Chapter Nineteen
Static bristled in her ears. An unending, constant drone of white noise that settled over her senses like a dense fog.
It lingered in her mind, shrouding her—heavy like a damp blanket on a wintry night.
Every piece of her was tired. Her feet. Her arms. Her head.
It was all she could do to wrap her arms around herself in the passenger seat and stare out the window.
Yet Kieran’s palm was heavy on her thigh—a constant comfort.
Once parked, she followed Kieran inside.
His home was clean and quiet, save for the giggle of a certain little toddler echoing down the hall from the kitchen.
Lily swallowed and glanced at her clasped hands.
She’d have to face them. There’d be no hanging around Kieran’s home without his siblings knowing about it.
He waved a hand, beckoning her to follow him.
“I’m home,” he called as they entered the kitchen.
Saoirse let out a squeal and ran for her uncle, throwing her arms around his legs. “Kiki!”
“Hey, Trouble.” He scooped her into his arms and settled her on his hip. “Are you being a good eater for your mam?”
“No.” She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “Mammy gave me peas.”
“Peas are good for you.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Ah, well, maybe I’ll eat your share and give mine to Lily. We haven’t eaten yet.”
The little girl’s gaze swung to Lily, and her toothy grin stretched further. “Hi, Lily!”
Saoirse was the resident greeter at the gym, and she’d taken to giving Lily hugs every morning when she arrived for work.
“Lily’s here?” Danny stood from the table, leaning so he could see around Kieran’s broad shoulders. A grimace crossed the boy’s features, and he dropped his sandwich back to his plate. “Shit, what happened to your face?”
Kieran sidestepped, blocking her in the hallway and shielding her from Danny’s view. “None of your business. Finish your dinner.”
It was no wonder these two bickered nonstop. Kieran couldn’t even treat Danny like the adult he clearly longed to be.
She stepped around Kieran and met Danny’s bewildered stare. “About a year ago, I ran away from my fiancé and came to Chicago. He showed up at the gym today, and as you can see, our conversation was not very pleasant.”
The boy’s blue eyes widened, and pink tinged the tips of his ears. He tore his gaze from Lily to his older brother. “Did you kick his ass, Kier?”
Kieran eased into the kitchen and set Saoirse down beside her mother. “Sebastián did.”
“Good man,” whispered Maeve. She hadn’t spoken before then, but her gaze met Lily’s. A sort of sad understanding sank into those misty blues. “Those look like nail marks. Have you cleaned them yet? We have antiseptic pads in the first aid kit.”
“I took a shower, and Seb did some first aid.” What had begun as a burning pain now only ached.
“Danny.” Kieran’s voice was quiet and even. “Why don’t you show Lily around? I want to catch up with Maeve.”
Right. He needed space to make a plan. Kieran—the fixer.
Danny hopped up, more than happy to be excused from dinner, and jerked his head toward the hall. “Come on, I’ll give you the tour.”
With one last lingering glance toward Kieran, Lily followed the youngest Sullivan sibling back through the living room and up the rounded staircase to the second floor.
First was Danny’s room. A quick peek inside with his permission revealed a twin bed surrounded by hand-sketched drawings, a desk cluttered with books as well as basketball trophies, a dresser topped with body sprays, and a TV wall-mounted in front of a beanbag chair.
It was the perfect teenage-angst room. Lily would have given anything for one just like it when she was Danny’s age.
Next was the bathroom, small but clean—probably Kieran’s doing. Then Shauna’s old room.
“This one’s empty if you need, like, space or whatever.
” Danny swung open the door, and Lily stepped into a cocoon of warmth.
Bright, sunshine-yellow walls greeted her.
Someone had painted a mural on the left wall—a prairie filled with dancing butterflies and bumblebees.
Bison grazed near a pond in the background, and rows of purple coneflowers, black-eyed Susans and wild indigo dotted the wall with color.
She shuffled inside, her jaw slack. “Holy hell.”
Danny leaned in the doorway—a miniature Kieran through and through. “Shauna painted it after we moved in. Creative outlet and all.”
Their sister did this? Eyes wide, Lily spun and took in the rest of the room.
Not much was left behind. There wasn’t a desk or a dresser in this room.
Where a TV had once been mounted, only the holes remained.
She must have taken most of her belongings when she left.
But the mural stayed—a scene of peace and serenity for a teen girl who’d lived through far too much trauma.
“She’s very talented.”
He hummed an agreement. “Yeah, she’s a tattoo artist now. She did all of Kieran’s.”
Yes, Kieran had told her. She’d admired his tattoos on more than one occasion. They were incredibly well done. Nothing like the practical prison ink Vovik had on his chest. Comparatively, Vovik’s tattoos resembled the graffiti scratched into the tables of a seventh-grade shop class.
Vovik.
Her stomach churned, and Lily sat atop the bed with her hands in her lap.
“Um.” Danny rocked awkwardly from foot to foot. “Are you okay?”
She took a deep breath in through her nose and blew it out through her mouth.
“No.” But she wasn’t not okay either. Not in the way she thought she’d be.
The spike of fear that had shot through her hours before was gone, and, in its place, a low burning fire of rage was taking over.
And woven in: pity. How pathetic was he?
How miserable? What a waste of a life—to be so hateful and wretched.
“But you know what?” Lily smiled softly. “That’s alright. Just because I’m upset right now doesn’t mean I’ll be upset forever.”
The young teen’s brows furrowed together. “But he hurt you. How do you move on from that?”
She rose from the bed and shrugged. “By reminding myself that he’s a piece of shit. And that has nothing to do with me.”
He nodded, his face grim, as if contemplating the trueness of her words. “Well, um… I’m glad you’re safe.”
“Thanks, Danny.”
“Do you wanna be alone? Or I could load up Duos in Fortnite?”
A laugh broke past her lips. “I don’t think I’d be very good.”
“That’s fine.” Excitement lit up his deep blue eyes. “I’m goated. I can carry you. I carry Kieran, and he’s a fucking bot.”
That meant Kieran spent time with Danny outside of meals and his basketball games. Good. The kid definitely needed his brother. “Okay. You load it up and run a warm-up round. I’m just gonna take a minute.”
“Bet.”
He disappeared down the hall, and Lily slung her hands into her pockets.
Was Shauna’s room where Kieran wanted her to stay?
The room was plenty warm and inviting, but it wasn’t what she’d had in mind when Kieran invited her over.
She stepped into the hall, turned away from Danny’s room and headed toward the closed door at the end. It opened without so much as a squeak.
The first thing she noticed was how neat his room was, especially compared to Danny’s.
A sprawling king-size bed covered in a powder-blue-and-navy-checkered comforter greeted her first. Every pillow was fluffed and each corner tucked into place.
She moseyed over to his dresser, admiring the assorted high school wrestling trophies.
There were a few frames, too. In one, a teenage Kieran in South Side MMA gear grinned with one arm tossed over Neal’s shoulders.
In another, four children gathered around, smiling from a front porch.
She easily recognized Kieran. Dark hair and even darker eyes.
That damn scar in his brow, even as a young teen or tween, but he was smiling. At whom? His mother?
He had a black-haired baby in his arms. That had to be Danny. And a little brunette with pigtails held on to his pant leg. Was that Shauna? Maeve was recognizable, though she stood several inches shorter than her brother. They looked like normal, happy kids. Hell, maybe on that day they were.
A firm knock on the door frame drew her attention from the photos. Kieran walked in and leaned against the wall by the dresser. “Find anything good?”
“Just you smiling.” She gestured toward the frame. “I think I might be able to blackmail you with this.”
He rolled his eyes and granted her one of his rare beaming grins. “I have photo albums, too, if you wanna go through them.”
“Hmm, I don’t know, Sullivan.” She spun away from his dresser and made her way to a small bookshelf.
Among the knickknacks and surprisingly large collection of wristwatches were a few books.
A Rose for Emily. The Fall of the House of Usher.
Oliver Twist. What a hopeful collection.
“Are you sure you want to give me ammunition? I might send some baby photos to Seb.”
“Go ahead. Let him know I’ve been cuter than him since day one.”
Lily huffed and plopped down onto his bed. Since when did Kieran make jokes about his attractiveness? “You don’t have to be overly cheery for me. I’m fine.”
He hummed and crossed the room, sitting quietly beside her. “That’s why you didn’t say as much as two words to me in the car. Because you’re fine.”
Touché. “I was texting Nat.”
“And what did she say?”
“She wanted to come get me.” Lily lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling fan as it spun in lazy circles. “I told her I was with you.”
“And she’s okay with that?”
Actually, she’d been incredibly wary that Kieran might take advantage of the situation and had to be told about five times that everything was under control. “She came around after I promised to make an emergency appointment with my therapist for sometime this week.”
Kieran lay down, too, and covered Lily’s hand with his. “She’s a good friend.”
“The best.” Lily rolled toward Kieran, and he moved to match her, searching her face with those deep brown eyes.
“Did your friends know?”
“No.” She was quick to come to their defense.
She knew how Kieran was—what he was capable of.
Had she been his friend in college, he probably would have put Vovik through a wall.
“I hid it pretty well. I was good at makeup, and we all had busy schedules. Alex figured it out first. We had the same minor, so I couldn’t avoid him as well.
Once he told Nat, they were all on my ass about leaving him.
It was this stupid, ridiculous cycle where it would get bad and I’d leave, but he’d apologize and promise he loved me and—” Lily sucked in a breath. “I was stupid.”
Kieran squeezed her hand. “It’s not stupid to believe someone you love when they make you a promise.”
“Yeah, well.” She blinked away a few stubborn tears. “Nat made a promise, too. It was my birthday last year, and he threw me a party. He got really drunk and so irritated that I was playing beer pong with some of his friends. He got it in his head I was flirting and—”
Kieran swiped his thumb over her cheek, wiping away her tears. “Let me guess. He acted like an insecure little bitch and hurt you?”
She forced a smile. “It’s almost like you know his type.”
“I’ve come across them a few times. So, what did Nat do?”
Lily inched closer, letting his warmth bleed comfort into her. “Well, I ended my birthday in the emergency room. When I told them I fell, Nat just lost it. She swore she was done, and she wasn’t gonna wait for him to kill me. She said I could go home with her or our friendship was done.”
“And you chose Nat.”
“I chose Nat.” At the time, it had felt like the end of her life.
In reality, it was the beginning of her first taste of freedom.
“Jack and Alex used my key to go get my stuff while Vov was at work. They left the key and my ring. I texted him it was over, blocked him, and moved onto Nat and Jack’s couch. ”
Kieran raised their joined hands to his lips and kissed the back of hers before cradling it against his heart. “Remind me to thank her next time we hang out.”
He wanted to see her friends again? Lily inhaled and chewed her lip.
What were their current rules? Keep it low-key.
Tell each other what they wanted. Be exclusive fuck buddies.
Did fuck buddies mix their friend groups the way they had?
Did fuck buddies lie quietly atop the covers, wiping away each other’s tears?
“Kier…” Her voice caught in her throat. What if she ruined it? What if the dreaded what are we talk sent him running for the first time in his life?
“Yeah?” he prompted.
She forced a little smile. “Thanks for taking care of me.”
He offered half a shrug. “That’s what friends do.”
The assertion settled warm in her chest. Yes, Kieran was her friend. Maybe more, she wasn’t sure, but certainly not less. She wiggled even closer and rested her forehead against his strong chest. He was quickly becoming one of her closest friends—someone she could depend on.
Kieran was safe.