A chuckle echoed in the stillness of the boathouse, and they both looked over at Declan, who sat amidst the awls and chisels on Marcus’s workbench, his legs dangling. “I remember that day. You looked like you were about to lose your lunch all over her shoes.”
“You weren’t even there,” Ian challenged.
“I was,” Dec replied. “Me and my mates used to watch you guys all the time. We were trying to pick up tips. The older lads were so smooth with the ladies. Except you, of course.”
“Hell, you get French kissed when you’re twelve years old and see if you can handle the shock,” Ian snapped back.
Dec jumped down from the workbench and tossed his empty beer bottle in the rubbish, then strolled to the small refrigerator in the corner to fetch another. “She was a flah little scrubber all right,” he said, thickening the Irish accent that still colored the Quinn brothers’ voices. “By the time Alicia Dooley got around to you, she’d already kissed half the boys in your form at school. She even let a boy feel her up for a bag of crisps and a candy bar.”
Ian’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t.”
Dec twisted the cap from the beer and took a long swig. “I was supposed to refuse? She was thirteen. And she had the nicest knobs at St. Clement’s. I’d have been off my nut not to take advantage of a deal like that. Besides, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”
Ian turned to Marcus, sending him an inquiring look, but Marcus shook his head. “Don’t look at me.”
“By the time Marky was old enough to have those thoughts, Alicia had got herself knocked up by Jimmy Farley and closed up her little schoolyard enterprise,” Dec explained.