I cracked my knuckles. "It was fun, let me tell you."
Her smile warmed, a strange glint appearing in her eye. "I’ll bet."
"The old bastard deserved worse," Jen inserted as she slipped into the chair opposite me. "If anything, I think you should have done a one-two punch to the gonads." She made a pow-pow sound as she jabbed her fists in front of her.
"He crossed his legs too soon."
Camille and Jen started snickering, but Camille eventually murmured, "Lena will soften up. She just takes time."
"You’re the newest O’Donnelly. She seemed to respond well to you."
"I was involved in an altercation recently. It’s made her be nicer to me."
"Sheesh, really?"
Camille nodded. "Just let her calm down, you know? Aidan’s the eldest but after what he’s been through, she’s very protective of him. They all are."
"I’ll bet."
"Brennan’s taken on a lot of his workload too, so they’re all feeling the pinch of Aidan not being at the top of his game."
"It isn’t like he did it on purpose," Jen pointed out, which made me want to blow her a kiss.
"No, but it was years ago and he’s not..." Camille grimaced. "Look, I’ve not been around here a lot, but you can tell he doesn’t exactly help himself."
I grunted, because I couldn’t deny that. "I’m not sure if Aidan will let me go to my apartment building to grab the gift I overnighted for him. I really need to get that. Maybe I can guilt trip him into using a cane."
"It’s more than that," Aoife stated as she took a seat at the table with us, her hands cupping a mug of what smelled like peppermint tea. "I think he’s scared of doctors or something."
"No way," Jen retorted. "Aidan’s not scared of anything."
"Contain the admiration or I’ll have to sock you in the vagina," I groused, laughing when she pouted. "I’m good at socking."
Aoife snickered, but she shrugged. "I think so. He won’t go in for check ups, and I know Finn has gone so far as to make appointments for him when his knee’s bad."
"It was probably easier to take a pill." I winced. "Sad but true."
"A cane will help," Aoife replied. "If you can get him to use it."
"I’ll work my magic somehow." I didn’t like the idea of him not going to the doctor’s either. Crap, was I supposed to be this involved this fast?
"You already worked magic today so best not to exhaust the daily quota," Jen said wryly as she leaned into the table. "Is Conor really seeing someone?"
I shrugged. "I think so. He said he was."
"Conor doesn’t say anything he doesn’t mean," Aoife pointed out, her tone thoughtful.
"I’m surprised Lena didn’t haul him downstairs and ask him," Camille said.
"Savannah’s good at deflecting," Jen remarked with a laugh. "That whole ‘oh, I must have misunderstood because I hit my head,’ BS worked like a charm."
"Clearly not if you didn’t believe me," I sniped.
"She wanted to believe it," Aoife retorted with a laugh. "They’re all protective of him. I never understood why. It’s as if him being crazy smart makes him dumb or something." Her brow puckered. "Weird."
She wasn’t wrong. A sigh escaped me as I took in the kitchen, its occupants, as I thought about Aidan, and Conor upstairs, then the brothers I’d met the other night. It was like a dream, but a really good one, not the usual shitty ones I was plagued with.
"I didn’t think it’d be like this," I admitted. Not just what I felt for Aidan, but was starting to feel for his family too. All of this was too fast, like I was about to hit the gas while going over a speed bump, but there was no stopping it mostly because I didn’t want it to stop.
"What?" Aoife’s gaze softened. "Love? You do love him, right? I could see it when you were sitting next to him, but like, you might just be putting on a show for Lena."
That had Jen elbowing her again. "Hey bitch, are you calling my other BFF a liar?"
Aoife snorted. "No. But she worked on TV, and I’m going to assume that someone as woke as her knows what a creep Stewart Allsheim is but she still smiled at him like she didn’t want to skewer him with, what are those fluffy-headed mikes called?"
"You mean a wind muff. We don’t use those so much in the studio," I explained.
Aoife nodded. "Thanks. But yeah. One of those."
I grinned. "You’re not wrong. I’ve got a good poker face."
"Just never let her play poker with you," Jen muttered.
"Lose big?" Aoife queried.
"Lost my shirt and any rights to bitching about how bad her coffee is too."
"Ouch."
Camille shot me an interested glance. "You play poker?"
"Texas Hold ‘Em. My brother and I were on the road a lot as kids with the band, you know? Gerard Sullivan, Sully, he was a card shark." I whistled. "One of the basics of poker is the ability to count cards—he taught me how." And that was nothing to what Star could do.
"Okay, I’m going to encourage the guys to start a poker game," Camille said with a cackle. "Just so you can whoop their asses."
"You guys need to not get jealous because I mean no harm, but it might take more than a couple of meals to get me over the fact I’m surrounded by O’Donnellys."
Aoife frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Like, you probably had a crush on Justin Timberlake as a teen. The O’Donnellys were my thang."
She snorted. "Really? I grew up being terrified of them."
"Smart girl," Camille drawled.
"Well, I wasn’t so smart, and they were bigger than my boogeyman so I fell for them."
"Who’s your boogeyman?" Jen questioned with a frown.
I waved a hand. "It doesn’t matter." It totally did, but now was not the time to overshare. I had to impress these women. If I had my way, they’d be my sisters-in-law soon enough.
"I think you’ll find it does."
"So, you think because you fangirl over them you wouldn’t be able to win?" Aoife queried, ignoring Jen.
"Maybe." I shrugged then, leaning into the table, whispered, "The other night, I woke up surrounded by them. It was scary until I realized who they were and then I’d never wanted to be in a bukkake flick more in my life than at that moment."
Jen snickered, so did Camille, but Aoife frowned. "What’s a bukkake flick?"
"Jesus, Aoife, how are you still so fucking innocent with me as a friend?" Jen groused, but she was chuckling as she grumbled. "Bukkake is this Japanese porn where, like, this girl gives a group of guys a blowjob. They’re all standing around her in a circle. Basically they come on her face, jack off on her, shit like that."
Aoife’s cheeks turned pink. "Oh."
"We need to hook you up with better porn," Jen said with a sigh. "Finn is obviously not educating you right."