'At the moment, I'd lay odds on the cat. Do you know anything about putting fish cakes together?' Aidan asked Darcy.
'Not a bloody thing,' she said cheerfully.
'Then go and call Kathy Duffy, would you, and ask if she can spare us an hour or so, as we have an emergency.'
'An emergency?' Shawn looked glassily around. 'Where?'
'Come with me, boy-o.'
'Where?' Shawn asked again, and Aidan hooked an arm around his waist.
'To pay the piper.'
'If you're taking him upstairs,' Darcy called out as she reached for the phone, 'I'll thank you to clean up whatever mess is made during the sobering.'
'Just call Kathy Duffy and mind the bar.' Aidan took Shawn's weight and dragged him upstairs.
'I can cook, drunk or sober,' Shawn insisted. 'I don't know what you're in such a taking over. It's just fucking fish cakes.' And he pressed a noisy kiss to Aidan's cheek.
'You always were a cheerful drunk.'
'And why not?' Shawn hooked an arm around Aidan's shoulder, stumbled. 'My life's in the toilet, and it looks better through the whiskey.'
Making sympathetic noises, Aidan half carried him into Darcy's tidy little bathroom. 'You had words with Brenna, did you?'
'No, but with everyone else in God's creation. I spent the night making love to the woman I want to marry. I tell you, Aidan, it's a different matter altogether being inside a woman when you love her. Who knew?'
Aidan considered the trouble of getting Shawn out of his clothes, and the mess that would be made if he didn't. So he propped his brother against the wall. 'Just hold this up for a bit,' he said.
'All right.' Obligingly, Shawn braced his weight against the wall. 'She thinks it's just sex, you know.'
'Aye, well-' Working as fast as he could, Aidan crouched to take off Shawn's boots, which, he noted in disgust, had been tied into nasty little knots. 'Women are the oddest of creatures.'
'I've always liked them myself. There's so many varieties. But this is like having a lightning bolt smash right into my heart so it's all hot and bright and shaky. I'm not letting her go, and that's the end of it.'
'That's the spirit.' He got the boots off, and the jeans, and working briskly as a man with experience in such matters, efficiently stripped his brother down to the skin.
Knowing what was to follow, he shrugged out of his own shirt and tugged off his pants. 'In you go.'
'I can't go anywhere. I'm naked. I'll be arrested.'
'I'll post your bond, not to worry.' And not without sympathy, Aidan turned the shower on full cold and shoved his beloved brother under the heartless spray.
Oh, the scream all but peeled the skin off his face, and the curses that followed battered his ears. But Aidan held ground, dodged a fist when he had to, and clamping Shawn in a headlock, held him mercilessly under.
'You're drowning me, you bastard.'
'Not yet.' In a ruthless move, Aidan used his free hand to yank Shawn's head back by the hair so the icy spray showered his face. 'Just shut your mouth and hold your breath, and you'll live through it.'
'I'll kill you dead as Abraham when I'm out of here.'
'You think I'm enjoying this, do you?' Laughter rose into his throat as he yanked Shawn's head back again. 'You'd be right. Head clearing?'
Since Shawn's answer was a glug, Aidan gave it another minute, then switched off the spray. He was wise enough to move quickly out of range before tossing his brother one of Darcy's fancy towels. 'Well, you're a sorry picture, but your eyes are clear. Are you going to be sick on me now?'
Though his limbs were weak as a baby's, Shawn wrapped the towel around his waist and tried for dignity. 'Drowning me's one thing, insulting me's another. I ought to break your face for it.'
Crisis passed, Aidan decided, then lifted a brow. 'It appears someone tried to break yours. Did Brenna put that bruise on your chin?'
'No. Her father did.'
'Mick O'Toole?' Aidan paused in the act of drying his own chest. 'Mick O'Toole popped you one?'
'He did. But we've come to terms now.' Shawn stepped out of the shower, annoyed that the blissful cushion of whiskey had been washed away, so now he could hurt all over-face, hand, leg. And heart.
'At a guess I'd say you got drunk together.'
'That was part of the process.' He flipped down the lid of the toilet, sat, and as he dressed again he filled Aidan in on the morning.
'You've had a busy day.' Aidan laid a hand on his shoulder. 'I can ask Kathy Duffy to do the whole of the shift.'
'No, I can work. It'll keep my hands busy while I figure out what to do next.' He stood up. 'I mean to have her, Aidan, however it has to be done.'
'You gave me advice once, on matters of the heart. Now I'll return the favor. Find the words, the right ones, and give them to her. I imagine there's different ones for different women, but when it's all cleared away, it means the same.'
Before he came down again, Shawn tidied himself up as best he could and did the same for Darcy's bathroom. Nothing was worth the spitting lecture she'd spew over him if he left it as it was. Since he felt the beginnings of a filthy head coming on, he rooted out the makings of the hangover remedy his family called Gallagher's Fix and downed a full glass of it.
He couldn't say he was feeling his best, but he thought he could get through the day now without making a bigger muck of things.
From the look of sympathy that Kathy Duffy sent him when he entered the kitchen again, he imagined he wasn't looking his best either.
'There now, lad.' She clucked over him and had a strong cup of tea ready. 'You just drink this and gather your wits. I've got things under control for now.'
'I'm grateful to you. I know I left things turned 'round here.'
'If a body can't indulge himself foolishly now and again, what's the point?' She bustled around as she talked, dealing with the fry pan and the pot she had simmering. 'I've got the fish cakes doing and they're selling brisk. You had fresh cockles, so I did up the soup, and it's ready for serving now if any's a taste for it. Now most are wanting chips, but I've done up some pan boxty as well.'
'It's a treasure you are, Mrs. Duffy.'
She pinked and fluttered at that. 'Oh, go on with you. It's nothing your dear mother wouldn't have done for one of mine if the need were there.' She flipped fish cakes onto plates, spooned up chips that had drained, and added bits of parsley and pickled beets.
As if timed to a turn, Darcy came in to pick up the orders. 'Well, the dead have arisen,' she said with a quick study of her brother. 'Though you look like you need to be buried.'
'Oh, he's just a little shaky on his pins is all. Don't poke at him, Darcy, there's a good girl.'
Shawn sent his sister a wide and sour grin behind Kathy's back as she loaded her tray. 'We'll need two servings of your soup, Mrs. Duffy, and another of the fish cakes, with the boxty, and one further of fish and chips. And all would care for the green salad you were kind enough to make while my brother was indisposed.'
'In two shakes, darling.'
Darcy balanced her tray, and after shooting an evil look at Shawn, she headed out, singing 'Whiskey for Breakfast.'
'I'll deal with the frying, Mrs. Duffy, if you wouldn't mind seeing to the salads.'
'Are you feeling up to it, lad?'
'I am, yes, thanks.'
'It's best to keep busy, but mind your hand. Those are nasty scratches.' She gave him a little pat as they passed each other. 'And when Brenna comes in later to work, the two of you will make it up, mark my words.'
If she'd smacked him over the head with the rolling pin, he'd have been less staggered. 'Brenna?'
'I'm thinking the two of you had a bit of a spat,' Kathy went on, cheerfully scooping up salad. 'Lovebirds don't always sing pretty tunes.'
