But the nurses forced him to sit upright and he finished the treatment before his mother peered around the door. At the sight of her, his faced burned. He accepted her cool palm on his cheek in silence. It sent him spiraling back to when she’d babied him for weeks after his broken leg until Antony and Dominic had insisted that he get his sorry ass up and stop moping.
“Oh, my boy, my sweet Kieran,” she crooned in that way she had. “Rest. Sleep. It’ll be fine.”
“No, it won’t. I...I’m...we broke up again. My fu—I mean my car is ruined and it was the last money I had. I lost my job. I can’t do anything right.” The words sounded like they were coming from someone else’s mouth, they were so unbelievably lame.
“Oh, my love, it’s a real hitch to be certain. But you’ll find your way.”
A sickening rush of fury lit the edges of his self-pity. “No, I won’t. Go on and leave me alone.” He flopped onto the pillows, arm over his face.
When he moved his arm and sought her comforting gaze, he found an empty room. Another piece of his soul broke off and dropped to his feet.
The next time he woke, daylight filled the room—of what day he had no idea, and cared less. The inside of his mouth felt coated in week-old spit, his face prickly with stubble. He swung his feet to the floor and sat hanging onto his throbbing shoulder. A few shuffling, wincing moments later he faced the mirror, taking stock of his aches and pains and acknowledging that he needed a drink, many drinks, as in right now. He held onto the doorway, head fuzzy from whatever pain meds they’d forced into him.
“Yo, you look like something I’d sweep off the side of the road, no offense.” His brother Dominic sat, flipping through a stale magazine.
“Get the hell out. I don’t like visitors.” Kieran groaned when he tried to turn his sore neck. “I mean it. I’m not in the mood, unless you brought some beer.”
“Huh, that’s funny. I figured an idiotic stunt the likes of which landed you in the hospital for five days is the longest you’ve gone dry in a while.”
“What-the-fuck-ever.”
“Nice mouth. No wonder Mama thinks you need psychiatric help. That made me feel pretty good, actually, as it makes two of us.”
“Great.”
“Ginger, you know I could give a rat’s ass how you abuse yourself with alcohol, basketball, or bitchy women.” Dom rose and stretched. Kieran caught sight of another bit of ink art gracing his skin.
“Yeah? Well, then leave me alone, all right? And does Mama know about that?” He pointed to Dom’s side. The other man shrugged and lifted the shirt as if he’d forgotten about the image of a heavy chain that wound around his waist. Kieran sighed. “Beat it. I’m no fun. And I don’t need babysitting.”
Dominic walked over to his side, but Kieran studied the wall, ignoring whatever tough- love bullshit his family had tossed at him via the most unlikely brother imaginable.
Dom’s grip tightened like a clamp.
“Let go of me.”
But his brother leaned down until their noses nearly touched, never taking his claw-like grasp off Kieran’s biceps.
“Need I remind you, Mr. Perfect, our mother is still sick? We need to rally for her sake. This pity party you’ve been throwing since you busted your leg is gettin’ way old.”
“I’m not throwing a—”
“Now you listen to me, ya stupid, brown-nosing ginger. Our family needs you to hold your shit together. I know you lost your job. I heard about that bitch, and I say good riddance to that hot mess. It’s been a real mixed blessin’ of a week for you my brother. You need to realize that for what it is and the sooner the better.”
“You have no idea what I’m going through. You have no—”
“Lookit, Francis, that dog don’t hunt no more. You’ve been walking around inside your self-absorbed bubble nearly two years and I am over it. So you got rid of that slut, you can find a new job, you move on.”
“Go to hell.”
“Thing is, that’s not so bad a place, once you get used to it.” Dom’s lips lifted in an ironic and unpleasant grin. “And lay off the sauce. You know Hallorans and Loves dead from liver failure litter the family tree.”
Kieran flipped his brother off by way of farewell and tugged the blanket over his head, dropping into blissful unconsciousness.
In what felt like three minutes he jerked awake, sensing someone else in the room. He sat, rubbing his face, and trying to fight through the fog of painkillers.
“Son.” His father’s deep voice made him shudder on reflex. While he’d been the one son who went his whole life without a strapping, he’d learned how to deflect, to be a little sneaky, or at least not as overtly stupid as his other siblings. But on the whole, he had stayed “that kid,” the good one, the peacemaker, the true athlete.