have raced out as he was when I called him.
His eyes raced over me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I was now.
He didn’t tear his eyes away, his eyebrows dipping over his eyes as if he wasn’t convinced. “When you called you sounded upset.”
“I’m fine now.”
His lip lifted in a snarl. “Saoirse, what happened.”
I shook my head. “Nothing, I swear. I was just upset because I thought it was a party for me, but it wasn’t. There were people there I didn’t know and they were doing…doing—”
