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I fully expected her to blush and look away. She didn’t. Instead, she tilted her head to one side and studied me with a similar look to the one I was sure that I was sporting. Arching her brow, she slowly removed the lollipop from her mouth and gave me an expectant look.
“I don’t want fifty more girls,” I replied, twisting back to find her still watching me. “I just want that girl.”
Panic would consume me, and nine times out of ten, I would spring out of bed and stand guard outside my sister’s bedroom, terrified that she possessed something an animal like our father would eventually come looking for.
My eyes landed on the familiar, leggy blond standing in the doorway, sporting the same type of school uniform I had worn earlier today, and I bit back a groan.
“You know what? I think you do care,” she called after me. “In fact, I think you do like me. You like me and that’s why you act how you do. That’s why you riled my father up about Paul tonight. I’m right, aren’t I? You like me.”
Of course I fucking liked her. She was the first thing my eyes had landed on when I walked through the entrance of Ballylaggin Community School last September, and the only face I consistently sought out since.
There was something about this boy that I found impossible to ignore, and I knew he felt it, too. Joey could deny it until the cows came home, and throw up all the walls he wanted, but he wasn’t fooling me with his blasé bullshit indifference.
The air left my lungs in an audible whoosh. I was staring into the face of danger. This boy possessed all of the terrible traits that mothers warned their daughters about. Every bad, wrong, and dirty teenage-boy characteristic wrapped up in a perfect, fucked-up package. Physically, he trumped me in every way.
“Go inside, Molloy,” he said in a softer tone as his green eyes searched and found in mine something that had put the fire out for him. “You don’t belong out here in the dark with someone like me.”
“Like your sister.” “Like my sister,” he confirmed without a hint of embarrassment, which wasn’t something most guys our age would admit.
“Make sure you do.” She laughed. “Because I’ve put an awful lot of effort into saving you, six.”
“I promise, Shan.” She smiled and visibly sagged in relief. The word seemed to comfort something inside of my sister, even if we both knew that I didn’t mean it. She needed the word, and I was more than willing to give it to her if it meant that she was out of the house and away from our father.
I didn’t care what she thought about me as long as she wasn’t thinking about how scared she was to go to school. Her smile was rare, but I was proud to be able to put it there, even after the night from hell we’d been put through.
I lost my head right there in the middle of his street, threw caution to the wind, and slammed my lips to his. His entire frame froze for a long moment, stiff and unmoving, and I briefly wondered if I had made a terrible mistake, but then he was kissing me back, twisting our bodies around so that I was the one with my back to his garden wall as his lips moved against mine with an air of expertise that was truly rattling.
This kiss was real, and raw, and gritty, and so full of unspoken emotion that I felt my legs shake from the pressure. His arms came around my body, with one hand resting on my hip as he knotted the other in my hair, kissing me back with an intensity that caused jolting shocks of pleasure to ripple through my core every time his tongue brushed against mine.
Joey kissed me like he was starving for me and no one else’s lips could sate the hunger overtaking him. I knew the feeling and returned it unconditionally as I kissed him back with an insatiable hunger of my own.
Feeling Molloy’s soft lips, as she moaned into my mouth and pushed her body against mine, was entirely too much for me to handle in this moment. I was reeling, completely fucking thrown by the girl whose hands were knotted in my hair.
My words were swallowed up when she kissed me, and I didn’t even try to resist her this time. I couldn’t if I wanted to.
She ran her hands through my hair, and I was thoroughly fucked. She gently held on to my hips, drawing me closer, as her tongue slid into my mouth.
My hands shot out of their own accord, cupping her rosy cheeks as I kissed her back with a tenderness that I didn’t know I possessed.
She looked up at me with the biggest blue eyes I’d ever seen, so full of sadness and uncertainty, and whispered, “Why?” “Because I love your brother, and your brother loves you. Keeping you safe is important to him, which makes it important to me.” Smiling, I threw my arm over her skinny little shoulders and walked her into school. “And who knows? Maybe in time you’ll be coaxed out of that pretty little shell and we can be friends.”
“You want to be my friend?” “Is that okay with you?” “Yes.” She nodded uncertainly. “Please.” My heart cracked in my chest. She was so small. So vulnerable. So broken. “Then it’s official.” I gave her a reassuring hug as I walked her down the corridor to class, making sure that every catty bitch in this school got a good look at us. “We’re friends.”
“We could get out of here,” she sobbed against my neck. “You and me. We could just load up the car and leave this shithole town behind us. I would go with you, Joe. I would. I love you.” She continued to sob, peppering kisses down my neck. “I love you. I love you. I love you so fucking much, it makes me want to die.”
She was too good for me, too fucking good for the world. I knew deep down inside that I needed to let her go in order to give her some chance of a future.
as I lay on my side, running my hand through his hair and watching him sleep, I made a mental vow that I wouldn’t allow him to lose himself to the world he teetered on the edge of. No matter what, I would be right beside him, ready to pull him back to safety. Even if it meant that I lost myself in the process.
“The first day of first year,” he explained quietly. “The first time I laid eyes on you, and the first time I understood what it meant to have my heart beating for someone outside of my family.”
But the four small faces staring expectantly up at me were so defenseless, so utterly dependent on my ability to provide for and protect them, that I knew in my heart that I would never leave this house until I could take them with me.
