“Bullshit. Comfortable isn’t as good as it gets,” Joey challenged, narrowing his eyes. “You shouldn’t settle for comfortable, Molloy. You shouldn’t settle for anything less than being in love to the point of madness. The only person that you should be settling for is the person who unsettles you the most. The person who drives you to the brink of

Blowing out a shaky breath, I thought about it for a while, trying to find a diplomatic way of saying “because if I have any chance of getting over you, I need to be with a boy who’s the complete opposite”

Hearing Paul Rice tell half of the lads in our P.E. class about how Tony’s daughter was so tight he could barely get a finger inside her had caused me to flip the fuck out on him in the changing rooms. I did it for Tony because he wasn’t there to do it himself. At least, that’s what I continued to tell myself.

“What the hell is that?” “What?” “That.” I poked at the skin covering his heart. Aoife was written in italic script across the left side of his chest.

She blew out a shaky breath and nodded. “Oh, I’ve been sold on you for a long time now, Joey Lynch.”

In my head it was die or get high. And I had too many people depending on me not to die.

The truth was that nothing about being with Joey was easy, and yet being with him felt so incredibly right. Like I was exactly where I was supposed to be, with exactly who I was supposed to be with.

It was too much—her, the moment, my feelings, the way my heart beat—it was all too fucking much.

“Joey…” “He’s going to kill you, Mam,” I lashed out. “Don’t you get that? Can’t you hear me? You’re going to die in this house. If you don’t get away from him, you’re going to die here. I can feel it in my bones…”