I didn’t want to answer these questions.
“Tell me, Joe.”
“No good can come from this conversation.”
“Please.”
“Yeah, she was my first,” I reluctantly admitted, as I pulled onto my street and parked up outside my house. “I was young and thick, and desperate for a bit of affection.” Killing the engine, I turned in my seat to look at her. “It meant nothing, and I remember even less about it.”
“So, she had you first.”
“Aoife.” I blew out a weary breath. “I can’t change my past.”
“Who else?” she asked. “How many others?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m not doing this.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to,” I snarled, losing my cool. “Because I don’t fucking remember. In case you forgot, I’ve spent most of secondary school off my goddamn head. So, I can’t give you a number, Molloy, and I can’t give you names, because I don’t fucking remember.” I blew out a harsh breath before adding, “I’m sorry about that, okay? I know that this must be a fucking horrible thing for you to have to hear, because if the shoe was on the other foot, and you were the one saying all of this to me, then it would shred me.” I shook my head, feeling at a loss. “But it’s the truth.”
“You were right, Joe.” Flinching, she exhaled a shaky breath, and clutched her stomach, looking physically sick. “No good can come from a conversation like this.”
“It’s only been you,“ I heard myself tell her, even though I knew that no amount of damage control could repair tonight. “Since we’ve been together? Since the day you put your lips on mine? It’s only been you, Aoif.”
“Yeah, but you’ve been off your head for most of our relationship.” I watched as a tear trickled down her cheek. “And if you can’t remember the girls that you were with before me, then how can you be sure—”
“Because I am. Because I know.” Reaching across the car, I grabbed her hand in mine, flinching when I felt the tremor rolling through her. “Because I’m sure about you.”
“And I’m sure about you,” she strangled out. “But I've spent most of my life watching my mother forgive my father for countless affairs.” She shook her head when she said, “I won't be that kind of person. I won’t become her. It's a hard limit for me.”
“And you think I’d do that to you?” I demanded. “You think I’d risk our future for a cheap fuck?”
“No,” she admitted, sounding pained. “It’s just…”
“Listen to me.” Leaning in close, I tucked her hair behind her ear and said, “I’m not Tony, and you’re not Trish, okay? I would never do that to you,” I promised as I cupped the side of her face with my hand, and resisted the urge to shake this sudden onslaught of irrational fear and neediness out of her. “Do ya hear me? I would never cheat on you.”
She reached up and covered my hand with hers, as her green eyes searched mine for a reassurance that she’d never needed from me before.
“Because, you see this face?” Leaning in close, I rested my brow against hers and stroked her nose with mine. “Your face right here is the only face I’ve been seeing since I was twelve. Because no matter how off my head I’ve been over the years, no matter how far from reality I’ve let my mind wander, I have never lost sight of this face.”
Shivering, she exhaled a shaky breath and grabbed my face between her hands. “Really?”
“The only face,” I confirmed with a small nod. “The only girl.”
“Future,” she whispered shakily, and then her lips were on mine. “You said future, Joe.”
“No,” I mumbled against her lips. “I said our future.”
She pulled back to look at me. “You want one of those?”
I watched her carefully. “Don’t you?”
“With me?”
“Who else, Molloy?”
She looked genuinely stumped. “But you never talk about the future.”
I shrugged. “Never used to think I had one.”
“And you do now?”
“You sound surprised.”
“Because I am.” Her eyes searched mine, as she continued to hold my face between her hands. “You want a future with me, Joe?”
“I know that I don’t want one without you, Molloy,” I replied, leaning in to brush my lips against hers. “So that narrows shit down, doesn’t it?”
“I guess it sort of does,” she breathed, thumbs tracing over my cheekbones. “So, do you have any idea what this future might look like?”
“Well, it won’t look like a mansion in the country.”
“I don’t care about that,” she whispered, eyes full of urgency. “Tell me, Joe.”
“I suppose it looks a bit like us finishing out school,” I offered with a shrug. “You’ll get into that hairdressing course in St. Johns, and I’ll take the apprenticeship at the garage with your dad.”
“Uh-huh.” Her eyes twinkled with excitement. “Keep going.”
Maybe the night could be saved after all.
“And then we’ll attempt to save up for a flat,” I said, amused by her sudden perkiness, and playing along to make her happy. “That I’ll end up paying for because you’ll blow every cent you earn on clothes and makeup – which is nothing new there.”
“For real?” she squealed, bad mood forgotten now, as she shimmied around in the passenger seat. “You see us moving in together?”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” I warned. “On an apprentice’s wage, it’ll end up being a shitty one bed apartment at the end of Elk’s Terrace, with leaky pipes, and a mouse infestation problem.”
“Psssh.” She waved her hand like those details were unimportant. “That’s why plumbers and mouse traps were invented.” She grinned at me. “What else does this future of ours consist of?”
“Aside from all of the wild sex we’ll be having in our shitty flat?”
“The constant wild sex,” she agreed approvingly. “On every surface.”
“Which we’ll soon run out of because it’s so small.”
“And mouse infested.”
“And damp.”
“And unbearable.” She smiled. “Keep going.”
“After a while, we’ll upgrade to a two-bed.”
“A two-bed?”
“Yeah,” I chuckled. “Somewhere for my sister and the boys to hide out. Otherwise, they’ll end up emotionally scarred from all of the wild sex we’ll be having.”
“Okay,” she laughed. “So, we’re adopting your siblings now, are we?”
“What can I say?” I grinned. “It’s a matter of buy one and get four free.”
“Maybe we should just permanently evict your parents and keep the house,” she joked. “We’d save a fortune in subsidized rent from the council.”