Page 390 of Lodestar

Declan reached for the creamer as he dosed his coffee. “I guess.”

“I don’t miss being fined.”

Aidan chuckled. “I can keep that arrangement going if you want?”

My lips twisted. “Nah. I’m good.”

“Thought you might be.”

Brennan cleared his throat. “Da blamed me for what happened to Ma for so long that every time he looked at me, I knew he was thinking aboutthat. About my fuckup. It’s strange not having to deal with that residual guilt.”

Because that was about as open as Brennan got, the five of us stayed quiet. I figured we were waiting to see if he had more to say. Then, when the silence grew weird, I broke it because Brennan and Aidan had been around Da’s toxic bullshit longer than any of us and getting them to talk about this stuff was next to impossible.

“You know you had no reason to feel guilty, don’t you?”

“I let Ma down.”

“You didn’t.” Aidan cracked his knuckles. “You were a boy. Just because he treated us like men doesn’t change the years on the clock.”

“He blamedyouwhen he was blaming himself. He was the reason she got taken. The Aryans had beef with him and he fucked up by not being prepared for every eventuality.

“Ma should never have been kidnapped. That’s why we’ve got our wives locked and loaded with more guards than the president. Especially after what happened with Aidan and Savannah, which only went down anyway because we trusted those asswipes,” Eoghan rumbled. Then, to Brennan, he continued, “There’s nothing wrong with missing the old bastard. It’s like Stockholm syndrome. There ain’t an instant cure.”

Brennan chuckled. “Stockholm syndrome. Never thought of it that way.”

Eoghan took a sip of his drink. “I think Kid’s idea is a great one.”

None of us were surprised by the change of subject, but I still corrected, “It was Ma’s idea. Star perpetuated it.”

“Yeah, but you put in the work. Does it have to be soccer?”

“Start small. You know it’s the league with the least interest in the States,butit can have a global impact with the international tournaments.”

“What’s the aim, Conor?” Aidan tapped his pen against the table. “Match-fixing?”

I shrugged. “I figure we have several routes we can take. Match-fixing,eventually. But we need to be associated with wins.

"I think we take the Saturns, for example, a team that regularly underperforms, and make our mark by sending them soaring to the top of the league.

“It's the next phase of ‘Shay for the Oval Office.’”

“You know, if he knew he was a phase, we’d never get him out of his room because of his fat head.”

“Don’t lie, Dec. You never get him out of his room anyway,” Aidan retorted. “I remember that age. He doesn’t have a girlfriend, does he?”

“No.”

“So his left fist is?—”

Declan groaned. “Do we have to talk about this?”

Aidan grinned. “Like you don’t know he’s doing it.”

“Aela’s glad she’s not the housekeeper. Let’s put it that way.” He smiled sheepishly. “I told her he can’t knock up a sock. Shay overheard and now, he won’t maintain eye contact with either of us.”

I chuckled. “Ah, the joys of youth.”

“Youth, my ass. It’s ten times harder now than it was for us. At least the only thing Da cared about was us becoming aFive Pointer. You should see the crap you need to do to get into Harvard. I don’t think even you’d cope, Kid.”

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