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“Fuck, he’s turning into Dr. Phil,” I mumbled.
“Well, save the pseudoscience for someone who wants to hear it,” Bren groused, shoving Conor in the side.
Deciding a change of subject was necessary, I muttered, “How do I look?”
Conor blinked. “Like you’ve just been shot, been in surgery, stuck in a ward for a week, and have signed yourself out of the hospital early.”
“Gee, thanks. You say the sweetest things to me.”
“I’m known for my sugar tongue,” Conor remarked, his eyes alight with amusement.
At my expense.
I heaved a sigh. “I know I look as bad as I feel, but still, am I passable?”
Brennan’s hand came to my shoulder. “Seamus has never seen you before. He’ll just be glad to get to know you.”
“Unless he hates you at first sight.”
Brennan punched Conor in the arm. “Don’t say that, fuckwit.”
Scowling, Conor rubbed his arm where Brennan hadn’t held his punch and muttered, “Look, I don’t know what it is with this family, but we’re not in a fairy tale. It’s highly likely Seamus isn’t going to appreciate having a man around the place.
“Not only is he fourteen—and we all remember what it was like to be fourteen—but he was the man around the house. He isn’t used to sharing his mom and he isn’t used to being bossed around by guys. And Dec, no matter what you do, you’re going to end up bossing him around.
“Statistically, women are far more patient with their children than men. And those are ordinary men. Regular ones. Nothing regular or ordinary about you.”
“What the fuck am I? Ground beef?”
He scoffed. “You’re a high-ranking mobster. Someone gives you lip, you shoot their kneecaps off—”
“No, Eoghan does that,” Brennan interjected wryly, and I shot him a swift smirk because baby brohaddone that. And recently. It was technically why I was looking like a walking corpse, and why Seamus was about to meet Jack Skellington instead of the Declan of before.
“I know it’s going to be a learning curve.”
Conor hooted. “More than that.”
“Look, someone gives me shit, I don’t immediately get my gun out. I’m not going to shoot my kid,” I grumbled.
“Reassuring words,” Brennan countered with a laugh.
Fucker had laughed more during this conversation than he had in weeks.
I heaved a sigh. “Come on. Neither of you are much use in making me feel better about this situation.”
“Didn’t realize that was my job,” was all Conor said, and I glared at him harder even as Brennan passed me the two canes that I loathed but needed if I was going to walk toward the elevator.
I refused to use a wheelchair, even if it made me a dumbfuck. My heart had been under enough strain, but there was only so low I’d sink. No way in fuck was I about to meet my kid in a wheelchair.
I mean, there was nothing wrong with wheelchairs, and I was all about equal opportunities, but my kid needed to know who I was. What I was.
I wasn’t going to lie to him.
Not from the start.
He’d live and he’d learn, and he’d see what he came from so that when the time came and Da pressured him, he could make his own choices. Make his own decisions.
That was important to me, and it was something I’d been thinking about while I lay in that nightmare hospital room, surrounded by cellophane and plastic wrap, beeps every which way, and blinded by a light so sharp I’d had a constant migraine since I woke up.
