#omhh

A/N: the fact this took me four attempts to write is the reason this took forever. I am no longer committing to a schedule we get here when we get here. Hopefully a long chapter makes up for it?

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Everywhere is cold. You’ve gotten used to needing to layer up socks so that your feet don’t feel like they’re going to fall off the moment you roll out of bed. Aidan isn’t a fan of the bundling up, but you’d rather him be a little uncomfortable than frozen. Your flat usually warms up throughout the day, but early in the morning you might as well be living in the Arctic. 

 It might even be warmer in the Arctic. 

The mornings go slow when you can’t keep your hands steady to butter toast or flick the kettle on, and you have to hopscotch from rug to rug because you can’t bear to stand on the laminate. Being exhausted doesn’t help either, not when you’re up every other hour because Aidan’s wailing or, if he isn’t, it’s because you’re worried he might freeze through the night. 

His crib is as close to the radiator as it can be. It’s the one radiator you bother to keep running. Partly because the others make the pipes rattle worse than they already do, and partly because you can’t really afford to run more than one at a time. The one in the bedroom is relatively quiet, and it keeps Aidan warm. 

The office is cold too. The front desk is right in front of a window that they always keep open, and the place is never quiet. The door opens and a breeze sweeps in, and any heat you might have accumulated dies with it. They have heaters in the main offices, where all the solicitors work, but they’ve yet to extend that courtesy to you.

In truth, you doubt they ever will. 

Instead, you spend a suspicious amount of time in the womens toilets because they have the radiators running in there and taps with running hot water. It’s practically a paid vacation, taken in five minute slots every hour or so. No one asks anymore, not since the last time some arsey solicitor tried to pull you up on it and you made an awkward scene out of it being a ‘postpartum’ thing (it’s not, but it made them uncomfortable enough to stop asking).

Johnny keeps his car warm too. He’s made a habit of picking you up and dropping you off now, and he always has the heaters on. It must eat its way through the fuel tank but you’ve given up trying to compensate him for it. 

You take warmth where you can get it. In small bursts, mostly. If you had too much of it all at once, you’d miss it when it was gone. It’s easier to have a little of something you really want, than to have it entirely and feel it’s absence so…wholly, when you no longer do.

The morning is dragging. Divorce law is only fun when it’s stupid; couples arguing over who gets the vintage couch or who winds up keeping their third home. Most of the time, it’s miserable. Mortifying, even, when ex-wives-to-be have three or four young kids hanging off of her every limb while her bastard husband tries to screw her out of alimony, and all you can do is offer tea. Juice for the bairns. 

It’s miserable and cold, and you’ve got five different tasks to do–all of them above your paygrade–and you honestly think getting your head hacked off with a blunt saw might be less painless. You’d probably enjoy it more. At least that has a foreseeable end. 

Standing outside of a meeting room in too-small heels and tights that make your arse itch seemingly doesn’t. You’re not in the meeting. Technically you should be, but they see you as more of an assistant than a paralegal. You probably should’ve clicked on when the paralegal before you clapped you on the shoulder and told you ‘good luck’ after they’d cleared up their desk.

No, instead of sitting in on the meeting and hearing everything you need to hear firsthand, you get to read it off of their chicken-scratch notes while you type it up into something actually legible. Maybe you’ll get to pop in if someone needs a coffee, or a new notepad and pen. Sometimes if the computer crashes and the old gits can’t figure out how to get powerpoint working again. 

You swear they only advertised the job for a paralegal because they needed to rope some poor desperate numpty into doing all the labour they couldn’t be arsed to hire the appropriate staff for. Someone desperate enough to apply for every job on the first five pages of indeed and accept the first one to say ‘hired’ down the phone.

Lesson learned, you suppose. Don’t go jobseeking when you’re skint and sad. Which, granted, is how you are most days, so that seems like a nonstarter.

Either way, you’re stuck. Whether it’s in an office doing work you’re not really qualified to do for just above minimum wage, or dragging yourself into the jobcentre every week or so just to keep claiming off of the dole. Stuck. 

The concept rattles around your head, as you lean against the wall just outside the meeting room. Half-press your ear to the door, listening to them laugh and wondering if they’re really doing any work at all. It leaves a heavy feeling in your bones, being stuck. It’s not who you used to be. 

It’s more like being half the person you used to be. Working a job that’s only half as decent as your last, living in a shithole that’s nowhere near half as good as your old house. The other half of you is back home, buried beneath the factories and the portside you used to kick around in after hours.

You could always go back. You know you could. Push aside the floorboards and wipe off the dust and dig it all back up again.

But you hate the feeling of dirt under your fingernails, the way it sticks even after you’ve spent hours picking it out. It wouldn’t be worth it, all for a part of you that you left behind for a reason.

You turn your head too eagerly when the door to the meeting room clicks open. Straighten up, smooth out, plaster a smile on your face like you’re expecting anything else but to be told they need more tea.

A tray of empty mugs is thrust in your general direction. Not really at you, the solicitor doesn’t even say anything. Has his head poked back into the meeting room, body half-angled out towards you while the mugs clatter on the tray.

He only turns to look at you when you’ve failed to take the tray in good time, and even then he doesn’t say anything. Just creases his brow and frowns, rattles the tray at you. Paralegal or waitress, that is the question, you think. It’s fucking dismal.

Even so, in spite of the urge to flip the tray back at him and stot your size-too-small heels into the back of his skull, you wind up in the kitchenette watching the kettle boil and trying to remember whose mug is whose and how each of them take their tea. Milk, sugar, steeped for however many minutes.

You wish the walls were soundproof. Their prattle can be heard through the office, across the hallway, and into the kitchenette. It’s little more than incoherent mumbles by the time it reaches your ears, but it grates on you all the same. The sound of them, or maybe the fact that you’re not in there with them. That it isn’t some other poor idiot making tea while you’re doing work that doesn’t singe off the ends of your neurons with every other minute.

But it is you. You’re the idiot in heels that don’t fit and trousers that have a teeny tiny hole at the inseam because you keep forgetting to go out and buy a new pair; spend too long waiting to get paid that, by the time you do, you’ve got something more important to buy in any case so even if you did remember it really wouldn’t matter in any case. 

The cups almost fall off the tray when you carry them back through to the office. They grumble about the little bit of spillage on the plastic, but that’s about all you get out of them before you’re shooed away back to your desk. The front desk, really, but they call it your desk to make you feel better about it. 

You keep your phone under a bunch of papers. You’re not meant to, meant to keep it with your bag and coat in the staff room, but you don’t see why you should. And if the nursery rings, it’s not a phone call you want to miss. Besides, the rest of them break rules all the time. You doubt it should really matter if you do. 

Papers vibrate across the desk. Your nose scrunches as you watch a few flutter onto the carpet, and you quickly reach down to sweep them up before more follow. The screen of your phone lights up beneath the papers that are left atop of it, and you pull it out from underneath them just as the screen goes dark again. 

A red circle bubbles above your phone app. Twelve missed calls. Your fingers twitch around the phonecase; thumb lingering on the off-button. You’ve got a hundred and one things that are bound to give you a headache today, you don’t need unwanted phone calls from an unwanted caller to top it all off. 

The power slider flickers on at the top of your screen right as the call comes through. You’re expecting to see an unknown number, a hidden caller ID. You’re fully prepared to shut off your phone for the next hour or so, and hope the nursery would have the sense to ring the office number you wrote down on the papers if anything happens. 

It’s not an unknown number. The ID photo is one you recognise, because it’s a terrible front-facing photo that Johnny took of himself with your phone when you nipped off to the bathroom the first time he came around to yours. He looks ridiculous in it, but he whined on until you agreed to set it as his photo. 

“Hello?” You say as you pick the phone up, tucking your shoulder up to your ear as you try to reorganise the reception desk a little. 

“Christ, ye don’t half take ye time picking up.” Johnny huffs through the phone. “Been trying to get ahold of ye for the last half hour.”

“Mm, that’s because I’m at work, Johnny.” You remind him. “I can’t pick up my phone when I’m working.”

“Right, well, sorry.” He responds. He sounds a little out of breath. “But I’m not ringing ye just for a friendly chat. Got a bit of an issue, but I need ye not to panic, alright?”

“What do you mean, an issue?” You ask, pushing a stack of papers into a filing drawer. “And why’re you telling me not to panic? What’s happened? I’m not in the mood for games so if you could just get to the point that’d be-”

He groans and cuts you off. “I told ye not to panic. A couple of pipes have gone bust. Some of the flats have been flooded.”

“Some of them?” You echo slowly. You know where he’s going with it. You don’t need him to say it. Don’t even really want him to. You lean onto the desk, twisting one hand around the handle of one of the drawers. 

“Landlord’s turned off the electricity to the flat, but I can come pick ye up from work. Reckon there’s been a bit damage and ye’ll probably want to get some stuff out before it gets any worse.”

You pull the phone away from your ear, thumb hovering over the hang up button. It’s not Johnny’s fault but you struggle against the urge to scream at him anyhow. Not even really at him. Just because he’s there and he’d hear it. 

“Bonnie? ‘S alright, y’know. We’ll sort it out. Just give the word and I’ll bomb over and pick ye up. Don’t think it’s as bad as you’re thinking.” He tries to reassure you. It doesn’t do much good. 

“Sure. Whenever you can. Thanks, Johnny.” You reply, your throat dry as you bring the phone back up to your ear.

You hang up before he can say anything else. He means well, you know, but you’re not sure you can keep your composure when he’s trying to talk nice to you down the phone. You left the washer to run when you left the house this morning. You do it all the time; it takes one thing off of your list for when you get home, and usually the clothes have partway dried themselves out by the time you stick them on the line you’ve strung throughout the bathroom.

It would be a waste of time to try and interrupt the meeting to tell the bosses you were going home. You leave a note on your desk instead. Might be the only thing they’d pay attention to, God knows they hardly do to you. By the time Johnny sends you a text telling you that he’s outside the office building, you don’t really think you’d have time to explain everything to them in any case. 

Boy racer. Either he was already halfway on his way, or he put his foot to the floor and hoped that the roads were quiet. He doesn’t give a straight answer when you ask. Shrugs and tells you that it’s not important. He was more focused on getting you back home to sort everything out.

On the drive back, he asks about your day. If you’ve eaten yet. He always tends to ask that. You tell him, truthfully, that food won't sit well on your stomach at the moment. He seems to let himself agree, but doesn’t waste a minute before he tells you that you might feel differently after you’ve sorted things out.

Things. The topic is sort of being skirted around. Even if most of your stuff is fine, undamaged, there’s no way you’re getting back into your flat tonight. And if most of your stuff is fine, you have nowhere to put it. Storage costs an arm and a leg, and if you have to find somewhere temporary to stay no way you’ll be able to afford it. You’re not even sure you’ll even be able to afford somewhere else to stay.

You’re assuming, hoping, that the landlord will suspend rent payments until the pipes are fixed. But he’s an arsehole on his best days, and there’s no saying how long he’ll take to get around to fixing the pipes. He doesn’t seem financially desperate, considering he’s got a whole building worth of flats funnelling scam-levels of rent into his pockets.

None of that helps you calm down. You’re picking at your skin, tapping your foot against the side of the car door, fiddling with the radio stations. If Johnny minds, he doesn’t say anything. 

There are already removal vans parked up outside the lobby of the building when Johnny parks up. Someone is quick on the ball, clearly. It irks you, that some people have the capability to just up and go whenever they like. 

Johnny herds you up the stairs, hand firmly placed in the middle of your back. He’s close. His fingers are almost at your waist, and you can feel the brush of him against you as he leans in.

“Landlords having a bit of a fit,” he mutters as you make it up the last flight that reaches your floor, “just go grab what ye need, and I’ll sort him out alright?”

The door to your flat is open when you get there, the landlord pacing outside. He doesn’t so much as apologise for the inconvenience. For the fact that it’s his shitty housekeeping that caused the pipes to burst in the first place. From what Johnny’s told you before, people have been complaining to him about the state of the flats for months before you even got there. 

Johnny gently pushes you past him, and starts tearing into him instead. You pause at the door for a second. Johnny’s finger is jabbing into the man's chest, and he’s glaring down at him. Hardly the type to temper his volume, it’s not hard to hear every insult Johnny’s slinging at him; from calling him a bleeding idiot to an ignorant, backwards twat. It cheers you up, a little.

The state of your flat doesn’t. The hallway is fine, not much wrong there. But pipes have burst from the kitchen across to the bedroom, and the floors are swimming in a thin layer of murky looking water. At least the high heels keep your feet from getting wet. The same can’t be said for much else.

Even if your rugs were salvageable, you’re not sure you’d want them. After the cost of the cleaning service, and knowing what could be in the water, you’d rather just chuck them into a removal bin and be done with it. You kept bags in safe spaces, though. On top of the wardrobe is where you stuffed most of them. 

Granted, Johnny was right. It’s not as bad as you were thinking. You manage to get all of your clothes into bags, and Aiden’s too. His blankets, teddies, a few of his toys that aren’t in toy baskets on the floor. Pictures off of the walls, toiletries. You hoist the full bags up on the bed. Can’t exactly put them on the floor, after all. 

You’re sitting cross-legged on the bed when Johnny calls in. Scrolling through cheap hotels on your phone. Most of them are still far out of your price range. It’s not exactly looking promising. Having stuffed most of what you need into a bag, the realisation that you’re going to have to uproot everything once again with nothing but the bare essentials has goosebumps rippling up your arms. 

“Ye sorted everything, then?” Johnny asks, casually strolling into the bedroom despite the water squelching beneath his trainers. “Got what ye need and that?”

“Yeah, think so.” You mumble back, glancing up at him before flicking back to your phone. “What I can carry, anyways.”

The bed dips beneath him as he sits down, pushing a few bags to the top of the bed so he doesn’t squash anything. It’s very courteous of him, all things considered. You swipe past another page of too expensive hotel rooms. You’ve tried to filter them as cheap as you can, but even the cheapest one’s aren't all that budget friendly.

At the time, you couldn’t afford to be picky with the tenancy agreement. There’s no clause in your contract that demands that your landlord give you anywhere else to stay, and even if there was, you highly doubt that he’d honour it. He’s slimy and opportunistic like that. He didn’t even want to replace the old panes in the windows when you’d asked, despite them being far out of regulation.

“Gave him a stern talking to.” Johnny says lightly. “He’s a right twat. Even old Malcolm’s taking a few shots at him now.”

“I heard.” You reply. “Guessing you’ve had problems with him before?”

“Aye, but I’m not bothered about that.” He says with a shrug. “Bothered about you. Shouldnae let you and the bairn live in a place with... dodgy fucking pipes.”

The concern sits with you. You know better than to turn down help where you can get it, and Johnny’s been the only person you’ve actually been able to rely on since you left home. That’s not to say you’re not cautious but…you’re less cautious than you told yourself you would be.

“Not ideal, is it?” You laugh. It’s lacking in any conviction. You feel closer to crying, than anything else, but there’s not much difference between the sound so long as he doesn’t look at the set of your face. “No point in whingeing about it now though. Got to find somewhere to stay before everywhere’s booked out, or I have to call my dad to come pick me up.”

Admittedly, you feel a little guilty about the immediate repulsion you feel about the idea of having to call your dad to come and bring you home. Only a little, because you know he’d bring your mam with him and probably your ex too for good measure. They always seemed to like him more than they like you. Even the notion of having to go home to them makes you sick. 

You’re homesick sometimes, sure, but not for them.

“Why don’t ye just stay with me?” Johnny inquires. He leans back on your bed. Already making himself comfy. “I’ve got space. ‘S not homey or anything but…don’t want ye putting yerself out…and the bairn might not take to being moved so far away. ‘M only a couple of doors down. Doubt he’d even notice the difference.”

“Come again?” You blink.

“Jus’ move in with me.” He repeats, on his side and pressing his thumb over yours to turn your phone screen off. “Not like it’ll be forever. Saves money, and means I can still help ye get the kid to nursery and everything. Can’t stay in a hotel for however long it’s going to take for the landlord to clean this mess up.”

It makes sense. He’s making sense. If you moved far out enough. Aidan would have to go to a different nursery. If you wound up needing to go back home, you’d need to find a new job- or never hear the end of it from your parents. The council waitlists for temporary housing takes forever, and you’re not sure you’d be considered urgent enough to be fast tracked. 

Aidan’s cot sits right beside your bed. Stripped bare, everything folded into a carry bag and placed on your bed. It’s in all the books. Babies need stability. Babies need routine, familiarity. Uprooting them can harm them. Even if you’d hesitate, wouldn’t jump at Johnny’s offer (and it’s a tempting one), it’s not about you. Aidan needs somewhere to stay. Somewhere that isn’t a cheap hotel or a house filled with the perpetual shrieking criticism of your family. 

“Look, I’ll shift ye bags over for tonight. If ye don’t like it, if ye want somewhere else, I’ll lend ye a hand finding somewhere.” He continues. “But at least stay for the night. We need to go pick the bairn up soon anyways. Worry ‘bout the hard stuff later. Just wanna help ye, lassie, and I don’t fancy ye staying in some shitehole because ye don’t wanna ask for help. Told ye I’d be here if ye needed anything, didn’t I?” He’s saying a lot, and you’re hardly saying anything. Johnny’s offering his house up to you, his home, and you’re barely even looking at him. It feels a little pressurising. You’re sure he doesn’t mean it that way, he’s only ever tried to be nice to you, but it’s an offer you’d usually like to have time to think on. It’s not his fault you have no time, though, and he’s already slinging bags up over his shoulders. 

“Just…we’ll see how the night goes.” You concede, but he’s almost out of view by the time you manage to wrangle the words out of your mouth.

A/N: sorry this has taken donkeys to get out my life is a highway and i am a ten car pileup. But chapter 10! Woah! Hoping to get to a two week delay between chapters now that my life is way less hectic lol. --- --- ---

An unknown contact lights up the screen. Blank ID, number hidden by the caller. It makes his fingers twitch, his shoulders tense and muscles pulse an ugly rhythm beneath his skin. He glances to the phone, where it sits on the wooden table in front of the couch, and then to her face; seemingly unchanged but jaw a fraction tighter, eyes glued aggressively to the screen.

She doesn’t even acknowledge that it’s ringing.

But Johnny does; sees the way the phone inches and dances across the table, feels the vibrations and how they cause him to itch under his skin. 

Answer. Just answer it. 

He had hoped that he’d leave the mindfuckery behind with the military.

“Ye goin’ to answer that?” He asks after a second. “Don’t mind if ye…need to take a call.”

“No.” She responds dryly. She clears her throat and reaches for her glass instead. “It’s just a spam call.”

Johnny’s not so sure.

The call goes to voicemail, and for a moment she leans back into the couch and breathes a little easier. Her eyes flicker over to him and she smiles, and for a moment Johnny’s almost convinced he’s just overreacting. An overactive mind thinking overactive thoughts, making a mountain out of a molehill. 

Then the phone lights up again, inches a little more across the table and the buzz thrums right through him. He watches as she snatches the phone up from the table, how her knuckles go a shade whiter around the case and her lips purse. She mumbles under her breath about giving her a minute, and then she’s pushing up off the couch and stomping into the passageway.

The door sort of swings shut behind her, but there’s about a centimetre gap left.

She doesn’t want him to hear. Whoever is on ringing, she doesn’t want him to know. It’s private, a private conversation that he’s not meant to be privy to because it’s private. And he’s a guest. Someone she barely knows, and Johnny’s well aware of that.

And for once, he fully intends to respect that privacy. It’s too risky to eavesdrop, he thinks. He doesn;t want to chance it. Wouldn’t be worth the trouble, he tells himself. It’s probably nothing; a clingy ex (and oh, how the thought makes him sour), maybe an overbearing family member. He doubts she has some big, nasty, secret lingering beneath her pretty smile.

It doesn’t matter, because her walls are thin and her voice carries. What he planned to do doesn’t matter, because the door isn’t really closed and the only way Johnny wouldn’t be able to hear is if he buried his head into the cushions and screamed.

Which, admittedly, feels tempting. Might even be cathartic.

Johnny figures that, since he can hear anyways, there’s no point in making an effort not to. His gaze flickers to Aidan, whose little blue eyes are focused on the door to the passage, a little pout on his face. Obviously not too thrilled about his mam taking off like that.

You and me both, Johnny thinks as he watches the little boy rock back and forth on the couch.

Her words come flailing through the inched open door, accusing and angry.

“No! I’ve had it with you, you and your sodding phone calls! Do you not understand what the word no means? Shit for brains, no good, son of a bitch is what you are!”

He can’t hear whoever is on the other end of the line. Just muffled yelling and the sounds of her huffing and scoffing  to whatever is being said. 

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?! I gave you your bloody ring back, what more could you possibly want?!”

It’s not hard to hear the desperation interlaced with the anger, how it hooks and hangs on her words. If Johnny was any good, he wouldn’t be revelling in the moment- he wouldn’t let the relief settle in on him like ocean waves on a warm day. She’s struggling, she’s upset, and yet all he can think about is the fact that she gave the ring back.

His thumb traces over the crack in his phone screen, the split from where he threw against his wall in a seething moment of, what he now knows to be, misunderstanding. That old facebook page of hers, the taunt of the ‘engaged’ status that’s rotted the front of his brain in the few short days he’s known about it.

Johnny knows what relief feels like, when a bullet flies above his shoulder and lodges into the wall behind him, when the blade of a knife cuts into the leather of his glove and shreds his palm to bits but it’s better than having it lodged in his ribs. 

This is so much better than relief. This is what being alive feels like, hearing her voice carry through the slip in the door and knowing his chances of survival have just gotten so much bigger. The fact that it’s come at the expense of some other man barely crosses his mind. Should never have let her go in the first place, if you were to ask Johnny. 

When she pushes the door back open with slightly flushed cheeks and sharp breaths, Johnny has to bite his cheek to stop himself from smiling- because that would be entirely inappropriate and he plans to be entirely amicable. And maybe a bit more, just for good measure.

The couch creaks as she flops back onto it, a hand raking through her hair and she groans underneath her breath. Then she smiles, and lays her hand on Aidan’s head.

“Sorry about that.” She apologises. “Just a…thing.”

“ ‘S no bother lass.” He reassures her. “Everythin’ alright?”

He watches her pause, the way her teeth tuck her bottom lip underneath them while she glances up to the ceiling. Resisting the urge to pry feels like water in a storm, pushing up against a dam that’s spent far too long without a repair. He wants to offer something- a hand or the right words, or a way to get rid of her troubles for good.

Lord knows he has it in him.

“Yeah…yeah. Everything’s fine.” She reassures him with a tight smile. “I’m just…Aidan’s dad called. He knows how to rile me up. I end up losing my temper with him.”

“Bit of a tosser then, aye?” Johnny inquires.

She laughs, takes a sip of her drink and nods her head- almost overeagerly agreeing with him. Johnny takes it as a good sign.

“Complete tosser.” She says. “Don’t even know how he got my number, to be honest. My mam probably gave it to him, knowing her anyways.”

Johnny raises a brow. An ex-fiance making unwanted contact is hardly revolutionary. He likes that it’s unwanted. He likes that she doesn’t seem to like her ex at all. She runs her finger around the rim of her cup, shifting along a little when Aidan fusses in between them on the couch.

“They- my family, I mean- they all seem to think he’s this…blue eyed boy, you know?” She glances over to him as she speaks. “Like he’s just misguided or something, that I need to give him another chance because ‘everyone makes mistakes’ or some daft crap like that.”

Her lips curve downwards in a slightly sardonic smile, and she huffs out a breath. Even frustrated, with a crinkle around her eyes and between her brows, Johnny thinks she looks gorgeous. 

“And it’s not as though I didn’t make it clear. I want nothing to do with him- and he wanted nothing to do with me!” She continues bitterly. “It was working out great until he up and decided that he wants to play house all of a sudden. Must take me for a proper mug; if he thinks I’m going to let him waltz back in my life after what he did then he’s got another thing coming.”

It isn’t hard to piece together the picture, even if it is just a rough sketch. Johnny’s got more than enough imagination to fill in the blanks. Shitty fiance runs off when the going gets tough, and then tumbles back in when the storm seems to have settled. Johnny knows his type; he doesn’t have to meet the man to know him. The type of bloke that likes the easy way out, likes things being done for him.

Johnny’s never been one for an easy exit, not if he can help it. He goes down swinging or not at all. More of a blaze of glory type of bloke, really. Slipping off into the shadows has never been much his style. 

And to be frank, Johnny can’t imagine why anyone would slip off on a woman like her. Though, he’d like to meet the man- just once. A sort of thank you, for being such a fucking divvy. Anything that leads her closer to him is a win in Johnny’s books.

“Sounds like a right piece of work.” Johnny agrees with a disbelieving huff. 

“To put it nicely, yeah.” She snorts. “It’s just I…I had it all planned out. Aidan and me. His dad left before…before Aidan was even really alive so I had plenty of time to get my head wrapped around it. And then he just comes back when he wants to, when it’s convenient for him, and everyone just expects me to accommodate him like he didn’t abandon us in the first place.”

She’s looking right over to him, lips tight in a smile that she doesn’t really mean. Aidan sits between them, oblivious. Just happy to be there. She wants comfort, reassurance that she’s doing the right thing. And even if Johnny weren’t interested, if he hadn’t already decided what they were going to do for their one year anniversary, he would tell her to keep her distance from her ex. 

It just so happens that doing so is both beneficial to him and the moral thing to do. 

“Nah, yer in the right.” He assures her. “ ‘S not good to let people like him waltz in and out of the bairns life anyways. Who says he’s not just going to walk out on ye again? Don’t blame ye one bit lassie.”

Then she really does smile, softens around the edges. Just for him. Her fingers still fidget, and there’s a rigidity in her shoulders that never seems to wane, but she smiles. Small victories.

“And if ye ever need a hand, with Aidan or anything, ye know where I am.” He adds. 

She doesn’t reply, and the house goes still. It’s not uncomfortable, she’s not brushing him off out of hand or anything. It’s a heavy offer, he knows. But there’s a gaping hole in her life, a big vacancy that she’s not quite yet advertised being to rent yet, and Johnny fits so well in it. On her couch, in her room, walking with her up the stairs and driving her to work, dropping off Aidan and picking him up.

In the midst of her eclectic lifestyle, between the toys scattered on the floor and the sticky handprints coating the messily painted walls, Johnny thinks he fits. It’s an itch, a need to be there, almost at her beck and call. He’s offering himself up for it. He’ll do anything and everything to spend another day here, another night. For the rest of his life.

Maybe not here exactly. Somewhere nicer. The flats are fine, but not enough for a family. He’s jumping the gun, counting his chickens and all that. But Johnny’s had enough time to mess around, and always been far too busy to really settle down. Bare house, bare walls and floors. A bare and empty life that was only ever filled by a uniform and magazine clip.

A/N: this is a fucking doozy so bear with me here. Updates are going to be fucked for a while because i am not god’s favourite princess and he insists on inflicting the worst psychological damage to me at the most inopportune times. Life is a highway and i am lying dead and rotting in the middle of the tarmac BUT a brief moment of ghostly possession seized me and I managed to wrangle this out of my sad silly smooth brain so i hope everyone enjoys!

———

Driving in the car, foot to the pedal, Johnny can’t believe his fucking luck. He’s going to start a tally at this rate. In just a week or so, he’s been in her flat, to her son’s nursery and he’s got her in his car. Physically sat next to him in the passenger seat, muttering on about his shitty driving as he bombs it down the dual carriageway. 

He has to give it to himself. He’s good.

Telling himself that she’s obviously interested is just about enough to alleviate the nagging guilt that bites at the back of his brain. And besides, there’s nothing wrong with what he’s doing. Offering her a lift is just common courtesy, really. And if he winds up getting something out of it…so what? 

When he takes the corner into the car park of her building, he starts wishing he’d driven a little slower. Just like him to get away from himself, he supposes; got too excited and ruined what could’ve been an opportune moment. At least she’ll be happy that she’s made it to work on time.

Johnny can be content with that.

He pulls up close to the curb, where the door to the building is. It gets him some hacky looks, but if it means she’s not going to trip on the walk from the car park to the office he can take it.

“What time d’ye finish then?” He asks, watching her dig around in her bag.

“Uh, two. Sometimes half two, depending. But usually two.” She replies, pulling out her purse and thumbing it open. “Why?”

“ ‘Cause I’ll pick ye up, that’s why.” 

She’s pulling out a ten pound note before Johnny can stop her, crumpled between her fingers and held out towards him. He tuts, taking the opportunity to gently push her hand away; if only to feel the warmth of her skin against his. Another thing to remember. 

“Don’t be daft, put it away.” He tells her. “No’ taking cash from ye.”

“I won’t feel right having you ferry me around and not giving you anything for it, Johnny.” She replies firmly, the tenner still lodged between her fingers. “Just take it, please.”

Johnny can think of more than one thing she could give him in return. Dinner. Head. Maybe a pair of her knickers- doesn’t have to be the fancy kind, he’s not fussy. Prefers the plain one’s anyways. They’re the ones that get worn the most. His eyes linger too long on the way she traces the outline of the note with her thumb, rubbing against it and pressing down on the corner. 

“Lass, if ye think about it, yer the one doin’ me a favour.” He assures her. “Not like I get out much anyways, ferryin’ ye around might jus’ be the highlight of my day.”

She huffs, folding the note up between her fingers and stuffing it back into her purse, zipping her bag back up and hooking it over her shoulder. 

“I’ll see ye at two, then?” Johnny grins across to her as she opens the car door. 

“Mhm. See you at two, Johnny.” She replies with a wry smile, but he can tell she doesn’t really mean it; just being hard-arsed. He watches her pause, nails tapping against the door before she lets go. “Thanks.”

The door shuts quietly, and she waves back to him as she half-jogs in her heels towards the open door of her building. Johnny rolls down the window, braying his horn and waving back. He just catches the brief roll of her eyes before she disappears inside the building.

He should’ve asked her to dinner.

Something about patience, waiting it out, rattles in the back of his brain. If it weren’t for the abundance of windows on her building, he’d just wait in the car park until she finished her shift. Arguably, that includes patience and waiting. 

But the last thing he wants is to scare her off too soon, to come across as overbearing. He doesn’t want to frighten her, not unless he really has to. And besides, he’d rather frighten her to him than away from him. She needs to know that she can trust him, and Johnny needs to know how to make her trust him.

He’s almost certain he’s at least a quarter of the way there. Women don’t let men they don’t trust hold their baby. Even if it means she only trusts him to a certain degree, Johnny thinks it’s better than nothing. It’s something, and alongside all the other something’s he’s collected he’s beginning to build a rather large collection of somethings.

Little somethings build up into big things. He’ll be able to put a name to it, sooner or later. Given half a chance, at least.

He can’t bring himself to go back to his flat, knowing he’ll be listening out for the sound of her voice even though she’s not there. He hates his flat more and more these days, finds himself staring at the wall separating her place from his thinking about how long it would take for him to tear it down. It’s like a taunt; a tease. She’s only a layer of drywall away and he can’t get to her.

If he has any sense he’ll move out before things get worse.

Instead he turns up the radio, and pulls out of the car park. He doesn’t know where he’s going until he hits the main road when he takes the slip road into town. He doesn’t even know what for. He already has plenty of food at home, and he doesn’t have the room in his car to haul furniture around so it’s not as though he can just start redecorating.

Though he does plan to redecorate. 

He could, at least, grab a few tins of paint. It couldn’t hurt to fix the place up a little, and the bathroom did need a going over. Might take his mind off of things. And besides, if he was going to have her over one day he couldn’t have his flat looking like a shithole. He had to make her like it, make her want to stay. Whether that be for an hour, or a lifetime.

Not that Johnny would have them live there for a lifetime. No way. It was nowhere near good enough for her, or Aidan. He’d get them a house. Mortgage it, let her decorate it however she wanted. He didn’t really care what it would look like, as long as they were in it. The walls could be the ugliest shade of orange and he’d still love it.

 The town was quiet. He was grateful for that; less chitchat to be had with total strangers about the snow or the coldness or the price of things these days. At worst he’d have to entertain an overly-friendly cashier, but aside from that it was him and his thoughts.

He stuck a few hours worth of pounds into the ticket machine, slotting the receipt atop his dashboard. Usually he wouldn’t bother but with it being so quiet the traffic wardens would probably catch him out. So he’ll begrudgingly toss in the fiver if it means avoiding the fifty quid fine.  Doesn’t stop him from calling them bastards as he kicks snow beneath his feet, trudging down the hill into town. It’s a ghost of a place, really. Used to be more popular when people couldn’t get around as easy, but the bigger surrounding cities tend to garner most of the attention.

It’s dreary, to say the least. Old fifties architecture mixed with an awful attempt of modernisation; flats stuck on top of old shops to keep the economy going just a little. Not that there were many shops still kicking. A few big supermarkets, some nail salons, bookies every few hundred metres. The usual off-brand savers shops- pound and under, those kind of places (even if most of the crap there isn’t even under a pound anymore).

He bypasses most of them, stops at the run-down CEX to check the prices of phones in the window. Not that he needs a new phone, yet. But a few more nasty surprises like her being engaged (or at least, having been engaged) and he might find himself in need of a replacement.

A nasty thought hits him. A second phone might not be so bad. For…investigative purposes. Like a burner, in case he ever gets her number for his main phone and fucks up somehow when he’s digging.

There’s a dull swirling in his stomach, and his feet hang on into the snow below the window as he drags himself away from the shop before he can make another bad decision. It doesn’t stop him from glancing back every now and again until the shop is thoroughly out of sight. 

He’s going to start Pavloving himself into making good decisions. He can’t keep on like this. He’s going to lose her, if he doesn’t stop the way he’s going. It’s too soon. Too soon to dive all in. Too soon, too early, too many things all at once. 

He needs a cigarette. He needs a cigarette and therapy and a sharp knock around the skull. Simon pops into his mind, and he laughs. Simon would, and he wouldn’t ask questions either. 

But he can’t call Simon. Because Simon is at work. And Johnny hasn’t taken any of his calls since he got discharged.

The obnoxious Wilko’s sign is enough to knock the thoughts out of him. Paint. He needs paint. White, probably. His flat is still rented so he doesn’t have total creative liberty with the place and he would like his deposit back, eventually, one of these days. 

So white it is, or at least some sort of eggshell. Bathroom colours. He’s not particularly fussy. He makes a swift beeline to the back of the shop, past the lampshades and the picture frames to where the aisles of paint and tester pots are all lined up in some state of disarray.

Whoever organises these aisles needs a fucking paycut, he thinks; makes it a nightmare to find anything. It doesn’t help that the clinical whiteness of the store lights give him a migraine, and when it meshes with the awful stained white linoleum tiles and white painted brick walls it’s just…not a good look. 

Why so much fucking white?

Deciding to take a stance against the overwhelming assault of white paint, Johnny opts for a sort of very pale blue tin of paint. What a rebellion. If that’s not going to wash his deposit down the drain, he doesn’t know what will.

He stifles a snort, if only to distract from the mounting wave of patheticness he feels. His life, whittled down to nothing more than a hatred for white paint and vague stints of anarchy in the form of…blue paint. 

Some days he wishes the bullet had gone clean out the other side.

Some days, most days, every other day. Less days since he met her. Not that it’s really fair to put his impending suicidal ideation on a woman he’s just starting to know, not that he’s saying if she suddenly up and left he’d finish the job Makarov started. Nothing like that.

Something close.

A few rows of kids toys manage to draw his attention. Most of them Aidan is too young for. Choking hazards, or he just wouldn’t be able to play with them. Johnny can just about remember what’s good for what age from when he used to buy for his nieces and nephews. Not that it’s really rocket science, but it gives him something to think about.

Teddies are always a good bet. Something soft, fuzzy. Generally non-hazardous. He swings the tin of paint lightly, crouching down to examine some of the slightly more expensive teddies. He could go for something traditional; a bear, obviously. But that seems a little unimaginative. 

Safer, because he doesn’t know what Aidan likes (or at least, what she likes to give Aidan) so the standard fare is a good bet. But he could take a risk. He flips over a tiger in his hands. It’s cute. Kids like tigers, usually. He doubts Aidan’s old enough to be scared of them yet. Plus, it’s cute.

He knows it’s too early to be giving presents yet- nevermind to her kid. But he can stash it away, wait. No harm in being prepared, is there? And sure, there’s a risk that the relationship will fizzle out before it even gets to that stage. She could get in a relationship, for starters. Though Johnny doesn’t think that’ll stop him. She could just stop talking to him. Though that wouldn’t stop him either.

If she moved away…that would be a problem. But she’s just moved in, so he doubts she will. And if she thinks about wanting to, he’ll just have to give her a reason to want to stay. And he’s working on that one. So far he thinks he’s marketing it all pretty well.

The cashier at the till smiles at him, scanning through the tin of paint and the teddy. He smiles back, pulling out his card from his wallet.

“It’s cute, isn’t it?” She says, nodding at the teddy. “For the baby, then?”

Johnny has to swallow back something that get stuck in his throat. It’ll be weird if he says no, and it’s only a harmless little white lie. 

“Yeah, just…tryin’ to deck ‘is crib out a little.” Johnny laughs as he swipes his card across the reader.

“It’s always nice t’see dad’s getting involved with the baby stuff. Y’know, my ex…” she begins, but Johnny stops paying attention halfway through while he waits for the payment to go through. 

He knows he’s about that age. Dad of a young baby kind of age. Most of his non-military friends from home have kids, and all of his sisters do. If anything, he’s probably a little late to the party. 

But he’s not Aidan’s dad. Not even close. Not yet. Could be, he supposes, from the right angle, if the right stranger assumed so. They have similar eyes. Anything aside from that and he’s too young to really look like he belongs to anyone really. Baby’s are funny like that. 

He smiles at her again as the payment rings through, and she does the usual ‘have a good day, come again, routine as he walks out the door. He barely registers the walk through town, doesn’t even stop to stare at the phones again. The walk up the hill back to the car park doesn’t even bother him, and he almost slips on the ice a few times on the way back.

The boot of his car pops open, and he flings the tin of paint in; half-wincing as he expects it to burst open. It doesn’t, thankfully. The teddy squishes beneath his fingers, and he stuffs it beneath an old jacket in the back corner of the boot before slamming it shut and shifting round to the driver's seat. 

The engine revs up, his hands stick to the wheel like glue. And instead of moving off, he just sits there. Barely even dented his parking receipt. It’s still got at least another four hours and a bit left. He doesn’t want to go around town anymore. He doesn’t want to go home. He wants to park up outside her building and stare through each window to see if he can catch a glimpse of her.

He thuds his head back against the seat, a string of curses spitting from his lips that leave his mouth dry in the aftermath.

He’s fucked.

A/N: ‘Updates are going to be fucked’ I say and then proceed to release chapter 7 in record time. Thinking about proof-reading before I post because I keep noticing errors but too little too late. Ngl this is just kind of filler but informative filler? So yay?

-- -- --

You keep staring out of the window, eyes following the flakes of snow that drift past the glass; distracted enough so that a few clients cluck their tongues at you when the line gets a bit backed up at the reception. You’re not even a receptionist, really. But you seem to be in every job the boss doesn’t have the staff for these days. Receptionist, PA, data analyst, copywriter. 

Sometimes you can’t even remember what you were originally hired for, not when you’ve got a mountain of papers stuffed in your arms and some solicitor whistling you over like a dog because his computer has ‘broke’.

“Sorry, miss…?” You say with your best customer service smile- just about able to drag your eyes away from the window.

It isn’t reciprocated. 

“Mrs.” She corrects, a downturned, thin-lipped smile given instead. “Mrs.Campbell. You should be expecting me. Check your little…computer. I’m in there.”

Much to your annoyance, she leans over the desk; little handbag swinging against the old tower powering the monitor. Her sharp nails tap the screen, as if that’s going to be any help considering you don’t even have the clientele list up yet.

But you dig your top two teeth into your tongue and say nothing, clicking around the screen (admittedly a little aimlessly) before you pull the appointment list up.

“Mrs.Campbell, was it?” You ask, not bothering to hide the boredom in your voice. She nods in response, trying to peer round the corner of the monitor. “Yes, well, you’re not listed for an appointment. You sure you’re in the right building?”

She sighs, drawing back and looking around the reception cubicle and peering through the big glass windows separating it from the office, before tutting and looking back at you like you’re little more than the shit on the bottom of her shiny prada shoes.

“That’s because I’m not here for an appointment.” She remarks haughtily, as if you were supposed to know that. “Does it look like I’m trying to get a divorce?”

No, you think to yourself humourlessly. But you sound like someone who’d be getting served one.

You doubt she’ll find that very funny. You look up at her, brows raised in expectation. She huffs again, then repeats her name slowly. You respond with a blank stare, and for some reason she thinks this is a perfect reason to repeat her name again, even slower this time, as if that’s really going to clear things up.

Obviously, it does not.

“Darla!” 

The sound of your boss’ voice resounds in the small reception, accompanied by the mechanic whirring of the automatic door and the little robotic announcer saying ‘door now open, door now shut’ about two minutes before the door is actually shut.

Ah.

Darla Campbell. Mrs.Campbell. Married to your boss. Mr.Campbell. Barrister and partner of the firm you work for.

She gives you another one of those tight-lipped smiles, before striding over to your boss and planting a kiss on his cheek.

“If that little secretary of yours had brains she’d be dangerous.” she tells him, her voice dry and quiet but not enough so that you don’t hear her. “Honestly, she… the way she looked at me- you think I’d asked her to take me to Mars!”

“She’s new, but I’ll have a word with her.” Mr.Campbell replies, followed up by a sharp glare in your general direction.

Fantasies of stotting the pencil holder over their sorry heads swathe your mind. Small pleasures, you suppose. You suppose opposites don’t attract, at least not in this case. The miserable twats can enjoy each other. You certainly don’t.

The next few clients you have to see are friendly enough, for people getting divorced. The ones filing tend to be a tad bit more chipper. You man the receptionist desk for another five minutes after you clear the rabble out, and then start attending to the other endless tasks that seem to have been chucked onto your shoulders.

Somewhere between copying papers and having to do someone else’s transcription work, your boss decides to have his little chat with you. You can’t tell what time it is because the office is annoyingly void of clocks, but you’re pretty sure it’s during your lunch break. Bastard. 

He’s reaming out at you, reprimanding your attitude and your behaviour and blah blah blah. You nod and pretend to seem apologetic. Maybe you even do, because you feel like you could cry. Not because you’re getting condescended down to by your boss while his wife stands next to him, all faux-smiles and dramatic huffs, but because you can’t believe you have to spend your day here, doing this, when you could’ve been with Aidan.

Stupid corporate bastards. 

You’re dismissed the moment you cough out an apology. You think they can tell that you don’t really mean it, but your boss can’t exactly afford to get rid of you now. Not considering there wouldn’t be another paralegal daft enough to do all the crap you do for a shitty pay cheque at the end of the month.

Most paralegal’s have standards. You have an eight month old baby and a flat to upkeep. Priorities.

Your shift is agonising. Always is. The work wouldn’t be so bad if you at least had time to breathe in between tasks, but instead it’s like a landslide. You shift one rock and the rest come tumbling down on top of you and you’re just stuck there lying beneath it all, not even bothering to get up.

The real kicker comes when your day ends. Which should be a happy time because you get to go and pick up your baby and hold him and actually take him out for what little daylight hours there are left. You get to pull out your camera and snap photos of him playing in the snow, and then you get to go home and have them printed off so you can stick them in your little album.

Except it’s not a happy time, because there’s a box the size of the leaning tower of Pisa by the door and some knobhead solicitor telling you to take it down to the skip outside the building on your way out.

There’s enough staple guns in the office for you to kill at least three of the twats if you try really hard. And you reckon you could try really hard. But instead you just take a breath, swallow down the urge to punt the box into his ugly mug and hoist it up into your arms.

Only to then discover that the box is too big to fit in the ridiculously tiny lift. So instead you have to push open the other side of the double door with your foot and rush to squeeze through while it’s still open wide enough to do so.

The box itself is pretty heavy. Filled with old file binders that are still stuffed with papers (which, you’re certain is a violation of some sort of law as those documents should be shredded but…not your circus, not your monkeys). And it’s a pretty big box; obscuring your vision almost completely and you have to wrap your arms around it at a funny angle and push it up with your knee sometimes to keep it in place.

So, going down the stairs is about as fun as it can be in that situation. Nine stories up, big arse box in hand and trying to manage it in stupid heels you regret wearing. 

Your ankle falls funny a few times when you misplace your steps going down. Nothing serious, not a sprain or anything, but just a twist in a bad place that leaves your foot achey and makes you more miserable than you’d like to be at quarter past two in the afternoon.

At least four other people step past you on your little trek down the stairs. At best, only one of them laughs at you but two of them were in a pair so you can’t tell if they’re laughing at you or at something else. The latter makes you feel better.

The sweat, despite it being a baltic day, is pissing down your forehead. You find little comfort in the fact you didn’t try to look nice today (and that you didn’t really have time to, so the dishevelment isn’t so noticeable). You groan when you reach the bottom of the staircase, bumping your head against the cardboard box in irritation before you push the other set of doors open with your back and hope to god someone isn’t waiting behind them.

They aren’t. 

You teeter towards the exit, fumbling around to try and get your fob out so you can actually get the door open. Eventually you just drop the box on the floor by your feet and practically slam your fob against the scanner, the loud buzz grating on you rather than being the victory call you usually find it as.

It’s a rush to pick up the box before the door shuts on you, and you’re aware of how you must look stumbling out of the building with a box half-balanced on your hip while you try to kick it up with your knee so you can actually get a grasp on it.

The salt grit on the path crunches beneath your feet, and you take a moment to orient yourself and try to remember if the skip is on the left side of the building, or the right. It’s not as though you make habitual visits, not if you can help it anyways.

Though you suppose you’ll be adding bin lady to your CV by the end of the night. The thought makes you laugh, but it doesn’t exactly help in reminding you where the fuck you’re supposed to dump this box.

A car door slams in the background and you decide that, instead of looking like a total divvy, you’ll just take a guess. If you’re wrong then it’s only another…hundred and fifty metres to the other side.

Joys.

“Oi. Oi!” Someone shouts, but you don’t pay it any mind. Someone is always shouting around here.

You barely make it five steps towards the right side of the building when a hand squeezes your shoulder and you almost topple over, trying to swivel your body around without falling and taking the box down with you.

“Calm down, jus’ me lass.” 

Johnny.

You forgot he said he would pick you up. Frankly you’d half assumed he wasn’t serious, and that he was just being nice.

“Give that here, will ye? Looks like yer about to fall over wi’ it.” He says, and he pulls the box out of your grasp before you can fight it.

Not that you were really going to, to be honest.

“Thanks Johnny. It’s heavy, mind.” You tell him, stretching your arms out a bit now that you’re free of the box’s weight.

He only snorts in response, and you reckon your version of heavy is likely drastically different from his. His muscles barely tense as he carries the box over to the skip, and you maybe spend a few seconds longer than sensible staring at his bicep.

“Who had ye carryin’ this then?” He asks as he chucks it in the bright yellow eyesore of a skip, and dusts his hands down on his trousers. “Ye look knackered.”

“My boss. Needed it taken down and my shift was finished so…” You shrug. 

“So he told ye to do it then?”

“Mhm.”

Johnny rolls his eyes and his jaw tightens a little, but he doesn’t say anything more. You walk together over to his car, which he’s so kindly parked near the curb again. And like before, he opens the door for you.

“Ye really do look shattered.” He comments again, little inklets of concern leaking into his words. “How much work does he have ye doin’ for ye to look like this after a…what, a five hour shift? Four if you knock off ye lunch break.”

“Didn’t get lunch today,” you grumble unhappily as he pulls out of the car park, “and he has me doing just about everything he refuses to hire other staff for.”

Johnny’s frowning, and he hits the breaks a bit too hard at a red light. His fingers drum against the steering wheel and the gear shift.

“Ye didnae have ye lunch?” He inquires, and the gears grind when he shifts into second.

“Nah. Ended up getting in a…spat with the manager’s wife. She was being a right old cow but I got reprimanded for it anyways and guess he didn’t want it eating into my precious work hours.” You say offhandedly, but you’re frowning too.

Misery loves company.

“Ye hungry?” Johnny asks, looking over at you every few seconds between glancing at the road. “Fucking starved, to be honest with you. Could eat a horse.” You laugh, bobbing your head back against the seatrest. 

He hums under his breath, and he smiles a little. Looks a bit nervous actually, and you can’t tell why until the words tumble out of his mouth.

“Fancy goin’ out fer dinner then?”

“Ye goin’ to answer that?” He asks after a second. “Don’t mind if ye…need to take a call.”

“No.” She responds dryly. She clears her throat and reaches for her glass instead. “It’s just a spam call.”

Johnny’s not so sure.

The call goes to voicemail, and for a moment she leans back into the couch and breathes a little easier. Her eyes flicker over to him and she smiles, and for a moment Johnny’s almost convinced he’s just overreacting. An overactive mind thinking overactive thoughts, making a mountain out of a molehill.

Then the phone lights up again, inches a little more across the table and the buzz thrums right through him. He watches as she snatches the phone up from the table, how her knuckles go a shade whiter around the case and her lips purse. She mumbles under her breath about giving her a minute, and then she’s pushing up off the couch and stomping into the passageway.

The door sort of swings shut behind her, but theres about a centimetre gap left.

She doesn’t want him to hear. Whoever is on ringing, she doesn’t want him to know. It’s private, a private conversation that he’s not meant to be privy to because it’s private. And he’s a guest. Someone she barely knows, and Johnny’s well aware of that.

And for once, he fully intends to respect that privacy. It’s too risky to eavesdrop, he thinks. He doesn;t want to chance it. Wouldn’t be worth the trouble, he tells himself. It’s probably nothing; a clingy ex (and oh, how the thought makes him sour), maybe an overbearing family member. He doubts she has some big, nasty, secret lingering beneath her pretty smile.

It doesn’t matter, because her walls are thin and her voice carries. What he planned to do doesn’t matter, because the door isn’t really closed and the only way Johnny wouldn’t be able to hear is if he buried his head into the cushions and screamed.

Which, admittedly, feels tempting. Might even be cathartic.

Johnny figures that, since he can hear anyways, there’s no point in making an effort not to. His gaze flickers to Aidan, whose little blue eyes are focused on the door to the passage, a little pout on his face. Obviously not too thrilled about his mam taking off like that.