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“Tell me what’s wrong.” Forcing him to turn and look at me, I reached up and cupped his face between my hands. “Why do you look so sad?” I was drunk, but not drunk enough to miss the lonesome look in his eyes. “Talkto me.”
“I’m not sad, Molloy,” he replied, hands settling on my hips. “I’m just…”
“You’re just what?”
“Worried.”
My brows rose in surprise. “About what?”
“My sister,” he confessed quietly, and then blew out a pained breath. “My brothers.”
My heart sank into my chest. “Oh.”
“I don’t like leaving them at night.”
Depressed at where this was going, I heard myself ask, “Do you want to go home?”
“No,” he surprised me by saying. “That’s the thing, Molloy.” He shook his head, eyes filling with guilt, and said, “Leaving this room is thelastthing I want to do.”
“Thenstay,” I whispered, pulling him close enough to touch his forehead against mine. “Stay right here with me.” Stroking my nose against his, I tightened my arms around his neck, and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I need you, too, Joe.”
I need you safe and unharmed and the only way I can make sure that happens is if you stay right here with me.
His eyes burned with conflicting emotions. “Molloy.”
“I do. I need you, too,” I choked out, holding on for dear life. “I need you to stay right here with me, because if you leave me now, I won’t be able to breathe until I see you again.”
The fact that he had necked at least a dozen shots with me tonight gave me a slight advantage against his ridiculously unyielding moral compass when it came to his siblings.
If I was dealing with sober Joey, he would go home, regardless of how much I begged him not to.
But I was dealing with drunk Joey, and drunk Joey was vulnerable to persuasion.
“Please stay,” I whispered, hand snaking up to clutch the small silver chain he always wore around his neck, as I slowly backed towards my bed, taking this beautiful boy with me. “It can be my birthday present.” The back of my legs hit the bed, and I fell backwards, taking his big body with me. “Please.” Breathing hard against his mouth, I pressed a searing kiss to his swollen lips. “I want this face to be this first thing I see when I open my eyes in the morning.”
“Okay,” he mumbled against my lips. “I’ll stay with you, Molloy.”
Thrilled that he relented so easily, I threw myself into the moment, into feeling his body on mine, his hard edges against my soft ones, as we touched each other in ways that should have been illegal.
* * *
Later that night,as we lay in bed, facing each other, he broke the silence by saying, “I did, you know.”
“You did what?”
“Get you a present.”
A smile spread across my face. “Yeah?”
Nodding, he quickly rolled out from under the covers and reached for his discarded jeans.
“It’s nothing as flashy as you’re used to from Ricey,” he warned when he climbed back into bed and tossed a small black jewelry box on the mattress between us, along with a half-melted packet of Rolos.
My heart fluttered. “A whole pack just for me?”
He winked. “I told you I would. And if you don’t like the other thing, then it’s tough shit because Shannon washed the receipt with my clothes.”
Excited, I snatched up the box and flipped the lid open.
