Saving 6 (Boys of Tommen, #3)

by Chloe Walsh

If Joey wanted to sit in this parked car outside of the garage half the night, then I would gladly sit right there with him. It didn’t matter that it was minus-two degrees outside or that I was close to freezing in my work clothes. At least if he was in this car with me, it meant that he was out of trouble. He wasn’t out getting high.

“You’re just afraid to admit it,” I argued, holding a finger up. “Because that means you’ll have to acknowledge the fact that there’s a girl sitting right in front of you who cares about you for no other reason than that she just does! A girl who isn’t depending on you to do anything for her other than be her friend! A girl who sees just how much of an asshole you can be but cares about you regardless, because I do, Joe. I absolutely fucking care, despite your shithead tendencies…hell, maybe even because of them.” I threw my hands up in resignation. “Who the hell knows anymore?”

This was our first kiss, and it wasn’t the comet-hitting-earth moment I had anticipated from years of binge-watching unhealthy teen sitcoms. It wasn’t anything like what happened in the movies. It was so much more. This kiss was real, and raw, and gritty, and so full of unspoken emotion that I felt my legs shake from the pressure.

“I see you, Joey Lynch,” she continued, stroking her nose against mine. “Yeah,” I replied in a gruff tone. “I see you too, Molloy.” “No.” Shaking her head, she shifted closer, pressing her body flush against mine. “I mean that I see you.”

When I woke up this morning, it was to a body of bruises and a mind that had hit its limit. I couldn’t fucking do this anymore. I couldn’t. I tried. I did. I tried so hard to be good, but it never seemed to matter because nothing was going to change for me. I was never getting away from that house, not while the kids were still there, which meant that in order to survive another day in hell, I found myself breaking promises and slipping back into old habits.

Aoife Molloy had a heart of gold and was hell-bent on handing it over to a piece of shit like me. She was my momentary escape from all of the fucking dark. She was the only bit of brightness I had in my life, and it scared me to think of how little else I had going for me. Without her, I had nothing. Without her, I was nothing. Weakened and demoralized with life, I had clung to the lifeline she offered me, because that meant that I got to keep her for just a little bit longer. I didn’t have a backup plan or a safety net to land on when everything went to hell, and it would go to hell on me. It always did.