Catherine tuned out the commotion of the bustling hospital as she stepped into the elevator. She pressed the button for the fourth floor and the doors closed, where she then half-collapsed against the wall still coming down from the high of transporting half a dozen crates filled with automatic rifle parts to the Oakland port where they'd be shipped to Belfast.
Being thrown back into the fast and loose game of illicit arms dealing scared Catherine. It wasn't the possibility of being caught and then spending a handful of decades behind bars that left her stomach in knots. What left her panic-stricken before, during, and after was how exhilarated the clandestine process made her feel.
It truly was a high that no drug known to man could ever possibly replicate. The entire time, her head swam and her hands shook. The signs and symptoms could have easily been misconstrued for a preemptive anxiety attack, but Jimmy had noticed the way her pupils dilated to the size of dinner plates, and strangely enough, she was outwardly collected.
She missed it. She wanted back in.
And Jimmy knew it, too.
The reality of her trip felt like a thousand-pound weight on her chest when the elevator doors opened, and a seemingly exhausted doctor stepped in. A knot strangled her throat as she noticed the bright bloodstains splotching the doctor's pale green scrubs. It made her wonder if that's how the trauma team had looked after they managed to stabilize Chibs in the emergency room.
Earlier, Fiona warned her about what to expect walking into his Chibs' ICU room. Though, hearing the words car bomb ringing deafeningly in her ears didn't stop her imagination from filling with the gory memories of her childhood.
Catherine squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that would force the images out of her head. Bile scorched the back of her throat as the violent reminders refused to leave her alone.
At the shrill ping of the elevator stopping on the fourth floor, Catherine was nowhere near reality. When the doors slid open, it wasn't the quiet Intensive Care Unit of St. Thomas she saw. Suddenly, she was in the thick of mass chaos at the Royal Victoria.
She couldn't breathe as the hand of the past wrapped its taut claws around her neck. Bolting out of the elevator, Catherine managed to pull herself together enough to find the nearest bathroom.
Despite numb hands that were shaking out of control, she locked the door. Turning around, she came face to face with the mirror, but it wasn't her reflection staring back. She saw her nine-year-old self, with a face bloodied from shrapnel and her black dress torn. Reaching up, Catherine touched the same spot on her cheek where the girl in the mirror was bleeding from. She didn't feel the soft, puffy tissue of the deep scar - her fingers became wet. Pulling them away, she looked down to see they were sanguine.
Heaving, Catherine barely made it to the toilet before she retched. Her empty stomach excruciatingly twisted as she tasted the bitterness of bile and sour acid. She regretted her decision not to eat breakfast that morning.
When she was sure there was nothing left to come up, she fell off her knees to sit and flushed the toilet. After wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Catherine rested her head against the wall.
Suddenly she understood Jimmy and Patrick's attachment to the drink, and Dessie's increasing dependence on pills, which he rabidly insisted was for an old injury from a motorbike accident.
Reaching into her back pocket, Catherine grabbed her phone. Running a hand through her hair to push the curls out of her face, she scrolled through her contacts until she found the name she was looking for.
Her hands were still shaky as she pressed the phone to her ear. It rang and rang until finally, the line picked up.
"How's it goin' sweetheart?"
Hearing his upbeat voice brought Catherine to tears. She didn't realize just how homesick she was. "I don't think I can see him, Da. After what happened to Dessie, I don't wanna see Filip the same way."
"Oh, Catherine." From his couch in Belfast, Patrick was left unnerved by her thick tone. He could hear her sniffling, breaking his heart that he couldn't be there to wipe away her tears. "Where are you?"
"At St. Thomas; in the bathroom," she chuckled, self-deprecatingly. "I dunno what to do."
Catherine heard him sigh, a telltale sign he was about to give it to her straight. She knew she could count on him to never sugar-coat anything, and his honesty was the kick in the ass she needed right about now.
"Look, I know it's tough, but you're an O'Toole - don't you ever forget that. And that means you're gonna do what you and I have always done: find your bollocks and pick yourself up. Ya hear me?"
"Aye. I hear ya," she said, playing with the frayed lace of her boot.
"Brilliant," he breathed. There was a long pause before he managed to force out the three words which were hard for him to say. "Love you, kid."
For a split moment, Catherine took the phone off her ear so Patrick would hear her roughly swallowing another round of tears. In thirty years, she could count on one hand how many times he's told her that.
Putting the phone back to her ear, she smiled. "I love you, too, Da. When you see 'em, tell my boys I'll be home soon, and give 'em a hug and kiss for me."
Before ending the call, Patrick promised Catherine he would.
Armed with a newfound sense of confidence, Catherine got up. At the sink, she washed her hands and rinsed out her mouth. As she dried her face of water droplets with a paper towel, Catherine looked into the mirror and said,
"Well, you heard the old man. Find your bollocks and get your arse in there."
"Stahl came to talk to me while we were locked up in county," Jax lowly confessed. "She showed me photos of Cameron and Edmond with Zoebelle's crew. We don't have access to the Irish stock anymore."
Chibs took a shallow breath, trying to wrap his head around everything that's happened in the last week, while he's been stuck inside the walls of St. Thomas. A wave of dread swallowed him whole, nearly drowning him in the process.
"Are you takin' the piss?" he pressed. Apprehensively, Jax shook his head. "Shite. When Jimmy finds out, there's no way of tellin' what the bastard'll do."
"Leave it to me to worry about Jimmy. Clay wants to make an unannounced appearance at the safe house later, see what's going on." Jax averted his gaze from his battered brother, hating to be the one who had to ask the question Clay was pushing. "I know it's shit timing to bring it up, but do you think you can reach out to Catherine? Maybe if she broke the news to Jimmy, it'll soften the blow, or worst-comes-to-worst, she'll straight up tell you if-"
Chibs cut him off, "I love my niece to death, but she worships the ground Saint Jimmy walks on. If I reach out, she'll never rat him if she knows he's behind this. And if he isn't, she'll never tell him because it'll kick up a shitstorm no one is prepared for. She's got the wee boys to protect."
It was far from the answer Jax wanted to hear. His perception of the IRA woman swiftly changed, disappointed she didn't believe that blood was thicker than water. But he understood, now realizing world views could change in the blink of an eye when children were at the forefront.
"We'll take care of it, you just focus on getting yourself better."
"There's a chance she's Stateside. Yesterday, Fiona came to see me."
"Is Jimmy here, too?"
"He has to be," Chibs said. "I don't think he'd let Fiona come by herself, but he'd never let Catherine come without him."
"He's let her travel here on her own before. What would make this any different?"
"Those were trips sanctioned by the army council. Jimmy doesn't have a say if he comes or not. The last time she and I met for a wee chat that he wasn't present for, she came to me all bruised and sliced up. She wouldn't tell me if it was him, but Liam told me he's knocked her around a few times. Jimmy has secrets to protect; he'd never let her come see me without bein' here to run interference. If you find her, you'll find him."
"I'll take a ride out to Oakland and Galt, maybe Lodi, see if I can scope out a busty redhead."
Chibs' face hardened while Jax bit his tongue to silence the threatening laughter. "Watch yourself, Jackie-boy. Don't think I won't beat your arse just because your oul' lady's got me damn near chained to this bed."
"Relax. She's not my type anyway."
"Bullshit. As long as she's got a pulse and a wee hole you can stick it in, she's your type."
"Fair enough." Jax shrugged.
He couldn't argue with that.
A polite nurse at the nurses' station directed Catherine towards Chibs' room. Holding Patrick's words of wisdom close to her heart, she scuffled down the hall. Reaching his door, Catherine had just put her hand on the handle, when an arm darted out blocking her entrance.
"You can't go in there."
Filled with a bubbling rage, Catherine took a step back and stared down the man who thought he could stop her. He was young - far younger than her - with curly blonde hair, wearing a bare leather kutte.
"Who the fuck are you?" she demanded.
Caught off guard by the hostility in her voice, he stammered, "I'm Half-Sa-I'm Kip." He quickly spun around to show her the patch along the hem of his kutte. "I'm a prospect. Jax is in there with Chibs, so you should come back later."
After finally getting Jimmy to agree to let her see Chibs, on top of overcoming the unexpected emotional obstacle, Catherine wasn't about to be ordered around by someone she could snap like a twig.
Half-Sack's attempt to bar Catherine from Chibs' room proved fruitless as she pushed her way through.
"Jax, I tried to stop her," was all the two men heard, before ceasing their hushed conversation.
They were stunned to hear the familiar female voice laced heavily with a Belfast burr.
By the way Chibs' had to pick his jaw up off his chest, Catherine safely guessed Fiona hadn't told him that she too made the Stateside trip.
Jax turned his attention back to Chibs. "I found her."
"'Bout ye, Jackson?" greeted Catherine.
"Doing pretty good, darlin'. You?"
She slipped her hands into the front pockets of her jeans, sucking her teeth and looking around the small sterile space. "I've had better days."
There was far more tension between the four of them than when Chibs woke up the day before to find Fiona sitting bedside.
Wanting to give the pair some time alone, Jax said his goodbyes to Chibs first, before offering a friendly hug to Catherine. Once he and the prospect were gone, Catherine pulled up a chair to the bed.
"How are ya feelin'?" she asked, rearranging the IV tubes, and wires to take his hand. "I've been worried sick about ya. As soon as I caught wind of the news, I was on the first flight out."
Chibs swept copper tresses behind her shoulder so they were out of her face. He wished there was brighter lighting in his room, wanting to see if the big blue eyes were sparkling as he remembered.
"I'm fine; don't want you to worry. It'll take a lot more than some fertilizer to take me down."
Holding his hand felt surreal for Catherine. It had been just under a year since she last saw him, and she felt terrible for leaving California when their last conversation entailed her calling him a coward for leaving Belfast. She had written him a letter where she profusely apologized and asked Happy to hand-deliver it to him. Considering Chibs made no mention of it, despite the couple of times he reached out to her on business matters, she feared he'd never forgive her for the spiteful words.
"I'm so sorry for what I said the last time I was here. I swear I didn't mean it, I don't think you're a coward; you're one of the strongest men I know."
Chibs wiped the freshly fallen tears off her cheek with his thumb. He'd forgiven her before she even left for Belfast, his heart shredded knowing he should be the one apologizing to her instead. What else could he expect her to say, when she was filled with such bitterness over him having left without so much as a goodbye. After all of these years, he was still trying to make peace with his decision to run so far from home.
"It's water under the bridge. No use in wastin' your tears over me."
Catherine kissed his knuckles. "If this is your way of sayin' my tears aren't worth it, you're bloody wrong. You're worth every single one of 'em."
Gently easing his hand out of hers, Chibs placed a finger under her chin, tilting her head up. Looking at her soft features, he tried to figure out how a woman like her ended up so involved in a merciless criminal empire. Unlike him, she never partook in petty crime or ran errands for the Provos when she was a young girl. There'd been not a single inkling she was following in his footsteps.
Catherine had been a good girl.
Catherine is a good girl.
And there was nothing in this world that could dispute that fact for the adoring uncle. He was no different than her in so many respects. If she was a terrible person, what in the hell did that make him?
Chibs chose to remember Catherine as the opinionated teenager who would debate him at the dinner table about how she believed the Irish Republican Army did more harm than good for Northern Ireland, when little did she know nearly everyone she loved dearly was in the ranks.
Every time Catherine crossed his mind, he felt like such a failure as an uncle. Her life had been derailed; she was supposed to be the one who made a decent life for herself out of Belfast. He knew exactly who pushed the train off the track. Chibs kicked himself every day for not making it clear to Jimmy she was off-limits.
Not that he would have listened anyway.
"My Ma sends her love," said Catherine. "She's sorry she couldn't make it, but you know how the wee idea of gettin' on a plane scares the wits outta her."
Chibs chuckled, "Tell your da to knock the oul' doll out and get her arse on a plane. She'd love it out here."
"Hell would freeze over before that happens." Folding her hands, Catherine twiddled her thumbs, then hesitantly confessed, "There's somethin' I need to tell ya."
Chibs didn't like how that sounded. "You haven't gotten yourself into trouble, have ya?"
That's debatable, she thought.
"I haven't," she assured. "For the first time in a long time, I come bearin' good news. I'm not sure if you've caught word yet, but I still wanted to tell ya myself that I'm...no longer in the True army, and," she lifted her left hand to show off the diamond, "I got married, and had another wee baby."
A million and one emotions flooded Chibs all at once. While news of a marriage and a new baby were always cause for celebration, it was hearing she was no longer involved in the IRA that made him utterly elated. But he wouldn't jump for joy until he had all the facts, on edge that his worst fear was about to come true. The last time they saw each other, she hadn't mentioned any suitors.
"Did Jimmy fuckin' push you out? Please tell me he's not the prick who knocked you up again and put that ring on your wee finger."
"No! A thousand times, no, on all bloody counts! I was offered the position of finance officer on the council for a risin' organization, and I took it. We call ourselves, Óglaigh na hÉireann. As for the bloke who I married and now have another son with...does the name Desmond Dennehy sound familiar?"
"Jesus. Desmond Dennehy? As is wee pain-in-the-arse Dessie from Crossmaglen?"
"The one and only," she smiled.
Chibs took a second to soak in the news, beyond thrilled Eamonn was the only tie she still had to Jimmy. He could tell his lack of outward joy was bringing a small amount of distress to Catherine, thinking he wasn't happy for her. To some extent he was disappointed, having so quickly gotten his hopes up that she was finally done with that world and the men who inhabited it.
"I'm happy for ya, Catherine, I am. Just a bit shocked, I suppose. Never would have pictured youse together. He's a good lad; I hope he's takin' good care'o you and the weans."
"He is. Though, a part of me does wonder if that's only because he's deathly afraid of my Da. The night before we got married, he asked me for a box of rifle rounds and then took Dessie over the border. Dessie came back lookin' as if he'd seen a ghost. Neither of 'em'll fess up to what happened."
Chibs bobbed his head from side-to-side, his eyebrows raised. "That does sound like somethin' the crazy oul' lad would do. I can imagine there's someone who isn't thrilled with this union, and somethin' tells me it ain't Paddy."
Catherine took a sharp breath. She toyed with the identification badge around Chibs' wrist as she tried to decide whether or not to indulge the question. Jimmy wasn't a topic she felt comfortable talking about with him, not wanting to reopen barely healed wounds and inflame hostilities. She did worry that if she avoided the insinuation, then Chibs would think there was still something going on between the former lovers.
"Of course he's not happy. We weren't speakin' at the time, so thankfully he wasn't around to ruin the day for me. And since it is Jimmy we're talkin' about here, he's trying to destroy my marriage at every possible opportunity now that we've kissed and made up."
"I'm surprised Dessie puts up with Jimmy still comin' around."
"He's a brilliant da to Eamonn, which is hard to believe, I know. There are days where I have to remind myself of it." For a fleeting second, Catherine thought about telling Chibs of the plan Jimmy divulged. She didn't want him and the rest of Samcro to be caught with their pants around their ankles when news of the crumbling Sambel came floating across the Atlantic and give them enough time to find another source of weapons. But without knowing the full details herself just yet, telling him wouldn't do any good. "I wish you could meet my wee boys. They'd love you just as much as I do."
"Me, too." Chibs licked his chapped lips, the same shock he felt seeing Fiona now finally settling in over Catherine being at his bedside. "Is he here?"
Very little needed to be elaborated. She didn't want to put the extra stress on Chibs given the circumstances, but then she couldn't bring herself to lie.
"He is. Shouldn't be for much longer, though. He promised he'd be home for Eamonn's first day of school."
How much longer Jimmy would be in town for wasn't what Chibs gave two shits about. With the secret out and the IRA knowing Chibs was confined to the damn bed with no one to bar the door, it left him in a position of too much vulnerability. No one held a grudge quite like the Irish, and Jimmy O'Phelan was no exception. Already held up with a traumatic brain injury, who's to say Jimmy wouldn't send one of his enforces to finish the job; make it look like natural causes.
He also worried about his nephew, who he set up with a decent job as a mechanic at Teller-Morrow and a house on the outskirts of Charming.
Chibs pointed to the marker stuck to the whiteboard hanging on the back of the door. "Grab the marker for me?"
Catherine jumped up to retrieve it and sat back down after handing it to him. Chibs took the napkin off his untouched lunch tray and scribbled down a phone. Capping the marker, he gave the napkin to Catherine.
"Call your brother and warn him."
Catherine gazed at the ink bleeding into the thin paper. Hit with the news Liam hadn't ventured far, her mind blanked, unable to comprehend the numbers.
"If he's still here, why don't you tell him? I already got him out of Norn Iron, and the Kings suspect it was me. If anyone finds out I tipped him off again-"
"And if Jimmy finds out he's here, I'll be makin' the call to my sister with news that her son had his neck squeezed with razor wire. You did the right thing by gettin' him outta there, do the right thing again."
Lifting the sleeve of her light pink plaid shirt, Catherine glanced at her watch. "I should head back before Jimmy sends the brigade out to look for me. I'll be sure to keep in touch before I leave." Standing up, she then leaned down and kissed his cheek.
"Aye. Take care'o yourself, yeah?" He patted her cheek; she nodded. "And call your brother. He'll be thrilled to hear from ya."
After a final goodbye, Catherine gently closed the door to Chibs' room behind her. Walking down the quiet ICU corridor, she clenched the napkin with Liam's phone number tightly in her hand.
She weighed her uncle's words of advice, realizing he was right in that Liam deserved to be warned that Jimmy was lurking too close for comfort. But the way she saw it, she'd already done her part and she paid the price by losing respect from every man who was arrested because of Liam's touting. Just because he was her eldest brother, didn't change the fact he was a rat. She couldn't protect him forever.
Balling up the napkin, she tossed it into the trash can at the nurses' station.
This far from home, Catherine would do anything to keep the last shred of peace between her and Jimmy.
Weaving through the cars in the lot, Catherine made her way to the very back row where the blacked-out SUV was parked. She shook her head, wondering if the lads understood that a vehicle which was more akin to something an undercover FBI agent would drive, didn't exactly blend in.
When she was close enough to see through the windshield, she saw Jimmy leaned back in the seat, one arm resting behind his head with a baseball cap pulled down low enough to cover his eyes. She quietly snuck up to the partially rolled down window on the driver's side and curled her fingers around the lip of it.
"ATF!" she hollered in the best American accent she could manage. "Get out of the fucking car!"
Jimmy sprang up, turning whiter than a ghost as he threw the baseball cap into the backseat. He swore his heart almost exploded it was beating so fast, then he nearly had a stroke when he saw Catherine dropping to one knee because she was laughing so hard.
"Jesus fuckin' Christ!" He rested his forehead on the steering wheel for a second, trying to catch his breath. Coming down from the high of having been scared half-to-death, Jimmy rolled down the window the rest of the way. "I swear to God I almost pissed myself. Ya know, you're gettin' way too good at talkin' like a yank."
Pleased to see he was being a good sport, Catherine picked herself up off the ground and rounded the SUV so she could jump into the passenger seat.
"Blimey, I thought for sure I was gonna be in Barney Rubble for that one, mate," Catherine said, testing out her East London brogue, which still needed work.
Jimmy gave her the stink eye. "For talkin' like that, I should make ya swim back to Belfast." He lit a cigarette for her and then one for himself. "What the hell took you so long?"
Catherine didn't have it in her to tell Jimmy about her near breakdown in the bathroom. So she lied instead, "Dessie called just as I was about to see him. The boys wanted to say goodnight."
"You didn't take a detour to the toilet to send titty pics, did you?"
"Not that it's any of your business what I do, but as a matter of fact, I didn't."
Jimmy slowly nodded, as if he didn't believe her. She'd rather have him thinking that was why she took forever than the truth. He'd never let her live it down if he knew she'd been crying in the bathroom like a wee pussy, as he so eloquently called her last night.
Staring off at the ambulance bay of the emergency room, he blew out a steady stream of smoke.
"How is he? Fiona wouldn't tell me."
"As much as it may disappoint you to hear, he'll be up on his feet in no time."
Tossing the smoke out the window, Jimmy started the engine. "Well, that's a wee shame."
On the I-5 north back to Sacramento, Catherine thought they could use the two hours to talk about something she knew had been bothering them both since last night. Though, striking up a wildly uncomfortable, albeit embarrassing, conversation while Jimmy was going eighty down the highway, probably wasn't her smartest idea to date.
"Can we talk about what happened last night?"
Jimmy stiffened, tightening his grip around the steering wheel. "Nothin' happened that needs to be talked about. So drop it."
He had thought about ignoring her all day, sneaking out early without waking her up to come along with him and the others to get the guns. But if he reneged on his promise to take her to the hospital to see Chibs, then she'd know for sure something was wrong between them when he didn't want there to be.
"Please, Jimmy!" she begged. "There's nothin' to be embarrassed about, it happens all the ti-"
Jimmy pushed his sunglasses onto the top of his head, briefly taking his eyes off the road to look at Catherine. "I said to fuckin' drop it."
Not looking for a fight when she was trapped in a moving vehicle in the middle of nowhere and a foreign country no less, Catherine did just that.
Fresh from a relaxing bubble bath, Fiona sauntered out of the bedroom to pop the bottle of riesling she's had chilling for most of the day.
Pouring herself a tall glass, she poked her head into the living room when she heard rustling. She was surprised to see it was only Catherine lounging on the couch, expecting Jimmy to be glued to her hip.
"Where's Jimmy?"
Catherine set the book she half-engrossed in on her chest, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "He said he's got a meeting and won't be back until late."
Sighing with relief over the prospect of a relaxing night, she took a few steps into the room.
"Crime and Punishment?" Fiona asked, eyeing the book Catherine was reading. "That's some heavy shite."
"Aye, and it's a bleedin' bore, too." She closed it, then tossed it on the table and sat up to make room for Fiona. "But it's one of Dessie's favorites and the sweet fella took the time to highlight excerpts he thought I'd really like so I have to finish it."
Taking a seat on the couch beside Catherine, she put down her glass. Picking up the thick, battered novel, Fiona quickly flipped through the pages. Sure enough, it was filled with iridescent maker and small notes were scribbled along the margins in indisputably male handwriting.
"He likes to read?"
"He loves it, but don't tell him I told you," Catherine chuckled. "Ya know, he was accepted to Queen's to study English. He decided not to go so he could work fulltime to take care of Eilish and his wee daughters. It also doesn't help that he was sucked into the Provos."
Fiona set the book back down and reached for her wine. "Turnin' down the opportunity for higher education because he was sucked into the Provos," she took a sip, "sounds like someone else I know."
Catherine rolled her bottom lip between her fingers, cocking her eyebrows at Fiona. "Dessie and I learned from our mistakes. We agreed to do whatever we have to, to make sure the boys don't follow our footsteps. I want 'em to go to university, but, surprise, surprise, Jimmy's been insisting that Eamonn enlists in the Irish army since before the wee lad even learned to write his goddamn name."
"Don't ya let him push you around when it comes to makin' decisions about Eamonn. That man knows fuck all when it comes to raisin' a child."
Catherine seconded that.
Fiona turned her body to face Catherine. "I know you probably won't give a straight answer, but what in the absolute hell happened between youse last night while I was out?"
Since it happened, Catherine had been dying to talk to someone about it. With hardly any girlfriends to gossip about this kind of shit with, she was left with limited options. However, Fiona was the last person on Earth she wanted to divulge this information to. Though, on the flip side, there was no one else who would find it as amusing as she did.
Deciding she needed to get it off her chest before it ate her alive, there was one thing Catherine needed to get before she could start talking. Both she and Fiona needed alcohol, and tonight, wine simply wouldn't cut it.
Leaving Fiona confused, Catherine got off the couch walking straight into the kitchen to grab Jimmy's bottle of scotch off the top of the fridge.
When Fiona saw her coming back with the bottle and two glasses, she knew shit was about to go down. As curious as she was to find out what had Catherine crying on the front porch at midnight and why Jimmy was on the patio smoking a joint, Fiona couldn't deny that she was elated at the idea of getting drunk with Catherine. Maybe they could finally bond over something - forge the aunt/niece relationship she's always wanted with her. Even if the bonding agent was Jimmy. After all, he was the pain-in-the-ass they had in common.
Pouring them each three fingers of the rich amber liquor, Catherine said, "Before I tell you, you have to promise you won't judge me."
Fiona took the glass Catherine handed her. "I shagged my husband's best mate for a lot of years, Catherine. I'm in no position to be judgin' a lass."
"To terrible life decisions," Catherine said, lifting the glass.
Fiona would drink to that. Clinking her glass with Catherine's, she added, "Sláinte."
The women tossed back the booze, shuttering as it went down hard. After setting the glasses back on the table, Catherine slid on to the floor and lit a cigarette. Feeling rather out of character tonight, Fiona took one from the pack and lit her first smoke in over ten years.
This was a Fiona Catherine liked to see. The last time she remembered Fiona letting loose, Chibs had still been in Belfast.
"So," Catherine started, ashing her cigarette into the ashtray, "Jimmy and I almost shagged last night. We probably would have, but," she broke out laughing, "he couldn't get it up!"
