Okay, so maybe I jumped the gun a little when I predicted this would be mine and Shannon’s best year to date. Or heck, maybe I jinxed it. Either way, sitting across the lunch table from my sobbing best friend was not how I anticipated spending our first day back at Tommen.
We’d been back at school less than half a day and, already, one of our lunch-table associates had fallen prey to Mr. Twomey’s dreaded suspension wrath.
Not only had Joey Lynch been suspended for pummeling Ronan McGarry, but Tadhg Lynch had taken a rap on the knuckles for his role in the altercation, too.
Apparently, Ronan was suicidal enough to call Aoife Molloy a slut to the face of a hothead like Joey Lynch. Like come on. What the hell did he think would happen when he called the newly appointed mother of a man’s child that kind of name?
Apparently, Mr. Twomey gave him a two-week suspension. I mean, two weeks was unheard of at Tommen. The worst I could remember since my being here was one-week tops. The beating Ronan took was a severe one, though.
To top off all the Lynch-sibling drama, Ronan had drippled blood all over my new school shoes, Katie had been sent home with period pains, and then Lizzie and Feely, of all people, had the weirdest argument at the beginning of break, which had resulted in Lizzie storming off.
Clearly Hugh was more in the loop than I was regarding what had gone down between our friends because he’d gone after Lizzie and had somehow managed to persuade her to return.
She was back at the lunch table, sitting next to my brother in the chair Katie had vacated, and hadn’t spoken a single word to anyone.
I wondered if Lizzie and Patrick’s argument had anything to do with what Hugh said about getting Patrick to talk to Liz. Either way, all three of them were in a heated staredown across from me.
Meanwhile, Shannon was so distraught over her brothers’ suspension – plural – that Johnny had spent the last ten minutes whispering words of what I assumed were comfort in her ear, in between peppering kisses to her face.
When he tucked her hair behind her ear to kiss her temple and then trailed his thumb over the little dimple in her chin before pressing a kiss to the tip of her nose, I audibly crooned. “Aww!”
I loved temple kisses. Forehead kisses, too. And nuzzling noses were the cream of the crop. Those intimate forms of affection were my favorite, and my bestie received an abundance of both on the daily from her lover.
“It’ll be grand, chickie,” I tried to appease when I saw a tear trickle down her cheek. “Hey, don’t cry.” Reaching across the table, I snatched her hand up in mine, feeling a huge swell of sympathy for my timid friend. “Mr. Twomey did Joey a favor if you think about it.” Joey clearly didn’t want to be at school to begin with. His girlfriend was still in the hospital, having just given birth to their son. “At least now he gets to spend some quality time with Aoife and baby AJ.”
“Exactly,” Johnny agreed, giving me a grateful look. “You know his mind wasn’t here anyway. He’ll have a couple of weeks off to spend with his family and then he’ll be back.”
“Cap, you might want to tell your old man to keep an eye on Twomey.” Arriving back to the table with a large wicker basket in hand, Gerard walked straight over to where I was sitting and dropped the basket down on the table in front of me. “I just saw your mam leaving the office with the Lynch brothers,” he said, flipping the lid of the basket open. “And let me tell you, that cranky old bastard watched her ass the entire time.”
“Oooh … muffins!” I rubbed my hands together with glee when my eyes landed on the fantastic array of baked goodies, courtesy of Gibson’s Bakery. “Gimme, gimme.”
“Mammy K’s here?” Robbie Mac piped up from further up the table. “Was she wearing the white pants suit? Oh fuck, Gibs, tell me she was wearing the white pants suit.”
“The one that shows her thong print?” Pierce asked, reaching over the table to swipe a muffin out of the basket.
“That’s the one,” Robbie confirmed with a groan. “Jesus, that woman is immortal. Doesn’t look a day over thirty-five.”
“You’ll be wearing the imprint of my foot up your hole if you talk about my ma like that,” Johnny warned, bristling. “Pack it in.”
“Hey, don’t look at me,” Gerard huffed. “I wasn’t looking.”
“Bullshit,” one of the team fake-coughed, causing everyone else at the table to erupt in laughter.
“Bleeding perverts, the lot of ye.”
“Boys are dogs,” I groaned, momentarily standing for Gerard to sit down, and then unceremoniously sinking back down on his lap.
“It’s true,” Gerard agreed, reaching into his pocket to retrieve a set of car keys. “And before you even start on the lecture train, just stop,” he added, tossing the keys at Johnny before reaching around me and grabbing a muffin. “I’m an emotional eater.”
“Oh no, no, no, no,” Hugh said with a humorless laugh, as he pointed a finger at me. “There’s a spare seat at the table now that Lynchy’s gone. No need to sit on anyone’s lap, baby sister.”
“I’m not sitting on anyone’s lap,” I countered with a grin. “I’m sitting on Gerard’s lap.”
“That’s me, by the way,” Gerard taunted, snaking an arm around my waist, while he waved his free hand around over his head. “Hi.”
“Ooh, ooh, please let me have a bite,” I begged, catching ahold of his wrist when he raised the most beautiful-looking double chocolate chip muffin towards his mouth.
“Nuh-uh, bite with your mouth, babe, not with your hands,” he teased, snatching the muffin back when I tried to swipe it. “Open wide.”
“Claire.” Lizzie broke her silence with a hiss. “Don’t let him feed you.”
“Too … ate … ” I mumbled between bites. “ … orry … ugh … ”
“Gibs!” Hugh joined in on the judgement. “Stop feeding my sister!”
“What?” Gerard replied, holding his hand to catch the crumbs that didn’t make my mouth, while he fed me another bite of his muffin. “She wants it.”
“Oh, leave it alone,” Feely laughed. “What harm are they causing to anyone?”
“Pa, he just put his fingers in her mouth.”
“No, he didn’t. He put a piece of muffin in her mouth,” he replied calmly. “You’re overreacting.”
“I bet that’s not all he puts in your sister’s mouth, Hughie,” Danny called out, causing most of the team to laugh and snicker around us.
“A lot you’d know about putting anything in girls’ mouths,” Lizzie was quick to defend me. “Get back in your box, asshole.”
“Doesn’t look like she has a gag reflex,” Pierce added, goading the boys. “Lucky bastard.”
“Hey! Asshole!” Gerard deadpanned, turning his attention to his teammates. “Don’t even go there.”
“Hey, Baby Biggs,” another one goaded, “want to come sit on my lap and I’ll feed you something a lot more satisfying.”
“Cock-tease.”
“You’re a dead man, Callaghan!” Hugh snarled, shoving his chair in his rush to get out of it to defend my honor.
The move was a sweet one but unnecessary because Gerard had beaten him to it.
“The fuck did you say about my girl?” He was on his feet and lunging across the lunch table before I had a chance to register that I was no longer sitting on his lap, but on the seat he had vacated. “If you ever speak about her like that again, I’ll rip your fucking guts out your asshole and smear them all over your face!”
In this moment, Gerard reminded me a lot of one of those dormant volcanos people travel to see because they look so beautiful and assume they’re harmless but raise the temperature of their core and said volcano became truly lethal.
All it took was one sexual innuendo at my expense to flip the trip-switch inside of his brain, causing him to erupt on his teammates in the middle of the lunch hall at Tommen.
“I was only messing,” Danny wheezed, clearly struggling to breathe with the hand clamped around his throat that was cutting off his airways.
“Follow me, Shan,” Johnny commanded, shoving out of his chair. “Come on, baby. Quickly.” Tucking his girlfriend under his arm, Johnny led her out of the lunch hall, and harm’s way.
“Whoa, Gerard,” I yelped, making a beeline for the boy who had not only dragged his teammate onto the lunch table, but was straddling his chest, while his fists swung into said teammate’s face with a flourish.
“Gibs, don’t,” Pierce commanded, trying to pull him off Danny, only to be rewarded with a headbutt to the face. “Jesus Christ, Gibs.” Wiping the blood trickling from his nose with his sleeve, Pierce shoved Gerard hard from behind, causing him to lose his balance and stumble. “You broke my fucking nose!”
“Hey—” Hugh barked, diving over the table and head-first into the fray, while Lizzie remained motionless in her seat. “Keep your hands off my friend, asshole.”
“He broke my goddamn nose, Hugh!”
“Pity he didn’t break your neck while he was at it!”
“What’s your problem, Biggs?”
“You’re my problem, O’Neill!”
“Why me? Gibs is the one always stirring the shit pot!”
“Yeah, well, he’s family!”
“Fucking do something, lads!” Robbie shouted, catching ahold of Gerard from behind when he lunged for Pierce. That was a bad move that ended with all five boys crashing over chairs before landing on the floor.
Seeing his best friends outnumbered three to two, Patrick Feely rewrapped his sandwich in tinfoil before rising to his feet. “Fuck my life,” he muttered before joining the rumble on the floor. “Someone find Johnny.”
Several other members of the rugby team joined in then, and I wasn’t sure if any of them were truly trying to break up the fight. It sure looked like they were all enjoying beating seven kinds of shit out of each other. Fists were flying and blood was pumping, and they all seemed to love it.
Mr. Twomey and several other teachers arrived on the scene, but they were no match for twenty-plus brick-shithouse-built, testosterone-fueled teenage boys.
Too sensible to jump into the action, but too pumped to do nothing, I discreetly stamped on Robbie Mac’s hand when he rolled close to where I was standing. Ha. Served him right for calling me a cock-tease.
“That’s enough,” Mr. Twomey was roaring, as he managed to separate two players on the team from the year below me. “I’m warning the lot of you!”
The older boys didn’t bat an eyelid.
Instead, they continued their hunt for bloodlust, by beating and pummeling each other viciously.
“I said that’s enough,” Mr. Twomey bellowed. “You have five seconds to pack it in, or I’m calling the Gards and telling them to take every last one of you to the barracks!”
“Hey!” Johnny roared, stalking back into the lunch hall minus Shannon. “He said that’s enough,” he snarled in a voice that was truly terrifying. “Pack it in!”
Marching right into the throes of the pile-up, I watched as Johnny reached into the biggest of the pile-ups and dragged a deranged-looking Gerard out from the bottom.
“Pack it the fuck in,” Johnny commanded, keeping one arm wrapped around Gerard’s waist.
“He started it!”
“Back the fuck up, Danny,” Johnny warned, pointing a finger at the boy who was still trying to goad Gerard into fighting. “We both know what’ll happen if I let him go.”
Whoa.
Seriously, I’d never heard him sound so furious.
“Sit your holes down,” he warned, using his free hand to shove Danny away from Gerard. “Now!”
His tone was so full of authority in this moment that I found myself dropping into my chair for fear of getting in trouble.
Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one to feel the pressure of the alpha’s siren.
One by one, his pack untangled themselves and returned to the infamous rugby table, looking bruised, bloody, and a lot worse for wear.
“Is this what I came back to Tommen for?” he demanded, still keeping a firm hold on his beta. “A bunch of jumped-up little pricks fighting with each other?”
“No, Cap.”
“Sorry, Johnny, lad.”
“You should be sorry,” Johnny sneered, tone laced with disgust, as he eyed his teammates with disdain. “Bleeding disgraces, the lot of ye.”
“That asshole started it,” Danny snapped, pointing a finger at Gerard, who had thankfully managed to calm himself down. Being around Johnny had that effect on him. “We were having the craic and he flipped the fuck out.”
“You know what you did,” Gerard shot back, shoulders bristling with tension. “You know what you said about her.”
“It was banter, Gibs.”
“Well, your banter is shit, Danny.”
“Jesus Christ, I was trying to rise Biggs. She’s his sister.”
“Yeah, well, a little word of warning, you fuck with her, you fuck with me—”
“Listen, I don’t give a shite who started it. I’m finishing it,” Johnny barked, tone leaving no room for argument. “Whatever happened, forget it. It’s done with. It’s over. It ends now. Does anyone have an issue with that? Anyone still feeling the need to throw down? Because I’ll go outside right now with any bleeding bollox on my team that has an issue to clear up.”
“No,” Johnny replied coolly. “Didn’t think so.”
“I’ll take it from here, Johnny,” Mr. Twomey interrupted.
I watched as Johnny’s jaw ticked, but he didn’t react negatively to his dismissal. Instead, he offered our principal a clipped nod before rounding the table to return to his throne.
Taking Gerard with him, Johnny pushed him into Shannon’s usual chair and sank down beside him, keeping his arm resting on his friend’s shoulders the entire time.
“Now, I want every member of the rugby team involved in this altercation to remain seated,” Mr. Twomey instructed, phone in hand. “Everyone else can return to your classrooms. Now.”
