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Lena huffed, but she did concede, "Thought my ears were deceiving me when I first heard him laugh." I received a gimlet stare. "So there’s some use to you, at least."
"Better than Prozac, that’s me," I confirmed, something settling inside me as the other women started taking some of the spotlight off me.
"The boy’s been on worse than Prozac," Aela retorted.
"His eyes were clear, weren’t they?" Inessa asked.
So, they’d known he was taking drugs. "He’s clean. Has been for about six weeks," I informed them.
Lena pursed her lips. "You the reason for that?"
I shook my head. "No."
"Well, unlike my son, at least you’re honest. Used to be a time when they were terrified to lie because their da used to tell them he’d cut off their fingers if they did."
"Christ," Aela muttered.
"You know that’s not a good thing, don’t you, Grandma?" I turned to see Seamus, Declan’s son, pausing in his attempts to lick a spoon clean of what looked like cake batter.
The female population in five years’ time was going to swoon whenever he walked into a room.
These O’Donnellys and their goddamn genes. Talk about blessed.
"There are worse things in this world, my boy."
Victoria said something that had Shay smirking, and they turned to each other, chuckling in a way that had both their cheeks burning with heat.
Teen crushes were so cute.
"I won’t be telling Jacob that I’ll cut his fingers off if he lies," Aoife muttered.
Lena shrugged. "Different times."
"Not sure there was ever an era where thatwasn’tpolitically incorrect, Lena." Camille pursed her lips. "You were upset when you found out about Eoghan’s beating—"
"When was he beaten?" Inessa burst out, bristling.
"Before your wedding," Aoife murmured as she bit into a sugar cookie.
"How did you know that?" Jen asked.
"Finn was mad at Aidan Sr."
Lena’s mouth tightened. "Keeping them on the straight and narrow is one thing, but beating them into—" She sighed. "I know you were beaten too, child, for not wanting to go through with the marriage."
Eyes wide, cake forgotten, and fascination at fever pitch with this conversation, I tried not to feel like I was living in a reality TV show.
Talk about bliss.
"It’s never right to beat your child," Aela grumbled. "Even if he’s a pain in the butt and won’t ever do as he’s told," she called out so Shay could hear.
He grinned at her. "Mom, you know you love my BS."
She rolled her eyes. "If you say so, kiddo."
"I didn’t like it," Lena admitted. "But I wasn’t as brave as you all back then."
"Hard to imagine you not being able to chew nails," Aoife commented with a soft laugh.
