by Chloe Walsh
Frowning, I looked to Hughie who stared in confusion right back at me.
"How much did you drink, lad?" I asked Gibsie as I wrestled to keep him in one place.
He had a habit of scampering off when he was drunk.
"Enough," Gibsie slurred before bursting back into the chorus of the song, stamping his feet on the footpath for emphasis.
"Yeah, yeah, fucker," I coaxed as I half carried him to the taxi. "You're a doctor."
"With no standards," he held up a finger and declared before falling into the back seat of the car.
"Never thought you had," I agreed, climbing in alongside him to buckle the eejit up.
"How'ya, Paddy?" Gibsie paused mid-song to acknowledge. "To the Kavanagh manor," he added before diving right back into song.
Fucking Gibsie.
"What's the story with you and Bella?" Hughie asked.
We were sitting on the front porch of the house, wrapping up the night with a bottle of Jameson.
Whiskey was a terrible way to end the night, but a much needed one having spent the past three hours taking turns babysitting Gibsie and his upchuck reflux.
Fucker had projectile vomited all over the spare bedroom and was currently being housed in the downstairs bathtub with half a dozen towels thrown over him.
Thankfully, his stomach was finally empty and he was snoring soundly.
Hughie and I were the only two still awake with Patrick passing out on the couch in the living room the minute we got home.
"There's no story, lad," I said, rolling my half-empty glass between my hands.
"I presume you've heard the rumor?" he asked, tone cautious and slightly slurred.
I exhaled heavily. "Which one?"
"About her and Cormac?"
"Don’t need to hear any rumors to know what's happening there, lad," I grunted. "Saw it with my own eyes tonight."
"No," Hughie said slowly. "The one where she went home with Cormac on St. Stephen's Night." Grimacing, he added, "And every weekend since."
"No," I deadpanned. "I didn’t know."
"I would've said something, but you were just out of the hospital," he sighed heavily. "I didn’t want her messing with your recovery."
"Don’t worry about it, lad." Swirling the whiskey around in my glass, I stared down at the amber liquid and admitted the truth. "I already had my suspicions long before then."
"Yeah?" He arched a brow. "Why didn’t you say something?"
"Because I wanted a quiet life?" I offered weakly. "I'm a fucking eejit, lad."
"Ryan's the eejit," Hughie corrected. "Fucking over his teammate for a girl."
Too drunk to feign impassiveness or mask my emotions, I dropped my head and released a heavy sigh.
"I made a mistake with that girl, Hugh." Raising my glass to my lips, I chugged back the remaining amber liquid before adding, "An eight-month long mistake."
"At least you got out unscathed, Cap." Reaching between us, he grabbed the half empty bottle of whiskey and refilled his glass. "Could have been a nine-month mistake," he added, holding the bottle out for me. "With an eighteen to life price tag."
"You can say that again," I muttered in agreement, taking the bottle. "Can you imagine what Dennehy and Ó Brien would have done to me if I rolled up to training with a baby?"
"Screw your coaches at The Academy," Hughie countered. "Imagine what your mother would have done to you."
"Shite, lad, it doesn’t bear thinking about." Filling my glass up, I placed the bottle back down and shook my head. "Ugh."
"Lad, can you imagine what my mother would say if I walked in the door with Katie and told her I got her pregnant," Hughie slurred. "She'd cut my bollocks off there and then."
"Stop, lad." I shuddered violently. "Don’t even talk about it."
We both knocked the wooden porch beams to unjinx ourselves.
Several minutes passed by in companionable silence before Hughie spoke again.
"Did you ever talk to Shannon Lynch after that day on the pitch?"
I turned my bleary gaze on him, too drunk to mask my curiosity. "My Shannon?"
Hughie laughed. "She's your Shannon now?"
I shrugged, too drunk to defend or deny.
"Gotta say, lad, I was relieved when you called the team on the pitch incident and nipped it in the bud," Hughie said with a heavy sigh. "If you hadn't, I would have. Poor girl deserves a break."
I frowned. "You know her?"
"She's been friends with my sister since they were small."
"Claire," I filled in, racking my brain for the information I needed. "The blonde one in third year."
"Yeah, lad." Hughie took another sip from his glass before saying, "She was over at the house today, actually."
"What?" I looked at him. "You never said."
He shrugged. "Why would I?"
Good point.
"Lovely girl," he added thoughtfully. "Horrible family."
"What do you mean?"
Hughie shook his head but didn’t reply.
That bothered me for a whole host of different reasons.
I didn’t like him knowing things about her that I didn’t.
"I'm going to go check on precious in the bath," he announced when he finished his glass. "And then I'm putting my head down for the night."
"Take whatever room you want," I mumbled, deep in thought.
Hughie placed a hand on my shoulder.
"Keep looking out for her, Cap," he said, squeezing my shoulder. "God knows someone needs to."
And then he was gone.
10
Boy's gonna Shine
Shannon
On the last Friday in February, Tommen College were playing rival school Kilbeg Prep on the school grounds for the School Boys Shield.
Because it was one of the few home games of the season left, and a prestigious cup to win, all classes were invited to attend to support their team.
According to Claire, the School Boys Shield that was up for grabs today was nowhere near as important or lucrative as the league cup the team would be playing for next month in Donegal, but it was still pretty silverware and Tommen loved silverware.
It didn’t take me very long at Tommen to realize that what my father had said about the school being a glorified rugby prep school was true.
It was plain to see that everything revolved around the sport.
Personally, I could have thought of a million places I would have preferred to be than watching oversized boys from Tommen bulldoze their way through oversized boys from Kilbeg, but life had a funny way of screwing with a person.
Wrapped up in my winter coat and a woolly hat, I sat between Lizzie and Claire – who was draped in our school's colors – grateful to have snagged a seat in the stands.
Hundreds of other students had to stand along either side of the pitch.
Not that any of them seemed to care about standing in the pouring rain.
They were too busy screaming and cheering on our school's senior rugby team.
Ten minutes into the game, and I witnessed first-hand what all the fuss over Johnny Kavanagh was about.
I could literally feel the electricity crackling in the air when the ball was in his hands, and from the sounds of screaming, so did everyone else.
He seemed to be completely at home on the pitch, and when they got that ball in his hands?
Magic occurred.
Beautiful things happened.
He was so tall it didn’t make sense for him to be so light on his feet.
He was broad and strong, thick and muscular.
But he was also light and nimble.
It was almost like he danced around the opposition with fancy leg work and agile body movements.
He had some crazy pace and the way he could sprint, it was insane.
He was unbelievable to watch.
You could see the wheels of his brain in motion as he scoped out every play, pass, and attack with expert precision.
He was a
n intelligent player with a keen eye for intercepting play and self-discipline that seemed to rival a saint.
It didn’t seem to matter how much he was knocked around or targeted by the opposition – and he was clearly targeted – he managed to keep his cool.
The hits he took, the physical attacks on his body, and he just got back up and kept going.
I was in awe.
The way he moved was extraordinary.
I found myself entranced with the way he moved on the pitch.
No wonder everyone talks about him, I thought to myself.
He was clearly miles ahead of the boys he was playing alongside and I thought he deserved to be on a more prestigious playing field.
If he could play like this at seventeen, I could only imagine what a few years would do for his game.
"Yes, Hughie!" Claire cheered, distracting me from my thoughts when her brother, Tommen's number 10, kicked the ball over the sideline. The ball managed to touch off the opposition's fingers before going out of play. "Yes!" Claire hooted, thrusting a fist in the air. "Good job, guys!"
"What's happening now?" I asked, unsure why she was cheering when her brother had obviously kicked the ball wide. "Is this good for Tommen?"
It was clear that she was as much into the game as I was, considering she'd spent the last fifty minutes rotating between explaining the rules to me and screaming profanities at the top of her lungs.
It went clean over my head, my nerves too frazzled to take in anything more than the bare basics that I already knew from watching the Six Nations every year, but I pretended that I understood for her sake.
"This isn’t football, Shan," she laughed. "That's an excellent play. It's our line out."
"Line out?"
"Watch," she encouraged and then began to scream her head off when Tommen's number 2 threw the ball and Gibsie, who was wearing number 7, was thrust into the air by his teammates and caught the ball midair.
"Yes!" Claire cheered, clapping like a demented seal. "Go on, Gerard!"
It sounded funny hearing Claire call him Gerard when everyone else around us was cheering the name Gibsie.
Literally, no one called him Gerard except for Claire.
The ball came whizzing out the field then and into the hands of Johnny, and my heart leapt.
My pulse instantly sped up at the sight of him on the move.
"Oh my god!" I screeched, heart racing erratically in my chest, when four of Kilbeg's forwards tackled Johnny to the ground, burying him beneath a mountain of muscle and dead weight. "Are they allowed to do that?"
Limbs were flying, football boots digging into the crumpled-up heap beneath the ruck. I watched the antics unfold on the pitch.
"They're trying to murder him," I screamed, unable to believe what I was witnessing. "Holy shit." Clutching both girls' arms, I squeezed tightly. "Is that illegal?"
"Don’t ask me about it," Lizzie replied with a shrug. Disengaging her arm from my hand, she returned to flicking through her magazine. "I could think of a million better things I could be doing with my time than sitting here pretending to cheer on a sport I couldn’t care less about."
At least she was honest.
I had thought I would feel the same, however, he was playing and I was reluctantly mesmerized.
"They are clearly targeting him," I growled, watching as the referee blew his whistle and jogged over to the now pile-up of boys.
"Of course they're targeting him," Claire chimed in, squeezing my hand back. "Johnny is Tommen's best player. Take him out and the game is freed up," she continued to say. "They'd be fools not to try."
I wanted to scream Leave him alone! at the top of my lungs but I settled for, "That's horrible," instead, as an overwhelming amount of concern for him filled my chest.
"That's rugby," Claire agreed.
"I hate rugby," Lizzie offered up.
"No one cares about what you hate, little miss pessimist," Claire shot back. "Go back to your horoscopes."
Claire and Lizzie bickered back and forth for a few minutes, before Lizzie stomped off in a huff, muttering something about needing to save her braincells, but I wasn’t really listening to either of them.
I was absorbed in the antics on the field where the team medic was fussing around Johnny, poking and prodding his face with gauze and bandages.
His black and white striped jersey with the number 13 on the back was sewn to his skin, the white shorts he had on were grass stained and specked with blood.
Both of his knees were caked in mud.
His hair was ruffled and slick from sweat.
One of his eyes was turning purple and swelling at a rapid pace, and he had a steady trail of blood flowing down his eyebrow, but it didn’t seem to faze him one bit.
Johnny's attention wasn’t on the medic or the referee shouting commands in his ear.
He was too busy looking at me.
My heart slammed against my ribcage as he stared unabashedly and unashamedly right at me – eyes burning with heat, expression palpably intense.
Breathing hard, he lifted the hem of his jersey and used the fabric to wipe the blood from his brow, dismantling the poor woman's attempts at patching him up, and revealing a stomach of hard abs.
The move was so primal, so decidedly male, that it hit me straight in the chest.
My face began to flame and I felt my shoulders sag as I buckled under the weight of his intense gaze.
"What the hell is that?" Claire hissed excitedly, gripping my hand. "Johnny Kavanagh is staring at you, Shan. Like seriously, girl, that boy is staring at you!"
"Crap." Unsure of what to do, but knowing that I needed to do something, I turned my face into Claire's neck and hissed, "Hide me."
"What?" she squeaked.
"Just tell me when he's gone, okay?" I begged, focusing my attention on the freckle on her neck. "Pretend you're talking to me or something."
Less than a minute later, Claire said, "Okay, he's gone."
Blowing out a breath, I turned back in time to watch Johnny running back into position as the referee called for a Tommen scrum.
"What's going on with you two?" she demanded. "I thought you said you haven't spoken to him since that day in the office?"
"Nothing is going on with us," I shot back, cheeks burning. "And I haven't."
Claire gave me a disbelieving look. "Well, that look he just gave you didn’t seem like nothing to me."
"It was nothing," I assured her – and myself. "Seriously, Claire, I don’t even know the guy –"
Loud booing and jeering erupted around us then, and we both turned to see Kilbeg's number 15 had scored a try.
Their number 10 converted easily, bringing the teams level.
"Oh crap," I muttered, feeling far more anxious than I should. "How much time is left?"
"About a minute and a half, and don't think we're not talking about this later," Claire told me before turning her attention back to the game and screaming, "Come on Tommen! Woo! Kilbeg – you're total shit!"
Kilbeg won the restart, gaining possession of the ball and gaining several yards.
They all looked completely exhausted with the exception of Speedy Gonzalez – aka Johnny Kavanagh – who seemed to have an unlimited tank of energy.
My palms began to sweat profusely when Kilbeg's number 10 moved into position between the posts, falling into range for a drop kick at goal.
They were at nineteen phases and the score was tied up at 20 points apiece – at least that's what Claire said.
"This is it," Claire kept screeching. "This is it. This is it. Oh god. I can't look."
I held my breath, unable to cope with the anticipation.
Finally, Kilbeg's number 9 positioned himself at the ruck – the word I had learned for the big pile up on the grass.
With the ball in his hands, he threw a pass back to their number 10.
My heart stopped.
The supporters in the stands around me all went quiet.
Miss i
t.
Miss it.
Fuck it up.
Go wide.
All of my prayers were answered when the ball left his boot and was blocked down by Johnny, sending the ball flying upwards in the direction of their goal line.
The clock ran down, falling into the red.
"Yes!" Claire screamed, jumping to her feet, along with every other supporter on the sidelines. "Go on, Johnny! Come on Kavs!"
Unable to breathe, I watched as three Kilbeg backs hunted after him.
They weren't fast enough, though.
Like a bolt of lightning, Johnny chased down his interception, moving faster than any boy his size should be able to.
Cheers and screams and roars of encouragement erupted from the stand when Johnny kicked the ball forward, nudging it closer to the try line as he ran at top speed after it.
"Go on!" Claire roared excitedly. "Yes! You're almost there. Keep going. Move those sexy legs!"
The ball rolled over the line.
Milliseconds later, Johnny pounced, outstretching the Kilbeg backs who were hot on his heels.
It was a blur of movements that resulted in Johnny grounding the ball into touch.
Everyone around us went insane.
Tommen's number 10 moved into position in front of the posts and quickly kicked the conversion over, securing the two points.
And that was it.
It was over.
Tommen had won.
And I was reeling.
"You have some explaining to do, missy," Claire squealed as she bounced up and down in celebration. "Woohoo! Go Tommen, go!"
"Explaining?" I called back. "About what?"
"About why that boy down there is looking at you like he wants to eat you up," she replied, and then pointed a blatantly obvious finger right at Johnny – who was staring right at me again.
"I don’t know," I choked out. "I have no idea what's happening here."
All of his teammates were running around like lunatics, leaping and jumping around in celebration, and Johnny looked distracted.
He was quite literally swamped by people, ranging from teachers to students to local journalists and cameramen with microphones thrust in his face.
The thing that stood out was his immaculate composure.