Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Cavin
St. Albert’s looks the same as it always has—brick facade, the painted sign barely visible in the streetlight, the narrow alley beside it where we used to smoke after training. I can see lights on inside, hear raised voices, even from the car park.
I park and turn to her. She looks stunning in that dress—some emerald color that makes her skin glow, her hair done up in a way that makes me want to pull it down. “Stay here. I’ll be quick.”
“No.” Her voice is tight. “I changed my mind. I’ll… I’ll come in.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I said I’ll come in.” There’s that stubborn set to her jaw I’m starting to recognize. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Something in her tone makes my chest tight. But I nod and open my door. “Stay close to me, aye?”
Inside the school’s gym, it’s controlled chaos. Declan and Lorcan are holding two lads apart, both of them bloodied and still swearing at each other. There’s blood on the canvas, on the ropes.
“Cavin, thank Christ,” Declan says when he sees me. “This Quinn kid won’t—”
But I’m not listening. I’m watching Erin.
She’s frozen just inside the doorway, her eyes wide, scanning the space like she’s seeing ghosts. Her chest is rising and falling too fast.
“Erin?” I move toward her, instinctively putting myself between her and the others.
She blinks, then seems to come back to herself. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“I said I’m fine.” But she’s trembling.
I turn to Declan. “Give me five minutes.”
“Cavin, the Quinn boy—”
“Five. Minutes.”
He reads something in my face and nods, hauling the fighters toward the back office.
I guide Erin to the side, away from the ring, away from prying eyes. My hand is on her lower back, and I can feel her shaking.
And suddenly I remember.
Fuck.
A memory surfaces—her, maybe fifteen years old, coming here to meet a friend after training. And me, showing off for the lads, seventeen and stupid and cruel.
What had I said? Something about her hair being a bird’s nest. Her clothes looking like her granny’s. The way she stood apart from everyone else, like she thought she was too good for the rest of us. Stupid comments I never thought about again and didn’t mean.
She heard them though.
I’d made the lads laugh. Made her face go red.
Made her cry.
And then there was the other time—the worst time—when she tried to tell one of the trainers that I was bullying younger kids for protection money, and I…
Christ, I’d humiliated her. Called her a snitch. Said no one would ever want her because she was too fucking perfect. That she should do everyone a favor and stay home where she belonged.
The lads had laughed and laughed. She’d run out, tears streaming down her face.
I remember feeling powerful in that moment. Like I’d won something.
Looking at her now, seeing the way she’s holding herself together by sheer will, seeing her standing in this place that clearly terrifies her—
I realize what I actually won. Her hatred. Her fear. The right to make her feel small.
“Erin—” My voice comes out rough.
“It’s fine.” She’s blinking rapidly, trying not to cry. “It was a long time ago. I’m over it.”
“You’re not.”
“I am.” But a tear escapes, tracking down her cheek, and she swipes at it angrily. “God, I’m so stupid. It doesn’t even matter anymore. We were kids, and you were just—”
“Just what? Just cruel?” I catch her hand before she can turn away. “Just a bastard who made you feel like shite for no reason except that I could?”
She finally looks at me, and the pain in her eyes nearly breaks me.
“You made me feel like nothing,” she whispers.
“Like I was wrong. Like everything about me was wrong and everyone could see it, and I was just—just this pathetic girl who didn’t know how to be normal.
Who tattled to make herself feel better or bigger, when I just—I just didn’t know any better.
I was… a rule follower.” She takes a deep breath. “I like rules. They make me feel safe.”
Each word is a knife between my ribs.
“I was terrified to come here,” she continues, the words spilling out now like she’s been holding them in for years.
“Terrified you’d see me and find some new way to—to prove I didn’t belong.
And you always did. Every single time.” Her voice breaks.
“You’d look at me like I was this, this thing you’d found under a rock, and you’d make sure everyone else saw it too. ”
“Erin…”
“And the worst part?” Tears are streaming down her face now. “The worst part is, I started to believe you. Started to think maybe you were right. Maybe I really was too weird, too different, too much and not enough all at once. Maybe I deserved it.”
“Stop.”
The word comes out harder than I intended, but I can’t listen to another second of her believing the poison I put in her head.
I cup her face in my hands, forcing her to look at me.
“I was wrong,” I say roughly. “I was a cruel, stupid bastard, and I was wrong.”
“Cavin—”
“No, listen to me.” My thumbs brush away her tears. “Everything I said to you, everything I did—it wasn’t about you. It was never about you.”
“Then what was it about?” Her voice is small, broken.
I close my eyes. This is the part I’ve never admitted to anyone. The part I’ve barely admitted to myself.
“I didn’t hate you,” I say quietly. “I hated what you had that I didn’t.”
I can still see her, still feel the rage boiling up inside me at her self-satisfied grin, still feel the rough hand of the headmaster grabbing me by the collar before he called my father.
Her eyes widen. “What?”
“You made me so angry. Everything came easy to you.”
“Everything?” she repeats, shaking her head. “Are you mad?”
“Everything academic.” I force myself to meet her gaze. “And I’d get the belt if I didn’t pull good marks, because failing at St. Albert’s meant I wasn’t fit for my family. Because here… this is where we were forged. Where boys became men. Where you proved you were McCarthy enough.”
“Don’t I know it,” she whispers and looks away.
I go on. She needs to know. I’ll give her the truth because, goddamn, the lass deserves it. “And you were so—you didn’t care what anyone thought. You didn’t try to fit in or play the games everyone else played. You just showed up as yourself, completely yourself, and I—”
I break off, but she’s waiting.
“I couldn’t do that,” I continue, the words coming harder now. “I had to be what my family needed. What the life demanded. Hard, mean, dangerous. I had to prove myself every fucking day, prove I was tough enough, ruthless enough, that I belonged in this world.”
“So you proved it by tormenting me.”
“Aye.” The admission tastes bitter. “You’d walk in here with your books and your quiet voice and your complete disinterest in impressing anyone, and it made me feel—”
“What?”
“Jealous.” The word comes out barely above a whisper. “And ashamed. Because I wanted that freedom to just exist without performing, but I couldn’t have it. So I made you pay for it.”
I force myself to keep going, even though every word feels like pulling out my own teeth.
“You were brave in a way I couldn’t be,” I tell her. “And I hated you for it. Hated that you could be yourself when I had to be what everyone else needed me to be. So I did what a dumbass with too much testosterone and too little common sense does. Tried to make you as miserable as I was.”
The silence stretches between us, heavy and suffocating.
“That’s not an excuse,” I add quickly. “There’s no excuse for what I did. I was a coward and a bully, and you deserved none of it. But it’s the truth. You were everything I wanted to be and couldn’t, and I punished you for it.”
Another tear slides down her cheek. I catch it with my thumb.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and my voice breaks on the words. “I’m so fucking sorry, Erin. For every cruel word. Every time I made you feel small. Every time I—”
She kisses me.
It’s sudden, desperate, and for a second, I’m too stunned to respond. Her hands cup my face, and her lips meet mine, silencing me.
Then my hands tighten on her face, and I’m kissing her back, pouring every apology I don’t have words for into the press of my mouth against hers.
She tastes like salty tears. Her hands fist in my shirt, and I pull her closer, carefully, like she might break or disappear if I hold too tight.
When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard.
“I don’t forgive you,” she whispers against my mouth.
“I know.”
“But I want to.” Her eyes search mine, vulnerable and fierce all at once. “I want to believe you mean it.”
“I do.” I rest my forehead against hers. “I swear to you, Erin, I mean every word.”
She nods slowly. “Then prove it.”
I press another kiss to her forehead, then her temple, then her lips again, softer this time, a vow.
“Cavin!” Declan’s voice cuts through the moment. “The Quinn boy’s asking for you!”
Garrett appears behind Declan, that perpetual smirk back in place. “Jaysus, brother, you should see your face. All moony-eyed over the lass.” He winks at me. “Never thought I'd see the day Cavin McCarthy went soft.”
“Piss off, Garrett.”
“Can't. Seamus has me running messages tonight. Speaking of—” He pulls out his phone, frowning at the screen. “Got a text from an unknown number. Probably nothing, but…” He shows it to me. It's an address, nothing else.
“Shite, that's near the docks,” Declan mutters. Garrett shrugs. “Probably a wrong number. I'll delete it.”
“Forward it to me first,” I tell him. I pull back reluctantly. “I need to—”
“I know.” She straightens, wiping her eyes. The eye makeup is smudged, but she’s still so fucking beautiful, all curves and dimples and flushed pink cheeks. “Go handle it.”
“You sure?”
She nods. “I’ll wait here.”
“No.” I take her hand. “Come with me. I want you to see—” I stop, trying to find the words. “I want you to see me handle this right. Not like before. Not like the bastard I was.”
Her eyes soften. “Okay.”