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His nose crinkled but he explained, “Da was terrified that Declan was gay—”
“Why?”
He kissed my shoulder. “Catholic.”
I grunted my disapproval as I twisted around to face him.
“Trust me, I wouldn’t give a fuck if he was gay, but I’m not Da. So, anyway, he found out this one year that he took art in school…”
“Well, that’s normal.”
“He wanted him to not be in that class, and if Da had gone down to the school and told the faculty he didn’t want his son learning art, it would have soon been swiped off Declan’s class schedule.”
My brow furrowed at his words, and the atonement I was supposed to be attempting to achieve hit a plateau because how the fuck could I be sorry about eradicating that type of man from the earth?
“It’s when you say shit like that, I wonder how I’m supposed to atone,” I admitted, unable to hold my tongue. “I couldn’t be Catholic.”
“Most Catholics can’t be either. You’re just supposed to promise your priest you will repent and cross your fingers behind your back.”
“That’s the standard treatment?”
“Yup.”
“And you won’t accept the standard treatment?”
“Nope.”
I blew out a breath. “Did your da think wanting to draw was contagious or something?”
“Who knew how Da’s brain worked? Anyway, Ma would chide him for this stuff, but I think she was worried too. Not for the same reasons, but because it’d have been harder for Declan to find a path in the Points…”
“Homophobic asswipes.”
“It’s a breeding ground of toxic masculinity,” he mumbled. “What else did you expect?”
Knowing my defiance shone through, I declared, “I don’t care if Katina is gay.”
“Good. You shouldn’t care. Who the fuck cares so long as she’s happy and loved?”
That encouraged me to tip more of my weight onto him as a silent reward. Not that I’d been testing him, but maybe I’d have found some potatoes and thrown them at him too if he’d come out with any of that bullshit—
Oh.
“She hit him with potatoes to get him to back down? That’s where you’re going with this, aren’t you?”
His chuckle was low. “Yeah. He was going to the front door and about to head to the school when, out of nowhere,boom, straight in the shoulder. One on the head. He twisted around and she got him in the nuts. Got a couple more licks in too before he tackled the potatoes out of her reach.”
“You saw all this?”
“Was sitting on the stairs listening to them argue.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “This was after the priest. I used to listen to the arguments to make sure they weren’t talking about me.”
That made me deflate. “Oh, Conor, you did nothing wrong.”
A shaky breath escaped him. “I know. Now. Back then, not so much. Plus, Aidan and Finn had killed him and I’d drawn my godfather into this, so I was terrified they were going to get arrested… Good times,” he finished weakly.
