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CONOR
THREE DECADES AGO
DREAMS - THE CORRS
I slippedthe candy cigarette between my lips and, when I looked in the window of the convenience store, crowed, "Look, Da, I’m just like you."
Tucking the paper bag under his arm, Da handed the clerk a twenty then peered at me, grinning as he scuffed his free hand over my hair. "Don’t let your ma see. You know she don’t like me smoking."
When I scrunched up my face and tried to pretend I was inhaling, Junior, smirking, muttered, "Now he really does look just like you, Da."
Da scowled at my oldest brother, and we all recognizedthatscowl. It had Junior hunching his shoulders, glancing away before he got that smirk knocked off his lips.
Quickly, he slouched over to the door.
"Why you gotta make him mad?" I grumbled as I hurried after him.
Junior sneered, "I breathe and he gives me shit for it."
I couldn’t argue because he was right.
Every one of Da’s boys managed to get him angry. Well, apart from Eoghan, and that was only because he was still more interested in toddling around the house than speaking. But none of us pissed Da off more than his firstborn.
"You don’t know how to work around him," I mumbled. "I wish you did. He’ll be all pissy on the ride home now."
"He’s always pissy with me."
He sounded so miserable that I had to cheer him up.
"Not always. Today, it’s ‘cause you can’t shoot in a straight line." I nudged him in the side. "I know you got it in you though, Aidan. I know you can do it."
"I don’t want to do it, Kid. Don’t you get that? I don’t want to be Da’s heir. I don’t wanna learn how to shoot, and I don’t wanna have to kill—" Before he finished that sentence, he broke off to clear his throat. "It doesn’t matter. You don’t know how fucking lucky you are, Con. No expectations, no standards. You can just be you." He shook his head when I made to argue. "He’s coming over."
"What are you two talking about?" Da demanded, his suspicious gaze crawling over our expressions.
I reckoned we must have looked shifty because he didn’t stop with the scan for a good thirty seconds. That was alongtime, trust me.
"I was telling him about what my tutor taught me today."
Da’s lips quirked up in a grin. "You learned a lot?" He scrubbed a hand over my hair again.
"I did. We were talking about this thing called the Y2K problem." I sighed wistfully. "I really hope all the computers in the world crash like the experts say they will."
Da snorted. "Destructive little fucker."
"What’s the Y2K problem?" Junior questioned.
Neither my da nor my brother were all that interested in computers so I tried to figure out how to make it easy on them. "People are worried none of the computers’ll be able to deal with going from 1999 to 2000 on the eve of the Millennium. They think they’ll start showing 1900 instead of 2000, and that’ll mess with everrrrrything."
"Fucking computers. They’ll be the death of us," Da grouched as he opened the door to the store.
Even though I was used to him doing it, I watched him step out first, check the area, then gather nods of assent from the four guards watching us before he held it wider so we could leave too.
Da might be allowed to slap us for doing stupid shit, but no one else was permitted to hurt us. Things were tense at the moment because he was having some problems with the Italians so he was more on edge than usual.
I didn’t know how you could have a problem with the people who’d invented pizza, but I was pretty sure Da’d get into a fight with a leprechaun who was offering him a massive pot of gold.
He was just ornery.
