“I've been told," I spread my hands wide and grin, "I'm extremely marriageable."
Again, nobody laughs.
"When's the wedding?" I ask.
Relief flashes across Cillian's face, before the mask slides back into place. "Saturday."
"Well then." I stand and maintain my signature easy grin. “You three better throw me a hell of a bachelor party tonight.”
"Lorcan," Cillian calls as I head for the door.
I turn back.
"Thank you."
I give him a two-finger salute on the way out.
But as I step into the hallway and close the door behind me, what I just agreed to hits hard.
I’m about to become a married man—a husband to a nineteen-year-old daughter of a disgraced Fed.
No prob. I’ve got this under control.
I head back to the pub, already mentally rearranging my week.
How hard can one small wife be?
Chapter 3
Maeve
I was fifteen when my childhood ended.
It started with the arrest.DISGRACED AGENT,the news said, my father's face above words I didn't fully understand—bribery, obstruction.
That was the trigger for my mother’s drug-induced decline.
Less than a year later, Oisin was born. My mother was already gone by then, not in body but in every way that mattered.
I ran the house while she walked around hollowed out from the inside.
She died from an overdose when Oisin was a few months old. To keep my family together, I dropped out of school and went to work.
The bus ride home takes forty-five minutes. I spend it staring out the window, my reflection ghostly in the dirty glass.
I look bone-tired. I’ve been bone tired for one thousand four hundred and twenty-three days.
My landlord is waiting for me in the hallway when I return.
Jerry’s in his late forties, soft in the middle, and has a smile like a wet handshake. He leans against the wall by my door.
"There she is." He looks me over. "You're behind again, sweetheart."
"I know. Friday. I get paid Friday."
"Mm." His eyes do that creepy thing they do. "Or, you know. We could always work something else out. Make it easier on both of us."
I smile and pretend I’m not about to puke. “I’ll have it in full on Friday.”
