Everything felt like it was upside down.
I knew that statement didn’t make sense, but it was how my life felt since the winter ball. Keith was gone, my mother was in manic helicopter-mother mode, and I was slowly losing my shit one hug at a time.
I wanted my mother’s attention and affection about as much as I needed it, which was not at all.
Because it made it worse.
Because it made it more real.
My secret was out, the whole world knew, and I couldn’t change the narrative. I was a publicly proclaimed victim and I fucking loathed it.
The thought of school on Monday was almost too much to take, and I honest to God had no idea how I was going to face the team. In truth, I had a strong inclination to sell my soul for a rewind and erase button.
“Are you sure you’re warm enough, pet?” Mam asked late Saturday night when she walked into the sitting room to check on me for the hundredth time.
“Yes, Mam.”
“I can put another block on the fire.”
“It’s warm enough, Mam.”
“Are you sure now, love? Because I don’t want you to be cold.”
“Mam, all I’m short of is a fucking apple in my mouth and you could roast me on a spit,” I shot back, gesturing to the roaring fire in the fireplace, and then to the fact that I was clad in a pair of shorts. “Relax, will you? I’m grand.”
The concern in her eyes assured me that she had no intention of ever relaxing again. “What about you, Claire, pet?” Mam’s attention flicked to the blonde leaning over the coffee table opposite me, trying to block my view of the dice she rolled in our current game of Snakes and Ladders.
“I’m grand, thanks, Sadhbh,” Claire replied, tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth, as she craftily skipped over a snake on the board game. “I’m roasting, actually.”
“Cheater,” I accused, snatching her counter, and pushing it down the snake. “You rolled a four.”
“I rolled a five,” she argued, but it was a half-hearted argument, because she was the world’s worst liar with two apples for cheeks that gave her away. “Don’t make me go down the snake, Gerard.”
“It’s not me,” I laughed, holding my hands up. “It’s the rules of the game.”
“Then break the rules,” she encouraged, giving me a pleading look. “For me?”
Rolling my eyes, I gave in and set her counter down on her chosen spot.
“You’re the best,” she cheered, shimmying and dancing on the spot before snatching up the dice again.
“Hey, it’s my turn.”
“Yay! Two sixes.” Ignoring me, Claire moved her counter up another ten spots before offering me a gleeful smile. “I love playing with you.”
I’m sure she did. Since our truce on New Year’s Eve, that’s all we seemed to do. Play board games where she cheated, and I indulged her. It was almost like nothing had changed between us.
Almost.
But it was still there, my secret still hanging heavily in the air between us, and it couldn’t be fixed. She was Claire and I was still me, but we had somehow fallen back into the friendship version of us rather than the couple. I wasn’t sure if that was my fault or because she wasn’t comfortable with me anymore. It was a mindfuck that I didn’t like to think too deeply about. Hence the board games. But one stark conclusion I had come to in the middle of the madness was this: I might not know who I was or where I fit in the world, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I didn’t want any of it without Claire Biggs.
Or Cap.
“Right, well, I’ll be out in the kitchen if either of you need me,” Mam said before reluctantly retreating from the room.
I waited for her to close the sitting room door behind her before blowing out a breath. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take, Claire-Bear.”
“Sadhbh’s just worried about you,” she replied, rolling the dice for a third time in a row, and then purposefully skipping another snake she landed on. “Don’t be mad at her, Gerard.”
“I’m not mad,” I replied, leaning against the couch. “I’m just … ” Shrugging my shoulders, I blew out a frustrated breath. “I’m aggravated.”
“With your mam?”
“With the world.”
Smiling sweetly, she batted her big brown eyes. “Even me?”
“Especially you.” A reluctant smile spread across my face. “You’re the worst culprit.”
Snickering, Claire stuck her tongue out, and I swear the mere sight of her caused a swelling sensation to my heart that could be mistaken for medical complications. Lucky for me, I knew these chest pains were a direct result of the repercussions of love.
Because I loved her.
Jesus, I loved her with every bit of me.
This past week, she hadn’t left my side, even though I was shit craic right now. It didn’t matter to Claire. There were plenty of unspoken conversations I knew we had yet to have, but I wasn’t willing, and she wasn’t pushing. I didn’t know if I would ever be ready for the conversations I knew would need to happen in our future, but for now, we seemed to have settled on a vague – albeit throat-baring – common ground.
“You’re staring,” she informed me in a teasing tone.
“Am I not allowed to?” I tossed back and the question seemed to stump her. Worse than stump her, it caused her to suck in a sharp breath. Because this was the first time either of us had crossed that particular threshold since that kiss in her kitchen.
Tilting her head to one side, she eyed me carefully. “Are you flirting with me, Gerard Gibson?”
Was I?
Of course I was.
But could I handle the repercussions?
Time would tell.
Feeling a little exposed and a whole lot vulnerable, I shrugged helplessly. “Am I not allowed to?”
“That depends.”
“It does?” My brows shot up. “On what?”
“On how quickly we escape your mother and get across the street.” Grinning devilishly, she leapt to her feet and held her hand out to me. “Because your mam is like a sniffer dog, and I am in dire need of some X-rated, Gerard Gibson snuggles.”
Well, shit.
She didn’t need to tell me twice.
Springing off the couch like a boomerang returning to its owner, I took her hand in one hand, and offered her a sailor’s salute with the other. “Lead the way, captain.”
“Okay, but before we go ninja stealth mode, I just want you to know that I am deliriously in love with you, find you ridiculously sexy, like seriously, super-duper sexy, and have no plans to push you for anything more than you’ve given me.” Her words came out fast and furious, like an admission she’d been holding in for a long time. Reaching up, she cupped my face with her hands and pushed up on her tiptoes. “Because I have everything I need standing right in front of me.” She pressed a soft kiss to the corner of my mouth. “We’ve got all the time in the world for the sad parts.” When she pulled back, she smiled devilishly. “Right now, I’m thinking we should concentrate on the happy parts.”
“Oh yeah?” I grinned down at her. “What happy parts were you thinking we should focus on?”
“Well.” She grinned mischievously up at me. “I was thinking I could concentrate on your ladder, if you focused on my tree.”
“I’m in,” I declared without a hint of wavering. “Fair warning, though, my ladder is already semi-erected.”
“We’ll see.”
“Fuck me!”
Forty minutes later, I was back in her room, back in her bed, with my clothes discarded on her bedroom floor, and her naked body draped on top of me.
“Is this okay?” Claire breathed against my lips. “Me touching you like this?”
“It’s all okay,” I groaned, reveling in the feel of her hands on my body. “More than okay.”
“I’m right here with you.” Rocking on top of me in the most primal of ways, she took my hands and placed them on her skin. “It’s just you and me.”
Unable to stand the pressure in my chest another second, I sat straight up, and readjusted her on my lap. The move caused us both to groan in pleasure. It was so much deeper like this.
In every way.
“You make me feel like it’s possible,” I heard myself tell her, as our bodies continued to move in perfect rhythm.
“Hm?” A bead of sweat trickled down her neck and I followed it as it trailed between her breasts. “Like what’s possible?”
“Like everything is going to be okay again.” Tightening my hold on her hips, I moved faster, feeling that familiar surge of urgency taking over my body. “Like I’m going to be okay.”
“Because it is,” she urged, her words a breathless rasp, as she gripped my shoulders and rocked her hips furiously against mine. “Because you are.”
“Yeah.” Breathing hard and ragged, I cupped the back of her head and pulled her forehead to mine. “But you make me believe it.”
“Gerard, I … I … ” Her words faded but her eyes never left mine when she started to tremble. Her body jerked and spasmed, and just like dominos crashing, I followed right along with her.
When I blinked my eyes awake on Sunday morning, I was greeted by the sight of a pair of mischievous brown eyes looking at me.
“Whoa,” I choked out, almost having a goddamn heart attack from how close said eyes were to my face.
“Morning,” Claire chirped, as she sat cross-legged on her bed watching me, with a megawatt smile etched on her pretty face. “Guess what you did last night.”
“Took you to heights of pleasure you never knew existed?”
“Okay, guess what else you did last night.”
“What did I do?”
“You slept!” Shuffling around with barely constrained excitement, she clapped her hands together. “For three straight hours!” Her smile widened. “No nightmares. No sleepwalking. Just sleeping. I watched.”
“You … watched?”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded before adding, “You were right about the snoring, by the way. Unfortunately, I am the culprit.”
“Told you so,” I mused, pulling myself into a sitting position. “Now, can we rewind to the part where you admitted to creeper-watching me while I slept?”
“Oh please.” She rolled her eyes. “Like you haven’t watched me sleep a million times.”
“I don’t watch you sleep, Claire, I listen to you sleep. The entire house does.”
“Oh my God, stop. I am not that loud,” she huffed, slapping my arm. “Besides—” she winked “—I have it on good authority that I have a cute snore.”
“Whoever told you that was trying to get in your knickers.”
“Well, he got in my knickers last night.”
“And what a lovely pair they were.”
Snickering, she reached for a pillow and then proceeded to hit me upside the head with it. “Come on, Gerard Gibson,” she said, leaning in to press a kiss to my cheek. “Take a walk with me.”
