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“I don’t need a chaperone,” Molloy argued, looking horrified, but her father cut her off.
“Either he walks you home, or you wait here for me to finish up work. Your choice.”
Balking, she seemed to ponder her choices before locking her eyes on mine. “Well, are you going to walk me home or not?”
For fuck’s sake…
* * *
I was supposedto be learning how to replace the spark plugs in Danny Reilly’s old Corolla, but, instead, I was walking a furious teenage girl home against her will.
How I got roped into this shit, I would never understand.
If Tony knew me, really fucking knew me, he’d quickly realize that his daughter was hell of a lot better off on her own than with me.
I was a bad bet; my mother had as good as told me so on several occasions.
With my hands in the front pocket of my hoodie, I walked alongside Aoife Molloy, listening to her rant on about sexism, differential treatment because she was a girl, the double standards of us being the same age and her father having no problem with me walking back alone, not to mention a whole host of other bullshit since we left her father at the garage.
In all honesty, her dramatic raving should be driving me nuts by now.
Instead, I was mildly amused by her.
“It’s a disgrace,” she hissed, power walking down the footpath in her high-heeled school shoes, her bare thighs on show beneath the scrap of grey fabric she called a skirt. “He’s being totally unreasonable—“
“Can I just stop you right there,” I interjected, holding a hand up.
“Yeah,” she said, turning to look at me with an expectant look. “Why?”
“No reason,” I replied. “I just wanted you to stop talking.”
“You know, Joey, you can be such an asshole sometimes.” Frustrated, she shook her head and marched on ahead of me. “Suchan asshole.”
Fine by me.
I didn’t up my pace and chase her like I suspected she was used to fellas doing.
When she realized this, she swung back around to glare at me.
“You threw me under the bus tonight with the whole library thing,” she burst out, looking more emotionally invested in this argument than was necessary. “You could have backed me up, or just said nothing at all. Instead, you egged my dad on, made him worry about my relationship with Paul, insinuated that I was getting up to no good with him instead of studying.”
“Weren’t you?” I quipped, gesturing to the purplish mark on the side of her neck – curtesy of Paul the prick’s lips, no doubt.
“That’s not the point,” she shouted, stamping her foot. “You could’ve said nothing, you could’ve ignored me like you usually do. Instead, you tried to cause trouble for me.”
I shrugged, not entirely disagreeing with her statement.
“You don’t want to be here with me right now. It’s obvious. I’m the very last person you want to walk home, so why bother?”
“Your father asked me to.”
“Well, I’m asking you not to.”
“You don’t pay my wages.”
“Ugh.” She blew out another frustrated breath. “You are so annoying.”
“And you are such a fucking princess,” I shot back, unapologetically. “Pissing and moaning because your father cares enough about you to want to make sure you get home safe.” I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I can see that you’re having a real hard day, Molloy.”
