Chapter 6
Aoife
“W e’ll be back soon,” I murmured into the phone as Richie and I walked through the grocery store.
“Saoirse says to tell you that Aisling’s ear hurts, and we’re out of kid’s ibuprofen.”
“Shit. I hope it goes away on its own.”
“Same.”
“Do we need anything else while I’m here?”
“Pack of smokes?”
“Dream on, loser.”
“Mom left her purse here,” Cian muttered to himself.
“She did?”
“Yeah, she was talking to Aunt Ashley on the phone and must’ve forgotten it. You know how they are. Why the fuck she calls her, I will never understand. She took off an hour after you left.”
“Well, brace yourself because I’m sure she’ll eventually realize she forgot it.”
“Yeah, if she can’t find some loser to buy her drinks,” he scoffed and hung up.
I stuffed my phone back in my pocket.
“Everything good?” Richie asked, looking up from where he was leaning on the cart. I loved when he met me after work, but it always took twice as long to get any shopping done.
“Aisling’s ear is bothering her,” I replied with a grimace. “I need to get some pain reliever.”
“That sucks.” He followed along behind me as I hurried up the aisle. “Hopefully she’s feeling better before we head to the river.”
“No kidding.”
“So, we’ve got the cake shit and the picnic shit,” he mused, hurrying to catch me. “Anything else?”
I pulled the medicine off the shelf.
“Just drinks.”
The kids were going to go nuts when they saw what I brought home.
I rarely kept snacks in the house because they were usually gone so fast that it felt like a waste of money.
While I’d love for the kids to be able to just grab something and go…
we really didn’t have the money for them to eat stuff just because they were bored.
It was depressing, but food that had to be assembled into something edible was far better than no food at all—which is what would happen if we went over budget and ran out before my next paycheck.
Cian’s birthday was a welcome exception to my rules.
We had fried chicken from the deli that would be good cold the next day, four different kinds of chips, a tray of fruit, two different kinds of pasta salad, and I was planning on getting enough soda so that they could enjoy it for the rest of the week.
We were going to feast, and I didn’t have to cook anything but the cake. I couldn’t wait.
“You already grabbed Cian’s clothes?” Richie asked as we loaded up the bottom of the cart with drinks.
“Yeah, they’re in there somewhere,” I mused. “I got him a couple pairs of jeans and three shirts. Hopefully he likes them.”
“He will.”
“I don’t know what’s cool with his group of friends. I don’t want him to look like a dork.”
Richie laughed. “You’ve been out of high school for two months, and you’re already afraid you’re not hip to the trends?”
“I’m not exactly trendy,” I replied dryly, gesturing to my work uniform.
“You fit in pretty well here,” he joked, nodding at one of my coworkers who was restocking a shelf in the same uniform.
“Ha ha,” I said sarcastically. “I’m just glad we have an apparel department so I can use my discount.”
“Have you picked up his board yet?” Richie asked thoughtfully.
“No, I went in and built it before work.” I shook my head. “Picked out all the parts I wanted, and the skate shop said they’d assemble and have it ready tomorrow morning.”
“Fancy.”
“Don’t act like you didn’t do the same thing when you got your board.” I bumped him with my hip.
“I could’ve just given Cian my board, you know,” he said quietly. “It’s not like I use it anymore.”
I smiled at him and leaned up on my toes to give him a kiss. “Thank you.” I dropped back down. “They get a lot of stuff secondhand. I wanted him to get some new stuff for his birthday and going into high school, you know?”
“Yeah, I get it. You’re a good sister, you know that?”
“Are you kidding? I’m the best sister.”
We waited in line for what felt like forever, and when we finally got to the register, Jasmine rang us up.
“Damn, girl! Looks like a party.”
“It’s Cian’s birthday tomorrow,” I replied with a laugh.
“Getting your boy all set up, I see.” She lifted up a pair of jeans. “Good choice.”
“Hopefully they’re long enough,” I mused. “He’s taller than me now.”
“They do that,” she commiserated with a nod. “Always eating all your food and growing out of the clothes you just bought ’em. Pains in the neck, every single one.”
I laughed. Jasmine adored her two kids. She’d had her first during her senior year of high school and the second a little less than two years later, and from what she’d told me, life had been absolutely nuts for her.
By the time I’d met her, they were in grade school, and she felt like she had some time to breathe.
“It’s okay, Grace,” I called out as another coworker rushed toward our lane. “I can bag it!”
“Aoife knows what she’s doing,” Jasmine added with a little laugh.
“I’ve worked here too long,” I told her quietly. “I like my bags packed a certain way.”
“I hear you,” Jasmine agreed. “How you doing, boyfriend?”
Richie smiled and winked. “She hasn’t kicked me to the curb yet, so I’m all good.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Jasmine replied. “Heard you got a new job. You liking it?”
“I love it,” Richie confirmed.
“Good. Figure out your shit so when I end up with a plumbing problem you can come and fix it.”
“I’ll do that,” he replied easily.
They were so smooth about it, chatting like best friends, that I didn’t realize Richie had paid for the groceries until I had everything bagged and made my way back to the keypad.
“What did you do?” I snapped in exasperation, looking up at him.
“Don’t worry,” Jasmine said smugly. “I took off your employee discount.”
“Traitor.”
“Pfft. You know I’m gonna let my girl’s guy pay if he wants to. Say thank you, and get outta my lane, you’ve got people behind you.”
“I’ll see you Tuesday,” I grumbled with a wave, hip-checking Richie out of the way so I could push the cart.
“Don’t be mad,” he crooned in my ear as we walked out of the store.
“I saved up,” I bit out. “So I could pay for Cian’s birthday stuff.”
“I know, but now you don’t have to.”
“I don’t need you to pay for things.”
“I know that, too,” he replied, stopping me at the trunk of my car. “I like helping you out. It makes me feel good to know I’m taking a little of the load off your shoulders.”
I clenched my jaw, trying not to explode. This was what I could do for Cian’s birthday. It wasn’t huge or elaborate, but I’d worked for it and planned it. And maybe that made me petty or ungrateful or rude, but I was angry that Richie took it away.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, his eyes searching my face. “This isn’t the normal pissed you get when I pay for things. I fucked up, didn’t I? You wanted to get Cian’s stuff.”
In an instant, my anger was gone. I hadn’t had to say a word, and he understood. He knew me better than I knew myself. Sometimes, I forgot that. The remorse on his face made me feel like an asshole.
“It’s okay,” I replied with a sigh. “I’m still getting his skateboard. I already paid for that, so you can’t sneak attack.”
Richie smiled, threading his fingers through my hair so he could pull me in for a kiss. “He’s gonna love it. Meet you back at the house?”
“Yep.”
We put the groceries in my trunk, and then I watched with a small smile on my face as Richie returned the cart and sauntered over to his truck. I wasn’t the only one who felt settled lately. We’d found a rhythm that worked, and both of us had a little extra bounce in our steps.
Richie was right behind me when we pulled out of the parking lot, and I couldn’t help but check my rearview mirror over and over again to see him. I used to hate when he drove behind me, watching my every move. I knew I drove like a little old woman, I didn’t need him observing me while I did.
Richie waved at me, and I laughed. He could see right in the back window.
We got stopped in some traffic about a mile from my house, and I did an obnoxious dance in my front seat to make him laugh. When I stopped to look at him in the mirror, he was dancing, too. I laughed until my eyes watered as he just kept doing it, his lips pursed into a look of mock concentration.
We finally got moving again, slowly, so I kept my eyes on the road as we rolled forward.
There was an accident up ahead, and where there were normally four lanes, people were being routed into two.
Usually, I tried to keep my eyes off of whatever was happening in those closed-off lanes.
It didn’t feel right to witness what could potentially be the worst day of someone’s life—but something caught my eye as we got closer.
My heart started pounding so hard I could feel it in the base of my throat, and as we reached the accident, it took everything inside me to keep my hands on the wheel and constant pressure on the gas pedal.
My hands started shaking as I took in the scene.
A blue car had been so smashed by a semi-truck that it was almost too pretzeled to recognize the make and model, but I knew.
The driver of the truck was standing by the front of one of the police cars, tears rolling down his face.
A group of firefighters were moving around the two vehicles.
An ambulance sat with flashing lights, but no sirens on the shoulder.
There was a black body bag on the ground, and I knew exactly who was in it.
The sight was like a punch to the sternum, and I tried desperately to pull air into my lungs as we passed the accident and cars started to speed up again. I couldn’t look up to find Richie in the mirror. It was a struggle just to keep my attention on the road.
Less than two minutes later, I pulled into the driveway and slammed my car into park. Before I’d even opened the door, Richie was there.
“Holy fuck, Aoife,” he was muttering, his hands sliding over me from my cheeks to my neck, my arms and torso. “You okay? You okay?”
He kept asking as he unbuckled my seat belt and pulled me out of the car.