Mighty Quinns Ian

"DO YOU EVER WONDER whether they're worth it? Women, I mean." Marcus Quinn glanced up from the bucket of varnish he was stirring to see a gloomy expression cloud his brother Ian's face. "I don't know," he replied with a slight shrug. "I guess I can't imagine what it would be like without them," Ian said. "They're nice to look at and they smell good. And sex...well, sex wouldn't be the same without them." He sank back into the battered couch, staring at his beer bottle as he scraped at the label with his thumb-nail. "It just seems like it never gets anywhere. I remember the first girl I kissed like it was yesterday. And since then my life has gone straight to hell. You can't do with 'em and you can't do without 'em." 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. A comfortable silence descended over the boathouse. The Friday-night ritual between Marcus and Ian and Declan had begun. Usually they'd meet for a few beers, sometimes at a pub, sometimes at Ian's place in town and sometimes in the old boathouse at their father's boatyard. They'd catch up with the week's events, the talk centering on work or sports. But occasionally they talked about women. Marcus grabbed the bucket of varnish and climbed the ladder he'd propped up against his newest project, a twenty-one-foot wooden-hulled sloop that had been commissioned by a Newport billionaire for his son's sixteenth birthday. He'd been designing and building boats for three years now, working out of the old boathouse and living upstairs in a loft that was half studio and half apartment. "Considering the number of women we've collectively been with, I wouldn't be surprised if we'd shared a few others," Declan murmured. "There's a code among brothers," Ian countered. "You just don't mess with your brothers' girls, current or ex." "You're right," Dec said. He crossed the room and held out his hand to Ian. "Sorry, bro. Won't happen again. You've got my word." Marcus smiled to himself. The three Quinn brothers had formed an unshakable bond at an early age. After their mother's illness had been diagnosed and they'd been shipped off to Ireland to live with their grandmother, they'd learned to depend upon each other. From the moment they'd arrived in Dublin, they'd been outsiders, wary Americans forced to live in a culture whose rules they didn't underHoffmann, Kate is the author of 'Mighty Quinns Ian', published 2006 under ISBN 9780373792832 and ISBN 0373792832.