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“Oh, thank god,” I strangled out when Joey’s name flashed across the screen of my phone a little after nine that night. “Joe?” Trembling, I pressed my phone to my ear and bit back a sob. “Are you okay?”
“Molloy.” His voice came down the line and I collapsed in a heap on my bed, body flooding with gratitude. “Are you good? Did you get checked out at the hospital? Did they scan you? Is the baby okay?”
“Yeah, they did and everything’s fine,” I told him, heart thumping hard in my chest. “It’s all good, Joe. Our baby’s healthy as a horse.”
“Oh Jesus.” I heard him release a huge sigh of relief. “Thank fuck for that.”
“Joe, where the hell are you?”
“I’m on my way to your place,” he replied. “It might take me a while.” The sound of traffic whizzing past filled my ears. “I’m walking back into town from the Kavanaghs’ place.”
“Johnny Kavanagh?” I frowned in confusion. “What were you doing there? What happened with the Gards?”
“It’s a really long story, queen,” he replied. “I’ll explain everything when I get to you.”
“I’ll come and get you,” I hurried to say, searching my room for my keys. “Just wait there, and I’ll drive—”
“No, baby, stay where you are,” he instructed. “I’m twenty minutes away tops. Just relax and rest up, okay? I won’t be long.”
“Joe.” Instantly suspicious, I demanded, “Tell me you haven’t?”
“I haven’t.”
“Promise me.”
“I haven’t, I swear.”
I sagged in relief, wary but needing to believe him. “Come straight here, okay? Don’t get sidetracked.” Don’t fuck up. “I’ll be waiting for you, okay?”
“I love you, Molloy.”
“I love you, too.”
“See you in twenty.”
103
The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree
JOEY
After bumming a lift halfway there and then running the rest of the way into town, I was rounding the corner of my girlfriend’s street in Rosewood Estate, when a dark figure stepped out from a side alley.
Startled, because what the fuck, I staggered sideways, knocking up against a row of wheelie bins and dropping my phone in the process.
“What the hell, lad?” I growled, pissed off and agitated as I hunched down to retrieve my phone, only to reach for it a second too late. “You owe me a fucking phone, asshole,” I snarled, watching in dismay as mine fell through the metal slats of a road drain.
“I figured I’d find ya sniffing around her neck of the woods.” The familiar sound of his voice had every muscle in my body locking tight in fearful anticipation. “Relax, boy, I only want to talk to ya.”
Panicked and off-kilter, I quickly straightened up to my full height, poised for trouble. And pain. “What the fuck do you want?”
“To talk,” my father slurred, holding one hand up, while the other fisted a bottle of his poison of choice. Whiskey. “Just talk, boy. That’s all.”
“We have nothing to talk about,” I sneered, taking a safe step back from him, and then hating myself for doing it.
Jesus, this man made my skin crawl. The familiar smell of that particular top-shelf alcohol twisted my stomach up in knots. It had been so long since I’d laid eyes on him that I’d almost forgotten about the feeling of terror he could evoke in me.
Almost.
