Pacifier

🥀Van🌹

She was dancing now, dancing without even the softest of smiles on her lips. She was sullen, her mouth a sorry curve, her eyes glowering as they locked with mine over Dylans shoulder.

They were dancing together, moving like lackadaisical teenagers, rocking around to the music which played over the speakers in the balcony, but they weren't really having fun.

It was a pretence and i could tell. It wasn't hard to, you only had to catch a glimpse of her gaze, you only had to watch them as the song finished and another began to play, the moment they gave up and giggled out of breath towards the bar.

Dylan had her between him and the bar and when she tipped her head forward and grinned into the glassy top her reflection fogged up with her breath and he stood on tiptoes to stretch across the bar and get Bob's attention.

The wake was a real wake, like our uncle Dy's had been, a celebration over simple sorrow. No crying, just music and laughter and drink flowing.

That was what this had become, a party, a celebration, for Jake. But Izzy wasn't really smiling and Dylan was only grinning along with her the way he was for her. They were both just putting it on for one another, thinking they were the one helping the other.

Perhaps it was my age showing but to me that was easy enough and obvious enough to see. And yet still I found myself jaw clenched and jealous of the way Dylan appeared to be lighting my girl up. My girl who hadn't spoken to me for days, and who's eyes turned dark and bruised when they met mine from across the room.

He didn't step away from her straight away, kept her petite frame snug between him and the bar, pouring a glass of whiskey and teasing her with it. I watched him tell her to sniff it, watched her wrinkle her nose in disgust, screwing her whole face up and shuddering with it.

But when she tried to sip it he pulled it away from her again and i heard the joke he made about her brother. How he wouldn't risk that. It was stupid how grateful I felt then, for Bondys overprotective temper. The fact it could keep boys like Dylan away. It was stupid the gratitude I felt for it because I knew I was no exception to that rule. Perhaps even more at risk of unleashing the hornets nest because I was so much more of a threat to his sister safety than a lad like Dylan.

Especially now when it was me Billy Reid was really out to get. Me he seeked to destroy and would stop at nothing to do so.

If little Izzy was entwined to Dylan Billy Reid wouldn't even have noticed her, but if he found out it was me who loved her, more than anything else in this world, she was doomed.

And I knew I was already walking a fine line. I knew people were already beginning to talk.

Those days after her accident, when I had hovered around her, kept her locked up in my bedroom to recover.

I'd never treated anyone else like that before and the balcony was a place where gossip grew and flourished.

"Stop starring you look jealous," smirked Larry, slipping in beside me at the bar, watching the pair too as Izzy giggled and tried to stretch for the glass.

"Give over La," i smirked and shook my head. Still watching. "They're good aren't they," i said taking his further silence for need of clarification, "at acting I mean, shoulda had em on the West End not skulking round with us lot all day," i said, knowing that here was the only place either of those kids would ever know how to survive.

"Hope you're not wishing you'd sent em away," he said, turning to me with raised brow, his eyes twinkling with surprise when mine got a look about them. A fleeting idea he cut off quickly. "No Van, wouldn't work," he said quickly, "she wouldn't go and she'd be vulnerable if she did..."