tugged her down to sit in my lap while she amped herself up to say something else. I clamped my hand down on her thigh and squeezed hard enough to warn her to back down and she narrowed her eyes on me, flicking the cigarette in my other hand a look that said this conversation wasn’t done and then held her tongue.
"Nice to see she's got a bit of fire about her," Liam joked, but I could tell by the way he was looking at her that she really had caught his attention now and I didn't like that one bit.
"Well, happy Christmas," I said dryly.
"Good tidings to all," Liam replied casually, smiling broadly. But there were too many teeth to his smile which gave it the look of a predator eyeing a lamb instead of a man hosting Christmas for his family. I just wasn't sure if he thought I was the lamb his belly was rumbling for a bite of or if my girl was. He certainly wasn't above using her to hurt me. Her presence here alone was a threat in itself.
"How is business?" I asked, taking a long drag on my cigarette before hanging my arm back down over the edge of the couch to keep Tatum away from it.
"Ah, well there's been a downturn in the casinos obviously since lockdown," Liam replied. "But Dougal managed to get around some of it by continuing the fight nights in secret and live streaming them to members. Of course, he's having to take payments and hand out winnings electronically, so he's set up a whole roundabout offshore system to evade the authorities which I'm not too fond of. Either way it’s his balls on the line so I guess the cards will fall as fate deigns fit."
I nodded like I gave a shit about that, but I didn't really care if my uncle Dougal was playing a risky game with the law. If he fucked it up and got himself carted off to prison, then that was just one less O'Brien for me to have to deal with. Besides, Dougal was a dick who’d made me watch him torture a man to death on my twelfth birthday as a gift. The guy had pissed himself and I swear the stench of it mixed with that of his blood had still been caught in the back of my throat when I was eating my birthday cake. He’d ruined red velvet for me for life. What kind of asshole ruins cake for people?
Tatum turned in my lap to make herself more comfortable, her hand dropping down to cup my balls where Liam couldn't see as she smiled sweetly at me. I had to fight not to react to that shit and forced myself to look back at my Grandpa and keep the conversation going while wondering what exactly she was up to. Not that I was complaining.
"I'm sure he has it handled," I said with a nod. "What about product?"
I lifted the cigarette to my lips for another drag, but the second I inhaled, Tatum's grip on my balls sharpened tightly and I damn near leapt out of my chair, having to feign rearranging our position as I coughed the smoke back out of my lungs.
"Actually, sales are up on that front," Liam said, not seeming to notice that my girl had put my balls in a damn vice. "With so many people stuck at home, they're keen to dive into more of their recreational hobbies...at least they are for now while money isn't too much of an issue anyway. Dermot is running that with your mammy and as far as I can tell, the main issue is keeping the delivery boys out of sight when they're dropping it off to people's houses. I think it's become a mostly nocturnal practice to combat the police patrols."
I nodded like I was interested in that as I tried shifting to tug Tatum's hand from my balls. She'd gone back to caressing them instead of squeezing them but with the cigarette in one hand and my other wrapped around her waist, there wasn't an easy way to achieve that without making it obvious.
"Well, it sounds like you've got everything covered. Almost like you don't need me at all," I said, letting just a little disdain drip through my words and Liam smirked at me.
"Every piece of the puzzle has its role to play, lad," he assured me with that look he liked to