It was only four hours into my shift and it had already been dubbed 'The Shift from Hell' by me and my best work friend. Kayla was a few years younger than I and a new nursing school graduate. Her newness to the profession and mine to the area had made us gravitate toward one another during our orientation. In the year and a half on the same shift since, we had become close. In fact, Kayla was the only person at St. Mary's that knew the truth about my relationship with "my boys". To everyone else, they were just my boyfriend and his brother. No one had picked up yet that I hadn't ever specified which was which in the equation. To their credit, Connor and Murphy went no further than a quick hug or peck on the cheek whenever they had met me at work to walk me home. They could behave when they wanted to. The problem was the only time they wanted to was when misbehavior would directly impact their probability of getting laid.

I wasn't embarrassed by our relationship (as I had named it) by any means. Those days of indecision had passed very early on. As far as I was concerned, Connor and Murphy were two halves of a whole. But I also knew that our little triangle wouldn't go over to well in the heavily Catholic area of Boston we lived and worked in just as it wouldn't in the 'Baptist Belt' Georgia town I had grown up in. My God, my father was a Baptist pastor. If he knew I was practically living with TWO Irish Catholic men at the same time, he would spin in his pulpit. But, like most, I just let my family think I was too busy with my job and the single life for a relationship. That had me sinful enough in their eyes. Which is exactly why I had traveled to Boston for a new job anyway.

I had already discharged a drunk, a kid with the flu, a couple of broken bones, and helped a new physician run a particularly bad code when Kayla approached me where I sat charting at one of the nurses station computers.

"Amber, could you switch room 8 for my room 14?"

Kayla and I would occasionally switch out patients. For some reason tracheotomies made me gag and Kayla couldn't yet deal with grabby male patients so we would switch out when those situations would present themselves. I turned from my computer, "Sure, hon. Got a guy who can't keep his hands to himself, running them all over you or something?" I liked to know ahead of time what I was dealing with.

Oddly, Kayla's eyes got as big as saucers and then she stammered, "Uh, no, NO! Uh, just, I would just feel more comfortable if you took them...uh...this patient."

I smelled a rat.

"Kayla, what's up then? What's the injury?"

"Um, a hand laceration that's going to need stitches and what looks like a nasty scalp lac that we may be able to get by butterflying."

"Well, how did it happen?"

I detected a hint of a curl to the corner of Kayla's mouth before she answered. "uuuuuuummmmm, seems like there was an...accident down at the...meat packing plant?"

I now smelled an Irish rat.

I sunk my head down in my hands and sighed before asking the million dollar question. "Kayla, honey, which one is it?"

"Both?"

Twin Irish rats, jackpot!

My head snapped up and I gaped at my friend. "What do you mean both? They have THE SAME injuries?!"

Kayla shook her head, seemingly relieved that I wasn't going to go off on her. "No, Connor is the one with the cut hand and Murphy has the head bleeder. They won't tell me how it happened. They just asked if I knew any 'raven haired lasses who spoke like Scarlett O'Hara' as soon as they saw me. I already told them you were going to kill them."

Oh, yes, murder (double) was now the plan. One, for getting hurt (logic is not my strong suit) and two for the Scarlett crack. I had to deal with enough crap over my southern drawl since moving north.

I was still a good twenty feet from room fourteen when I heard them.

"Connor, ye dumbass! Y'shoulda paid attention and this would'na happened!"

"Shut th'fuck up Murphy b'fore ya get brained again! That wa'nt what happen anyway!"

"Well, too bad ya didn' cut ye cock off! That woulda solved the whole-ye dumb fuck, now I AM gonna kick ye arse!"

I turned on my heel and headed back to the nurses station. Time to pull out the heavy artillery. I rummaged around in my bag for the little book I had been studying on my breaks when I was away from the boys. After rifling through the pages and checking a few fine points, I stowed it in my bag again. I headed back to the exam room, repeating the words to myself.

Pausing outside the door, I listened to what sounded like a brawl at MacGinty's as I tried to channel any and every Irish ancestor that may have graced my hillbilly lineage. Taking a deep breath, I pushed the door open as hard as I could (for the most effect, as I knew it would rebound against the countertop to the side) and stepped into a war zone.

"STOPTAR AN FUCK SUAS!" (SHUT THE FUCK UP!)

Total silence descended. Connor had Murphy by the collar, bending him backward over the stretcher. It looked like he had planned to punch him but had momentarily forgotten he was functioning one handed. Murphy had a hand around a glass jar of swabs as if he was about to hit Connor in the head with it like a beer bottle in a bar fight. Problem was, Murphy was having to use his other hand to hold gauze to his own head injury. In other words, children. Total fucking children. And I was about to hand out two good old fashioned ass whuppins as my grandmother would call it.

Two pairs of magnificent blue eyes slowly turned in my direction as I stood in the doorway trying my best to draw myself to my full five feet three inches (yes, they give me hell over that too) and then some. They both seemed unable to move from their almost comedic positions. When they finally spoke it was halting, almost a whisper.

"Lass, did ye just..."

"Fuck, girl,..."

I ignored their half questions and did my best to step confidently over to where they dangled half off the stretcher, keeping my arms crossed and with what I hoped was an icy glare.I brought my face within inches of theirs and hissed between clenched teeth.

"Ta me ag dul chun tus da do asses!" (I am going to beat both your asses!)

Hopefully they had the point because I had now used seventy five percent of the Gaelic I had learned in the last two sentences. I had started my studies with what I thought I would need the most with my set of fine young jackasses.

Ten minutes later the offenders had cleaned up their mess and now sat side by side on the stretcher as I leaned on the counter, arms still crossed as I listened to them explain there selves in the weird ping-pong style conversation I had become accustomed to.

"Ye see, lass, Conn here was daydreamin while cuttin chops on th'slicer..."

"I was not, I jus' slipped, the thing is fuckin' ancient anyway."

"Anyway, he cuts his hand open and is bleedin' like a pig, so I go over ta help..."

"Help, my arse, ye was laughin your fool head off an runnin ya mou..."

"An then I ended up gettin' hit and knocked back into a tray o'steaks..."

I interrupted "Wait, Connor, you HIT Murphy after you got cut?"

"Ah, no, lass Pete O'Malley was the one who hit Murph. But it was a fair fight. Murph hit him first."

At the mention of Pete I had a dim recollection of a tall red head I had met once at Doc's.

"Why did this Pete guy hit Murphy who was SUPPOSEDLY ", I rolled my eyes, "trying to give you first aid, the good samaritan that he is?"

The boys traded guilty looks and then found great interest in the tile pattern under our feet.

Ah, so THIS was the real meat of the matter. I waited in silence. In the few months since I had been involved with the boys, I had learned that if you give a Macmanus man enough rope, he will gladly hang himself.

"Well, ya see, lass I might have made a wee joke to Connor after the accident."

"Wee joke my arse, more like yelled it!"

I sighed. "Pray tell, dear Murphy, what was it that you said?"

"I may or may not have said Connor wasn't paying attention because he was pullin 'is pud while daydreaming about ye. Or sometin' along those lines. I just meant for Conn t'hear it."

"But more than Connor heard it? This Pete O'Malley in particular?"

"Aye."

"And then?"

This time Connor spoke up. "Pete may or may not have made a comment we didn't like."

"Like what?" This was like interrogating a couple of autistic fruit flies.

Both the boys gave me repentant looks but didn't speak.

"Guys, I'm a grown up. What did he say?"

"He said ye had awesome tits, lass."

"Aye."

I was confused.

"So, Murphy, you punched a guy basically because he paid me a compliment?"

They both looked at me like I had just told them the Virgin Mary was a coked up street whore.

"It isn't his place t'be lookin, girl."

"or commentin' either."

It was the sweetest and STUPIDEST thing "my boys" had done for me yet. I wanted to kiss them both and then give them a slap to the back of the head. But I was at work, and furthering this scene wouldn't do. So I just headed into nurse mode.

A couple of hours later I was going over discharge papers with my now stitched and bandaged "patients" when they finally decided it was safe to ask about my earlier outburst.

Murphy began, "So, girl, was that Gaelic I heard ye speak before?"

"Aye, lass, we didn't know..."

I didn't look up from my papers. "Yes, I decided that I was going to do a little study in my free time."

Quietly almost reverently they asked "So, could ye maybe..."

"say sometin' else in that beautiful tongue fer us?"

I eyed them suspiciously over my clipboard. A second later they both reached down and adjusted what were quickly becoming some tight blue jeans. Of course, who did I think I was talking to here? Both with rather painful injuries, in a public place, that happened to be my work, where no one but Kayla knew I 'belonged' to them both. Why WOULDN'T they be thinking about sex? I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. I tried to put on my best sensual face, leaned forward between them and whispered.

"más rud é nach bhfuil tú féin a iompar dhá, beidh mo chorp a bheith dúnta le haghaidh gnó ar feadh na seachtaine seo chugainn!"

(If you two don't behave, my body will be closed for business for the next week!)

It was honestly the fastest I had ever managed to get two patients discharged and out of the ER in my career.