“So long as you’re tossing around apologies,” he snapped. “You could start with your own son, you know?”

“Aww, you know I’m sorry,” Liam said in a tired voice. “Hell, I’ve been a sorry sod fer donkey’s ears.”

“Should we go back inside?” Antonia asked Aiden.

“Let me take you fer a jawful, boyo.”

Aiden looked between Antonia and his father. Her worried eyes searched his face for any signs of injury, nervous hands fluttering around his arms. Instead of worrying about his own frayed nerves, he needed to see after her. His father would have to wait. “It’s noon, Liam. Drinking isn’t going to repair the fact that you’re a sorry sod.”

“Aye, but I could take the lump out m’jaw with a stiff drink,” his father said.

“I would advise you against that,” Antonia whispered as she knelt close to him. She touched his sweater sleeve, imploring him with her eyes. “You need space to think about this.”

Aiden’s muscles slowly relaxed under her touch. There weren’t many things he could hold on to at his age. His career he currently struggled with, and the stress that accompanied it, gave him an identity and purpose. The absence of Liam Byrnes made him the man he is today. Without the hole in his heart, Aiden wouldn’t have the grit to overcome being a poor kid from Limerick. He held on to the hate for a reason: it drove him. Had he never seen his father, he could have easily kept it hidden from Antonia. And now that the box was opened, he went and behaved like a feral animal in front of her.

“Aw, come on then.” Liam asked, rubbing his face. “Let me buy you a drink and we’ll call it even.”

His father’s flippant tone made the beast in his heart reemerge. Even? The man was out of his whiskey addled mind if he thought one midday drink was going to set right all the wrong he’d saddled him with. Liam shifted his feet like he’d rather be anywhere but there. That part was natural enough. The shifting in his father’s feet hasn’t stopped since his first son was born. But right now, it was Aiden’s turn to leave. He took Antonia’s hand and hauled himself from the sidewalk. “Let’s get our things and get home,” he said as he stared Liam down.

She squeezed his arm and gave a quick nod. “Okay.”

“So that’s that?” Liam asked, crossing his arms over his barrel chest.

“Can you undo all the damage you did to your family over the last twenty years?” Aiden shot back.

Liam gave a tired shrug. “Y’know it ain’t in the cards.”

Aiden sighed and turned away. “Then that’s that.” He and Antonia were about to return to the nosy patrons of the coffee shop when his father said something that gave him pause.

“I’ll be holed up here fer a couple days... Stayin’ over at the Arch Guesthouse.”

With his back to Liam, his hand hovered above the door handle. It was an invitation. To what, Aiden couldn’t be certain. A chance to talk to the man? Antonia laid a hand on his back and pressed. “You do whatever you want to do,” she said in a low voice. “I’ll still be here if you need me.”