“Okay.”

“Bye.”

I received the pictures Debbie Jenkins sent me earlier today. I’ve dropped by my granda’s house every single day since our phone call, waiting for them. It took them two months to arrive. Two months of me being a celibate, moody eejit. Two months of me breaking every rule in our stupid contract.

I looked for Rory on social media, but she doesn’t have any profiles. Or if she does—they’re not under her real name.

I subscribed to her college’s newsletter because it sometimes shouts out students, and seeing her name makes me happy. (She’s won two photography contests and helped film a short student movie.)

But nothing could prepare me for the moment I flipped the pictures over (fine quality, by the way) and saw the captions she’d put on the back of them.

Picture one, of me singing/busking:

He was a terrible flirt, and he could be soooo cheesy!

Picture two, of me standing on the threshold of The Boar’s Head, posing for her like Marilyn Monroe.

He talks too much, and sometimes doesn’t make any sense.

Picture three, both of us in bed, my bed, after I gave her three hundred orgasms and a part of my heart.

He tries way too hard in bed.

The worst thing is, shortly thereafter at The Boar’s Head, I took the napkin out and compared her handwriting on the contract to the words on the back of the pictures. Sean, Daniel, and I all concluded it was the same handwriting. So it’s not like her mother could have faked this.

Daniel drums the table. “Well then, I think it’s safe to say you can move on with your life now. She sounds like a world-class slag.”

“The thing is, she is not,” I slur.

I pick up my fifth…sixth pint and chug it down. Kathleen is sitting across from us with her friends again. Sean is staring at her, pining…again. She’s doing the same—to me. I wish they’d just shag and let me drown in my misery.

“She is not a slag at all.”

But the more time passes, the more the crisp memory of her not being a slag dims. The captions on the pictures are now more vivid than her innocent smile in my head.

“I’m going to call her mum,” I announce.

“Dumbest idea you’ve had in a while.” Daniel does a thumbs-down, whistling as he crashes his hand against the table. “And you’re never short of those.”

“Borderline suicidal.” Sean bobs his head, dragging his eyes from Kath.

Ever since our conversation by my grandfather’s door, she’s been dropping by my house quite a lot—always in skimpy dresses that look very odd on her, and always with a fresh platter of something good for me to eat, plus a bottle of wine or a few cans of Guinness in her hands. I invite her in, eat while she tells me stories about whatever is happening in her life, then send her on her way. On the surface, she seems content with being just friends. A dom-girl friend, I suppose, with that kind of attire.

“No, I need to talk to Rory directly.” I shake my head and stand. I still keep the napkin, of course, returning it carefully to my pocket, but I’ve broken every rule under the sun.

Now, here I am, dialing Debbie’s number. Again.

She picks up on the third ring. There’s a time difference, and I know I’m catching her early in the morning.

“Hello?”

“Debbie?”

Drunk Mal is obviously on a first-name basis with Rory’s mother. Sober Mal, however, is worried for Drunk Mal’s bullocks.

“Yes?” She already sounds on edge.

“It’s Mal, Father Doherty’s grandson.”

“What do you want?”

Your daughter. Is it not painfully, pathetically clear by now?

“Cheers for the pictures.” I hiccup into the phone. “She is very talented, our Rory, isn’t she?”

I know I come off as a stalker. The first call was a shot in the dark. The second one is a shot in my foot. I am unwanted in their lives—that much is obvious—yet I keep coming back.

“What. Do. You. Want?” she asks again.

Tough crowd. All right, straight to the point it is.

“I want to write Rory a letter, but I don’t want to send it to you. I want to send it directly to her. I know where she goes to school, so it’s not like I won’t be able to find out myself. Now it’s just a matter of you making it easy or hard for me. I’ve a feeling she wasn’t planning on me ever seeing these captions, and I’m willing to keep this our little secret if you give me her P.O. box.”

I’m blackmailing my future mother-in-law. This will make my promise to Rory to invite her for Christmas every year tricky.

Debbie mumbles a few things, but surprisingly, she gives me the address. I write it down on the back of my hand, then on a piece of paper, then as a note on my phone. You know, just in case.