Breakaway by Deirdre Martin

face as he searched for something tough to say that he hadn’t already said. “Watch yourself,” was all he could manage, in a poor imitation of a growl.
    Rory lowered his head so Alec couldn’t see him smirk. “Thanks for the ice pack,” he said to Jake.
    “Well, I wasn’t gonna let ya bleed all over my house, was I?”
    “I can tell having Alec here hasn’t improved your skills as a housekeeper.”
    “Yeah, well, we can’t afford a cleaning lady like you, can we?”
    Jake sat down opposite Rory. Their banter couldn’t hide the anger in Jake’s eyes. It was something Rory had rarely seen.
    “Well?” Jake said eventually, leaning back as he laced his fingers behind his head. “You got something to say to me?”
    “I do.” Rory looked at his friend head-on. “I’m really sorry for what I did, mate. I’m a fucking arsehole.” Rory gingerly pulled the flannel away from his nose. The bleeding had stopped.
    He waited for Jake to say, “It’s all water under the bridge.” Jake had always been a forgiving soul. But his mouth remained clamped shut.
    “Hey,” Rory asked confusedly.
    “Hey, what?”
    “We all squared, then? Back to being mates?”
    “You have got to be fucking kidding me. You think you can just appear in Ballycraig and everyone is gonna fall at the big hockey star’s feet?”
    “I wouldn’t say no to that,” Rory joked.
    Jake was unmoved.
    “Look, let me make it up to you, all right?” Rory asked, starting to feel a little desperate.
    Jake snorted. “And how do you plan to do that?”
    “How do you think? I’ll buy you a couple of pints.”
    “You’re a feckin’ idiot, Rory.”
    “Tell me something I don’t know. C’mon, Jake, let’s get a pint.”
    “Yeah, all right. But it doesn’t mean shite. It’s just a chance for me to drink for free.” Jake grabbed a faded red sweatshirt off the back of the chair. “Before we hoist a few, there’s something you need to know.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Erin and I have gone out a few times.”
    Rory smirked. “Pull the other one, mate.”
    “Why would I lie?”
    “To mess with my head?”
    “Sorry to tell you, but you don’t need me to mess with your head.”
    Rory remained skeptical. “You’ve gone out with Erin.”
    Jake pulled the sweatshirt over his head.
    “You still going out with her?” Rory asked casually. It couldn’t be. Erin would have shoved it in his face earlier in the day, wouldn’t she? No. That wasn’t her style.
    Jake smirked. “Why shouldn’t I go out with her?”
    “No reason.” There was no way.
    Jake’s voice was hostile as he asked, “You never change, you know that?”
    “What the fuck does that mean?”
    “It means you always think you’ll win at everything.”
    “Generally I do.”
    “We’ll see.”

8

    “I hear Rory was your chauffeur on Thursday.”
    Erin had been expecting this. She was sitting at Sandra’s kitchen table, chitchatting as her friend casually buffed her nails. Erin had intended to tell Sandra about the “Driving Miss Erin” episode herself. But later, when she was up in her room prepping for an exam on surrealism, she realized LJ would tell Sandra the minute she got home from her course.
    “Yes, Rory drove me and La—LJ—home.”
    She watched Sandra lift a hand to observe her handiwork. They were going to the pub tonight. One night a month, Sandra put aside being
mam
and was just Sandra in her own right. “Girls’ night out,” she called it, an old-fashioned moniker if ever there was one. In the past, Larry would stay home with the kids—if he was sober. But he’d always exact his pound of flesh, moaning and groaning as if he were doing Sandra the biggest favor in the world. Now that he was theoretically out of the house, Sandra’s mother, Dot, was coming over to babysit. At Erin’s urging, Sandraplanned to ask her mam if she could watch Oona those two days a week she was at her course.
    “Am I going to have to blackmail you to get the