Some people have a first memory. Mine’s just… her. Not one specific moment. Not one big event. Just flashes. A tiny girl with tangled hair stealing chips off my plate before she could even say my name properly. Mud fights in the garden while our parents sat around laughing. Falling asleep on opposite ends of the Kavanaghs’ sofa after someone insisted on “just one more movie.” Guest Dempsey had been there for every chapter of my life. Because that’s what happened when your da’s best mate was her da, and your mam practically adopted her mam as the sister she’d never had. She wasn’t just my best friend. She was family. Dad always said Alec was the brother life gave him after everything went to shit. Mam said Casey had been her safe place long before either of them became mothers. Between garage days with Dad and Grandad, afternoons at Mam’s salon, barbecues at the Kavanaghs’, birthdays, Christmases, rugby matches, beach trips, and Sunday dinners, there wasn’t really a memory I had that didn’t somehow include the Dempseys. Especially Guest. At seventeen years old, not much had changed. I still walked into her house without knocking. She still robbed food straight off my plate. She still called me an eejit at least five times a day. And I still somehow ended up fixing whatever disaster she’d gotten herself into. Not that I’d ever complain. Well… Maybe a little. Being Joey Lynch’s son came with its own set of expectations. Dad had clawed his way out of hell before I was even born. Everyone in Ballylaggin knew his story, knew the man he’d become, knew the mechanic with grease permanently staining his hands who worshipped his wife and would’ve moved mountains for me. They also remembered the boy he used to be. Which meant people watched me. Every mistake. Every fight. Every bad decision. Like they were waiting to see if I’d become another Lynch worth talking about. Mam always told me I didn’t have to carry anyone else’s mistakes on my shoulders. Dad reminded me I only had to be myself. Some days, that felt easy. Other days… Not so much. Thankfully, there was one person who’d never looked at me like I had something to prove. Guest. To her, I wasn’t Joey Lynch’s son. I wasn’t the kid trying to redeem the family name. I wasn’t “the good Lynch.” I was just… AJ. Her best mate. And if history had taught me anything, it was that life was never boring when Guest Dempsey was involved. Which was probably why, the second my phone buzzed with her name lighting up the screen, I already knew my day had just taken a turn.