“Morning,” Gibsie acknowledged, sinking into the passenger seat of my car on Tuesday morning. “How’d training go yesterday?”
“I fucked up!” I blurted out.
“You fucked up?” Gibsie arched a brow as he buckled himself in. “In training?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t go.”
“Why not?’
“Because I fucked up!”
“How?”
“Fuck.” Groaning, I shifted into gear and pulled away from his house. “So fucking bad.” Tightening my hands on the wheel, I released a pained growl. “So fucking, fucking bad, Gibs.”
“Are you going to say anything other than the word fuck?” he drawled as he pulled a blank CD out of his school bag and slid it into my CD case. “By the way, I burned this for you last night,” he added with a smirk. “I think you’ll enjoy it.”
“Thanks,” I grumbled, too distracted to concentrate on anything other than my raging thoughts.
“Now,” Gibsie said, pulling out a box of cigarettes. He placed one between his lips and sparked up. “Are you going to tell me how you fucked up?”
“Roll the window down,” I grumbled. “You know I can’t stand the smell of those things.”
“I presume this meltdown has something to do with little Shannon?” he offered as he rolled the window down and exhaled a cloud of smoke out of it.
I nodded again, feeling panicky.
All night, I had been waiting to get this shit off my chest.
I could hardly breathe with the pressure in my body – that, and my regrets, and the smell of her on my sheets.
I couldn’t even enjoy having dinner with my Da, something that because of conflicting schedules, we hadn’t been able to do since New Year’s Day.
All through dinner last night, I was too lost inside my own head.
I was too caught up in her.
“I thought you liked me.”
Well, fuck me, my heart just about cracked when she said those words.
“What did you do, Johnny?” Gibsie pushed, dragging me from my thoughts.
“I did it again,” I admitted.
He eyed me warily. “You drove her home again?”
Nodding, I released a strangled groan. “Except this time, I went one further and forced her into taking a spin home after school.”
“Johnny–”
“I literally picked her up and put her in the fucking car, Gibs.” Expelling another frustrated breath, I sagged back in my seat and groaned. “With my Ma.”
He laughed. “You are an idiot.”
“I know,” I groaned. “And then Ma did what she does best.”
“She meddled,” Gibsie filled in knowingly.
“Brought her over to the house.”
Gibsie’s brows shot up. “Your house?”
“Oh yeah,” I hissed, still feeling bitter. “Then she went and gave me the talk.”
Gibsie shuddered. “Oh, Jesus.”
“I know, lad.” I shook my head, forcing myself to concentrate on the road. “It was brutal.”
“Where was Shannon when this talk was going on?”
“That’s the worst part,” I replied with a grimace, as I indicated into the school. “Ma decided it would be a wonderful idea to make Shannon take a bleeding shower.” I cast him an evil glare. “Another one.”
“Are you shitting me?” Gibsie snickered.
“I shit you not,” I bit out, turning up the familiar laneway to Tommen. “Ma also thought it was a fabulous fucking idea to take her clothes and put them in the dryer.”
“Stop. I can’t. This is too priceless.” He threw his head back and howled laughing. “Mammy Kavanagh’s a better wingman than I am!”
“Focus, Gibs!” I barked as I pulled into the carpark. “It was bad. Really fucking bad.”
“How bad?” he asked.
I drove into my usual parking spot and killed the engine.
“How bad, Johnny?” Gibsie coaxed.
Exhaling a pained growl, I turned in my seat to face him. “She kissed me.”
Gibsie eyes lit up. “Yeah?”
I nodded. “On my bed. In a towel. Looking like a fucking wet dream. She just fucking put her mouth on me, Gibs.”
“In a towel?”
“Ma had her clothes, remember?” I strangled out. “She was wrapped in a towel and nothing else.”
Gibsie grinned. “Nothing else?”
“Nothing else,” I repeated, enunciating the word nothing.
“Did you see–”
“Yes,” I snapped and then groaned loudly. “Fuck.”
“And?”
“Perfect.”
“Fuck.”
“Yep.”
“Well, shit, lad,” Gibsie mused, expression thoughtful as he scratched his jaw. “I would never have guessed she’d make the first move.” Turning to look at me, he asked, “What did you do?”
“Froze,” I admitted with a pained exhale. “I completely fucking froze up, lad. And then she panicked and locked herself in the bathroom. It was a bleeding disaster. Took me ages to coax her out and even then, she wouldn’t talk more than three words to me on the drive back to her place.”
“That –” Gibsie shook his head, “is a disaster.”
“Of the highest order,” I agreed glumly. “I tried to talk it out with her, but she wasn’t having it, lad. She didn’t want to hear a word I had to say.”
“What did you try and tell her?”
“The truth?” I offered wearily. “That I’m leaving in a couple of months and can’t commit to her.”
“You’re a little stupid for a genius, aren’t ya?” Gibsie mused.
I turned to glare at him. “Excuse me?”
“You drive her home multiple times, you take her out to the pub, to the cinema, you bring her home to your house – twice – and then she kisses you and you reject her,” he shot back. “What did you expect her to do? Sit there and listen to it?”
“I did not fucking reject her,” I spat. “I would never reject her!”
“Oh, okay,” Gibsie snickered. “Sure, you didn’t.”
“And you’re the one who told me to be her friend,” I accused.
“Well, I was wrong,” he chimed. “You can’t do it. It’ll never work. Give up now.”
“Yes, it will,” I hissed. “It has to.”
“Why does it have to work?” he asked.
“Because I need her–” I shook my head and expelled another frustrated breath. “Because I want to keep her in my life.”
“You want to keep her, period,” Gibsie countered. ”
“Stop it,” I warned.
“Fine.” He threw his hands up. “I’ll say no more about it.”
We sat in silence for a long time while Gibsie smoked another cigarette before I finally broke it by saying, “Do you know that she’s insanely good at PlayStation? Like fucking gamer good?”
Gibsie looked at me with surprise. “No shit?”
I nodded. “She kicked my ass, lad. I’ve never seen anyone clear missions as fast as she did.”
He exhaled another cloud of smoke and tossed his cigarette out the window. “Did she have a cheat sheet with her?”
“She didn’t need one,” I muttered as I pressed a button and rolled up the windows. “She had every bleeding code memorized.”
“Oh, god,” Gibsie groaned. “That is so fucking sexy.”
I pointed to the passenger door. “Get out of my car.”
“I’m not thinking about her like that,” he laughed as he swung the door open and climbed out.
Yeah, he fucking was.
