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Bren lifted his glass as high as he could. “To Mickie and his new girlfriend, some poor culchie bloke’s sheep.”

Orlaith laughed and clinked her glass, and anyone who wasn’t Mickie joined in.

“You might want to take it easy, mate,” Rory said as Bren went for a refill.

“Hey, Mam, certs are over. I’ve got fuck all to do all summer.”

He was about to take a swig but Rory cut across him, glass raised the bare minimum for it to be considered a toast.

“To Bren. May he be smart enough not to add a hangover onto his oncoming jetlag.”

Everyone raised their glasses and bottles as Bren tried to figure out what the fuck Rory was on about.

“That make sense to you lot?”

“Here you go,” Mickie said, chucking a white envelope across the table like a frisbee.

It hit Bren in the chest, and when he’d stared at it like it might explode, he finally tore it open.

He unfolded the wad of paper inside and scanned the first page.

“The fuck is—”

His brain made sense of what he was looking at, but only in pieces. Departure time, a seat in economy, a layover in Toronto, all printed out under the Air Lingus logo.

“Is this—?”

“You got into college, right? Sound it out,” Mickie said.

Bren read through the paper again, taking in more of the details now that he knew what he was looking at. He was leaving Cork tomorrow at eleven p.m., which meant he’d make it to Regina two days before Arlo was supposed to walk across the stage at peacock.

“You’re mad,” Bren said, still not able to wrap his head around the gift he’d been given.

“Not that mad,” Orlaith said. “We’re just playing postman for Maura.”

“We did chip in so she could upgrade you to economy plus, though,” Rory added. “For the legroom.”

All the time spent with Arlo must have rubbed off on him, because he opened and closed his mouth, and realized there wasn’t a hope of coherent words coming out. Instead, he forced his glass to his lips so he could stare at something other than his grinning mates.

“Seriously,” Rory said, tugging the glass out of Bren’s hand. “You’re about to be traveling for eighteen hours. Maybe switch to water, yeah?”

He puffed his cheeks as he considered spitting the drink back into the cup, but what could one more sip hurt, really?

The burning melted some of the rime from his throat and he was able to look at the grinning idiots around him.

“You lot can’t just—”

“Send you the fuck away? Watch us,” Orlaith said, though her face was bright.

“Hurry up and say we’re the best mates ever so we can get back to the party already,” Mickie said, twirling a chip between his thumb and index finger.

“Piss off, the whole lot of you,” Bren replied, his throat scratchier than he’d like.

“Hey, that’s our line,” Brick said, raising his glass. “Piss off, Bren!”

The farewell was echoed by the gang as they clinked their glasses.

Fucking gobshites, every last one of them.