Chapter Twenty-Four #2
“You didn’t like him either? That seems to be a pattern with you.”
“Yeah, imagine that. A guy who protects the people he loves. Is that such a hard concept to understand?” When I don’t respond right away, he adds, “We can’t just trust anyone.
That’s not how this works. I know Tiernan, know him better than anyone.
He might seem like he can’t be hurt, but he can be. It’s my job to take care of him.”
“Tiernan seems like the kind of man who can take care of himself.”
He tosses me an annoyed glance. “He can in most ways, but inside, he’s just like the rest of us. He’s not invincible, and I could see the way he was with Dean. I won’t let Tiernan get hurt, so I had to be sure Dean deserved him.”
“And Rory?”
“Fuck yes. You don’t know what he was like in the beginning.
He was wild, feral. He didn’t know how to act.
His dad was a hothead, completely lacked self-control, even worse than Rory.
His mom was…she was already so far gone, would just stay in bed for days, even weeks at a time.
He was like this little chaos gremlin, who would wreck stuff and had no one who cared about him enough to teach him better. ”
“And you did? Weren’t you guys young?” I know Rory’s mom died when he was eight, so they had to be younger than that.
“Five,” Cillian answers. “I didn’t know what I was doing. But from the moment I met him, I knew he was mine and I wanted to take care of him. And for a reason I still don’t understand, Rory attached himself to me instantly—which says a lot because he had a habit of being mean to other kids.”
I chuckle. That doesn’t surprise me.
“When he would lose control, somehow I was able to bring him back, calm him, help him. Being that for him gave me something, a purpose.” He rakes a hand through his thick hair.
I shift in the seat, my skin feeling strangely tingly. “That’s a lot of responsibility you put on yourself…Tiernan, Rory, Ollie. I have a feeling you try to be that person for Dean and Aislin too, the one who wants to take care of them all.”
“It’s not pressure when you love them. It’s how I’m built.”
“I don’t doubt that about you.”
“What?” he asks, and I’m not sure if he really doesn’t know what I’m talking about or just needs me to say it.
“That it’s who you are, that you protect people you love.
When I first started talking to Ollie—” At his low growl, I chuckle.
“I don’t want him. I know he’s yours, but he is my friend, and I don’t have a lot of those. Never have.”
He snaps his head in my direction, looking at me like he can’t believe I told him that.
I can’t either, but it feels right to share this with Cillian, partly because he’s sharing with me, and if I’m going to be with Rory, Cillian and I must find some middle ground, but also because I trust him.
I get it, why Cillian means so much to Rory, why Tiernan can trust Cillian with anything.
“Anyway, back to Ollie, I was worried about him at first. I thought maybe he had a boyfriend who was hurting him.”
“I would never hurt Ollie. He’s my fucking heart. I was willing to walk away from everything I love for him.”
My heart jumps into my throat. “You would never walk away from them.”
“Not them, no, but the rest of it, yes.”
Wow…I didn’t see that coming. “I see that now, about Ollie. I see how much you love him, how much you love all of them. I hated you at first because I worried about the kind of man you were and thinking you might not treat Ollie well, but now I know you love all of them maybe more than you love yourself. You don’t hurt those you love, you…
become who they need you to be for them.
You’re like their guardian angel or something. ”
He gives a dismissive chuckle.
“I’m serious. I see you, Cillian.” Just like I see Rory.
His hands tighten on the wheel, his knuckles turning white. It feels like an eternity passes before he says, “He’s not like this…the way he is with you. He’s not like this with anyone else. Do you understand what that means?”
“It means he’s mine and I’m his. I haven’t even known him that long, but…”
“Time doesn’t matter. Not with us. Why would Rory have latched on to me the first day we met if it wasn’t meant to be?
Why the fuck was Dean different for Tiernan from the start?
Why did I know it was my job to take care of Ollie when he got hurt?
Dean was his friend, but even if I didn’t admit it, I knew he was mine even back then.
So yeah, Rory knows with you. What matters is if you’ll let all those social constructs get in the way. ”
“No,” the answer rushes out. There’s no doubt in my mind about it. “I just…want to be good for him. I don’t want him to get hurt because of me. Last night…I didn’t know if I could reach him.”
Cillian sighs, glances my way, looks at the road again.
“But you did. That’s what matters, and the fact that you reached him tells me everything I need to know.
It should tell you too. Rory has chosen you, even if he doesn’t get the extent of it yet, even if he doesn’t understand what it means. It won’t always be easy.”
“I don’t give a shit about easy. I just want him.”
“Good,” Cillian says. “That’s good. Rory didn’t know what it felt like to be loved before us—I assume his mom loved him, but she didn’t know how to show it, couldn’t get out of her pain enough to love him the way he deserved—but now he does.
From all of us…and you. It means indulging him when the time is right, but reeling him in when it isn’t, and the ability to figure out when that is.
If you can handle that, then I’m glad he has you.
If you can’t, walk away right now, before he gets in even deeper. ”
Maybe this is where a normal person would run, but then again, I probably should have done that a long time ago.
But I didn’t then, and I won’t now. Rory is it for me.
Maybe I love him. I’m not sure it’s less confusing for me than it is for him.
I just know there’s no walking away. “I can handle it. I want to handle it. He’s not too much.
He’s just Rory. My Rory.” I take a deep breath. “Our Rory.”
I swear I feel Cillian relax, feel the tension in the air around us dissipate.
“Our Rory,” he replies, then asks, “Tell me about you. Who are you? Don’t leave anything out.”
“Before we do that, there’s something I have to tell you.” I can’t lie to him about this anymore. If we’re doing this, I want everything out in the open.
“What is it?”
“It was me…the night Rory got robbed. He knows. It’s not a secret between us. I hate that it was me, but if it hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have him now.”
Cillian is quiet for so long, I worry I did the wrong thing, that I should have kept it to myself.
“Why are you telling me?” he finally asks.
“Because I don’t want to keep secrets from you. I want…more than that between us. If we’re both going to have him, then I want nothing but the truth between us.”
He looks my way, then back to the road. “Thank you for telling me.”
“It got us both hard, if that helps.”
He laughs. “Fucking Rory. Fucking you too, I guess.”
I smile in a way I never expected to do, alone in a car with Cillian O’Shea.
And then I tell him everything about me.