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Looking rather hesitant, Tadhg walked over to me. “Fine. Show me.”

“Here.” I lowered my head. “See the side part?”

I felt his fingers brush against my scalp before stilling. “There’s a chunk gone,” he said, yanking his hand away. “The size of a fist.”

“I know.” Swallowing, I battled down my emotions and cupped the side of my head. “I wastryingto bring some hair from the other side of my part over to cover it up, but it’s all uneven at the ends.”

He was silent for a long time before asking, “Do you have a comb?”

I nodded. “On the sink.”

Without a word, Tadhg walked over to the sink and grabbed both the comb and scissors.

“Whoa,” I spluttered, eyeing the scissors warily. “Wh-what are you doing?”

“Fixing it,” he growled. “Do you want my help or not?”

I debated the dangers of letting my eleven-year-old brother loose with scissors on my hair for the briefest of moments before shrugging in resignation. “Go for it.” Whatever he did couldn’t look worse than walking around with all of my hair tossed over one side. “I’m trusting you.”

Tadhg’s response to that was a clipped “Hmm,” but his fingers were achingly gentle as he worked. “Do you think she’ll take him back?” he asked after a long stretch of silence. “When the dust settles?”

Yes.“No.”

“Liar” was all he replied.

Twenty minutes later, I was staring in the mirror and admiring his handiwork.

“I moved it over,” he explained, still scowling, as he stood behind me and stared at the mirror. “And then I just evened out the ends on both sides so you don’t look stupid.”

Instead of my elbow-length hair parting down the middle of my scalp like it always had, it now parted on the right, with the extra hair concealing the bald patch from where my father had torn clumps of my hair out.

“Thanks,” I squeezed out, feeling a huge swell of emotion surge up inside of me. I turned around to face him. “I owe you one.”

Tadhg shifted around, looking uncomfortable. “Yeah, well, if you want to do me a favor, then find my brother.”

My heart cracked. “He’ll come back, Tadhg.” Tears filled my eyes as I said, “Joey would never leave us.”

“We’re alone,” he whispered, dropping his gaze to his feet.

“No.” I shook my head and moved toward him. “We’re not.”

“Don’t you get it yet?” he spat out, backing away from me. “Haven’t you figured it out by now? We areallalone.” He shook his head and glared at me. “All of us. On our own. By ourselves. And that’s that.”

“Tadhg, that’s not true—”

“No one fucking cares, Shannon,” he told me, voice flat and void of all emotion. “Not about us. If they did, they would have come by now. And Joey doesn’t care, either,” he cried before storming away.

13

Cashing In on Favors

Johnny

Days had passed without a word from Shannon and I was going out of my mind with worry. Between that and being banned from training and the gym, I was at a complete loss. Seriously, I had no fucking clue what to do with myself. I attended my physio and OT sessions, but without the distraction of my usual jam-packed schedule, my mood was worsening.

I also received a huge-ass bollocking, via phone, from my coaches at the Academy for putting my body at risk the way I had. What had seemed like a good idea at the time had come back to bite me in the ass. My doctors and coaches didn’t trust me anymore, and I knew that it would be a very long time before they would again. It was depressing.

The one upside to my downtime, and I begrudgingly admitted this, was that my body seemed to be thriving with the rest, recuperating at a much more rapid pace than I had anticipated. I could move more freely now, and the bruising and swelling in my balls and groin that had plagued me since Halloween was slowly beginning to fade. It also didn’t hurt to take a piss anymore. I still wasn’t taking any chances on the whole pulling-my-dick thing, but the morning hard-on I sported on a daily basis didn’t cause me the discomfort it once had.

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