Keeping 13

Keeping 13 is a 2020 contemporary romance by Chloe Walsh and the second book in the Boys of Tommen series. A reissue was published by Sourcebooks. The publisher frames it as what happens after falling in love, which is the book's stated premise.

Johnny Kavanagh's situation is defined by an absence: he has spent his life identified with the number 13 jersey he wore, and the injury that removed him from play has left him without the structure that had organised everything. Shannon Lynch's situation is defined by concealment. She has learned that cruelty is not confined to stories, and after the journey to Dublin she is hiding and trying to hold together what remains of her family's future.

The novel puts the two of them in the same problem, since he needs a reason to re-engage and she needs someone outside her own family. Both problems are about what a person can carry: Johnny has lost the identity his jersey gave him, and Shannon is holding a household together while keeping what was done to her out of sight. The book picks up the same two people after the earlier volume and works on the aftermath rather than on the courtship.