AOIFE

WHEN THE SKY GREW DARK, and the cold started to seep into our bones, Joey and I trudged back to my estate.

With a whole heap of uncertainty still hanging over my head, and my father’s interrogation looming, I was glad to have him by my side. The familiar way he had his arm slung over my shoulder somehow meant more tonight than any of the thousand other times he held me like this in the past. Because we were in trouble, and he was still here, still backing me up like a loyal teammate.

We both knew that whatever my father planned to say about our situation, the blame would inevitably fall at my boyfriend’s feet, and still, his step never faltered. I was incredibly grateful to him for being the kind of person who followed through on what he said.

Joey said that he would be here, and he was. I knew that he was afraid of the unknown.

Of his ability to get clean and stay clean.

He’d opened up more this afternoon than he had in a long time, and even though the demons that plagued him scared me half to death, I was grateful

that he was willing to let me in. I was grateful that he had found a way to trust me, even when he didn’t trust himself.

“What the actual fuck,” Joey bit out, when we rounded the corner of my street, and locked eyes on a familiar, ancient Honda Accord parked outside my house.

My heart slammed in my chest at the sight and my eyes widened in horror. “Is that—”

“My old man’s car?” Furious, he nodded. “I’m going to kill him.”

“No, you’re not,” I choked out, twisting around so that I was facing him. “Hey, hey, Joe.” Reaching up, I grabbed his face and forced him to look at me. “Shh, just calm down a sec, okay?”

“He’s in your house, Molloy!” Beyond livid, Joey, stalked towards my garden gate, hooking an arm around me and taking me with him when I didn’t step out of his way. “What the fuck is he playing at?”

“It doesn’t matter, Joe – do you hear me?” Digging my heels into the footpath, I pressed my hands to his chest. “It’s okay. I’m not afraid of that bastard.”

“Well, I don’t want him anywhere near you!”

I didn’t want him anywhere near either of us, but I had a feeling his father being here had more to do with my father than anything else. “Just breathe, okay? Take a breath.”

His eyes bulged in outrage. “Are you fucking crazy?”

“Don’t take that tone with me, you big bastard!” I snapped, slapping at his chest to regather his attention. “So, stop walking and just breathe.”

Releasing a frustrated growl, Joey reluctantly came to a stop and made a pitiful attempt at reining in his temper. “See?” he barked, inhaling an exaggerated breath. “I am breathing.”

Yeah, he was breathing flames.

“If your parents are here, it’s because they were invited by mine,” I tried to wrangle him in by saying. “I need you to be calm, okay? I mean it, Joe. Don’t react to him. Please.”

“Why?” he demanded hoarsely, throwing his hands up. “Why in the name of god would your parents invite my parents over?”

“To talk, most likely.” “About what?”

I rolled my eyes. “Uh, gee, I don’t know, Joe; maybe about the fact that their children are having a baby?”

Joey stared at me like he didn’t understand a word of my logic, and it made my heart ache for him.

He truly didn’t understand how parents should behave.

He had never experienced a remotely loving act from either one of his. “Listen to me,” I coaxed, hands drifting to his neck. “This isn’t an

ambush, okay? You’re not under attack here. My parents don’t know any of it, okay? All they know about your dad is that he’s a shitty person, and they’re about to share a grandchild. That’s all this is, Joe, a sit down.”

“He is a shitty person,” my boyfriend agreed, voice laced with pain. “A

very shitty person.”

“Which is why you need to keep the head in there, okay?”

“I can’t.”

“Please, Joe,” I begged. “Just stay calm, okay?” When my words failed to reach him, I grabbed his hand and pressed it to my stomach. “Feel this?” I demanded; eyes locked on his. “This is ours.”

“Molloy.”

“This baby is yours,” I urged, shivering when I felt his fingers splay across my belly. “But this baby is not you, the same way that you are not him. So, we’re going to in there, and we’re going to take all of the shit our parents throw at us on the chin, because we both know that nothing they say or do could ever change a damn thing for us. Because I’ve got your back and you’ve got mine.” Leaning up on my tiptoes, I caught hold of his chin and kissed him hard. “We’re a team, Joey Lynch, and that bastard doesn’t stand a chance against us.”

His breath hitched in his throat. “Fuck.” “Are you with me?”

He nodded slowly. “I’m with you, Molloy.”

 

 

KNOWING EXACTLY who I would find at the kitchen table made the walk from my front door to the kitchen so much harder. The concept of facing my own father was already sending me into a silent panic attack, without throwing Joey’s parents into the mix. Finding immense strength from the boy who had my hand wrapped safety in his, I found myself plucking up enough nerve to walk my ass into the kitchen and face them all.

My parents. His parents.

My brother.

Even Spud was sprawled out, belly up, in a food-coma, on the mat at the back door.

“Oh, thank god,” my father broke the silence by saying, as he set his mug down on the table and blew out a relieved breath. “You’re back.”

With my heart bucking wildly in my chest, and tension oozing from my boyfriend, we stood in the doorway of the kitchen, hand in hand, and absorbed the five pairs of eyes that landed on us.

“Trish,” Joey acknowledged quietly. “Tony.” “Joey,” both my parents said in unison.

“Aoife,” Marie offered in a small voice, gaze flicking from me to her son.

“Joey.”

I nodded in return. “Marie.”

Joey stiffened beside me, but didn’t acknowledge his mother, because all of his attention was on the man glaring back at him.

His father.

“Well, aren’t you every bit the fuck up that I warned your mother you were,” Teddy Lynch sneered, getting right down to business, attention locked on my boyfriend. “Just when I thought you couldn’t disappoint us any further, you take it to a new level.”

Joey sucked in a sharp breath, but thankfully made no move to respond. Instead, he remained rigid beside me, locked in a heated stare down with a man, who, as far as I was concerned, was the devil incarnate.

“That’s hardly necessary, Teddy,” my mother chimed in, looking uncomfortable. “There’s no need to berate the boy.”

“You bring us over here to tell us that our young fella is after catching your young one and you don’t think I need to discipline him? I’d say that there’s every need,” the bigger man snapped. Turning back to his son, he hissed, “Are you happy with yourself, ya little bollox? Stupid little cunt, letting your cock do the thinking for ya!” He shook his head in disgust. “You can kiss goodbye to the hurling. You won’t have time for it with all the nappies you’ll be working to pay for!”

“Teddy,” Marie whispered, placing her small hand on her husband’s. “Please.”

“Don’t you fucking start with me, woman,” he warned, roughly shaking her hand off. “It’s your fault the young fella is so—”

“Enough,” my father barked, glowering across the table at Joey’s father. “I don’t know how things work in your house, Lynch, but you’re in my house now, and you will keep your tone in check.”

Whoa. Go Dad.

Teddy glowered at my father, but he didn’t respond, which proved my point all along, which was that this man was only good for beating on women and children. When faced with someone his own size, he quickly climbed back in his box.

“Dick,” I muttered under my breath at the same time as Joey did. We flicked our gazes to each other.

I squeezed his hand.

He squeezed mine back.

“Okay, you two,” Dad said then, addressing us both. “Take a seat. We have a lot to discuss.”

“I want him out,” I stated, ignoring everyone except my dad. “Put him out.” I pointed to where my brother was perched at the table, next to Joey’s mam, looking like he had every right to be involved in this conversation. “This has nothing to do with him.”

Kev opened his mouth to protest, but Mam quickly cut him off. “Go upstairs, Kevin.”

“That’s not fair.”

“You either go upstairs, or you go out,” Dad snapped, turning to glare at my brother. “Either way, you’re not staying in this kitchen.”

“This is bullshit,” my brother grumbled, and then turned to me for help. “Aoife, come on, you know I didn’t mean for any of this to come out the way it has.”

Yes, he did.

The only remorse Kev felt was for the fact that he now found himself on the sour end of our parents’ good graces.

Bristling like a caged tiger beside me, I watched as Joey’s gaze flicked to my brother, and I could feel his temper rising. Joey never said a word, but the look he gave my brother had Kev quickly rising from the table, with none of his earlier bravery.

Refusing to step aside for my brother to pass easily, Joey remained in the doorway, forcing Kev to turn sideways to pass him. With his face crimson, and his shoulders bunched tight, my brother squeezed past my boyfriend,

keeping his gaze trained down at the floor to avoid the death glower he was receiving.

Ha-fucking-ha, I mentally cheered, go upstairs and change your boxers, you little shit.

Only when my brother was gone, and the kitchen door was closed, did I move for the table, stopping mid-stride when the boy who had a firm hold of my hand refused to move.

I knew why of course.

He didn’t want me anywhere near his father.

Neither did I, but I wasn’t going to cower from a creep like him. I would never back down to this man.

Because he didn’t beat me that night and he never would. This was a battle of wills and he would never win.

Never.

Call it pluckiness, or just plain pig-headedness, but I refused to give that man a second more of air-time in my thoughts. Teddy Lynch was irrelevant to me, and by standing there facing him, I was letting him know that.

Fighting with him would give him exactly what he wanted. He was a bully, and bullies fattened on fear, tears, and pain.

Rising above him was a form of defiance that was alien to him, and, whether Joey realized it or not, we could hurt his father a lot more by showing a united front.

Giving his hand a hard tug, I tried again, and this time, Joey relented. He followed me over to the table, where we sat opposite his parents, with my

mother and father heading and footing both ends of the table.

“I’m not happy about this,” my father came right out and said, breaking the horrible strained silence. “I’m devastated, if truth be told, but the horse has left the barn, so shouting and roaring about it won’t change anything.”

His words hit hard and I flinched. “Dad.“

“I’m sorry, Tony,” Joey interrupted me and said, addressing my father. “I fucked up.”

“Understatement of the century,” Teddy sneered. ”Bright spark.”

I could feel Joey’s knee bopping restlessly against mine, as he thrummed with barely restrained anger. Reaching under the table, I hooked my foot around his and pulled his big, knuckle-torn hand onto my lap, holding onto it with both of mine. Jaw-ticking, my boyfriend did exactly what I asked him to do and ignored his father, focusing on mine instead.

“I fucked up,” Joey repeated, tone thick with emotion, eyes locked on my father, while ignoring the muttered rantings coming from his own. “I let you down, and I let your wife down, but I won’t let your daughter down.” Knees bopping restlessly, he swallowed deeply and said, “I won’t let your grandchild down.”

“Joey, lad.” My father’s eyes flashed with emotion. “I’m not—”

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” Teddy interjected, sounding entirely unaffected by the sincerity in his son’s voice. “Talk is cheap. It’s grand saying you’ll be there now, but you haven’t a notion of what’s coming down the line, boy.”

“I won’t leave her,” Joey continued, ignoring his father. “I’ll be here. For all of it. I won’t run, Tony.”

“I didn’t run either,” his father reminded him. “I stayed for all of it, too, boy, and look where it got me.”

“I’m not him,” Joey strangled out, as a vein bulged in his neck from the force it was taking him to not respond to his father’s goading. Turning to my mother, he shrugged his shoulders almost helplessly, clearly willing her to believe him, “I’m not him, Trish.”

“I know, pet,” I heard my mother whisper.

“This isn’t a wham-bam relationship,” I decided to interject, desperate to take the heat off Joey, and shoulder some of this pressure. “Joey’s my best friend.” I looked around the table, imploring our parents to hear me. “We’ve known each other since we were twelve. So, when he says that he’ll there for me, I believe him and all of you should too. Because his word is good.”

Surprised by my words, my boyfriend turned to look at me, green eyes burning with unspoken emotion. It was almost like it hurt him to hear someone speak kindly of him. It was foreign to him, and it broke my heart.

“He’s the best person I know,” I added, keeping my eyes locked on his as I spoke. “And I trust him with my life.”

“Then you’re even thicker than my wife,” Teddy dismissed with a shake of his head. “Because that young fella of mine is a walking disaster.” Looking to my father he said, “You know he’s off his trolley most of the time, don’t ya, Molloy?”

“Teddy,” his wife croaked out, pressing her small hand to her brow. “Please.”

“Shut up, Marie,” Teddy warned. “The man has a right to know what kind of serpent got his young one pregnant.” He turned his attention back to my

father. “It’s no secret that I’ve battled with the drink for most of my life, but this fucker.” He leaned back and whistled. “This fucker takes it to another level.”

“The boy is grand with alcohol,” I heard my father defend. “And if you’re referring to the bit of grass he smokes, then I’ll be talking to him about that.”

“Grass?” Teddy threw his head back and laughed. “Don’t be so fucking naïve, Tony. The lad’s a full-blown drug addict.”

Both of our mother’s gasped, while Joey’s shoulders slumped and he bowed his head, still remaining silent, even when his character was being shredded to pieces around us.

“No, he’s not,” I heard myself defend – I heard myself lie – tightening my hold on the hand balled into a fist on my lap. “He made a few mistakes in the past, but that’s over and done with.”

“I’ve been in your shoes,” his mother said, looking directly across the table at me, with so many unspoken words glistening in her forlorn blue eyes. “I know where this is going, and I think…” Pausing, she sucked in a shallow breath and tentatively tucked her dark hair behind her ears before continuing, “I think you should consider a termination.”

“So, you’re saying if you could go back in time, you would choose the same?” I demanded, furious and unwilling to back down. “You would have aborted Darren?”

“Maybe not Darren, but definitely him,” Teddy spat, and if any other father said that to his son, I was sure there would be eruptions, but Joey didn’t bat an eyelid at his cruelness.

He was used to it.

He’d heard it a thousand times before.

“Kind of like what your mother should have done to you, Teddy?” I heard myself hiss.

“Aoife!” Mam gasped, tone shocked. “We don’t speak to people like that.”

“People, no,” I agreed. “But he’s not people, Mam.” I glowered around the table at each one of our parents and said, “It doesn’t matter what any of you think. I don’t care if you agree with my decision or not. I’m sorry, Dad, but that includes you. Joey and I talked about it, and we’re keeping our baby.”

“Are you sure?” Marie choked out, looking devastated.

“Yes,” I narrowed my eyes and growled. “The only thing I’ve ever been surer of is your son.”

“You’re making a mistake,” Marie sobbed, dropping her head in her hands. “This is a mistake.”

“We’ve all made mistakes,” Mam offered, trying to be the voice of reason. “Not one person sitting at this table is perfect, and I, for one, think it’s very admirable of our children to stand over—”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, woman, get a grip, will ya?” Teddy snapped, slamming his fist down on the table in annoyance. “There’s nothing admirable about two teenagers shacking up to play house. You want a preview of how it goes, take a good fucking look at us.”

“Don’t raise your voice to my wife,” my father warned in a deathly cold tone of voice. “And her name is Trish, not woman.”

“Well, knock some damn sense into her,” Teddy argued, looking at my father like he couldn’t understand why he was letting my mother lead the

conversation. “Because her head is in the clouds if she thinks this can work.” “Knock some sense into her?” Dad’s face reddened. “A bit like—” “Steady up, Tony, love,” Mam interrupted, offering my father a knowing

wink from across the table. “We’re here for our daughter, remember?”

With a pained sigh, my father offered her a loving nod and unclenched his hands from the rim of the table. “So, you’re keeping the baby.” He looked to me and Joey for confirmation.

We nodded in unison.

I presumed to my father that we looked like a duo of nodding seals. Or a couple of deer caught in headlights.

“Fine, I accept this as your decision, and I respect your willingness to go

ahead with your plan,” he replied after a long pause of silence. “But you both need to be aware that at the end of this pregnancy, there will be a child to care for, and this child will bind you together.” Blowing out a heavy breath, he added, “A child is not a relationship that you can walk away from, or a marriage that can be dissolved. This is a lifetime commitment. You’ll forever be entwined in one another’s lives. That baby will need the both of you for the rest of your lives. Together or apart. The baby will need its mother and father in equal measures.”

“Right now, you’re both eighteen and in love,” Mam offered up. “But you won’t always be young, and you might not always be in love either.”

“If you are, then fantastic, you have nothing to worry about,” Dad chimed in, giving my mother a knowing smile. “But if you fall out of love with each other, if you grow apart, are you sure you’re both ready to deal with the consequences?”

“I’ve loved your daughter for six years,” Joey finally broke his silence by saying. “I can easily love her for another eighteen.”

Goddamn…

My heart skipped in my chest.

He wasn’t trying to sound sweet.

He was trying to sound convincing. Still, I was ready to jump his bones.

“Love?” Teddy sneered. “You think loving each other is all you need to make this work?”

“It’s half the battle,” my mother replied in a curt tone.

“It’s bullshit,” Teddy argued, dismissing her, making it clearer every time he opened his mouth that he did not care for a woman’s opinion on anything. “I’ll tell ya something, Tony,” he continued, looking to Dad instead. “Your wife might have rose-tinted glasses on, but I know deep down you can see this for what it is. A fucking shit storm. That boy of mine is in no position to raise a baby. He’s on a fast-track to nowhere, and if you don’t want that young one of yours following after him, then you’ll put her on a boat to England and have her cut ties with him.”

“She’s not going to fucking England!” Joey spat, as he erupted on his father. “And you’ve got a lot of fucking nerve to sit across this table from me, offering up fatherly advice, and accusing me of not being able to raise a child.“

“Joey, son—”

“No, Tony, let me finish, because this needs to be said,” Joey argued, holding a hand up to my father, while focusing on Teddy Lynch. “You might

have fathered six kids, but you sure as shit didn’t raise them.”

“Joey,” Marie choked out, looking anxious. “Please don’t go there.”

“And you sure as shit didn’t mother us,” he snapped, tone laced with accusation, as he glared at his mother. “Darren raised me and Shannon. Not you, and not him. Darren raised us – until your husband literally drove him out of the fucking country. And then, all of the raising was left to me. So, don’t fucking sit there and pretend that I’m incapable of being a good father to my kid when that’s exactly what I’ve been doing for yours since I was twelve!”

I didn’t open my mouth to stop him because these assholes deserved to hear his pain.

They deserved to hear the truth.

“I’m not him, and Aoife’s not you,” Joey continued to tell his mother. “And you can say what you want about me, old man,” he added, addressing his father now. “But you don’t know a goddamn thing about the kind of person I am.”

“I know exactly who you are,” his father shot back, unyielding. “You’re me twenty-four years ago.”

Nothing else he could have said could have hurt Joey more than that comparison, and I felt his hand grow limp in mine, as he leaned back in his chair, looking winded.

“It’s not true,” I hurried to soothe. “You’re nothing like him.”

And this time, when I said the words, I meant it physically as well as every other way. For a long time, I thought Joey bore an uncanny resemblance to his father, and to anyone not looking closely enough, it was

certainly true. But sitting here, looking at both father and son in the clear light of our kitchen, the differences were obvious.

Beefy and paunch-bellied from years of alcohol abuse, even though he wasn’t a fat man, he weighed substantially more than his son.

There was a softness to Joey’s eyes that his father’s eyes were void of. He had his mother’s nose, I noted, and her high cheekbones, too. Similar to his sister, he had swollen, puffy lips that they had also clearly inherited from her. And sure, while they were both tall, broad, tanned, and blond, Teddy Lynch had cold, dead, emotionless, brown eyes, while emerald-colored embers of fire burned in his son’s eyes.

Joey might have shared his father’s height, hair color, golden-rich complexion, and stature, but the two were like fire and ice. He had a lot more of his mother in him than anyone realized.

“Everyone just calm down,” my mother interjected, holding her hands up. “We’re not here to talk about the past. All of that can be hashed over another day. Right now, we need to talk about this pregnancy, because in a little over five months, our children are going to have a baby, a baby that the four of us will be grandparents to.”

“If anyone at this table thinks that I’m going to let him anywhere near my kid, then you’re all fucking crazy,” Joey bit out, glowering at his parents. “Over my dead body.”

“Joey,” his mother sobbed, voice cracking. “Please.”

“Yeah,” I decided to pipe up, for no other reason than to let him know that I had his back in this fight. “What Joe said.”

“Aoife,” Mam sighed, with a shake of her head. “You’re not helping.”

I gave her a look that said so?

“You think I give a shit?” Teddy laughed cruelly. “I never wanted to see your face, boy. I still don’t, so what makes you think that I would want to see anything that came off ya?”

“My heart’s bleeding,” Joey drawled sarcastically.

“You’ll be bleeding alright, when I get my hands on ya.”

“Jesus Christ, Teddy,” Dad snapped, running his hand through his hair. “That’s your boy, you’re talking to.”

“Everybody needs to calm down,” Mam commanded, addressing the whole table. “This doesn’t have to get personal.”

“You know what, I think it already has,” Joey declared, as he shoved his chair back and stood. “I’m sorry, Trish, I am, but I won’t sit here and talk about a baby that I have no intention of ever letting these two fuckers taint.”

“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” Furious, his father stood up, rounded the table and roughly clamped his beefy hand around the back of his neck. “Sit your hole down, boy,” he commanded, forcing Joey to sit back down.

Jaw ticking, I watched as my boyfriend kept his hands at his sides, refusing to spill blood in my family home, as he let his father manhandle him.

It was degrading. It was disgusting.

“Hey!” Unable to stop myself, the urge I had to protect the boy I loved so fiercely, I clawed at the hand he was using to grip his neck. “Get your filthy hands off him.”

“Aoife!”

“Don’t even look at her,” Joey snarled, rising to his feet to block me from his father’s view when he opened his mouth to respond.

“Joey,” his mother sobbed. “Please…”

“I’m done talking to you,” Joey told her in a shaky tone. “I’m done with you.” He turned back to my father and said, “This isn’t me walking away from my responsibilities. This is me walking away from a murder charge.” Blowing out a frustrated breath, he tenderly tipped my chin up with his knuckles and said, “Are you with me?”

Out of my chair and up on my feet in seconds, I was moving for the door, with my hand firmly entwined with his. “Oh, I am so with you.”

“Wait right there,” Mam called after us. “Don’t even think about wandering around town in the dark of night, in your condition. Take Joey up to your room, while we finish up here.”

“Upstairs?” Dad muttered. “Really, Trish?”

“What are they going to do, Tony?” Mam sighed. “Get pregnant again?

 

 

They have to get this one out to put another one in.” “Jesus, don’t give them any notions.”

“HE HAS some goddamn nerve coming here,” Joey bit out, as he paced my bedroom floor. “Sanctimonious bastard thinking he has any right to lecture me on parenthood. Fucker never changed a nappy in his life, and he sure as hell never paid for one, either!”

Over an hour had passed since we came up to my room, leaving our parents downstairs to hash it out, and he was still pacing around like a madman.

“His entire side of the family is the same,” he continued to rant, as his hair stood up in forty different directions from the sheer height of pulling on it in frustration. “Assholes, the lot of them.”

Clad in his school uniform, and looking entirely too comfortable in my sleeping quarters, Joey stomped around my room like a powerhouse, stopping every few minutes to re-align a crooked poster on my wall, or to fold one of the many items of clothing I had strewn on the floor.

“If you ever met his asshole father and scumbag brothers, you’d know what I’m talking about,” he grumbled, folding another pair of my discarded jeans. “And his mother?” He shook his head and shuddered. “Don’t even get me started on that fucking demon of a woman.”

“Your nanny?” I asked, from my perch on my bed, as I gave my toes a dodgy French pedicure. “I thought she was nice.”

“No, no, that’s Nanny Murphy,” he corrected, bundling a stack of neatly folded clothes into my wardrobe. “She’s from my mother’s side. Nanny is nice. You’ve met Nanny.”

“With the cute perm?”

“Yeah, she’s the one who gave me that miraculous medal from Knock to give you for your eighteenth.”

“Oh yeah, I love Nanny.”

“Yeah, we should go see her,” he muttered, rubbing his jaw. “Tell her the news ourselves.”

“About the baby?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Nanny’s a saint. The witch is my father’s mother,” he fell back into explaining. “She’s a tyrant, Aoif. You’ve never met anyone

as cold as—. Hold up. Should you even be using that stuff?” He stopped his rant-induced pacing to swipe up my bottle of nail polish and eye it warily. “Doesn’t this shit have chemicals that might be bad for my baby?”

“It will be bad for you if you don’t back up from my top coat,” I grumbled, reaching up to swipe the bottle back. “Don’t get all anal on me, Joe.”

“Hey.” He held up his hands. “I’m only asking out of concern for the kid.”

“Such a law-abider.”

He rolled his eyes. “Back to the witch.”

“The witch,” I mimicked with a snort. “That’s a conversation I look forward to listening to you have with our child.” Cackling to myself, I feigned his deep voice and said, “Hey, kid, so this is your great-grandmother, the witch, and these are your great-uncles, the scumbags.”

“And this is your grandfather, the rapist, alcoholic bastard himself.” Groaning, Joey stopped pacing to bang his forehead against the wardrobe door. “Poor kid is fucked and she isn’t even here yet.”

“It might be a boy.” “Christ, I hope not.”

My heart flipped. “You want a girl?”

“I just don’t want anything remotely like me,” he replied, and his honesty broke me. “Let it be all you, and I’ll be happy.”

“I do,” I replied. “Want it to be like you, that is.” He paused to glare at me. “Be serious, Molloy.”

“What?” I argued back. “You’re loyal, you’re strong, you’re athletic, you’re talented, you’re beautiful.” I shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I want our baby to be like you?”

“Because I’m a fuck-up.”

I smirked. “Only some of the time.”

“Oh, that’s alright then,” he shot back, tone laced with sarcasm. “If it’s just some of the time.”

“Not to mention the fact that you’re way smarter than me.” He snorted. “You’re crazy.”

“You’re probably the smartest guy in our year, and if you had been born into any other family, you’d be in the brainiac class with Kev and the other swots.”

“I’m barely hanging on in school, Aoif,” he ground out, looking flustered. “I’m passing my classes by the skin of my teeth.”

“But you’re passing, which is exactly my point,” I reiterated. “Because if Kev, or Paul, or anyone else in our year had to deal with what you do on the daily, then I guarantee you that they would crumble,” I replied. “Deny it all you want, but there’s one hell of a sharp mind inside that thick skull of yours,” I mused, as I coated my baby toe with one final layer of nail varnish before resealing the bottle. “Now.” Smiling sweetly up at him, I leaned back on my elbows and wiggled my toes. “Blow.”

Joey looked at me like I had grown an extra head. “You are fucking crazy if you think I’m blowing on your toes.”

“Come on, Joe,” I whined, toes still wiggling. “I’m pregnant.” “So?” he shot back, looking personally insulted.

“I don’t want the polish to smudge.” “Then don’t smudge it.”

“Blow.”

“No.”

“Blow on my toes.” “Absolutely fucking not.” “Joey Lynch.”

“Aoife Molloy.”

“You said you’d be there for me.”

“As your boyfriend and the father of your baby,” he spluttered, throwing his hands up. “Not as your personal fucking groomer.”

“There were no stipulations spoken when you made your promises,” I argued. “Now come here and blow me.”

“That’s my line.”

“It won’t ever be again if you don’t do this for me.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Rolling his eyes, Joey sank down on the edge of my bed and pulled my feet onto his lap. “You have an eejit made out of me.”

“You’re the best,” I crooned victoriously. “I lucked out in the baby-daddy stakes.”

“Hm,” Joey grunted, entirely unimpressed with me, as he blew each one of my toenails dry before unceremoniously dropping my feet back on the bed, and stalking over to my window.

“Wow, good job, Joe,” I crooned admiring my toes. “Next time, you can help me paint—”

“Don’t push it,” he grumbled, shoving the window open and pulling a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket. “I need a smoke.” Throwing one leg over the ledge to dangle outside, while keeping the other on my bedroom floor, he sank down on the sill, and sparked up.

“And you had the gall to lecture me on painting my toenails?” I cocked a brow. “You should think about quitting.”

“I’m quitting an awful lot of stuff lately. Give me something to cling to, will ya?” came his smart-ass response, as he leaned out my window. “Do you think they’re still downstairs with your folks?”

Yes. I shrugged. “I haven’t heard the front door slam.”

“The hell are they talking about?” he muttered, looking stressed and on edge. “I don’t like this, Molloy.”

Neither do I. “It’ll be okay, Joe.”

“You’re right.” Inhaling a deep drag, he leaned out the window to expel the smoke from his lungs before adding, “It’ll be grand. If the kid is as persuasive as his mother and can throw a punch like his father, then we’re golden.”

I arched a brow. “He?”

“He. She.” He waved a hand around aimlessly. “Whatever.” “Do you want to find out?”

“Find out what?”

“The gender.”

“Tomorrow?” He turned to frown at me, lips pursed around his cigarette. “Because they can’t tell this early, Molloy.” He leaned back out the window

to exhale another cloud of smoke before adding, “You’ll need to wait for the anomaly scan.”

“Anomaly scan?” I gaped at him. “What the hell is that and why does it sound like it’s going to be painful?”

“Jesus, you’re all drama,” he chuckled, rubbing his jaw. “It’s not painful, it’s a detailed ultrasound they give you around the twenty-week mark.”

“Where?” My eyes widened in fear. “Because I saw this really horrible documentary where this doctor guy put a condom on this giant dildo-shaped camera and literally rammed it up this poor girl’s fanny—”

“They scan your stomach,” he laughed, cutting me off. “Come on, Molloy. You’re a girl. How do you not know this stuff?”

“Well, I’m sorry, baby whisperer,” I shot back huffily. “We don’t all come from families that rival the size of a football team. We’re not all acquainted with the harrowing throes of pregnancy.”

“Well, you better get acquainted and fast,” Joey replied, exhaling another cloud of smoke. “Because it’s coming.”

“Jesus.” A full body shudder rolled through me. “Hey, Joe?” “Hm?”

“Are you going to still want me when I’m the size of a whale?”

“Molloy.” He chuckled under his breath. “For fuck’s sake.” “I’m serious.”

“I know you are.” With a shake of his head, he tossed the cigarette butt away and climbed back inside. “You’re not going to be the size of a whale.”

“But if I am?”

“You won’t be.” “I might be.”

“You’re having a baby, Molloy, not inhaling a town.”

“But say it happens.”

“Jesus Christ.” He rolled his eyes to the heavens. “Yes, I’m still going to want you.”

“How?”

“How?” His brows furrowed in confusion as he closed the space between us. “What do you mean how?”

“How are you going to still find me sexy when I’m big and round and swollen?” I gestured to my body and sighed. “Look at me, Joe. Won’t you miss this body?”

He threw his head back and laughed.

“Hey – don’t laugh at me, asshole.” I narrowed my eyes. “I’m feeling vulnerable here.”

“You are the vainest girl I’ve ever met.”

“It’s not vanity when it’s true,” I sniped. “Then it’s just plain honesty.” Still chuckling, he shook his head, clearly amused. “Christ, I love you.”

Grinning, he flopped down on the mattress beside me and stretched his arm out for me to join him. As soon as I snuggled into the crook of his arm, he pulled me close and released a contented sigh. “Don’t ever lose it, Molloy.”

“Lose what?”

“That spark of fire that makes you so incredibly you,” he replied, tightening his arm around me. “It doesn’t matter how your body changes,

because I’m always going to keep coming back to you. Because I might enjoy touching all of this,” he explained, fingers trailing over my body until he reached my face and gently tapped my temple. “But I’m hooked on this.”

“My mind?” I asked, tone incredulous. “Bullshit.”

“It’s true,” he coaxed. “Nobody else can fuck with my head quite like you can, and that has nothing to do with your body, Molloy.”

“Okay,” I conceded with a lopsided grin. Twisting onto my side, I slid my hand under his shirt to rest on the bare skin of his stomach. “That was ridiculously smooth.”

“I’m known to have my moments,” he laughed, rolling onto his side, mirroring me. “When I’m not fucking up.”

“We’re going to be okay, aren’t we, Joe?” I heard myself ask. “Aren’t we always?”

“I’m serious.” I reached up to stroke his cheek. “Everything is moving way too fast.”

“Yeah.” He grimaced. “Shit has a habit of going that way when I’m around.”

“Seriously, Joe, my head is spinning from all of the twists and turns.”

“I have no idea how all of this is going to pan out,” he admitted truthfully. “But whatever way it goes, I’ve got your back.”

“And I’ve got yours.”

“Then we’ll be okay,” he replied with a small nod. “Yeah?” I breathed, watching him closely.

His green eyes burned with sincerity when he whispered, “Yeah.”

A knock on my bedroom door sounded then, and I watched as Joey’s entire frame stiffened before he reluctantly slid his arm out from beneath me and sat on the edge of my bed.

“Come in,” I croaked out, really not wanting anything or anyone from the outside world to come into this room and burst our bubble.

I only wanted to be with him. All alone.

Just us.

“Joey’s parents are gone,” Mam announced when she walked into my room, gaze sweeping over us both, no doubt to see if we were behaving ourselves. “Are you alright?”

“You shouldn’t have done that, Mam,” I heard myself say, sitting upright now. “Brought them over here? Ambushing us like that?”

“I didn’t,” Mam was quick to correct, gaze flicking between us. “Your father wanted to talk to Joey’s father.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sure you’ve realized by now that there’s no talking to him,” Joey replied with a sigh. “He only hears what he wants, Trish.”

“Yes,” Mam agreed sadly. “Listen, Joey, if we’ve made it worse for you at home…”

“It’s grand,” my boyfriend was quick to dismiss. “I understand why ye had to talk to my parents. I get it.” Standing up, he moved to where his bag was resting against my wardrobe and quickly bundled his uniform inside. “I meant what I said,” he added, zipping it closed and hoisting it onto his back. “I’m not him, Trish.”

“I know you’re not, pet,” Mam was quick to soothe.

Nodding stiffly, Joey flicked his gaze to me. “I better go.” My heart sank.

“You could stay?” I looked to my mother hopefully. “He could stay the

night, couldn’t he, Mam?”

Mam worried her lip. “Well, yes…”

“No, I need to go home,” Joey cut in, slipping his arms through the straps of his school bag. “What time is the scan tomorrow?”

“Half past one.”

“We finish school at twelve, so we can go straight to the appointment from there.” Retracing the steps back to my bed, he leaned down and brushed a kiss to my cheek. “I’ll see ya in the morning.”

“You can stay,” I pleaded, reaching up to grab his hand.

Giving my hand a small squeeze, he winked down at me before letting go. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” he called over his shoulder, as he moved for my door.

“I don’t know the ins and outs of what happens in your home,” my mother blurted out, causing my boyfriend to freeze in my bedroom doorway. “But I’ve heard enough stories and seen enough bruises on your body to know that it has to stop.”

“Mam!”

“You should know that I’ve phoned the Gards and reported your father.” “Mam,” I strangled out, dropping my head in my hands. “What the hell?”

“And you should probably know that this isn’t the first time that I’ve

reported him, either, but I’ve never had enough proof.”

“Oh my god, Mam.”

“But tonight, he threatened to harm you in front of me,” she continued to say, eyes locked on my boyfriend. “And while it might not be my business, I refuse to sit back and do nothing.”

“Jesus, Mam,” I croaked out, feeling my heart hammer violently, as I waited for him to erupt.

“I presume they’ll pay a visit to your house before the night’s out,” Mam added, looking red-faced. “I’m sorry, love, I really am, but I couldn’t have it on my conscience.”

“It’s grand, Trish,” was all Joey replied, not turning back to look at either one of us. “I understand.”

“You can stay,” she repeated, tone thick with emotion. “There’s always room for you in this house.”

“Thanks.” With a heavy sigh, he shook his head in resignation and said, “But I have to go home,” before walking away.

Light footsteps sounded on the staircase then, followed a few moments later by the sound of the front door opening and closing shut.

I shook my head and glared at my mother. “What have you done, Mam?” “What’s right, Aoife,” my mother replied. “I’ve done what’s right.”