“Kitten, you’re so fucking cute.” Cillian pulls Ollie to his lap.
“Yes, because the quickest way for you to die is to see him naked.” Tiernan points to Dean.
“Or him.” Dean points to Tiernan.
And when they all laugh, I join in, feeling happy for more reasons than they’ll ever know.
*
“So…I’m assuming youknow what this is, right?” I ask Cillian, sitting in the passenger seat of his car.
“Of course. I’m not a fucking idiot. Tiernan sent me off with Dean by myself when they started getting close too.”
“You didn’t like him either? That seems to be a pattern with you.”
“Yeah, imagine that. A guy who protects the people he loves. Is that such a hard concept to understand?” When I don’t respond right away, he adds, “We can’t just trust anyone. That’s not how this works. I know Tiernan, know him better than anyone. He might seem like he can’t be hurt,but he can be. It’s my job to take care of him.”
“Tiernan seems like the kind of man who can take care of himself.”
He tosses me an annoyed glance. “He can in most ways, but inside, he’s just like the rest of us. He’s not invincible, and I could see the way he was with Dean. I won’t let Tiernan get hurt, so I had to be sure Dean deserved him.”
“And Rory?”
“Fuck yes. You don’t know what he was like in the beginning. He was wild, feral. He didn’t know how to act. His dad was a hothead, completely lacked self-control, even worse than Rory. His mom was…she was already so far gone, would just stay in bed for days, even weeks at a time. He was like this little chaos gremlin, who would wreck stuff and had no one who cared about him enough to teach him better.”
“And you did? Weren’t you guys young?” I know Rory’s mom died when he was eight, so they had to be younger than that.
“Five,” Cillian answers. “I didn’t know what I was doing. But from the moment I met him, I knew he was mine and I wanted to take care of him. And for a reason I still don’t understand, Rory attached himself to me instantly—which says a lot because he had a habit of being mean to other kids.”
I chuckle. That doesn’t surprise me.
“When he would lose control, somehow I was able to bring him back, calm him, help him. Being that for him gave me something, a purpose.” He rakes a hand through his thick hair.
I shift in the seat, my skin feeling strangely tingly. “That’s a lot of responsibility you put on yourself…Tiernan, Rory, Ollie. I have a feeling you try to be that person for Dean and Aislin too, the one who wants to take care of them all.”
“It’s not pressure when you love them. It’s how I’m built.”
“I don’t doubt that about you.”
“What?” he asks, and I’m not sure if he really doesn’t know what I’m talking about or just needs me to say it. “That it’s who you are, that you protect people you love. When I first started talking to Ollie—” At his low growl, I chuckle. “I don’t want him. I know he’s yours, but he is my friend, and I don’t have a lot of those. Never have.”
He snaps his head in my direction, looking at me like he can’t believe I told him that. I can’t either, but it feels right to share this with Cillian, partly because he’s sharing with me, and if I’m going to be with Rory, Cillian and I must find some middle ground, but also because I trust him. I get it, why Cillian means so much to Rory, why Tiernan can trust Cillian with anything. “Anyway, back to Ollie, I was worried about him at first. I thought maybe he had a boyfriend who was hurting him.”
“I would never hurt Ollie. He’s my fucking heart. I was willing to walk away from everything I love for him.”
My heart jumps into my throat. “You would never walk away from them.”
“Not them, no, but the rest of it, yes.”
Wow…I didn’t see that coming. “I see that now, about Ollie. I see how much you love him, how much you love all of them. I hated you at first because I worried about the kind of man you were and thinking you might not treat Ollie well, but now I know you love all of them maybe more than you love yourself. You don’t hurt those you love, you…become who they need you to be for them. You’re like their guardian angel or something.”
He gives a dismissive chuckle.
“I’m serious. I see you, Cillian.” Just like I see Rory.
His hands tighten on the wheel, his knuckles turning white. It feels like an eternity passes before he says, “He’s notlike this…the way he is with you. He’s not like this with anyone else. Do you understand what that means?”
“It means he’s mine and I’m his. I haven’t even known him that long, but…”
