She made a face. “I wasn’t about to suggest that.”
“Sure you weren’t.”
She shrugged. She hated the gobshite, but she wasn’t mean. Prickly, my Dee could be, but she had the biggest heart.
Cillian stumbled into Ronan and said pitifully, “I’ve got no home, mate. No job. No future. They took all that from me.”
Ronan patted his back. “Now, Cillian, you’re to blame for your shite decisions, you know that, don’t you?”
Cillian pushed Ronan away.
“It’shisfault,” he bellowed and lunged at me.
His fist swung wide, and since he was drunk and unsteady, I missed the blow with ease, and he tripped on his own feet, landing flat on hisarse.
A few muffled laughs broke out around the room, but I raised a hand, silencing them. As much as I wanted to let the man stew in his misery, I wasn’t going to kick him while he was down.
“Cillian, man, you’ve got to get your head out of your arse.”
But he wasn’t listening. He was still muttering, his words slurred and incoherent, and I glanced up at Ronan. “Let’s get him out of here.”
With Darragh and Ronan’s help, we hauled Cillian to his feet. He protested weakly, but he was too far gone to put up much of a fight.
“What’re we gonna do with him?” Darraghasked, his nose wrinkling as Cillian’s whiskey-soaked breath hit him.
Ronan shrugged. “We’ll dump him on the bench outside, and then he isn’t our problem.”
“We can’t leave him out there.” Dee picked up her phone. “I’ll call his uncle and tell him to get his eejit of a nephew before he causes more trouble.”
While Dee took care of that, I helped Ronan prop Cillian up by the bench where Dee, Ronan, and I met for a nightcap every night after closing the pub.
The night air hit the drunk moron hard, and he groaned.
“You think you’re so much better than me,” he mumbled, his eyes half-closed. “But you’re just a smug American bastard who thinks he can fix everything.”
“I don’t think I’m better than you, Cillian,” I remarked dryly, feeling sorry for the dumbass despite myself. “But I do think you’re your own worst enemy.”
He let out a bitter laugh. “Go to hell.”
“I’d say the same to you”—Ronan shook his head in pity—“but it looks like you’re already there.”
His uncle showed up forty-five minutes later when Cillian was snoring soundly. He thanked Dee, and we watched the taillights of the car that drove Dee’s ex away.
“You dated that gobshite?” I asked incredulously.
“So says the man who was with a woman calledFrancia?”
I shrugged. “She’s hot. She’s a freaking supermodel.”
“How do you know that underneath that wrinkled suit, Cillian doesn’t have the body of a god?” Dee suggested saucily.
“I doubt it.” I wrapped an arm around her.
“I’m telling you, that man has hands like?—”
I hauled her up in a fireman’s hold and smacked her ass with some force, but it only made her laugh hysterically.
“Shut up, bar wench, and let me show you what a man with good hands can do for you.”
