Connor: "Stay away! He can take care of himself!"

In the two weeks that followed our move to Boston we spent our nights in the pub with Connor and Murphy and our days making the apartment feel like home and looking for work. Finally, after several days of searching Becky and I got jobs in a book store and Mitch got a job working with computers at Best Buy.

Once again my friends and I were at McGinty's sitting at the bar, Becky and I sitting between Connor and Murphy, and Mitch sitting beside Connor. We each had a glass of Guinness in front of us, our fourth of the night.

"So where do you guys live?" Becky asked as she took a drink of her beer.

"We live here," Murphy answered. "Above the bar. Doc's got an apartment up there tha' 'e doesn' use an' 'e said we could use it. It's better than the shit hole we was livin' in before."

"You should let us see it sometime."

"Maybe we will."

I turned to Connor and looked down at his hand. I noticed a tattoo on his left hand running along the outside of his pointer finger.

"What's that?" I picked up his hand, a bold move for me, and examined the blue letters on his hand.

"Oh, jus' a tattoo."

"Just a tattoo?" I raised an eyebrow. "Connor, some random Chinese kanji is just a tattoo. You've got the Latin word for 'truth' on your hand. That's more than just tattoo."

"Murphy's got one too." Becky grabbed Murphy's right hand and yanked it down the bar to show me. "His says 'justice'."

"So what's with the ink?" Mitch asked.

Connor chuckled nervously.

"Jus' somethin' we got when we were kids. Wha' about you? Yeh got any tattoos?"

"Sure we do." I rolled my sleeve up past my right shoulder. "See?" On my shoulder was the design of the Celtic symbol, the Triquetra. The three interconnected triangles were colored dark green and the circle that was woven through the points of the triangles was colored silver.

"'Ave you two got tattoos as well?" Murphy asked. Mitch and Becky nodded before rolling up their sleeves past their right shoulders and revealing the matching Tirquetras on their shoulders. Mitch's was dark blue with a silver circle and Becky's was dark purple with a silver circle.

"Nice." Connor nodded his approval. "Wha'da they mean?"

"Dude," Becky said as she unrolled her sleeve. "You're Irish and you don't know what the Triquetra means?"

"A'course I know tha'!" Connor rolled his eyes. "I mean, wha'da they mean ta the three of yeh?"

"They stand for the three of us," I explained. "We were born within months of each other. Our families have been close for a long time and we were raised together, we're family. The three of us have been inseparable our entire lives so when we decided to get tattoos we decided to get something that represented our bond."

"Tha's a good reason ta get tha' symbol."

"All right, I told you about ours now you tell me about yours and Murphy's."

Connor shifted in his seat, suddenly looking uncomfortable.

"They're jus'—jus' some words is all."

"It's wha' we believe in," Murphy spoke up, causing Connor to nod and relax.

"Aye, tha's it."

"Huh." I nodded and took a hold of his hand so I could study the word again. "You didn't get those because of what the two of you do, did you?"

"Wha're ya talkin' about?"

"Ya know, killing mob guys and stuff."

Connor shook his head.

"We've 'ad these fer years. Long before we came 'ere."

"Just thought I'd ask. Ya got any more?"

Connor and Murphy rolled up their sleeves and showed us the Celtic crosses on their forearms. Connor's was on his left arm and Murphy's was on his right. Then they showed us the Virgin Mary tattoos on the left side on their necks.

"Nice." Becky smiled and leaned closer to Murphy to examine the tattoo on his neck while I leaned closer to Connor to examine the cross on his arm.

"I like this one the best," I decided as I traced the letters on his hand. "That's a good thing to believe in. As long as you follow it as well. It's not fair to expect other people to be truthful with you if you're not truthful with them."

"I agree." Connor put his other hand on top of mine and I looked up at him. We smiled at each other and I studied the color of his eyes. They were blue but not as bright a blue as Murphy's. Being one of the few people with brown eyes in my family I had spent years studying the different shades of blue that a person's eyes could be. Mitch, for example, had eyes that were a blue that was just a bit brighter than Murphy's. His eyes were a bright pale blue while Mitch's were a bright silvery blue. Connor, on the other hand, had medium blue eyes, the color of the ocean when you reach the point where the sand falls away and stops making it that turquoise color.

"Wha're ya lookin' at darlin'?"

I blushed at the pet name and at being caught at what I was doing.

"Nothin'," I mumbled, quickly looking away from him. Connor put his hand under my chin and tilted my head back to make me look at him.

"Tell me wha'cha were lookin' at." The way he was looking at me, the slight tilt of his head, the small smirk on his face, and the slightly raised eyebrow, made it impossible to resist telling him anything he wanted to know. I sighed and shifted my eyes away from him, my face getting hot with embarrassment.

"I was looking at your eyes," I said in a rush. "That's all."

"Wha' for?"

"'Cause I like the color."

Connor smiled and moved his hand so that it was caressing my cheek. I felt my face get three times warmer.

"Well I like the color o' yer eyes too. They're such a pretty dark brown. An' I like the gold streaks tha' they get when the light hits 'em jus' right."

I smiled and tilted my head into his hand, liking the feeling of his palm against my cheek. Beside me, Murphy had slung an arm around Becky's shoulders and pulled her closer to him.

"Well I like the color o' Becky's eyes. They're like blue smoke. It's all mysterious an' shit."

"Well put." Connor nodded and then grinned.

"Aye, I thought so."

"Well thanks." Becky leaned against him, looking perfectly comfortable. "Ya hear that guys? I'm mysterious."

"Yeah we knew that." I grinned at her. Connor lazily draped his arm around my shoulders and slowly pulled me against his chest. Normally, I would have protested at least a little just out of shyness but as soon as Connor had me situated against his chest I realized how warm he was, how soft the old thin brown sweater he was wearing was. I could feel his chest muscles through his sweater. I knew that if he took his shirt off his chest and abs would be nicely defined but not overly buff like some guys.

I smiled at the image of his standing in front of me in just his jeans and unconsciously leaned my head back to rest on his shoulder. Doc came over to refill our beers and smiled at us.

"Well don' the four o' ya look c—c—cute."

"We got ourselves some fine girls, wouldn' ya say, Doc?" Connor questioned.

"Aye, damn fine I'd say. FUCK! ASS!"

"Why thanks Doc," Becky replied.

"Welcome."

Mitch started talking to the twins about where they worked and Becky and I listened quietly, content with just leaning against Connor and Murphy. As it turned out they both worked at a meat packing plant during the day and they jokingly told Mitch that the three of us could come and join them if we wanted. But Mitch was happy surrounding himself with computers just as Becky and I were happy surrounding ourselves with books.

By about one o'clock in the morning the bar had pretty much emptied out except for the five of us and six or seven other guys who were regulars and friends with Connor and Murphy and worked at the plant with them. Just as the five of us had finished our eighth beer the door to the pub opened and three tall, burly Russians walked in. A hush fell over the room and everyone turned to look at them.

"Well wha's this then?" Connor asked.

"I am Anton Petrov. You will tell us where the Saints are and we will not hurt you."

"The Saints?" Murphy asked. "Yeh mean those handsome fellas who've been offing you and yer scumbag friends?" Everyone at the bar started to snicker.

"Don't fuck with me Irishman," Anton growled. "Now where are they?"

"Don' know." Murphy shrugged and leaned back against the bar, keeping an arm around Becky. Anton turned his attention to me and Connor.

"You there." He pointed at me. "Where are the Saints?" I felt the color drain from my face and my mouth went dry with nervousness.

"I—I don't know," I stammered as Connor's arm tightened around my shoulders. "I just moved here."

"Yeh can see they're not 'ere can' ya?" Connor asked. "Why don' yeh jus' come 'ave a drink with us?" He held out a glass of beer but Anton's face darkened with rage. He smacked the beer from Connor's hand and it fell to the floor with a crash. A guy next to Connor got up and started toward the Russians but one of Anton's lackeys punched the guy in the face, sending him reeling back against the bar. Connor and Murphy stood up and faced the Russians.

"Now tha' wasn' too polite, was it?" Connor spat in Russian.

"You ought ta play nice or we might 'ave ta teach yeh a lesson," Murphy snarled, speaking in Russian as well.

"You fuckers are gonna get it now," Becky sneered in Russian that was just as fluent as the brothers'. Anton looked perplexed that the three of them spoke his native language but the look only lasted for a minute.

"What the fuck did you just say to me you little bitch?" Anton started toward Becky but Murphy put himself between them.

"Jus' where'dya think yer goin'? Yeh fuckin' apologize ta her right now."

"Fuck you."

Murphy looked over at his twin and Connor nodded slightly. Together they tackled Anton which started a brawl between the Russians and nearly every guy in the pub. Mitch Becky and I stood by the bar watching for a minute before Mitch and Becky shrugged at each other and jumped into the fray. I was more reluctant to join in. I knew I didn't stand much of a chance against the Russians and I stood a greater chance of accidentally getting hurt by one of the guys from the bar than of doing any damage.

Murphy got knocked against a wall but when Becky started toward him to get the Russian that was trying to pin him there Connor grabbed her and held her back. He shook his head and even though I couldn't hear him over the noise of the brawl it looked like he said "He's fine". Murphy drove his elbow down onto the guy's shoulder and then brought his knee up into the guy's stomach. The Russian fell to the floor and only then did Connor let go of Becky. She went over to Murphy and gave the Russian a few good kicks in the ribs. I decided then that I was going to join the fight after all. Just as I started over to Connor, Anton stepped in front of me.

"And where are you going?" he questioned.

"Stay the fuck away from me," I warned. Anton laughed and moved closer to me.

"You think you can beat me little girl? I don't think so." He reached out and touched my hair, laughing. I felt my temper flare, the Irish in me overtaking my urge to recoil from his disgusting touch. All I wanted to do now was make him wish he had never laid a hand on me. I brought my leg up and gave him a hard kick to the nuts. His face twisted in pain and he doubled over as I smirked at him. That would teach him.

"You bitch!" He backhanded me across the face hard enough to send me to the floor. I yelped in pain and cringed away from him as he moved forward to hit me again.

"Kieran!" Connor shouted. "You fuckin' bastard don' you touch her!" He tackled Anton, punching him repeatedly as they fell to the floor in front of me. Becky, Mitch, and Murphy ran over to me and Becky pulled me to my feet.

"You okay, Kier?" Mitch asked as he looked me over. I ran my hand across my lip which hurt like hell and saw from the blood that smeared across my hand that my lip had split open.

"Yeah I think so. The fucker just split my lip." I turned and started kicking Anton as hard as I could. "You asshole!" After a minute of this Connor stopped punching and I managed to stop kicking even though I would have loved to have kept going. The room got very quiet. For a minute the only sound in the room was the sound of Connor and me, breathing heavily. Connor slowly got to his feet and turned to me.

"Yeh all righ'?" He walked up to me and put his hand against my cheek, pushing my hair out of my face.

"Yeah," I replied, panting slightly. "I'm okay." Connor and I looked at each other for a minute before he wrapped his arm around me and pulled me against him. He leaned down and kissed me, it was soft like he was trying to not scare me by being too passionate. I wrapped my arm around his neck and kissed him back. I didn't care that my lip was stinging or that a new throbbing pain was starting to move down the left side of my face. I didn't care about anything but kissing Connor.

"All righ' then," Murphy's voice said from behind me. "It's about damn time. C'mere Becky." I heard Becky squeal happily and knew that Murphy had grabbed her and was probably kissing her the same way Connor was kissing me. The others in the bar started to cheer and clap. Connor and I pulled apart and I smiled up at him.

"Thanks," I said softly. "For kicking his ass."

"Any time darlin'." He touched my cheek again and I reached up and put my hand over his, keeping it there. Connor smiled and kissed me again.