“I know. Fucking sucks, though.” He turns to Tiernan. “Can we at least go rob someone or something? Just me and Shai.”
“Jesus, Ror.” Cillian shakes his head.
“You two need something?” Tiernan asks.
“It gets us off,” Rory explains.
Tiernan cracks a rare smile. “We’ll figure something out.”
“I’ll take an Uber out to see my mom.” I feel guilty. I haven’t been there in over a week. I hate the freedom I feel. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. She’s my mom.
“Fuck that. Take my car.” Rory tosses me the keys.
He kisses me, and then they file out the door. Ollielingers, giving me a sad smile and a hug. “He’s doing this because he cares about you both.”
“I get it.”
“We’ll find something fun to do later.”
“We better,” I tease.
Once the house is empty, I turn on music and clean the kitchen, then go up to our room. I play guitar for a while, then shower. Just as I’m about to leave the house, the door opens and Ollie comes in.
“Hey, Ollie. You’re back early.”
“Like I said, we’ll find something fun to do today. I only really needed to go to one class. It won’t kill me to miss the others.”
“Ollie…”
“No arguing.”
“I really do need to go see my mom.”
He shrugs. “I can go with you. Or I can wait here until you’re done.”
Rory is the only person I’ve ever brought home, and in the beginning, I didn’t even bring him home. He just showed up. It feels normal to bring a friend to meet your mom, something most people have done, and as shitty as it is, there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to be alone with her.
“You can come. She’s…a lot. A fucking trainwreck if I’m being honest.”
“I don’t care. We all have our stuff.”
It’s cute that he rarely curses. “Okay.”
We chat the whole drive to Mom’s trailer—and when did I start thinking of it as hers and not home?
The house is a fucking mess when I arrive—alcohol bottles everywhere, coke on the table. It smells like trash. “Fuck.” My heart drops. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Ollie squeezes my hand.
No, it’s really not. “I need to clean this place up. I’ll bring you home and come back.”
I try to move toward the door, but Ollie doesn’t budge, his feet rooted to the floor. “I’m not going home, Shai. Come on. We’ll get this done a lot faster if we do it together.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t, and…you’re family. This is what family does.”
“In my experience, this is what family does.” I motion around the room.
