is you working with Mom to get me to settle down.” Then, even though he’d just been joking, his mouth firmed. “Knowing the bitches around our way, they won’t want a dude with a fucked-up leg.”
“You’re the heir to the Five Points, Aidan. They’d want you if you looked like Mutley.” I tapped my chin. “Or do I mean Dick Dastardly?”
His nostrils flared. “Fuck. That’s the best compliment I’ve had from you in five years. Minimum.”
I waved my hand in a bow. “I try, I try.”
His tone turned somber again. “They’re saying I might have to use a cane, Finn.”
“Just for a while, Aidan. Don’t worry.”
“No. Forever. The pins didn’t take well. Might have to go in for another surgery.”
“Shit. I’m sorry, bro.”
He blew a breath. “I always did have the luck of the angels. Must have been my time to get burned.”
“Those fuckers… we’ll make them pay, Aidan. Don’t you worry.”
My best bud, my brother from another goddamn mother, and one of my closest confidants, smirked at me. “I didn’t doubt it, Finn. You’re a mean motherfucker when you want to be.”
Seemed like the two of us were both shit with compliments.
***
Aoife
Three weeks later
I woke up to find Finn watching me.
Because I was surprised to see him, I blinked a few times before rubbing my eyes. When he didn’t disappear, I whispered, “Hey.”
He reached over and trailed a finger along the curve of my jaw. “Hey.”
I hadn’t seen him for a day or two. He slept here most nights, but he was in and out of bed while I carried on sleeping.
“You look exhausted.”
And he did. His skin was pale, not the usual glorious creamy gold that spoke of his Black Irish heritage. He had shadows under his eyes, and from the divots in his cheeks, I wasn’t the only one who’d lost weight.
“I am tired,” he admitted, closing his eyes as he rested his head against the pillow.
Just watching him for a handful of seconds had a sense of peace settling deep inside me, and knowing he was resting, I let myself sleep too.
I’d never felt this way before. Like my happiness, while not exactly dependent on someone else, had a kind of checks and balance system. It mattered to me if he was stressed or discontent. It affected me if he lost weight or didn’t sleep.
Having never been in a long-term relationship before, it was strange to have my life so affected by someone else.
Sure, my mom and I had been close and had lived together. But we were two separate people. Of course I cared if she lost weight or was stressed, but when Finn climbed into bed with me, slept with me—I laid next to him, sensed his emotions, and they affected me.
I thought, to a point, that was what surprised me the most.
Call me dumb or a noob, I just wasn’t used to my moods correlating with someone else’s, and Finn? I didn’t want to say he was moody, but he was often pensive. And with no sex to ease his tension, I felt like I was floundering with no means of connecting.
For hours he’d lay behind me in silence, one hand on my leg, his thumb moving back and forth as he gently caressed me. Not to entice or excite, just to touch me.
With no sex on the table, I guess I should have been scared, but I didn’t really believe he’d cheat on me. Lena, Aidan’s wife, had warned me he would, and maybe I was stupid, but I felt like Finn wouldn’t. Still, he wasn’t getting his rocks off with me, and a man like him, with a high sex drive? Celibacy didn’t seem as though it was high on his checklist.
Days had passed, morphing into weeks. The situation never seemed to improve, the only thing that did? My health.
I had a hole in my abdomen that had to ‘fuse’ back together. I’d lost my spleen. I needed to take prophylactic antibiotics for the rest of my life, would have health issues forever, and I realized this was one of the true costs of a life in the mafia—people got hurt. They bled. It was a world forged on loss and greed and all the sins that Aidan’s Church preached were enough to send you to hell.
Weird then, that he was one of the most devout men I’d ever met—and I was Irish. Being religious was like loving Guinness and celebrating St Patrick’s Day—they all went hand in hand.
As I thought