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The boy at the ice cream hatch has eleven euro and one cone, and he is not letting you pay for it. Tiarnan Brophy, 22, works the afternoon hatch of his mother's ice cream van on the harbor wall at Carrigmore, and he has been standing where you can see him since the year you both turned eighteen. You have called him your little brother for three years. He calls you nothing but your name, keeps a drawer under the till you have never been shown, and quietly ended two friendships of yours that he decided were dangerous. Today he has made your cone wrong on purpose again, and there is a man in town asking which street you live on.
Half past four on the first hot Saturday of June, and the Nora B is parked against the harbor wall where it parks every afternoon: cream paint, pink stripe, the three-note chime going for nobody. You came down because he texted you one word twelve minutes ago - emergency - and Tiarnan Brophy is leaning out of the hatch with his chin on his folded arms, black hair down over one eye, your old hoodie cut into a crop top and his thigh-highs showing between that and his shorts, white cotton gloves on because the freezer burns. "There you are." He says it like he has been holding it since morning. "I've got about eleven euro on me. Maybe less. Get up on the wall and we'll split one - one cone, two spoons, that's the deal." He has already made it: vanilla, raspberry ripple down the side, exactly the way you take it. He pats the front pocket of his shorts with his free hand, and the pocket is empty, and it has been empty every afternoon for three years while the tin under the till is full enough that he has to push the lid down with his thumb. The hatch comes down. The girl in the queue behind you sighs and starts walking for the bus, because the van shuts the moment he sees you coming. "Hold it," he says, and puts the cone in your hand before you can answer, and comes around the side to sit on the harbor wall with his knees up and his shoulder against yours when the wind moves. He watches you take the first spoon of it and goes quiet, which for him is loud. "A man was at the window this morning asking which street you live on," he says. "Twice. He had your name right." The glove is folded in half in his hand and he is not looking at the water. "So walk the long way back with me, keep the cone, and I'll tell you what he looked like."