Page 79 of Dirty Padraig: Dirty Dusters

As much as we’re from the same life, our backgrounds differ wildly. Bikers are the lowest of the low in our world. Maybe we’re just too different.

I stare at the phone. Still no response. Time passes. Tick fucking tock.

Maybe I should just go to the containers on my hog? Or maybe not. That would probably rile him further as he may see that as me flicking the bird at his protection once more.

A protection I tossed back in his face. A protection without which I’d now be dead. He saved the life of The Exterminator, but he was only in the right place at the right time because he was looking out for me.

Not that he knows he saved me, but he will eventually.

I reckon it’s time for all of the reveals to take place. My alter-ego. Fin’s parentage. My own parentage.

There’s been way too much deceit for way too long. Looking death in the face has made me realize that you have to say what needs saying before the chance gets taken away from you.

How much did Ace want to say that he never got the chance to? Tears prick my eyes at my forever regret at not being there with him in his final moments, even if just to hold his hand and tell him how much I fucking loved him.

That I had to rely on Dylan telling me his final words.

But what if Dyl hadn’t been there with him? What if there had been no one by his side that he could say anything to? What if he had been scared and all alone? I can’t even go there. I can’t even think about that. Dylan was there. Ace wasn’t alone.

A sob escapes me.

I felt the very same regret that Ace may have done when I was staring down the barrel of that other sniper’s rifle. When I was in that place between life and death. I had too many words for the too few seconds I had remaining.

How do you make each final word count? How do you choose?

I wasn’t scared of dying. I was scared of the people I was leaving behind, the people I loved most, not knowing how much they meant to me. That they would never know because I’d never taken the time to tell them because, as I did with Ace, I just assumed I had tomorrow.

Each day you put things off, but what happens when tomorrow never comes? Your own regrets will turn into your loved ones’ regrets because they’ll never know your final thoughts and feelings, and they’ll always wish they did.

Say it. Do it. Don’t put it off. Live with no regrets.

“I love you, Ace. Always have. Always will,” I whisper.

I stare at the ceiling. I would have been all alone had I not had Irish on the line. The regret I would have felt not telling him that I loved him is not something I would have wished to take to the grave with me. Yes, others could have told him, but would he have believed them?

I needed to say it out loud for that reason.

I took them from him, and I needed to give him those three words back, even though all he handed me were twenty generic ones.

It’s three weeks until I spill my guts to him. Three weeks until my secret is laid bare. But how can I reveal anything when I haven’t seen him? It needs to be done face-to-face. There’s no other way.

I suspect Sophia is the reason for his absence. That my colliding with her at his apartment that day has something to do with it.

Not that I can blame her, even if there was nothing to hide. His ex-girlfriend leaving his place first thing in the morning can only ever look one thing.

Suspicious.

All that unfortunate collision will have done is add fuel to the fire and fan the flickering flames of hatred she holds for me that little bit more.

I think back to Eoin’s comment at the meeting. That out of the twelve years Irish and I have known each other, how little time we’ve physically spent together?

I guess since Yale, aside from during the Bratva situation, ours has been a virtual relationship. One that’s relied solely on messages and telephone calls, even though we lived in the same world and in the same city.

Was there a reason we never met up during all that time? When we resorted to being just friends at Yale, we only ever kept in touch via message. It was only after we left school that we picked up the phone.

Maybe he didn’t think it appropriate to meet up when I started seeing Delaney, but I was single for five years before I met him.

The night of the attack was the first time I’ve ever been in Irish’s apartment. He’s never been inside mine.

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