Page 79 of Better the Devil

‘Whatever happens, we’re still the same team we’ve always been,’ Logan told them. ‘We just change the voicemail greetings.’

He looked out across the car park. It was much emptier at this time of night. His car stood isolated and alone.

‘And whatever happens, whoever wins, you’ll have my full support,’ Jack continued. ‘Even if it’s Tyler.’

Sinead smiled. Tyler pulled an expression of mock outrage, but then laughed it off.

‘You’re just scared I’m coming for your job, boss!’

‘Oh, I have no doubt you are, son,’ Logan told him. He took his car keys from his pocket and twirled them around a finger. ‘But I intend to be long bloody retired before you get anywhere close.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

‘C’mere, ye wee shite!’

Cal Neish erupted in a squeal of hysterical laughter as he toddled wildly around the coffee table, one arm held out for balance, the other struggling to hold the weight of his father’s shoe.

Tyler groaned. It was too early in the morning for this.

‘Sinead, he’s taken my shoe again!’ he cried, lunging to catch the boy before he could make it to the downstairs bathroom and deposit said shoe in the toilet.

From upstairs, Sinead had to shout to make herself heard over the high-pitched wailing of the smoke alarm, which had been blaring for the past several seconds.

‘Then take it back off him!’

Tyler flashed a smile at their daughter, Lauren, who sat on the couch, leafing through the pages of an upside-down picture book, apparently oblivious to the chaos unfolding around her.

Cal shrieked with joy when he made it out of the living room and into the hall. He performed the mad little stomping dance he did whenever he needed to change direction, then threw his top half towards the open bathroom door, forcing his legs to keep up.

‘Can you stop that smoke alarm?’ Sinead shouted from the top of the stairs.

Tyler glanced up as he passed the device in the hall. The ceilings were too high for him to reach without standing on a chair, so he wasted a second waving a hand beneath it like this might purify the air, then lunged after his son.

Too late. The wee bugger was already careening into the bathroom. The home straight.

‘No!’ Tyler cried.

The world seemed to grind into slow motion as he watched Cal swing the shoe back and then launch it in an underarm throw towards the toilet.

It arced through the air, laces trailing behind it, up, up, up, then down, down, down, and?—

Clunk.

It landed on the closed lid of the toilet. The child fell silent with disappointment. Tyler stared in wonder at the still-dry shoe, then across to the lanky teenager standing brushing his teeth just a couple of feet away.

Harris, Sinead’s brother, looked back over his shoulder at Tyler, mid-brush.

‘You’re welcome,’ he said through a mouthful of blue foam, then he returned to matters at hand.

‘Cheers for that,’ Tyler said.

He grabbed both his shoe and his child, wriggled a foot into the former, and tucked the latter under an arm.

Once he’d safely deposited Cal on the couch beside his sister—where he’d remain for anything up to five seconds, if past experience was anything to go by—Tyler fetched a chair from the kitchen, then pressed the button to silence the screeching smoke alarm.

He sighed with relief as blessed silence returned.

‘Thank you!’ Sinead called from upstairs.