Page 20 of Accidental Irish Daddy

“You just try calling the coppers on me! I’ll tell them what a slag you’ve become! They’d be real interested to hear about the scrubber living in my own house!”

I stomp upstairs, tuning his voice out. He’s too drunk to reason with and, therefore, too drunk to be in the same house with a shower of savages just downstairs from my little sister. I knock on the door. “Hey, Gidget,” I call. “Let me in, love. It’s me.”

The door unlocks and she opens it. Her eyes are red, and her face is wet. She looks terrified.

“Pack a bag,” I tell her as I pull out my phone. “You’re not staying here tonight.”

She doesn’t say a word, just grabs her suitcase and starts packing her clothes.

I call my coworker, Roisin. I know she’s not working tonight, and she knows Bridget pretty well…I hope she doesn’t have plans tonight.

“’Lee?”

“Roisin? Hey, you’re not too busy tonight, are you?”

She sighs. Her voice sounds thick and groggy like I just woke her up. “I was trying to get some sleep. I worked until three last night.”

I flinch a little. If she says no, I’m not sure who to call next. “I need a big favor from you. Probably the biggest favor I’m ever going to ask.”

She sighs. “This got to do with your uncle?”

I chuckle a little. “How’d you guess?”

“Just a lucky stab in the dark. You need me to send my brother over there? Have a chat with him?”

“No…well, maybe, later if he’s still acting the maggot. At the moment, he’s decided to throw a rager downstairs with Bridget up here locked in her room. I’ve got to get to work. I can’t leave her here tonight.”

“Say less, mate,” she says. “Bring her on your way. I’ll keep her for the night.”

“Thank you, Roisin. I owe you one.”

“Yeah, yeah, see you in a bit.”

I hang up, then I set about grabbing my own stuff. I’ll dress at work.

***

“The nurse’s outfit looks good on you,” Yardley eyes me as he stands at the door of the dressing room.

The other girls are all getting dressed around me, talking amongst themselves. Yardley always stops in to check on us, or so he says. I just think he likes being in a changing room with topless women.

“Thanks,” I mumble without looking up at him. I’m still putting my makeup on.

“I found that track you wanted to dance to,” he says. “It wasn’t that hard to find. You sure you want to dance to it, though? I mean, it’s all in French.”

I draw the last line on my eyelid, then sit back in examination to make sure it’s even. “No one gives a shit,” I say. “So long as Ishow my tits, you could put on water dripping from a faucet and no one will complain.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Lula pipes in as she passes me by. She’s the curvy black girl with a mass of curls all over her head. She was also one of the first people who was ever kind enough to help me with my makeup when I first started dancing here. She pauses before she goes out the door.

“You got my music, right?”

Yardley’s smile grows bigger, making him look even dopier than he already does. “Yes,”

She slaps him softly on his cheek. “That’s good. See you ladies out there.”

“I’d better go,” he says to me as if I cared either way. “You’re on after Candy tonight.”

I nod in his general direction.

---