"Trouble?" He arched a brow. "I saw you on the cameras. You could've killed that kid."
Agitated, I ran a hand through my hair. "Those pricks were giving my girlfriend a hard time," I bit out. "Now I'm sorry that I resolved the issue in your bar, and I'll pay for any broken glasses or damage I caused, but this will be my last time putting money behind your bar."
Liam balked. "Jesus Christ, relax, Johnny, I'm not barring you."
"I don’t associate with scum, Liam," I told him in a tight tone. Pointing to the lounge door, I added, "And those fuckers are about the scummiest you can get. So you go ahead and keep on serving them, and I'll go ahead and find a new watering hole for my team."
"Johnny, lad, hold up–"
"No, I don’t think so," I hissed, brushing his arm off as I stalked for the door. "I have a reputation to uphold and I can't do that in a place that serves scumbags."
"This will be their last time here," Liam called after me. "I'll have your usual ready for you tomorrow?"
I stopped at the door and turned back. "I'll be back when the clientele doesn’t consist of vicious fucking bullies."
And then I turned around and stalked out.
Shannon was sitting in the passenger seat of my car when I climbed inside. "I'm sorry about that," I told her as I closed the door and pulled on my seatbelt. "I got caught up talking."
"No, no," Shannon hurried to say in that small voice of hers. "It's absolutely fine. You don’t have to apologize to me."
Yeah, I did.
I left her out here in a freezing cold car for half an hour.
It wasn’t good enough.
Not for her.
"You good?" I asked, turning to look at her.
"Yes, and thanks so much for paying," she said and I watched as her cheeks turned a bright shade of pink. "I really appreciate it."
Was she serious?
Was she really thanking me for that?
Christ, this girl was unlike any of the others.
"That's no problem, Shannon," I replied, eyeing her with burning curiosity. "It was just a couple of bottles of coke and a bowl of soup."
"Well, it means a lot to me, so thank you," she whispered, tucking that fucking beautiful hair of hers behind her ear.
Her eyes burned holes in me so deep that I had to look away before completely losing myself in the girl.
It was too much.
She was too fucking much.
"Uh, here's your stuff," she said, gently placing my keys and wallet on my left thigh.
My good thigh, I realized.
Shit, this girl was too much.
"You can count it here if you want," Shannon added. "Your wallet, I mean." She tucked another strand of hair behind her ear. "I won't be insulted."
The fuck?
I stared at her. "What?"
Shannon blushed. "Well, I just – I thought you might–"
"I trust you," I told her. "I'm not counting anything. It never even crossed my mind, okay?"
"Are you sure?" she whispered, killing me with those big eyes.
I nodded and resisted the urge to lean across and kiss the shite out of those swollen lips. "I am absolutely sure."
The smile that lit up her face then was so striking that it made my heart race recklessly.
I just stared at her for the longest moment, wondering how the hell I got here, and how the hell I was going to get out.
"I better take you home," I finally said as I shoved my key in the ignition and cranked the engine.
"Of course," Shannon replied, still smiling at me.
I had to look away.
I couldn’t risk another glance at her.
Not tonight.
Get your ass away from this girl before you do something stupid like lose your heart as well as your head, my brain hissed as I tore out of the carpark, nerves shot to hell.
Too late, asshole, my heart taunted.
"Or," I heard myself say, giving into the urgent need I had inside of me to keep this girl right here with me.
Shannon looked at me with bright eyes. "Or?"
Don’t do it, Johnny.
Don’t put yourself in temptation's way.
"We could go see a film?" I offered, knowing I was screwed the minute the words came out of my mouth.
"A f-film?" Shannon squeezed out.
Oh, Jesus.
I nodded uncertainly. "If you want?"
"At the cinema?" she asked, cheeks flushing.
I shrugged. "Or my house."
You stupid fucker.
"I'm…I don’t…I'm not exactly –" she paused to tuck her hair behind her ears before saying, "allowed to go."
"You're not allowed to go where?" I asked, feeling a huge pang of disappointment settle in my stomach.
"Um, anywhere?" she offered with a helpless shrug. "My parents' are kind of protective."
Understandable.
If I was in their shoes, I would be protective of her, too, given what Shannon had been through at her old school.
Hell, I was protective now.
"But I want to," she added, smiling shyly at me. "I'd love to, actually – if you want to, that is?"
Well shit.
Balls.
What the hell was I supposed to do now?
My mother was at home so that was out.
Forcing myself to concentrate on the road in front of me and not the girl sitting beside me, I flicked on my indicator and pulled onto the slip road for the city.
"Cinema, it is," I replied in as breezy a tone as I could muster while on the inside I was burning the hell up.
28
Substitute Parents
Shannon
I spent all of Saturday babysitting my youngest brother Sean, which was the norm whenever Nanny decided to take a trip to Beara to visit Aunty Alice and her family, and Mam was working.
The difference this weekend was that our father was gone, and our mother was missing.
I knew a storm had been brewing.
My gut was always right.
After Johnny dropped me home last night, there was a blazing row that resulted in my father beating the living shit out of me, mostly over that stupid newspaper clipping that he still wouldn’t let drop. Mam dragged him off me, earning herself a slap in the face for her troubles. She ordered him to leave and never come back.
Dad proceeded to fill the family car with everything he owned, called both me and Mam a pack of whores, and sped off steaming drunk.
Mam had hurried out of the house an hour later with an overnight bag, climbed into a taxi, and hadn't been seen since.
It wasn’t uncommon for our mother to storm off after an argument.
However, it was rare for her to not come back.
I knew she would come back.
It was just a matter of when.
I also knew my father would be back.
It gave me no comfort watching him leave last night.
That wasn’t the first time he had been told to go.
And it wasn’t the first time he had beaten me to a pulp.
Sooner or later, he would be back, promising heaven and delivering hell.
Nothing would change.
It never did.
Tadhg, Ollie, and Sean might believe he was gone for good, but Joey and I knew better.
Without our parents' presence, it was down to Joey and me to fend for our younger siblings.
When there was no sign of either of our parents this morning, Joey sacrificed his own training session with the Cork team so he could take Tadhg and Ollie to a football blitz they were both playing in.
I was left with Sean who had spent the best part of the day screaming for Mam.
It was a disaster.
Countless phone calls to our mother had gone unanswered, so I had given up trying to get ahold of her.
Setting to work on the bottomless list of jobs allocated to me on a weekly basis, I cleaned the house from top to bottom, washing down skirting boards and changing all the bedsheets as I went.
By eight o’clock Saturday evening, I had gone through four loads of laundry, cooked both lunch and dinner for my brothers, bathed and dressed Sean for bed, and had cleaned the house to within an inch of my life.
It hadn't lasted of course.
As soon as the boys had stomped through the front door, the chaos and mess had resumed.
Balancing a bowl of coco pops in one hand and a bottle of milk in the other, I used my hip to push the sitting room door open and stepped inside.
"Here you go, Sean."