He shrugged. “I don’t know. Cat.”

“Original.”

“I picked him up as a stray when I lived in Chicago.” Irish picked up the mugs and joined her at the table. “Never got around to naming him. He’s never seemed to mind.”

“You don’t strike me as a cat person.”

“I’m not. But sometimes life sends things our way for a reason.”

She mock gasped. “Did you get that off a fortune cookie?”

He smiled. “Funny.” He paused and wrapped his hands around his own mug. His expression went serious. “What’s up, Blondie?”

A hundred things. A thousand. But now that she was sitting here with a—with a what? A friend? It felt like such a foreign concept. But now that she was sitting here with an audience, she couldn’t find the words. “Nothing.”

“I don’t think you’d be here for nothing.” He paused and turned his mug in circles. Waiting.

Hannah stared into her coffee, inhaling the familiar scent.

She had no idea what she was doing here.

After a moment, she pushed the mug away. “I’m sorry, Irish. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

He put a hand over hers before she could stand up. “Hannah. Stop. You’re not a bother.”

She stared at his hand where it rested over hers. He had strong hands, warm yet rough from work. It didn’t feel like he was hitting on her. It felt . . . supportive.

Her eyes lifted to meet his. “It’s been a long day.”

“Tell me about it.”

So she did. All of it. Everything her father had said, even the bits about her mother leaving. Everything Michael had said, including the parts that didn’t make sense. Irish was a good listener, and he kept quiet while she talked. He stared at his coffee as if he was taking it all in.

By the time she finished, the cat was in his lap, and her coffee had gone cold.

“Wow,” he said. “It has been a long day.”

“I still can’t believe I woke up in the hospital with Michael this morning. That feels like it happened weeks ago.”

Irish didn’t say anything, but he was studying her.

“What?” she said. “If you have any thoughts, feel free to share them, because I’m not sure what to think anymore.”

He winced. “I don’t want to throw my hat in the ring with the rest of the men trying to control you, but it sounds like both your father and this Michael guy agree on one thing, and maybe you shouldn’t ignore it.”

“You mean staying away from him?”

Irish raised his eyebrows and nodded.

“Don’t worry,” she said, scowling. “I’m pretty sure we’re going to be avoiding each other regardless.”

Irish tapped his fingers on the table and didn’t say anything.

“I can feel you thinking,” she said. “Come on, out with it.”

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “It sounds like you’re determined to show them you don’t need them. I don’t know about Michael, but I’m sure your dad knows what you’re capable of.”

She frowned. “I have a pretty good idea what he thinks I’m capable of.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

This felt painfully personal, but it was easier to share secrets in the shadowed darkness of Irish’s quiet apartment. Her voice dropped. “He’s never forgiven me for having James.”

“Do you really think that’s true?”

“I know it’s true. He practically didn’t speak to me for the entire time I was pregnant.” But now that she was saying that, she thought back to the exchange with her father at the police station.

You’re impossible to talk to.

I’m not the only one.

She remembered getting the positive pregnancy test, how she’d cried to her mother for an hour straight. By the time her father had come home, she’d been so ashamed and humiliated that she’d screamed at him and hidden in her bedroom.

She hadn’t been able to make eye contact with him for weeks.

Had she started it? Had she been blaming him for something she’d initiated years ago?

Maybe. But he hadn’t helped.

Hannah looked up at Irish, and she felt a familiar shame creeping up her cheeks. “I don’t know who James’s father is.” She hesitated. She’d never shared this whole story. Not even with Michael. “When I started high school, my father got super strict. I didn’t mind, really—I’d always done everything my parents expected of me. But it almost wasn’t good enough. He’d grill me on where I was every minute of every day. I’d go to the library after school, and if I wasn’t home exactly when I said I’d be, he’d flip out. Once he sent police officers to a friend’s house to make sure I was really there for a sleepover. Just because I didn’t answer my cell phone. Can you imagine how humiliating that was?”

Irish smiled. “I don’t need to. My dad was a cop, too. He used to treat my friends as if they were smuggling pot and whiskey into my house. I wouldn’t accept a ride home from anyone because my dad would be standing in the driveway, wanting to smell their breath.”

Hannah faltered. “Really?”

“Yeah, really.” He shrugged. “I think some of it is just being a parent, and some of it is knowing the consequences of poor choices. Well—you know all about that, right? With James?”