“He’s not homeless, don’t be an ass.”

The conversation was irrelevant, but I let him continue. We were talking around the elephant in the room, neither of us ready to face it just yet.

“His beard is down to his chest and his hair is longer than yours.”

“He’s Nan’s son. You’ve met him before.”

“I don’t remember him,” he argued, crossing his arms across his chest.

“He’s known you since you were a baby,” I replied watching him closely.

“What’s his name?”

“Patrick.”

“Patrick what?”

I knew where the conversation was going, and I swallowed hard against the tightness in my throat. Shit. I wished so badly that Peg was there at that moment. She’d know what to do. A wave of grief rolled over me and I closed my eyes until the sharp pain calmed a little.

“Gallagher,” I answered.

Nix looked at the table, his shoulders stiff and his entire body practically thrumming with pent up emotion.

“Is he my dad?” he asked quietly, like he was embarrassed to even be asking. Sometimes it felt like he was already an adult and I was just a nuisance in his life, but other times, like right then? He felt like the little boy who’d been afraid of his teacher in kindergarten and had cried every time I dropped him off that first week.

“Oh, no. No, baby, I’m sorry, he’s not.”

“I don’t understand,” he replied, shaking his head.

His black hair was messy and hanging in his face, and as I watched it fall into his eyes, I had the overwhelming urge to take him in my arms like I had when he was little and brush all of that wild hair out of his face.

“It’s a long story, you sure you want to hear it?” I asked as I poured creamer into my coffee and sat across from him at the table. I didn’t want to talk about it, but if this was how he chose to spend the morning instead of talking about the huge, gaping hole that we now had in our lives… I wouldn’t argue with that.

“I don’t have any plans.”

I laughed a little at his nonchalant reply, and nudged him with my foot.

“When I was a little older than you are now, my parents and I moved to Ireland—”

“No shit?” he blurted, suddenly sitting up straighter.

“No shit,” I confirmed, “and watch your mouth. Anyway, we moved to Ireland and that’s where I met your nan.” I shook my head, and felt a small smile pull at my cheeks. “I thought she was a crazy woman at first. She stopped me on my way home from school one day and asked me in for tea.”

“You hadn’t even met her before that?”

“Nope. Are you going to let me finish, or are you going to keep interrupting?”

He scrunched up his mouth and motioned as if he was locking it up, before throwing the invisible key over his shoulder. Goofball.

“So, to get the whole effect, you have to understand that my parents pretty much sucked. They were too busy with drugs and prostitutes to pay any attention to me.”

Nix’s eyes grew so wide they looked like they were going to pop out of his head, and I knew it was taking every ounce of willpower he had not to comment. I laughed, feeling lighter than I had in the last three weeks.

“So, Peg invited me in, and pretty much took me under her wing. After a while, I was sleeping at her house more often than I was home. One night, her son came home from Uni—their college over there—and he was pissed that some girl was taking advantage of his mom. I was freaked, but it didn’t take long before he realized that I wasn’t out to get anything from Peg.”

“It took less den twelve hours,” Patrick commented from the entryway of the kitchen, a small smile on his face. “Sorry, I smelled coffee.”

“If he can cut in, I can cut in,” Nix announced, letting out a huge breath of air as if being forced not to talk had made him hold his breath, as well.

“He was there, you weren’t, kiddo,” I argued, pointing at him.

“Yer mum was de prettiest girl I’d ever seen,” Patrick said over his shoulder as he grabbed a cup of coffee. “I was infatuated from de first.”

“He’s full of it.”

“I am not!” Patrick sat down at the table while Nix’s head flew back and forth between us. “Ye should have seen her in her school uniform.”

“I went to an all-girls Catholic school and had to wear the uniform—plaid skirt and knee socks,” I informed my son.

“Not a visual I want,” Nix groaned and slunk down into his seat.

“Anyway, we eventually got married,” I said, rubbing my thumb over the tattoo on my finger.

“You’re married?” he yelled, his mouth dropping open in surprise.

“Yep.”

“Then why isn’t he my dad? Why aren’t you my dad?” Nix asked, on the verge of completely losing his shit. I guess it wasn’t the best morning to lay it all out for him. God, I was a shitty mother. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing half the time.

“It’s not—”

“No, let me take this one,” I said to Patrick, cutting off whatever he was about to say. I’d not allow my son to know the full events of that year. Not for any reason, ever.

“We got married, but soon after that Patrick’s dad—Nan’s husband Robbie, who you’re named after—was killed in a car bombing outside our house.”