Her hands stilled on my back. “I don’t want this life for you.” “Yeah, and I don’t want this life for you.” Mam sighed wearily. “Joey.” “I’m going to stand by her, Mam. She’s my girlfriend, and believe it or not, I happen to love her a lot.” Repressing a shudder when her fingers probed a particularly tender part of my back, I bit out, “I’ll stand by her, and I’ll do a hell of a lot better job than he did with you.”
