by L.H. Cosway
“Jesus,” Dylan rasped then dropped his head into the crook of my neck. After a moment, he began planting kisses along my skin, and I heated right up again. Again, his lips found mine, and just like before, I didn’t want to stop. Not to take a breath. Not for nothing.
We kissed until our lips were sore.
We kissed so long I’d taste him on my tongue for days.
Then I heard a key slot in the door, and it all ended. Dylan and I snapped apart like we’d just been electrocuted. He sat up straight on the other end of the couch, while I went to the kitchen to check on the pizza. It was a little burned, but still edible.
“Oh Ev, you will not believe the day I had,” Yvonne said as she walked in then paused. “Oh . . . hello, Dylan.”
He scratched his head, a touch embarrassed. “Hi, Yvonne.”
“I invited Dylan over for something to eat. I hope that’s okay,” I said, feeling flushed. My eyes found Dylan’s for a moment and butterflies flooded my belly before I looked to my aunt. She studied me, like she saw something different, and I worried she could see the entire past thirty minutes with that one look: the orgasm Dylan had given me and the way he made my skin feel too tight for my body.
Her eyebrow slowly rose, as it was prone to do. “That’s fine. Have you eaten yet?”
Relief flooded me as Yvonne went to hang up her coat and bag. “Not yet. There’s pizza in the oven. Want some?”
She sighed. “I’d love some. And I can tell you both all about the crazy old man who came to the bar trying to buy whiskey with Irish pounds. I actually think this was the first time he left the house in four years and no one told him about the euro changeover.”
“He must’ve left the house,” Dylan said. “How else would he buy food?”
Yvonne paused to consider the question. “Maybe he lives on a farm and grows his own.”
“He’d still need supplies. Four years is a long time,” Dylan countered, and Yvonne took a seat, smiling as she settled in for a debate. My aunt loved peculiar conversations. I was happy to let the two of them battle it out, because I needed some time to think about THE KISS. I was trying my best to seem relaxed, while on the inside I was entirely discombobulated.
God. How the boy kissed. I felt like I was floating. I’d never had girlfriends I could talk to about boys, hadn’t felt I needed any. But I was completely thrown. Dylan O’Dea freaking kissed me. He more than kissed me. He devoured me as if there hadn’t been a choice. Had he wanted to touch my body like I’d wanted to touch his? Was his mind going round and round in circles wondering what it could have led to?
Then, when I glanced at him, his eyes met mine for a second, and a pleasurable chill ran through me.
Yeah, he was definitely thinking about it, too.
Chapter 7
“Do you think everybody’s redeemable in some way?” Sam asked as I tended to my flowers. He must’ve been bored because he’d decided to come up and join me. It was a Sunday, late evening, and I hadn’t seen Dylan all week. Not since our couch fumble.
I wondered if his dad grounded him for getting suspended; he didn’t seem the type. Maybe he regretted kissing me and was keeping his distance until he figured out a way to let me down easily.
Such was the way my mind worked when it began fretting about things.
“Redeemable?” I asked, only half paying attention.
Sam let out an impatient sigh. “You’ve been in your own little world all week. What’s up with you?”
I’d been hesitant to tell him about Dylan, mostly out of pettiness. I could tell Sam had some sort of secret, something he wasn’t telling me. I wasn’t going to confide in him if he wouldn’t confide in me.
“If I’m in my own little world, you’re in your own little universe,” I replied.
Sam tilted his head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ve been just as distracted as I have, and what’s all this about people being redeemable? Who exactly are you talking about?”
Sam looked away, something akin to shame on his face. He took a long moment to consider his answer, then finally he blurted, “Shane kissed me.”
I blinked at him. “He what?”
He turned away again, his expression conflicted. “He kissed me. You were right. He is gay.”
More blinking. I was stunned, couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Couldn’t believe both Sam and I had our first kisses within the same week. And now I understood his question. He wanted to know if Shane could be redeemed.
I considered how to phrase my question. “So . . . um, how did it happen?”
“He cornered me on the way home from school one day. You were gone to visit your gran, so I was on my own. I was so scared, thinking he was going to hit me or something, but then he just . . . grabbed me and kissed me.”
My mouth fell open. My Freudian theory turned out to be true, and I hadn’t really believed in it myself.
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” Sam sighed. “So now I have to deal with the fact that my bully has a crush on me.”
“Quite the pickle,” I said, chewing on my bottom lip. A silence fell between us before I ventured, “How was it?”
Sam squinted at me. “The kiss? Horrible. Completely and positively gross.”
I chuckled. “That good, huh?”
He sighed again. If he wasn’t careful people might mistake him for a dejected eighteenth-century damsel waiting for a husband. “What is it about bastards we can’t resist?”
I shrugged, no answers forthcoming. I’d never fancied a bastard. Quite the opposite. I fancied Dylan O’Dea, who talked about things most people our age never gave a second thought, and told me I was beautiful inside and out.
Almost as though my thoughts conjured him, he appeared on the roof with Conor by his side.
“Looks like we have company.” Sam knocked back a gulp of his Coke.
I caught Dylan’s eye. His smile was so radiant, all my worries from the last week evaporated. He hadn’t stayed away by choice. Indifference wasn’t something boys felt when they smiled at girls like Dylan O’Dea was smiling at me.
I hoped.
“Thought we’d find you up here,” he said, coming to sit on the edge of my allotment. Conor sat, too, saying hello to Sam.
“No Amy today?” Sam asked, and Dylan shook his head.
“She’s visiting her cousins in Wexford.”
“A pity. I’m becoming fond of her snark.”
“She tells it to you straight, that’s for sure,” Conor agreed.
“So, what are you two handsome fellas up to this evening?” Sam asked, fluttering his eyelashes flirtatiously.
“Thought we’d gatecrash whatever you two are doing,” Dylan replied, looking at me. “This is the first I’ve been out since I got suspended.”
So, his dad was the grounding type. I swallowed my relief, while memories I’d been replaying all week flooded my head.
“Freedom looks good on you,” I muttered under my breath and Dylan’s eyes crinkled in another smile.
“Well, once Ev’s finished up here we’re gonna work on a sugar high, then binge-watch Desperate Housewives,” said Sam.
“But you’re both very welcome to join us,” I added quickly.
Sam cut me a look, questioning why I was being overly friendly. I mean, I was. But I wanted Dylan to stay. I feared Yvonne walking in on us the other day scared him off. My aunt knew something was up, perceptive as she was, and proceeded to interrogate Dylan over burnt pizza and 7up.
Funnily enough, she didn’t say much to me after he left, only that she knew I was a clever girl and didn’t need to be warned about being ‘careful’. Somehow it came out sounding like a warning anyway.
“Need any help?” Dylan asked and scooted closer to me, his voice soft.
“Nah, I’m almost done here,” I replied, just as softly.
What I really wanted to say was, you can help me by kissing me again.
Seriously, laying a kiss as amazi
ng as that on a girl and then leaving her hanging for a full week was just plain rude.
“Hey, maybe one of you can help me with a question,” Sam said to Dylan and Conor.
“I love questions,” Conor commented dryly.
“Well,” Sam went on, unfazed, “I was wondering whether you think everyone is redeemable?”
“Everyone in the whole entire world?” Dylan asked incredulous. “Definitely not.”
“Okay.” Sam gave him his full attention. “Why?”
“You have serial killers, paedophiles, rapists, all of whom continually reoffend, even when people try to help them rehabilitate.”
“All right, I’ll give you the serial killer and the rapists, but what about people who are just sort of arseholes? Do you think they can ever become less . . . arsehole-y?”
I chuckled at Dylan’s perplexed expression. He was quiet a moment, thinking on it, then said, “I suppose under the right conditions, if they actually wanted to change, then yes, they could be redeemed.”
“Huh,” Sam said, mulling it over.
“A lot of people have their reasons for being who they are. Some are just too far gone,” Dylan went on. “Take my dad as an example. He’s always been a worrier, probably since the day he was born. It’s just how he is. He’ll never change, no matter if all the evils in the world were suddenly eradicated. He’d still worry that the sun might shine too brightly, or that the moon could fall from the sky.”
“Some people take pleasure in fretting,” I added.
“Exactly,” Dylan agreed. “In my opinion, we’ve all got an inherent negativity bias, something inside of us that makes us fixate on the bad rather than appreciate the good. It’s certainly a problem for me.”
“Isn’t that just an Irish thing though? A weird by-product of a conquered people?” Conor suggested. “We’re programmed to fixate on dark clouds. And my dad is Kenyan, so I’m double screwed,” he joked.
Dylan considered him a moment, thinking on it. “Remember in The Matrix, when Agent Smith tells Morpheus the first matrix was a utopia, and it fell apart because the humans couldn’t accept it? We define our existence through misery and suffering. He said the perfect world was a dream we kept trying to wake up from, too good to be real. I think that’s all of us, no matter what country we’re born into.”
I frowned at him now. “I’m sorry, but I don’t agree. I don’t define my existence through misery, I define it through the people I love.”
Dylan’s attention landed on me, his expression contemplative, and I thought he wanted to say something but then Sam asked, “What’s a negativity bias?”
Dylan glanced at him, and if I wasn’t mistaken he appeared somewhat relieved for the distraction. He pushed up his shirtsleeve to the elbow, revealing an attractive forearm. It was an unconscious action, but it transfixed me. I found everything about his body interesting, from the tiny freckle above his upper lip, to the small stress line between his eyebrows. I felt like some Victorian-era gentlemen, who got a stiffy from the sight of a bare ankle.
“Okay, so imagine something bad happened, and then right after it, something good. You’d still be upset by the bad thing, even though the good thing came right after,” Dylan explained.
Sam’s expression was thoughtful, and he went quiet. Finally he said, “This one time, Mrs Gogarty gave me a right rollicking when I failed the French exam, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how mean she was even though it was my birthday the next day and everyone was giving me presents.”
“What an adorable example, Sam,” I said on a chuckle.
He shot me the side-eye and stuck out his tongue.
“For most people it’s fine, they can get over their pessimistic thoughts eventually. But some of us, well, we can get trapped for days in negative thinking. It can be quite damaging to your mental health,” Dylan continued.
“Do you know what? We always talk about the most unusual things when you’re around,” Sam told him.
Dylan gave a wry smile. “I’ll try to take that as a compliment.”
Sam was right though. Dylan had this way of making you think about things that might never normally cross your mind. I knew he thought he depressed people, but I found him captivating. I liked getting his take on things, which was why I wanted to ask him what he thought about Shane kissing Sam. I was worried Sam might get carried away with whole forbidden nature of it all. Shane was good-looking, but he was still a bully, and he was a very, very angry and troubled individual. Combine that with a bad case of self-deception and an inability to accept his sexuality, you had a recipe for disaster, with Sam in the eye of the storm.
I nudged my friend with my elbow. “Can I tell Dylan and Conor about what you just told me?”
Sam gaped at me. “What? No!”
“Okay, now I’m curious,” Conor said. “What did he tell you?”
“I want to get their opinions. And they won’t tell anyone, right?” I looked from Dylan and then to Conor.
“Cross my heart,” Conor assured.
“I need a little more information before I can make that promise,” Dylan countered with a smirk.
“Oh, don’t be difficult,” I chided, unable to help smiling back at him.
He raised his hands. “Fine. I won’t tell a soul. These lips will go to their grave sealed.”
Great, now I was thinking about his lips.
Sam gave a beleaguered groan. “Okay, you can tell them, but you both seriously need to promise not to tell anyone, especially Amy. She won’t be able to keep her mouth shut, and if this gets out I’m dead.”
I thought he was being a tad overdramatic there, but whatever. I looked from Conor to Dylan. “Shane Huntley kissed him the other day.”
“Piss off,” Conor scoffed, disbelieving.
“Doesn’t shock me,” Dylan said.
“Well, it shocks me,” Conor disagreed. “Shane’s just so . . . not gay.” A pause as a thought crossed his face. “He’s the anti-gay.”
I laughed softly at his fervency, while Sam eyed Dylan curiously. “Why doesn’t it shock you?”
“Oh, come on,” Dylan scoffed. “He’s the very embodiment of a self-hating gay. A prime example of growing up in this place. Anger, violence, and overt masculinity are revered, while anything even remotely effeminate in a man is considered repugnant. It’s pretty standard in lower socio-economic groups.”
“Sometimes you talk like a professor studying the Villas instead of someone who actually lives here,” Sam said, and he was dead right. It felt like Dylan had already mentally removed himself from this place. He’d made up his mind to leave a long time ago, and nothing would stop him from going. I felt a faint pang of missing him, and he wasn’t even gone yet.
“It’s easier to live here that way,” he replied, and Sam studied him with narrowed eyes.
Like me, Sam was pretty accepting of his place in life. He didn’t have any wild or lofty aspirations. He just wanted to a job, a roof over his head, and somebody to love him.
“My mam says this was the fifth-last place God made. It’s bad, but it’s not the worst,” said Sam.
“That’s a good way of putting it,” Conor agreed.
“Anyway, I think you should be careful where Shane’s concerned. He’s not right in the head,” Dylan warned.
“Who would be right in the head when they were raised by a mother like his, though?” Sam questioned.
Was he defending him?
“Well, like I said, some people are dicks because someone else made them that way,” Dylan told him, almost apologetically. He seemed to see the hope in Sam and wanted to let him down gently. I tried to deal with the fact that Sam obviously wanted Shane to be redeemable. I mean, it made sense. This was the first bit of romantic attention he’d received from another boy, and I used the term ‘romantic’ very loosely. He wanted it to be real. I could only imagine the star-crossed lovers narrative going on in his head right now.
Down on the street, there was a loud ruckus
as a bunch of people got off the bus coming into town. They were all young, all dressed to the nines for their Saturday night out. A pair of sparkly high heels caught my eye, twinkling in the fading daylight. Dylan let out a low grunt of displeasure when he saw them.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, frowning at his sudden annoyance.
He shook his head. “Nothing. Never mind.”
“No, you’re obviously bothered about something. Tell us.”
He blew out a breath. “They just irritate me.”
“Who? The people who got off the bus?”
“Look, I know it’s irrational,” he huffed. “But I just can’t stand people who come into the city to get drunk.”
“They can be pretty irritating,” Sam agreed. “Most weekends I get woken up at three in the morning by people making noise on their way home from the nightclub down the street. Pisses my dad right off, too.”
Dylan’s jaw moved in a way that told me he was agitated. “It’s all fun and games for them to come in here and mess around. Have fun. Be loud. Act like fools because they’re anonymous in the city. They don’t realise that some of us actually have to live here,” he fumed, a deep frown marring his forehead. “We don’t get to go home to our big suburban houses and sleep off the hangover. Our lives are a constant hangover. Our homes aren’t houses, they’re shelves. Worse than shelves, they’re units, containers. They slot us in, making sure we take up as little space as possible. Making sure it costs them as little as possible, with cheap materials, and dodgy wiring, and pyrite, and mould and radon. We have no gardens to sit in, nothing pleasant to look at. Just concrete and dust and noise and dreams so big that one day we might crack in half from trying to hold them all in.”
I had to catch my breath when he finally finished talking, because my heart was racing. I wasn’t sure what it was about what he said, but I felt angry, too. I felt angry just from listening to him. It was like he gave voice to things I never even realised agitated me. But they did. I knew it by the way my chest burned.
We did live in containers.