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STAR

“I’d know he was an O’Donnelly without Padraig ever saying a word.”

Conor snorted in my ear. “I thought that no one liked a know-it-all.”

Smirking, I sank into the seat and turned my attention away from the ice and onto him. “Tell me he doesn’t look like you guys.”

“He looks nothing like us.”

“He’s pretty,” Kat said with a sigh. “And I asked at school and they said I can have a crush on him because we’re family but not blood.”

Conor winced. “Kat, can you ask us those kinds of questions, please? God only knows what your teachers think.”

“Prudes, the lot of them,” I dismissed as I snagged the box of popcorn from his lap and plunked myself on there instead. “In today’s modern America, they should know that there are unusual links and ties in each family.”

He grimaced. “We’re not exactly sending her to a freethinking place of learning, Star. She picked that godawful academy over that one with the unschooling techniques.”

“Yes, because Shay goes there,” Kat chimed in. “And because you can only disassemble the patriarchy from within.”

I snorted. “Have you been talking to Auntie Savannah?”

“No, to Victoria.” Her smile turned smug. “Who got a book from Auntie Savannah.” She released a wistful sigh. “I want to be just like her and Star when I grow up.”

“God help us,” Conor muttered in my ear as he slid his arms around my waist and tugged me tighter into him.

“Savannah broke glass ceilings in her time,” I countered.

“She keeps Aidan on his toes. Do you know what a feat that is?”

“It keeps him sober,” I argued.

“It’s turning him prematurely gray.”

“He’s in his late forties.”

“So? Now he’s more salt than pepper.”

I hid a smile as I tugged on a longer strand of his hair. “Want me to cut this?” I stroked my fingers through the longer bangs that had come in recently. “I got used to cutting my dad’s when he was on tour and was too stoned to trust anyone but family near him with a pair of scissors.”

Conor pulled a face. “Now’s not the time for a ‘who’s got the crazier family?’ competition, Star. And yeah, if you don’t mind.”

“Wouldn’t have suggested it if I did. Though,” I mused, “I do think you’re wrong about your barber.”

“He was a Triad plant.”

I hummed. “If you say so.”

“Brennan agreed.” He sniffed. “He scoped the place out.”

“By that logic, your plant of a barber is nourishing some pigs right about now so you should be safe to have a haircut.”

“Once you lose trust in your barber, there’s no regaining it. How am I supposed to let anyone near me with a cutthroat?”

“That’s why Gillettes are so famous,” I taunted. “They take away the risk.”

“You don’t get as close of a shave.”

“Says the man with perennial stubble!”

As a roar surged around the crowd, I peered over my shoulder and saw Liam Donnghal pumping the air.

“He’s good.”

“The best,” was Conor’s proud retort even as he started grimacing when Kat waved a ‘We love you, Liam’ poster while bobbing up and down like a buoy in the Hudson.

My cell began buzzing so I snagged it from my jacket pocket and spied a message from Aela.

Aela: Those decorations you asked for are almost ready.

Me: Thanks, Aela. I appreciate that.

Aela had taken a while to warm up to me, but she seemed to see that the last thing I meant Conor was harm. Didn’t mean she made a winter in New York look temperate though.

Me: I’ll collect them tomorrow?

Aela: Sure.

When I’d asked her to make a bunch of ornaments for Conor’s tree, I knew she thought I’d ask for boring shit like angels or Santa figures.

Instead, she’d spent the last eight weeks making decorations that were all about his love of rock.

That meant my dad featured heavily in some of the designs. A few were album covers that she hand-painted; others were glass shapes that she blew—like the Pink Floyd vinyl— Piper at the Gates of Dawn —or Jimmy Hendrix’s favorite Fender.

“I told you Aela would warm up to you eventually.”

Unsurprised he read the message, doubly unsurprised that our thoughts ran parallel, I teased, “Like a fever?”

He grinned though his eyes remained glued on the ice where his hockey team was currently pummeling their rivals—Toronto.

Smiling, I stroked my hand over his stubbled jaw that was more ten o’clock shadow than five. Amid the dark brown, there were little hints of silver starting to show.

His comments about Aidan turning gray suddenly made me realize that I’d have the right to watch him while his beard turned gray. It was an honor I’d never expected to have with anyone. But it was all the more special because it was him.

His beard.

Conor would age alongside me.

We’d be together as the years passed.

The thought had me biting my lip as I fought off tears.

This fucking anxiety of mine was starting to make me leak more than an ancient faucet.

Unaware of my thoughts this time, Conor’s fingers curled around my wrist, holding me in place so that he could kiss my palm.

A sigh whispered from between my lips as it registered he kissed me there just because.

His attention was split between Katina, who was trying to steal his stash of candy corn, and the game. Yet, somehow, it was also on me…

No one ever told me that home wasn’t a place, but a someone. I guessed, though, that it was something you had to learn for yourself.