Keeping 13 (Boys of Tommen, #2)

by Chloe Walsh

Promises made, promises broken—the Lynch family motto.

I was missing something. When it came to Shannon Lynch, I felt like I was always three steps behind.

“I’m glad you’re back to me.”

I’m here, I’m in, I care, and I’m not going the fuck away.”

“I tell lies like I breathe air. Even to myself. Half of the time, I don’t even know what’s the truth or a lie. I have to actually think long and hard about it because that’s all I’ve known.

“Show me where he hurt you.”

“I’ll always be careful with you, Shannon like the river.”

I feel like I’m drowning in her.

“Hi, Johnny,” she whispered, tumbling off the door step as she clung to me. “You came back.” “Hi, Shannon.” My crutches fell to the ground as I wrapped my arms around her body, holding her in place. “I promised I would,”

“I’ve spent days waiting for this,” he quickly hurried on, his words coming fast, his accent thickening as he spoke. “To get time with you. To just be with you, and now I have you here?” His hand snaked out and entwined with mine. “Where I know you’re safe? All I want to do is just…” Shaking his head, he pulled me closer. “Keep you right here with me and never give you back.”

I fell in love with a girl who had more layers and complications attached to her life than a Rubik’s Cube. A Rubik’s Cube I could solve. Shannon Lynch’s life, not so much.

“You love his sister, and I love his sister’s best friend,” Gibsie replied, scrubbing Joey down with a sponge. “It’s safe to say that pussy got us into this, Kav.”

a huge fucking mistake

Because Aoife gave him something that day, something to cling to. Hope for the future.

“I want you here,” he told me, never taking his eyes off mine. “I want you to stay with me.” Oh god. My heart. These words. This boy.

want you here with me.”

“I’m going to buy you dinner, Shannon.” Closing the space between us, he lowered himself down on the couch and turned to face me. “Sometimes we’ll eat here and sometimes we’ll go out, but it’s going to be a regular occurrence, so don’t overthink it, okay?”

“And I’d give you full marks.”

“No, it’s not the meds.” It’s the fact that I’ve spent days rehearsing what I want to say to you in my head, and now I can’t get the words out. “I don’t know what happened to me.” You happened to me, and now I’m completely fucked. “I’m just running on empty, I guess.” Because we’ve been sitting here all night and still haven’t addressed the elephant in the room.

“That’s how you make me feel,” she whispered, blue eyes burning their way right down to my soul. “Better. Alive. Free. Safe. Important. I feel like I can breathe for the first time in days, and that’s only because you’re here—because I’m with you.”

“I’m constantly on edge, all the time, waiting for the sadness because that’s what I’m used to—what I’m programed to feel, expect, and live with.”

“It’s like you see me—and I see you. Christ, I think you saw through me that very first day on the pitch at school, because I sure as hell haven’t been the same since, Shannon. You don’t give a shite about rugby. It never fazed you and that threw me because I’m not used to that. I’m not used to having someone want me for…well, for me—but you did. And you took the time to notice me. To see things that no one else was seeing, things I didn’t want to acknowledge to myself.”

“You make me feel like I’m enough as I am,”

“What do you need from me, Shannon?” he croaked out, voice thick and husky. “I’ll give you anything you need, baby.”

“She can make all the threats she wants. It doesn’t change anything for me.” Sighing at her forlorn expression, I cupped her face in my hands and leaned close. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”

“Maybe you should have said that to your husband,” Mam shot back heatedly. “When he was battering the shite out of the girl!”

“I’m going to do a lot of things for you, Shannon.”

“I am so fucking serious about you.”

“I just want to be with you.” He shrugged almost helplessly. “All the fucking time.”

“Move along, Devil Pussy.”

“Don’t look at his nipples, baby,” Hughie huffed. “Look at my fucking nipples.”

Tommen was a jungle and the students here were animals, then this table was the lion’s den. I was a stray gazelle, surrounded by the most dangerous of apex predators, all watching me with curiosity. Luckily for me, I was a gazelle that the king of this particular jungle, and leader of the pack, had taken a shining to. I wouldn’t be eaten up. Not today, at least.

“You’re safe with me.”

have something that grows,” a familiar male voice piped up. “It’s growing right now.”

“That from the very first day you walked into my life, you changed me. That very first time I saw you? You sparked to life something inside of me.”

“I am fucking pregnant! I’m pregnant with despair, Johnny! I have a belly full of fucking disgust right now.”

“So pull your finger out of your hole and go over there.”

“You won’t leave me, right?”

But it was different with Shannon. Everything was different when it came to her.

“I’m here for Johnny the boy,” I told him, cupping his face with my trembling hands. “Not Johnny the rugby player.”

“I’m not in your corner, Shannon,” Johnny replied in a gruff tone. “I’m standing right beside you.”

“All I need you to do is keep talking to me,” he added, starting the engine. “Just keep letting me in.” He turned to look at me. “And I’ll keep you safe.”

“I’m keeping you, Shannon Lynch.”

“I’m losing control over my life. She walked in and tossed everything on its ass. I’m literally scrambling, trying to put everything back together and piece out a new plan. I don’t know how to handle her, and I’m scared of pushing her too far, too fast, and fucking it all up. I think she thinks I don’t want her that way, which is fucking insanity because you’ve seen her.

“I’m calling Father McCarthy to intervene on your behalf. You need an exorcism and Jesus.”

“Everything,” she whispered, looking into my eyes. “Especially the broken parts.”

“I’m in love with you, Shannon. I’m completely fucking hooked on you, so when you’re hurt, it affects me. It hurts me. I can’t pretend that it doesn’t.”

“I’m with you. All of you. Every part. Good and bad. I’m staying. So don’t hide this part from me.”

“You are not your father’s daughter, and there’s no orchard in the world far enough from the tree your apple fell from.”

“You come anywhere near my vagina with a razor and I’ll stab you,”