I’m pretty sure everyone in Mrs. McCarthy’s house heard me slam the door.

Scooter was jerked from a nice slumber, and Mrs. McCarthy herself popped out of the kitchen.

“Aidan, dear! How’s your father?” she asked, waddling over to me.

“He’s as well as someone in his condition could be,” I said, sighing. I put away my jacket and picked Scooter up.

“That’s relatively good to hear…Seamus has been held up at work – something went wrong and he’ll be late, but he was absolutely ecstatic when I told him you arrived,” Mrs. McCarthy said, smiling.

“Alright,” I nodded, kissing Scooter on the cheek, “it’ll be good to see him.”

“Your friend is in the living room, if you’d like to see him,” Mrs. McCarthy said, and then hustled off.

“Oh, certainly,” I grumbled, and walked into the living room.

“Hey,” Raine greeted. “How did it go?”

“Well enough,” I grated out, and sat myself down on the couch.

Alright, let’s do this my way, for a change.

The sarcastic way.