Aoife was still standing, staring at the phone in her hand, when Gemma strolled back into the office. "You okay, honey?" Gemma asked. Aoife tried to speak, but the words stuck in her throat. "Who was it on the phone?" Gemma asked, and the younger woman burst into tears. "Is something wrong with your Mom? Your aunt?"
Aoife shook her head. "I just – I need to get home," she insisted when she could speak again.
"You want me to call Chibs?" Gemma offered.
Aoife physically recoiled. "No! Don't call Chibs!"
Gemma walked slowly to Aoife's side and hugged her. "Okay, baby. I won't do anything you don't want me to. Here's what I need you to do. Go in the washroom and get yourself cleaned up. I'm going to let the guys know that I'm taking you home."
As soon as Aoife disappeared into the restroom, Gemma hit redial and put the receiver to her ear. She drummed her nails impatiently on the desk as the phone rang four times. Then a man with a rich Irish brogue answered the phone. "Donnelly residence."
"Hi, my name's Rose," Gemma lied. "I just missed a call from this number, so I hit redial."
"Let me see if someone tried to call you. We're in the middle of my niece's birthday party. There are a lot of folks here." Gemma strained to listen as the man muffled the phone with something. In the distance, she could hear him ask, "Mary, did someone borrow the phone to call a Rose? Sounds American."
Gemma could make out the sound of a door closing, and then a woman, very close to the phone, answered in a low voice. "Kerrianne's mum asked if she could make a call. I'll go get her. Don't say anything about it when Kerrianne's da comes back to pick them up."
The Queen dropped the phone back in its cradle. "Shit," she swore. She picked up the phone again and dialed into the clubhouse. "Hey, Piney, I'm taking Aoife home. Can you cover the office?" When Aoife emerged from the restroom, Gemma already had her purse slung on her shoulder and her keys in her hand. Once they were in the SUV, Gemma said, "You can talk to me, baby girl. Tell me what's wrong."
Aoife stared out the window. "Please, Gemma. Not today. I just need some time." They continued in silence until Gemma pulled up in front of Aoife's building. "Thanks for the ride," Aoife said listlessly before shutting the door and trudging up her apartment steps.
Gemma watched the Irish woman go and frowned. "Stupid man," she muttered to herself before hitting speed dial on her phone. Jax answered on the second ring.
"Yeah, Mom?"
"You still out with Chibs?" she asked.
"Yeah..." Jax answered, hesitating.
"'You tell my favorite Scotsman that he and I need to talk. I'll be at the garage working on paperwork." Gemma snapped her phone shut.
Aoife watched out the front window as Gemma made her call and then put the SUV into reverse and zoomed away. Aoife released the curtain from her right hand and let it swing back into place. She remembered how she had stared in horror out this window as the black SUV clipped Chibs' bike and sent him sprawling across the street. She blinked back tears, and then marched with determination into the kitchen. She poured herself two fingers of cheap whiskey and downed it in a gulp, then repeated the process. With her third glass of whiskey in hand, she stepped into the hallway. She looked at Chibs' photos of Kerrianne on the dresser. Ditching her whiskey glass on the end table, she yanked open the top drawer of the dresser and swept the pictures out of sight. The photos of the two of them at the botanical gardens and in a photo booth at the mall followed Kerrianne's pictures into the drawer. Catching sight of one of Chibs' spare pairs of sunglasses on the dining room table, she grabbed it and stuffed it in the drawer as well. For the next ten minutes, Aoife conducted a sweep of the apartment and quarantined everything she could find that reminded her of Chibs in the dresser. Then she downed the third glass of whiskey. She wandered around the apartment, picking things up and putting them back down again. There were no dishes to wash and only a small load of laundry to do. She plucked the book she had been reading the night before from the coffee table, but she stared at the pages as if the book was written in Sanskrit.
"I just need to go to bed," she said aloud. Not bothering to undress, Aoife crawled under the covers on her bed. She pulled the other pillow to her chest, clutching it like a life preserver, but when she inhaled, it smelled of leather and whiskey and all things Chibs. She flung it off the bed while silent tears flowed down her cheeks. After she finished crying, she shifted onto her back and watched the lazy shadows the ceiling fan threw. She turned up on her side and stared at the way the streetlights and passing headlights played across the glass front of her shower. She flipped again, to her other side and found herself looking into the eyes of the dark brown teddy bear Chibs had gifted to her not long ago. She had somehow missed him in her earlier search, and the chocolate brown of his fur reminded her of Filip's introspective, expressive eyes. She moved to her lie on her stomach, burying her face in her goose-down pillow. "Dammit! Even my own pillow smells like him!" She ripped a quilt out of the trunk at the foot of her bed and stomped out to the living room, where she set herself up to sleep in the recliner, a place Chibs rarely sat.
Gemma was filing invoices with her back to the door when Chibs rapped softly and called out, "Gemma?"
"Come in." Chibs obeyed. "Close the door behind you and have a seat," Gemma instructed without turning around. Once Chibs had settled into the chair, the Queen of Samcro faced him. "I drove your old lady home today."
Chibs examined her face and could determine nothing. "Oh?" he commented.
"She brought in her car to have the brakes looked at. I left her in the office for a minute, and she answered the phone. Call was for you. From Belfast."
Chibs heart dropped into his boots. "Oh, shit."
"'Oh, shit' is right. It was Fiona." He pressed his fist to his lips as if to hold his emotions inside, feeling the sharp edges of his rings bite into his chapped lips. "How could you not have told Aoife you were still married to that Irish bitch?"
"Because I'm a fucking idiot," Chibs replied, too concerned with Aoife to respond to Gemma's favorite euphemism for Fiona. "How bad did she take it, Gem?"
"Wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't tell me what was wrong, just cried and insisted I take her home." Gemma planted herself in front of him, her feet between his splayed knees. "You've got a shitstorm to clean up now."
"Aye," Chibs answered, his teeth biting into the flesh of his fist as he struggled not to cry in frustration. "I best get on that." He stood, and Gemma pulled his face forward to kiss him on the cheek. "Thanks, Gemma. Love ya." He returned the kiss on the side of her face.
"Love you, too, Chibs. Now fix this shit."
"Gem! Chibs!" Tig yelled across the garage as they emerged. "You need to see this!"
"What are you still doing here, Tiggy?" Chibs asked. As he got closer, he recognized the car that Tig was working on. "Is that Aoife's car?"
"Yeah. I wanted to get it done for her. And then I found these." Tig tossed the brake lines against Chibs' chest and the Scot caught them.
He examined them. "Fuck," Chibs drew out the word.
"Cut brake lines?" Gemma reached for them, and Chibs dropped them in her hand. His phone was already out of his cut and against his ear.
"Pierced," Tig corrected. "Fluid leaks out more slowly that way."
"Shit," Gemma cursed.
Chibs listened as the call went to voicemail. He dialed again. Aoife's voicemail answered on the third ring. "Aoife's not picking up. I should go over there."
Gemma put a well-manicured hand on Chibs' chest. "No. You go barging in right now, and she's going to be too blinded by how upset she is with you to listen. I'll go."
He chomped on his lip to bite back the argument, knowing deep down that Gemma was right. "Take the prospect. I want someone on her tonight. Some bastard tried to hurt my lass."
Aoife cracked one eye open at the insistent pounding on the door. "Aoife, it's Gemma! Open the door, baby girl!" Aoife sighed, but the knocking continued. Finally, she disabled the alarm and yanked the door open.
"What do you want, Gemma?" she demanded tiredly.
Gemma walked by her and sat down on the couch. "Sorry to intrude so late, honey. I know you probably don't want to see anyone associated with the Club right now. I know you talked to that Irish bitch today."
"That Irish bitch? You mean Chibs' wife? If you came here to plead his case, don't fuckin' bother." Aoife sank onto the loveseat.
"No. That's not why." Gemma dug into her purse and tossed the brake lines into Aoife's lap. "This is why. Somebody punctured your brake lines. You're damn lucky that you made it to garage without an accident." Aoife dropped the car parts like they were on fire and brought hands to her mouth. She closed her eyes tightly, willing the tears not to start falling again. "Tig was working on the repairs when I left. Your car should be ready tomorrow morning. The prospect is outside keeping an eye on you tonight." Gemma slung her purse over her shoulder and headed for door.
"That your idea or Chibs'?" Aoife asked softly.
"You don't want me to 'plead his case,' you shouldn't ask questions like that." Gemma pinned Aoife to the wall with a stare. "You still want that answer?"
"Aye, I kinda do." Aoife confirmed.
"Soon as Tig showed Chibs those brake lines, all he wanted to do was get over here to keep you safe. Considering what happened today, I came over to tell you." Gemma stopped with her hand on the doorknob and gave Aoife a long, searching look.
"You got something else you want to say, Gem?"
Gemma cleared her throat. "I do. Give him a chance to explain. Make him grovel, because not telling you is on him. He shouldn't have done that to you, and he should sweat for it. But he and Fiona haven't been together in years, and I've never seen him as happy as he is with you. Don't let shit from the past mess up your present. No good will come of that."