“Bestie!” Tossing my overnight bag on the floor, I pounced onto the delectable queen-sized bed that housed my pint-sized friend, and an ageing Labrador. “Give me a hug.”
“No, no, no, don’t jump on me – ahhh!” Tangled up in a heap of flailing limbs and rogue hair, Shannon stifled a laugh. “You’re in a good mood.”
“I am,” I agreed, rolling onto my side to give Sookie a belly rub. The old girl let out a contented groan and kicked out her legs. “You’re the sweetest baby in the world,” I cooed, feeling all squishy inside at the sight of her little gray beard around her snout. “She’s too much, Shan.”
“I know,” she agreed, closing the book she’d been reading. “She’s getting so stiff lately.” Worrying her lip, she flicked her gaze from the dog to me. “Let’s just hope she has another few years in her, huh?”
“Oh my god, can you imagine?” I shuddered in horror. Aside from the fact that I honestly didn’t think the Lynch siblings could take another death in the family, I dreaded to think about Johnny’s reaction on the day his faithful companion wasn’t here anymore.
Johnny was a careful person. He didn’t reveal a whole pile to anyone in our friendship circle that wasn’t named Shannon or Gerard, so it was hard to tell what he was thinking or feeling at times, but nobody could deny his undying love for the dog I was rubbing. I’d been over to his house several times a week since the Lynch kids moved in, and it was as plain as the nose on his face that he was just as besotted with his dog as he was his girlfriend.
His commitment to Sookie gave me comfort in a strange way. His mam had younger, more active, more complexional attractive dogs, but Johnny didn’t see Bonnie and Cupcake. He barely looked sideways at them. I thought that kind of devoted blind loyalty was an extremely beneficial trait.
In my mind, it meant that he wouldn’t be tempted to turn his head from the brunette in front of me, either. He had a level of dependability to him that none of the other boys in our friendship circle displayed. That’s how I knew they would be together forever.
What Johnny and Shannon had was permanent. They nurtured their relationship like it was of the greatest of importance to the both of them in equal measures. As sure as there was a cat in Cork, she would be the girl on his arm when he collected his Grand Slam medal, just like he would be the one in the crowd cheering her on when she collected her college degree.
They would do everything the right way, because that’s how Johnny was structured to behave, and Shannon thrived on his ability to balance life and do the right thing.
Their moral compasses were aimed in the same direction, and their hearts were set on each other. The trust they had in each other was faultless, and I imagined them many years into the future with a house in the countryside, similar to this one, with a pack of dogs roaming through the house and a bunch of children to nurture.
And if Johnny looked anything like his dad in thirty years, then Shannon was a lucky, lucky girl.
Yeah, Daddy K – or DILF as Lizzie and I had labeled him – was a beautiful creation of a man. I wasn’t sure if it was the tailored suits he wore or the mild-mannered persona that masked the aura of a powerful man that did it, but all of us girls were sold.
Shannon’s new digs sure beat the heck out of looking at mine or Lizzie’s dads, that’s for sure. Or worse, Hugh. Ew.
Joey and Aoife were another couple that I knew in my heart were endgame, but it wasn’t the same. They had a fiery temperament to them, almost like a ticking time bomb. Two wildcards thrust together in a friendship fueled by affection, camaraderie, and let’s face it, some seriously hot sex. You didn’t have a baby together in secondary school unless the boy was a stallion. And by God was Joey Lynch a stallion. They had a volatile hue to their love that wasn’t present in Johnny and Shannon’s relationship, which made me long for Shannon’s situation just that little bit more. After all, they seemed innocent enough. Unlike Joey and Aoife. Their relationship was like fire and ice. I knew few people, if any, who could endure what they had and come out on top.
I was so proud of Joey for all he had come through, but it scared me daily that he might relapse, so I couldn’t imagine how it felt to be the mother of his child and have so much of my life invested and entwined with his. It must be really scary to live with a boy who was always tempted by drugs. I guess that’s what true love was, though. It wasn’t perfect. It didn’t come in the perfect gift-wrapped box. It was messy and raw and pushed you to your absolute limits.
Perhaps Joey and Aoife’s limits just happened to stretch a little further out of the comfort zone than Johnny and Shannon’s. Who knew? Certainly not me, the girl who had kissed a grand total of two boys in her entire lifetime.
One being Jamie Kelleher.
The other being Gerard.
One was with tongues, and the other was with hearts. Well, my heart to be precise, because only Jesus himself knew where Gerard’s heart was at. He proclaimed his love for me on the daily, but it was almost habit-like at this stage. Kind of like the way you told your mam and dad you loved them before you left in the morning. A passing comment. A nice farewell. I wasn’t sure how deep it went for him, but for me, it was deeper than the ocean. I couldn’t break the surface of those feelings. I’d been trying for sixteen years.
“Hey, daydreamer, where’d you go?” Shannon teased, snapping her fingers in front of my face. “You totally zoned out there, didn’t you?”
“My bad,” I replied with a sheepish shrug. “But I’m back now. So, what’s on the sleepover agenda, bestie – and you better not say Johnny because I will be seriously miffed.”
“No, not Johnny,” she laughed. “He’s actually going to Biddies with the guys tonight.”
“He is?” My eyes widened. “They actually convinced him to go?”
“I think it was more coercion than convincing,” Shannon laughed. “I heard him arguing with Gibsie.” Snickering, she added, “Gibsie agreed to spend all of tomorrow working out with Johnny if he went to the pub with him tonight.”
“Oh, that poor innocent fool,” I mused, rolling onto my back. “Johnny’s going to kill him on the treadmill tomorrow.”
“Only if Gibs doesn’t kill Johnny with shots tonight first.”
Later that evening, curled up on the couch with an episode of The OC playing on the television, Aoife turned to look at us, and declared, “Girlies, while I adore your company, it’s Friday night and you’re only young once.” Smiling, she added, “Don’t you guys have something more fun in mind?”
“We were trying to watch a movie,” Shannon explained, waving a hand around as she spoke. “We had the popcorn ready and everything, but the boys wouldn’t stop breaking into my room.” After Tadhg, Ollie, and Sean’s six hundredth interruption, we had decided to escape to the annex. “You don’t mind if we join you, do you?”
“No, I don’t mind,” she laughed, patting the couch next to her. “You know you’re always welcome in here.”
“Yay.” Thrilled to be away from the boys, we both made a beeline for the couch, nestling under the blanket with Shannon’s big sis-in-law. “You’re the best.”
“Where’s Joe?”
“Upstairs showering,” she explained, unwrapping a Rolo chocolate from the packet resting on the arm of the couch. Gesturing to the sleeping baby on her lap, she smirked. “AJ had a poonami. Joe got caught in the crossfire.”
“Ew. My kittens don’t have poonamis.” I scrunched my nose up in disgust. “And if they do, it’s in their litter tray and Gerard cleans it for me.”
My response caused Aoife to throw her head back and laugh. “Yeah, well, human babies do it frequently, Claire, babe, so you might want to think about that before you partake in the devil’s tango with that stud of yours.”
“The devil’s tango?” I stared blankly at her. “Is that a euphemism for a dance routine or something?”
“Or something,” Shan replied, cheeks turning bright pink. “It’s a euphemism for, uh, intercourse.”
“Intercourse?” I gaped. “That’s what it’s referred to as?”
“Oh, my sweet summer child,” Aoife laughed with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “How much I could teach you about the world.”
“Then teach me, oh wise one,” I shot back with a grin. “I’m all ears.”
“Okay, this could actually be fun.” Aoife grinned. “The sex talk: Aoife Molloy style.”
“Molloy,” Joey warned, returning from his shower just in time to spoil the fun. “Whatever it is you’re thinking about telling them, don’t. They’re only in fifth year.”
“What were you up to when we were in fifth year, Joe?”
“I’m not the comparison here, Molloy,” he replied, breezing through his apartment in a low-hanging pair of gray sweatpants. Both of his arms were inked in an array of black loops and swirls that stopped at his wrists and disappeared beneath the sleeves of his black t-shirt.
“No—” Aoife smiled, eyes tracking him “—because you know damn well what kind of trouble you were getting into, Joe.”
“I think it’s pretty clear what I was getting into, Molloy,” he shot back without a hint of embarrassment, before gesturing to the baby she was cradling. “Let’s not encourage my baby sister and her friend to follow in our footsteps, yeah?”
“Relax, they’re both being safe,” she replied and then gave us both a look. “You are being safe, right, girls?”
“Right,” Shannon confirmed while I blurted, “I’m a virgin.”
“Good,” Joey approved, pointing the knife he was using to butter a slice of bread with at me. “Keep that shit up, Baby Biggs.”
I beamed back at him. “Thanks, Joe.”
“I knew I always liked that girl,” he told Shan, while pointing to me. “Keep her.” He turned back to me. “Lock and key, ya hear?”
“I hear you, Joe.”
“Before we even get into the fun parts of sex, I need to stress that condoms and birth control are a must,” Aoife quickly continued. “It’s not a matter of one or the other.” She eyed us knowingly. “It’s both, girls. It’s always both.”
“And fair warning,” Joey cut in. “If you’re puking on the pill, you’re unprotected.” Layering his bread with a slice of ham and then another slice of bread, he cut it in half. “And if you’re unprotected, you’re pregnant,” he added, strolling over to hand Aoife one half of the sandwich. “And if you’re pregnant, you’re a parent.”
“Thanks, stud,” Aoife replied, taking a bite of her sandwich before turning back to us. “And if you think your body miraculously bounces back after childbirth then you’re wrong. You are ruined down there, girls. Like seriously. I tore so bad, but another mam I knew was ripped from her vagina to her butthole.”
“Shut the front door!” I yelped, horrified. “Ew.”
“Hand on my heart.” Aoife pressed a hand to her chest, while she cradled her sleeping son with the other. “I’m telling no word of a lie here, girls. She was maimed.”
