LOVESTRUCK ━ lip gallagher¹

12 | get lost, skank

★

"THANK YOU ALL FOR coming out in honor of Aunt Ginger," is how Patrick Gallagher started his speech. Amara squinted her eyes to see him better, the sun shining brightly in her face. He was probably in his mid-thirties. His hair was almost all gray, and he was pretty large and round compared to the rest of his family. Lip shifted on his feet from next to her, and she could already tell he was getting fidgety, something he always did right before he snapped. She slyly slid her hand into his pocket, grasping his fingers in between her own, and he seemed to relax at her touch. That didn't stop his jaw from being clenched, however.

"Aunt GG, as I called her," Patrick went on. "When the guy at the funeral handed me her ashes, I thought, 'what the hell do I do with these? Put them in a case on my mantle, or scatter them in the park or the lake?' Then I thought, 'no, I know where she was happiest.' On this corner. Her corner. Where she turned tricks in her twenties and thirties."

"And sixties," Frank piped up from the crowd.

"She did magic tricks?" Carl asked.

"No, no, son. Turning trucks is euphemism for prostitution. In her day, your great aunt was a legendary pole smoker." Amara rolled her eyes along with the eldest Gallagher siblings, taking notice of Fiona's expression. She seemed the most annoyed by her father. "Could unlock her jaw like a Burmese python."

"We are at her funeral," Jimmy reminded him sharply.

"Some think Gallaghers don't have a work ethic," Frank continued. "But Ginger worked this corner, rain, sleet, snow. Her old knees hitting that hard pavement again and again."

"Oh, Jesus," Amara murmured in disbelief.

"Bertie Giddleman's the only one who outlasted her."

"Look, y'all knew Ginger so I ain't gonna sugarcoat it," Patrick began. "She was a mean, old bitch. But even a mean, old bitch deserves a send-off. So this is us, Ginger. Sending you off. Right where you belong." Patrick dumped the box of ashes into the street, and the wind blew them away.

"It's touching," Lip commented.

"I'm tearing up," Ian said.

"Okay, kids, let's go."

"Patrick," Fiona called in a hard tone. "So Ginger had a will we didn't know about, and you had it sitting in a drawer?"

"Yup."

"And even though she hated your guts...she left our house to you?"

"It was never your house. And I'm not sure I'm comfortable talking about this subject in front of strangers," he gestured towards Amara.

"Well, get over yourself," Fiona demanded. "She's one of us."

"It's weird, you know," Lip stated. "How she sighed the will only a year ago, her being invalid and all."

"Signed and notarized," Patrick corrected.

"Don't remember you coming with a lawyer."

"Gotta get back to my family."

"Six kids with nowhere else to go," Fiona told him.

"Why don't we talk about this when the sting of losing Ginger's worn off, mm? And nowhere else to go? Why don't you live with the newest Gallagher addition then?"

Amara narrowed her eyes. "My house is barley big enough for the four people that live there already. Otherwise maybe I would've considered having a move in seeing as how you're a sick narcissistic prick who doesn't give a fuck about anyone other than himself."