Chapter 15 #2
Which was a massive understatement. His mother wasn’t a prude.
She’d married into an Irish/Australian working-class family with a working-class affection for the kind of words not often spoken in polite company.
Hell, Fin’s grandmother—who was a tiny little bird of a woman—could swear up a storm in sign language, which somehow made the words seem even louder.
Ronnie had also been a public librarian for almost forty years and, to cap it off, she’d worked most evenings of her life behind a bar.
She’d just never been one much for cussing herself.
Fin would argue she had never needed to.
His mother adopted a certain expression when she was unimpressed that stopped most people in their tracks.
It had certainly stopped him from pushing the envelope too far throughout his childhood.
His father had affectionately called it her fuck around and find out look.
And neither of them had been game to do that.
‘Listen to this one. From hot-to-trot-88. Love a man who is good with his hands. I’m pretty good with mine too. Bonus for you, no gag reflex.’
Her eyes popping, Sweeney snort-laughed, quickly muffling it with a hand over her mouth as Fin glared at her and lamented the fact that he did have a gag reflex, which was unfortunately threatening imminent activation. ‘Mum.’
‘And this one from smut-princess-polly.’
Oh boy. This was not going to be good. ‘Mum.’
‘Hey, honey,’ Ronnie continued unabated. ‘I need a good fingering and you look like you have the means. DM me.’
‘Mum!’
Collapsing back against the chair, Sweeney laughed so hard there was no possible way her hand was going to contain the noise. Fin shuddered, knowing there was no possible way he was ever going to scrub his mother saying good fingering from his memory banks.
Between that and her ruined vagina, this trip had been brutal on his future sex life.
But she carried on blithely like she hadn’t just doomed him to a life of repetitive self-pleasure.
‘I know we’re supposed to be very you go, girl now and we’re not supposed to shame women for expressing themselves sexually because of course they should be able to do that but …
why do it on a social media platform? I mean, does that even appeal to men? ’
Fin just wanted this conversation over but, as it hovered there in the growing silence, it appeared the question was not rhetorical. Years ago, on his tenth birthday, his mother had sat him down and spoken to him about wet dreams. It had been one of the most embarrassing moments of his life.
This was way worse.
‘Yes, Fin,’ Sweeney said sweetly, a devilish expression on her face, ‘does that appeal to you?’
He narrowed his eyes at her. Sweeney was having too good a time at his expense.
But the twitch of her lips and the sparkle in her eyes was hard to resist, and he found himself smiling despite the awkward situation.
‘Do not encourage her,’ he mouthed and completely surprised himself by also signing it.
Pressing her lips together, she tapped two fingers to her forehead in a salute.
‘Not particularly,’ he said finally.
Not the public declaration of it, anyway. The fingering bit? Fin was up for anything a woman might want to do between the sheets.
Or against a wall. Or in the back of a car. Or in the shower.
He blinked as he realised he was staring at Sweeney and she was staring right back and he was aware all over again, as he had been in the kitchen, that she didn’t have a bra on under that shirt but she did have on his body wash. The body wash she applied in the shower.
Neither of them were smiling anymore and he absently wondered why all the good words started with F.
Jesus, dude. What is the matter with you? Do not put Sweeney anywhere near a thought bubble full of F words. The only F word he needed to be thinking about around Sweeney was friend.
His oldest, dearest friend.
Dragging his gaze back to the phone, Fin flailed around mentally for a change in topic. Thankfully Sweeney jumped in for him.
‘I’ll email those pics over to you soon,’ she said.
‘Oh, that would be super, thanks, Sweeney.’
‘Of course. No problems.’
Fin could have kissed her for veering things back onto safer ground. Except not. Of course. Because she was Sweeney. Dumb ass …
‘I was thinking, Fin,’ his mother said, ‘that before you leave we’ll have to get all those photos organised into some kind of album. An actual album. Print the photos out. Nobody does that anymore. Do you think you could help me with that?’
Fin wanted to help with that about as much as he wanted to staple his dick to the nearby wall.
It wasn’t that he objected to working on a project with his mother—he just knew from The Great Wall of Wool that had threatened to topple on him that first couple of nights, before he’d moved into his mother’s room after she’d decamped down the road, that she was the creative one and he was spreadsheet guy.
He didn’t have the patience to faff around with making things pretty.
‘Well … I’m not sure—’
‘I think that’s a brilliant idea, Rhonda,’ Sweeney interrupted. ‘Teamwork.’
‘Teamwork makes the dream work,’ his mother chirped. Fin shot death rays from his eyes at Sweeney, which clearly had zero effect as she stifled a laugh.
‘Another thing before I go.’
Oh god. Fin braced himself. What next? She wanted to get Team Murphy t-shirts? Run a marathon together? Form a mother/son partnership and go on The Block?
‘I’m so sorry, I’ve only just remembered. What with your surprise visit and the surprise engagement.’
Surprise engagement? The audacity of that statement. Like he’d been the one to spring it on them rather than the other way around?
‘And with the Banshees,’ she continued, ‘and all the associated crazy internet business, it had completely slipped my mind.’
A serious edge had crept into his mother’s voice, which shot an itch up Fin’s spine. He frowned at the phone. ‘What slipped your mind?’
‘There are two boxes of your father’s stuff in the garage that I kept for you when I was sorting through everything. Just some things I thought he’d probably want you to have, and other stuff that I thought you might like to keep. You don’t have to.’ Her tone softened. ‘If you’re not ready.’
Oh. Oh.
Fin hadn’t been expecting that and it punched him hard in the throat, his breath catching as it rasped through his crippled larynx. How had they gone from smut-princess-polly to boxes of his dead father’s things?
Was he ready?
‘Darling?’ Ronnie said after a while, a quiver of concern husking her voice. ‘Are you there?’
Fin wasn’t sure how long he’d stared at the phone, but obviously long enough for his mother to prompt. Something nudged his arm, bringing him out of his mental quagmire, and he glanced down to identify the touch.
Sweeney.
She’d reached across the gap that divided them and was sliding her hand over the top of his and squeezing.
Absently, he met her gaze and she gave him a small, encouraging nod and smile.
Without thinking, he turned his hand over and her fingers—and his—automatically interlinked, their palms pressed together.
Like the day they’d arrived outside the bar. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.
‘Sorry, yes.’ Fin cleared his throat and the fog from his brain as he returned his attention to the phone. ‘I’m here. Um … yes, sure. I’ll take a look at them before I go.’
‘You really don’t have to if you want more time,’ she reiterated softly. ‘They’re not going anywhere.’
Did he want more time?
How much time did he need? How long was long enough? How long would that last argument with his dad keep replaying in his mind like it was yesterday, not two years ago?
His mother had done the hard part, dealing with all his father’s stuff, while he’d been in Ireland trying to reconcile that the last words he’d spoken to his father had been in anger. As if somehow getting back to the Murphy family roots would help.
It hadn’t. Maybe two boxes in the garage would.
‘No, it’s fine.’ He shook his head, knowing that it was time to not just dip his toe in the shallows of his guilt but take a deep dive. ‘I want to.’ Needed to. ‘I’ll get to them.’
Maybe not today, but he made a pledge to himself that he would open those boxes before he left Ballyshannon. It was time.