FEBRUARY 14TH 2002
JOEY
I COULDN’T EXPLAIN what had possessed me to do something as incredibly reckless as doing a line in my boss’s house.
The only valid excuse I had to hand was that exhaustion had taken over my body to the point that it was crippling me.
Pitiful as it was to admit, I hadn’t slept in months.
Fifteen weeks, to be exact.
Ever since the latest of my father’s spawn was inserted into my life.
From the minute he came home from the hospital, Sean was inconsolable.
No joke, he was off his goddamn head 24/7, while our mother was off her head right along with him.
If she wasn’t working, or pawning the baby off on Nanny, she was hiding in her room, crying into her pillow, and doing everything humanly possible to avoid having to handle him.
Nanny mentioned something about how the reason Mam didn’t seem to be bonding with Sean was because of something called postnatal depression.
I didn’t understand it.
How could I fix it if I didn’t know a damn thing about it?
I couldn’t, and the old man was no fucking help, either.
She refused to nurse him.
She wouldn’t give him a bottle.
She rejected the idea of holding him.
Every time he cried; she looked like she wanted to peel the skin from her bones.
It was fucking horrible.
After getting his feet back under the table when she came home with the baby, the old man hung around for a few weeks, treading water, and somewhat behaving himself.
It didn’t last long, of course.
Three weeks after she gave birth, Dad had lost his shit with Mam, and physically dragged her out of the bed.
Depositing her on the floor next to the crib, he’d roared and screamed in her face until I couldn’t take another damn second of it. Eruptions had occurred, resulting in us having one of our worst ever fights.
In the end, the old man had gotten the better of me, but at least I’d gotten a few good punches in to make him pay for hurting my mother, who was still bleeding after the baby, for Christ’s sake.
Livid that she point blank refused to take the baby, Dad had grabbed the crib, with Sean inside of it, and walked it out of their bedroom and into my thirteen-year-old sister’s.
After that, the old man stopped trying, and of course, my mother laid the blame for his withdrawal at my feet.
Unable, or just plain unwilling, to take care of his responsibilities, Dad went straight back into his usual pattern of drinking, fucking, and smashing the house up, leaving me to clean up his mess.
With school, work, hurling, and Ollie and Tadhg to look after, I didn’t object when Shannon took on the role of caring for Sean.
Because the truth was, I didn’t want to do it.
I didn’t want to love another one.
Not when his age and vulnerability would keep me shackled to this house for longer.
Regardless of my aversion to getting attached to the colicky little shit, that’s exactly what had ended up happening.
Because, as willing as my sister was, she didn’t know what to do with a newborn, and, after three nights of non-stop screaming, I’d taken the crib into my room, unwilling to let that kid cry it out another minute.
Three and a half months had passed since then, and while Mam was slowly warming to Sean, changing his nappy, and taking him for walks on her day off, his crib was still in my bedroom.
Falling asleep standing up these days, I had started to buy a couple of grams every payday from Shane, needing the pick-me-up to just function.
Today was far from the first time I’d dabbled with uppers, but it was the first time I felt like my heart might actually beat its way out of my chest. The high was all fucking wrong, and I was raging with Shane for selling me a lemon, because whatever the hell I had put up my nose, was not cocaine.
My head was all over the place, my body was burning the hell up, and all I wanted to do was fuck.
The urge to get off was almost unbearable, leaving me with a raging hard-on, which was a problem because the girl who’d taken on the role of my personal chaperone was the one girl I couldn’t have.
And I wanted to have her.
I wanted to have her so fucking bad, it was painful.
While the haze in my mind was clearing, the pressure in my dick only seemed to be mounting.
“Got it,” Molloy declared, and she climbed back onto the bed in her tiny pink thong that was doing nothing to help the cause. “Here,” he she said, thrusting my phone onto my stomach.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” Patting my shoulder, a sign of solidarity, no doubt, she shifted closer, settling on her knees beside me. “I’ve got your back.”
Considering she hadn’t looked in my direction in weeks, I should be thrilled to hear those words coming out of her mouth.
But in my current state, it was hard to focus on anything other than the glorious visual of her scantily clad body.
If it weren’t for the fact that I was seriously concerned for my dick, I would have reveled in this moment.
Stop looking, asshole.
Looking makes it worse.
Shaking my head, I unlocked my phone and quickly tapped out a text.
Lynchy: What did you give me?
Holland: ???
Lynchy: What the FUCK did you do to me?
Holland: Nothing, asshole, what’s wrong with ya?
Lynchy: I can’t get my dick to go the fuck down!
Holland: Ah shit. Wrong bag, kid. My bad.
Lynchy: Your bad? What does shit mean? What did I take?
Holland: Blow with a twist. Wasn’t meant for ya. I’ve an aul fella in his 50’s who comes up weekly for it.
Lynchy: What. The. Fuck. Is. The. Twist?
Holland: Sildenafil.
Lynchy: Which is…
Holland: A cheap version of Viagra. Crushed and mixed with snow, it’ll blow the head off ya. Literally.
Lynchy: Jesus Christ, asshole. I have a match later!
Holland: Relax, you’ll be grand in a couple of hours. Ride the wave and enjoy it, lad.
Holland: Might wanna skip that match, though.
Holland: Find yourself some nice wet pussy to bury that cock inside.
“Oh fuck,” I choked out, clenching my eyes shut, as my frantic brain tried to absorb what the hell was happening to me.
“What?” Molloy demanded, wide-eyed. “What is it?”
Unable to voice an answer, I tossed my phone on her lap and slung an arm over my face.
“You mixed erectile dysfunction medication with cocaine?” she screeched. “Are you insane!”
“I didn’t fucking know, did I?”
“No wonder your dick is trying to levitate off the bed. It’s been set on ready-steady-fuck-mode, Joe!” Shaking her head, she re-read the messages on my phone before tossing my phone on the mattress. “Well, I can tell you one thing right now, and it’s that this area right here—“ she paused to point at her pussy, before quickly adding, “is off-limits to that leaning tower of penis!”
“Did I ask you to get me off?”
“No, but I can clearly see that you want me to,” she argued, pointing to the head of my cock. “No wonder you’re in pain, carting that thing around. I’m in pain thinking about—“
“Molloy.”
“Okay, okay.” Grimacing, she held her hands up. “Not helping. Got it.”
“Can I…” Blowing out a pained breath, and feeling totally fucking degraded about what I was about to ask, I forced the words, “Use your shower,” out of my mouth?”
Her brows furrowed. “My shower?”
I gave her a meaningful look.
“Oh,” she replied, eyes widening. “My shower. Yeah, of course. No problem.” Nodding, she quickly clambered off the bed and yanked my jocks and school trousers the rest of the way off my legs. “Can you stand?”
“Yes,” I bit out. “Can you not kneel in front of me like that. Please.”
“Oh, shit, sorry.” Springing away from me, Molloy pottered over to her dresser, attempting to give me privacy, while she turned back to look every three seconds.
“I am sorry about this,” I muttered, climbing to my feet.
“Meh.” She shrugged, as she fingered through a stack of cd cases on her dresser. “It’s been an interesting Valentine’s Day.”
“Yeah, I bet.” Standing bollocks naked in her bedroom, I hobbled towards her door, with every inch of me on full view. “Molloy.”
“Yeah?”
“The door.” Resting my head against the timber, I repressed the urge to roar, and bit out, “You have the key.”
“Ah crap.” Stepping around me, she reached inside her bra and withdrew a key. “Do you want soap?” she asked, with her ass way too close for comfort. “Or a magazine—“
“Just open the door.”
“Got it.”
