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“Are you going to look at me?”
“Not right now.”
“Why not?”
“Because it hurts too much.”
My heart constricted in my chest. “Baby.”
She swiftly changed the subject by asking, “So, what are you doing at a Tommen party, Joey Lynch?”
“Believe it or not, I was invited.”
“By who?”
“Hugh Biggs,” I replied before quickly turning the tables. “What are you doing at a Tommen party, Aoife Molloy?”
“I was invited.”
“By who?”
“Katie Wilmot.”
I thought about it for a moment before awareness dawned on me. “Wait, your next-door neighbor, Katie, is with Hugh Biggs?”
“Yeah,” she mumbled. “You already knew that.”
I had a vague recollection of Molloy telling me about her friend having a boyfriend on the rugby team at Tommen, but I’d been too strung out to pay much heed to the conversation at the time. “No, no, no, you told me her name was Katie Horgan.” That I did remember.
“She’s Katie Horgan-Wilmot,” Molloy replied. “Her parents aren’t married, remember? Her mam’s Horgan and her dad’s Wilmot. She has a double-barreled last name, but she mostly goes by her dad’s name.”
“So, Katie is with Hugh.”
“Yeah, they’ve been together for a while now.”
“Well, shit.” My thoughts reverted back to the conversation I had with Lizzie, and a pang of sympathy hit me in the chest before I abruptly stripped all memory of that conversation from my mind.
Not my monkeys, not my circus.
“Why’s she at Tommen again?” I asked, searching my mind and coming up empty. “She’s from Rosewood. Her folks aren’t exactly flush with cash.” Without trying to sound like too much of a dick, I asked, “Shouldn’t she be at BCS with us?”
“You know why she’s at Tommen, Joe,” she muttered, kicking at a stone with her foot. “I’ve told you all about it before, remember?”
Yeah, but I was on another planet and couldn’t hear you.
“Oh, yeah,” I lied, disgusted by just how many ways I’d let this girl down. “I remember.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“I’ve had one drink the whole night.”
“Wow,” she said softly. “That must be a personal best for you.”
Ouch. “I deserve that.”
“I didn’t say that to hurt you,” she squeezed out, shaking her head.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you had.”
