His eyebrows shoot into his dark hairline. “You’re kidding?” He waits a beat, then presses. “Girlfriend?”
“I’m straight.”
“Ah,” he clicks his tongue, turning for the counter, and passing me the mandatory tattoo care instructions. I reach for them, and he whips them back with a mischievous grin. “No touching the tattoo for a few hours.”
“I know,” I laugh, reaching for the sheet just to have him pull it away once again. “Cillian!”
“You have my number in case you have any questions.”
I imagine I look like a confused puppy. “I don’t have your number.”
“You don’t?” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. “Well then, maybe you should give me yours?” His broad, dimpled grin is infectious, and I can’t help but smile back. My first instinct is to refuse him, but then I think again. I’ve known Cillian for over a year. He seems like a nice guy. What harm could giving him my number do? I mean, it’s not like I’m agreeing to a date or anything.
“Fine,” I smirk, snatching the paper from his hand and watching his fingers tap away at the screen as he enters my number.
My phone rings in my pocket, and I quickly pull it out to see an unknown number flash on the screen.
“Now you have mine,” Cillian says with a wink.
6
AIDEN
I round the corner out of the estate, the soft leather of the steering wheel passing through my fingers as I navigate the smooth curves of the road. I forgot how nice of a car this is to drive. It’s more convenient for me to travel around Dublin on my bike, and it’s also a safety net in case some scumbag attempts to Veronica Guerin me.
It would be ironic if it were the Dublin traffic that killed me, though.
I decided to take the car today primarily for my mother’s comfort. I can’t imagine her rheumatism would take kindly to being jostled around on the back of my Kawasaki Ninja. Plus, I didn’t drop nearly 74k on a Mercedes-Benz GLA just for it to sit in the garage gathering dust.
“Where are we going?” Mam asks, peering out the window as we zoom past the Dalkey Seafront. Yes, Dalkey. You think I’d let my mother stay on the north side of Dublin? Bollocks off. We traded that piece of shit, three-bed council house in Ballymun, for a four-bed bungalow in Old Quarry.
AJ Quinn is a lot of things: a killer, a self-made millionaire, a god beneath the sheets, and a proud mamma’s boy.
“How about Benito’s?” I suggested, glancing at Mam for approval. I don’t get it. “You don’t like Benito’s?”
“It’s nice,” Mam replies, her voice tinged with hesitation. “But I was hoping for something different today; what about Deville’s?”
My phone dings in the holder, and I risk a glance to check the notification. Great. Another job. “Two secs,” I pull over and throw on the hazards. Well, if this isn’t a pleasant surprise, Barrister Keith Sullivan has made the naughty list. I scroll down the text, frown, and quickly decline. 50k. Me hole! I’m not whacking a barrister for less than 120,000.
“Kindly fuck off,” I mutter, typing out the text and hitting send.
“Problems at the bar again?” Mam asks sympathetically. Her grey eyes are filled with concern.
“Nothing they can’t handle without me.” I turn off the hazards and pull back onto the road. “French cuisine it is.” I really don’t want to ask, but the masochist in me can’t help but wonder, “How was the wedding?”
“Beautiful; Éabha looked stunning,” Mam replies with a wistful smile.
Yes, she would do, wouldn’t she?
Mam was invited to Éabha and Grimsby’s wedding. I was not included in the invitation. I imagine my ex-wife still holds a smidgen of a grudge against me for her doing time for a murder I committed. In my defence, it’s not like I set her up; I set Walsh up to take the fall. It’s not my fault that the gardaí couldn’t catch a fucking cold.
Éabha retaliated by setting me up and attempting to have mearrested while taking money from my house for her ‘overdue spousal support.’
Jokes on her; the charges were dropped, and I looked hella fine in the papers the next day. She still made off with over two hundred grand of my hard-earned money—a quarter of the price I paid for my mother’s bungalow.
Mam looks as proud as punch when she says, “She and Joe look so happy together.”
Yeah, keep rubbing that salt in.
