“Listen, you need to relax and put that prick’s bullshit predictions out of your head,” he said then. “Because that’s all they are, bullshit.”
“Yeah?” I blew out a breath. “Really?”
“Really,” he agreed, leaning close to press a hot kiss to my mouth. “Besides, it took me three weeks to get you naked, not one like he predicted.” Winking, he added, “and it’s my fingers and tongue I’ve been putting inside you, not my dick, so that just shows what lover boy knows.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Joey.”
“I better get going,” he laughed, clearly unsympathetic to my cause. “Before your father gets suspicious and starts wondering why I’ve been late for work every evening this week.”
I smiled sweetly up at him. “Tell my dad that you prefer servicing his daughter than the cars in his garage.”
“Yeah, because that would go down well.” Frowning, he added, “I’ve never done that before, you know? Skipped work or been late for a girl. You’re becoming a real bad habit, Molloy, and a bad influence, with it.”
“Coming from the boy who can scale the side of a two-story house better than a cat,” I called out, watching as he tossed both his hurley and helmet out of my bedroom window and onto the shed roof below, before tossing his schoolbag with them.
“Don’t be joining any convents on me now, ya hear?” Joey said, swinging his leg over the ledge. “Contrary to your ex’s predictions, I’m not quite ready to sack you off yet.”
“Ha-ha-ha,” I deadpanned. “Funny.”
“I’ll be seeing ya, Molloy,” he added with a cheeky wink.
And then he was gone.
HONOR RESTORED
FEBRUARY 23RD 2004
AOIFE
Late Monday night, when I had bored myself to tears with homework, I decided to change it up by going downstairs and annoying my parents.
Unfortunately for me, the members of my family were in similar mischievous form.
“Well, would you look at Lady Muck herself,” Mam said the minute I walked into the sitting room, as she turned down the volume on the tv control, and gave me her full attention. “What happened, Aoife, love? Did your mattress finally spit you out?”
“Ha-ha.” I rolled my eyes. “Very funny, but no, nothing so dramatic. I was studying.”
“With books?” Kev tossed out from his perch on the couch.
“Yes, Kev, with actual books,” I shot back, flopping down on the couch next to him. “Don’t act so surprised. I can open a book, you know.”
“Ah, but can you read the inscription inside?”
“Don’t ye be teasing my little pet,” Dad interjected, from the other side of the room, where he sat with Mam in their matching armchairs. “How are you, Aoife, love?”
“Daddy’s girl,” Kev fake coughed.
“I’m grand, dad,” I shot back with a smug grin. “How was work?”
“Ah, grand, love,” he replied, resting his slipper-clad feet on the coffee table. “Young Joey was in flying form this evening.”
I bet he was.
I grinned. “That’s nice.”
“Did you hear about our Aoife and Paul breaking up?” Kev interjected then, digging me in the thigh with his foot.
“What did I tell you about touching me with those hooves?” I snapped, batting his foot away with a cushion.
“I heard something about that alright,” Mam replied, no doubt having heard it from Katie’s mother next door. “A few weeks ago now, isn’t that right, Aoife?”
“Yep.”
“Really?” Dad’s eyes widened. “You never said anything, Aoife, love.”
“Oh, um, yeah,” I replied, huffing out a breath. “Well, there’s not much to say. It’s dead in the water.”
“For now,” Kev snickered.
“Forever,” I corrected, smacking him over the head with the cushion. “Asshole.”
“Ah, don’t you worry, pet,” Mam coaxed, setting down her knitting. “I’m sure he’s already planning on how to win you back as it stands.”
“He’d be flogging a dead horse,” I replied, narrowly avoiding a cushion to the head from my brother. “We’re done, Mam.”
“Sure they’ll be back together again in no time,” Dad said, turning to look at my mother for help. “They’re on and off like the weather, those two.”
“Not this time, I reckon,” Kev taunted. “I don’t think your darling Aoife is too upset about the breakup, either?” He winked knowingly as he climbed to his feet and wandered out of the room. “Isn’t that right, Aoife?”
“That’s right, Kevin,” I replied, glaring at his retreating back. “I couldn’t give a flying fu— “
“Fig,” Mam quickly interjected. “Couldn’t give a flying fig, Aoife.”
“One of those, too,” I shot back with a smirk. “He can go to hell.”
“Well good,” Dad said with a supportive nod. “He was a right little bollox, Trish, wasn’t he?”
Mam laughed. “He was a bit of one, alright, Tony.”
“A right uppity little fucker.”
“Sure what would you expect from a Garda superintendent’s son?”
“That’s true, love. To be honest, it used to stand the hair on the back of my neck when you’d bring him over to the house,” Dad admitted with a rueful expression. “I was afraid of my life that you would take him into the shed and expose me.”
“Ah, here now, Tony,” Mam chuckled. “I doubt the Gards would come knocking on the door over a few bottles of home-brewed Poitín.”
“You’d never know, love,” Dad mumbled. “You’d never know.”
“So, any new love interests, sister dearest?” Kev asked when he returned a moment later with a bowl of cereal. “Any short-tempered, would-be mechanics in your sights?”
“What’s that now?” Mam’s ears pricked up. “You’ve got a new boyfriend already?”
“Yes,” Kev mused. “She sure does, Mam.”
“No, I don’t,” I bit out, resisting the homicidal urge I had to throttle my brother. “Kev’s just being a little shit stirrer.”
“Oh, come on,” he laughed. “It’s so obvious.”
“What is?”
“Nothing,” I strangled out.
“Aoife and Joey.”
“Kevin!” I hissed, red-faced. Joey and I were trying to be discreet, and up until now, I thought we had been doing a great job. Apparently, nothing got past my brother, though.
Nosey fucker.
“Joey?” Dad’s eyes widened. “My Joey?”
“I think that you’ll find he’s more Aoife’s Joey than yours, Dad,” my brother sneered. “At least, that’s what I’ve heard at school.”
Oh, you are a dead man.
“Those rumors are a bunch of crap,” I choked out, lying through my teeth. “And you being my brother should know better than to believe them.”
“What rumors?” Both Mam and Dad asked in unison.