I held my hands in front of my chest and grinned. “Is Keela coming over tonight?”
“She’ll probably swing by when she’s out walkin’ that fat bastard she owns.”
I snorted. “Junior is a good—”
“Don’t ye’ dare compliment ‘im. He is tainted, look at who his father was!”
“You cried more than Keela, Alec and the kids when Storm died,” I reminded her. “You didn’t even cry that much when Tyson and Barbara died a few years before him. Admit it, you loved Storm.”
Aideen’s eyes narrow to slits. “If ye’ ever tell Keela, or Alec, I’ll smother ye’ in your sleep.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
“I wouldn’t dream of it, baby doll.”
“Anyway,” she huffed. “It doesn’t matter how I feel because that bloody curse is hangin’ over me.”
Here we go.
“I’m not crazy, so don’t look at me like I am,” she warned. “Storm hated me, and now his son hates me! Will this cycle ever end?”
“Probably not. The curse will remain in place unless something breaks it.”
“Somethin’ like a blood sacrifice?” Aideen perked up. “I volunteer Junior.”
I laughed. “Alec’s family would rain down on you harder than a downpour if you harm their baby.”
“I know.” She sighed. “I’ll just have to live with the curse and hate Junior as much as he hates me.”
“I’m sorry for your suffering,” I teased.
“Don’t be.” My wife grinned. “I enjoy me arguments with ’im, and yes, before ye’ say it, I know we don’t really argue, but in me head, I know he is cursin’ at me when he barks, so I curse back at ‘im so he knows he can’t talk to me that way.”
“You’ve lost your damn mind.” I laughed and pulled her to my chest. “I still love you, though.”
“I love you too, germinator.”
I smiled and kissed the crown of her head. I used the moment to tug the shoulder of her sweater down so I could see the writing that still brought a smile to my face after so many years.
“I still can’t believe you put my name on your body.”
Aideen leaned back, and said, “You love and cherish this body, so it’s as much yours as it is mine.”
I kissed her, and we parted when my phone rang from the living room. The sound suddenly stopped, then one of my kids began shouting.
“Da,” Jagger, my second youngest, yelled, “Uncle Damien is on the phone.”
I sighed. “God doesn’t want me to have some alone time with you.”
“Come bedtime, ye’ can have all the alone time ye’ want with me, big man.”
My bloody heated, and my jeans tightened. “I can’t fucking wait.”
Aideen laughed, then left the room just as Georgie stormed by.
“Georgie.” She called after her, but my niece didn’t stop.
“Let her go,” Jax shouted from his bedroom. “She’s in a pissy mood. We made up, but then she got angry with me all over again. I’ll never understand women. Never!”
“Your uncle has a Man Bible for that.”
I stared at my wife. “What do you know about our Man Bible?”
Aideen looked away. “Nothin’.”
She knew something, but before I could pry it out of her, Jagger shouted and reminded me that my brother was still on the phone waiting for me. I smacked my wife’s ass as I left the room, making her laugh. I entered the sitting room and found Jagger, my nine-year-old, lying on the couch with my phone to his ear as he spoke to my brother. Jagger reminded me very much of my mother in appearance, but the kid’s heart was made of pure gold. His normal white hair—Damien took credit for some of his nephews having the same hair as him—was neon green this week. Ever since he discovered that he could dye his hair a crazy colour and have it wash out after a few showers, he’d tried them all. I hadn’t seen his natural white hair in months, and to be honest, I kind of missed it.
“Here Da,” Jagger said into the phone. “Talk to ye’ later, Unc. Yeah, I love ye’, too.”
I smiled as I took my phone from my son’s outstretched hand and sat next to him on the couch. He repositioned himself to rest against me, his head leaning on my shoulder as he watched an episode of Pokémon. I placed my phone to my ear, and said, “What’s popping, brother?”
“I need your help.”
I tensed. “What’s wrong? Where are you?”
“I’m okay,” he assured me. “It’s Dominic. Jax outed that Georgie has a boyfriend, and that they were planning on having sex.”
I sent a silent thank you up to God that I was sitting down because my legs suddenly went weak. My eyes darted to the elevator that Georgie had left in just minutes ago.
“Why would she do that to us?” I demanded. “She was in my home, and spoke to me, and never said a damn word.”
Damien sighed. “She thinks she’s grown ... Dominic is torn up about it. I think he might cry, if I’m being honest, and that’s not even the worst part.”
There was a worst part to my niece having a little punk fawning after her? To me, that was the worst part.
“Don’t you fucking tell me that girl is pregnant!” I warned as my heart slammed against my chest. “I will lose my fucking mind, Damien.”
“Fuck no,” he responded swiftly. “Her boyfriend is a Collins’.”
Shit. This was bad.
“Where are you guys at?”
“Crough’s pub,” Damien answered. “Dominic’s is planning to get trashed.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I said, getting to my feet. “I’ll call Alec and Ryder, too. We’ll all be there.”
“I already called Alec,” Damien said. “You just get Ryder and get here fast. Alec will just get us drunker quicker.”
I hung up the call just as Aideen entered the sitting room. I told Jagger to go and play with his brothers so we could have a moment of privacy.
“What’s wrong?”
I began to pace back and forth in front of her.
“Georgie has a boyfriend, and he’s your nephew! Can you believe that? She was just here and never said a word about it to me, the little demon.”
Aideen’s eyes instantly averted, and it made me pause, before I widened my own with realisation.
“You knew!”
“Don’t be mad.”
“Don’t be mad?” I echoed. “You knew my niece had a boyfriend, and you didn’t tell me?”
“Our niece,” Aideen corrected. “And no, I didn’t tell ye’ because she made me promise that I wouldn’t until she got the courage to tell ‘er ma and da ‘erself.”
“You knew, and Bronagh didn’t know? Good luck surviving that argument.”
Aideen cringed. “I’ll handle Bronagh ... who told on Georgie anyway?”
“Jax.”
She scowled. “I birthed a little rat.”
“Aideen.”
“What?”
“Which nephew?” I demanded. “Dame just said he was a Collins when he called me.”
She sighed. “It’s Indie.”
Gavin’s eldest.
I growled. “I’m gonna kill him.”
“No, ye’ aren’t.”
She was right. I wouldn’t kill him, but it felt good saying I would.
My wife groaned. “How bad is it? Be honest.”
“Bad.”
“Nico isn’t takin’ it all that well then?”
“Dominic is in a bar, Dame said he will be trashed before the hour is up.”
My wife winced. “Go make sure he doesn’t get hammered ‘cause if he does, he’ll get the idea in his head to hunt me nephew down, and kill ‘im.”
“I’m on it.”
I kissed her cheek, shouted for my sons to behave themselves while I was out, grabbed my keys and wallet, then jogged out of our apartment with only one thought on my mind. I had to help Dominic find a way to break Georgie and Indie up ... a way that would preferably result in my wife not ripping my balls from my body.
We had planning to do.