“Morning,” Johnny acknowledged when I unzipped the opening of my tent the following morning and was greeted by the delicious smell of a fry-up cooking. “You look fresh.”
He was right. Not only was I feeling fresh, but I was looking it, too. My hair, for some miraculous reason, had decided to comply with my wishes this morning without a hint of frizz – not a usual occurrence for a girl with my texture. “That’s because I’m made of steel,” I explained, joining him at the makeshift firepit, where he was cooking. “Seriously, I never get hangovers.”
“Because you never drink.”
“I drink.”
He arched a knowing brow.
“Okay,” I conceded with a rueful smile, sitting down. “I’ve drank three times before and I’ve never once had a headache.”
“Well, you might want to pass your secret on to your best friend.” Humor filled his tone as he gestured towards his tent. “Because she’s dying a small death in there.”
I winced in sympathy. “Poor Shan.”
“She’ll be okay.” Chuckling softly, he used a fork to turn the meat on the disposable grill. “Nothing a few sausages won’t cure.”
“Aw. You score tries and make breakfast.” I smiled. “You’re such a keeper.”
“Do I smell sausages?” Clambering out of my tent, Gerard sniffed the air like a deranged Doberman. “Lifesaver, Cap,” he declared, bounding over to us in his underpants. “Fucking lifesaver.”
The moment my eyes landed on him, a ripple of heat ignited inside of my belly.
Johnny might be taller and ripped to within an inch of his life, and Hugh and Patrick might resemble Josh Hartnett and Ryan Phillippe with finely cut, washboard abs, but I swear I’d never seen anything quite like Gerard Gibson.
He was built and broad, with gloriously sun-kissed skin and the most amazing pearly white smile. His eyes were like pools of gray marble you could fall into, and he was just so downright snuggly.
When we were little, our mothers used to refer to him as a little cherub because he was adorably chubby with blond hair and big ole gray eyes.
And sure, he was big and strong now, with muscles in all the right places, but there was still a slight softness to his physique that made him just that little bit more human.
Unlike the rest of the boys in our group, Gerard wasn’t afraid to break his diet or skip the gym if he felt inclined. He did what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it and made no qualms about it.
Cheat meals and skipped gym sessions aside, he had the best ass of all the boys. Hands down, there was no competition. Gerard Gibson could fill a pair of Calvin Klein boxer shorts better than any other boy at Tommen.
Johnny, Hugh, and Patrick were all backs in rugby, which meant they needed speed and agility. On the contrary, Gerard played the position of flanker in the forwards, where physical dominance was far more vital than speed. On the team, he was a glorified battering ram and had the stocky build to match the job.
Honestly, I knew I might be biased, but Johnny Kavanagh’s impressive eight-pack, or Patrick Feely’s adorable smile, didn’t hold a flame to this boy.
Not in my eyes, at least.
Because this boy had always been my favorite boy.
My favorite friend, person, human, everything.
Even when we were little, and even though he despised it, he would humor me by playing Barbies with me. Sure, he would bring along his action figures and cause as much destruction as possible to my Barbie house, but he still played with me.
It never bothered him when his other friends laughed at him for playing with a girl, and he never ignored me.
Not one single time in sixteen years.
Not even when it made him less cool with Hugh and the boys.
It didn’t matter to Gerard.
He always made me feel like I was his first priority.
His number one friend.
From Gerard Gibson, I had been given the friendship of a lifetime that consisted of humor, loyalty, comfort, and affection.
It was for those and many other countless reasons that I found myself relentlessly clinging to the hope that we would someday take the next step.
That our friendship would progress to more.
Like last night, for example. We’d spent half of the night up talking, and the entire time I’d been mentally willing him to kiss me, and not because the bottle landed on me in a stupid game when we were kids. Because our first kiss might have been an innocent peck coerced by a spinning bottle, and I wanted more now.
I wanted him to want me, dammit.
The way I wanted him …
“Get back,” Johnny warned, using an arm to guard the food from his boisterous buddy. “And put some pants on, will you?”
“I’m only trying to smell it,” Gerard argued, leaning over his shoulder.
“Well, don’t – hey, back up. I’m serious, Gibs. Don’t stand over an open flame like that. You’re going to get your dick splattered with grease, you eejit.”
“Aw,” I cooed, grinning at the pair of them. “Look at you being all chivalrous protecting your best friend’s willy.”
“Oh, he’s a true blue, alright,” Gerard agreed, while he managed to swipe a rasher off the grill. “Always the hero.”
“Thief,” Johnny grumbled.
Snickering to himself, Gerard stuffed the crispy string of bacon into his mouth before joining me on a nearby log. “How’s my little diesel generator?” He slung one big arm over my shoulders and pulled me into his side. “No need to ask if you slept well.”
“Me?” I laughed, digging his ribs. “Gerard, you snore so loud it’s like a cement mixer going off in bed.”
“Nah, babe, that’s yourself you’re hearing.”
“You’re both as bad as each other,” Johnny chimed in. “Our tent is next to yours. I could hear ye all bleeding night. Like an old married couple. Communicating through snores in your sleep, the pair of ye.”
“Hey, don’t judge our love language,” Gerard shot back with a wolfish grin. “At least we don’t keep everyone up fucking each other’s brains out.”
“Gerard!”
“With feelings,” he deftly added, holding a finger up. “Fucking with feelings.”
“No,” Johnny agreed, not missing a beat, as he turned the meat once more. “Because you’re too busy cracking jokes like a pair of babies.”
“At least we’re not making babies, lad.”
“Sure, Gibs, whatever you say.” Rolling his eyes, Johnny let Gerard’s teasing go clear over his head like he was immune to his banter. “Call the others, will you? Grub’s up.”
Twenty minutes later, the entire gang were all sitting around the camp, stuffed as baby piglets, after devouring Johnny Kavanagh’s glorious offerings.
“Hey, guys? If we were in the Dark Ages, do you think we’d still be friends?”
“Huh?” Patrick mused with a chuckle. “Care to evaluate on that, Baby Biggs?”
“What I mean to say is if we were all cave people and none of today’s modern technology existed—” I paused to lick a tiny sprinkle of tomato ketchup off my knuckle before continuing “—and Ballylaggin was the village we all came from, do you think our friendship group would form their own tribe?”
“What did you smoke in that tent with him?” my brother accused, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “Because this is weird, Claire, even for you.”
“What?” I laughed. “It’s a valid question.”
“How in the name of God is that a valid question?”
“Hell yeah we’d be a tribe,” Gerard interrupted, tossing a piece of toast at my brother. “And while the rest of us were out hunting down dinner, you’d be the bitch digging holes for us to shit in.”
“More like to bury you in,” Hugh shot back with a smirk.
“I think we would be,” Shannon offered, still looking a little worse for wear from last night’s antics. Lounging on her boyfriend’s lap with his hoodie swamping her small frame, she folded the sleeves up absentmindedly as she spoke. “At least, I would hope to be in your tribe.”
I smiled warmly back at her. “Always, chickie.”
“I would be a nomad,” Lizzie chimed in, taking a bite of her toast. “But I’d pop in every once in a while to visit.”
“Oh my God, what are you eating?” Katie blurted out of nowhere, causing everyone to turn their attention to where she was looking. Which just so happened to be Lizzie. “What the hell is that on your toast?”
“Marmite,” Lizzie drawled slowly, taking another bite.
Katie gaped in horror. “That’s so wrong!”
“Maybe for you.”
“Why don’t you try something normal instead?”
“And what’s your definition of normal?”
“I don’t know.” Katie smiled. “Jam, or marmalade, or chocolate spread?”
Lizzie’s eyes narrowed and my butt cheeks began to sweat.
Uh-oh.
Code red, I tried to send a telepathic warning to my brother’s girlfriend. Code red. Code red. Retreat now, dammit!
“And why would I want to do that?” Lizzie asked in an icy tone. “When I like Marmite?”
“Uh … I don’t know,” Katie mumbled, withering under Lizzie’s forceful stare. “It was just a suggestion. Sorry.”
“If I wanted suggestions from people, I would ask my actual friends,” Lizzie bit out.
“Stop,” Hugh intervened, taking the brunt of Lizzie’s glare, and meeting it head on with one of his own. “She didn’t mean any harm.”
“Jesus,” Pierce chuckled, clearly trying to break the tension, “talk about becoming what you eat.” Reaching over, he ruffled his girlfriend’s hair. “Don’t worry, babe, I love eating Marmite.”
“Ha. Funny,” Lizzie drawled, smacking his hand away. “Touch my hair again and lose your fingers.”
“I was only joking, Liz, chill.”
“And while you’re at it, go fuck yourself.”
“Jesus, you clearly can’t take a joke anymore.”
“Oh, I can take a lot of things, Pierce,” Lizzie countered coolly. “I’m just choosing not to take anything from you. Not your jokes. Not your dick. Not your shit … can you tell where this is leading?”
Oh dear.
Three. Two. One …
“Now, hold the fuck up!”
“Hey, don’t talk to her like that.”
“Don’t defend me. I can speak for myself!”
So much for peace.
What had been a relatively quiet night in camp quickly morphed into a battleground before my eyes.
Sighing wearily, I rested my chin on my hand and listened as everyone argued around me. Glancing around, I locked eyes on Shannon and smiled when she offered me a sympathetic wince.
We were in the same boat.
Shan didn’t want to be around this crazy drama, either.
Maybe we should make our own tribe and live in the woods.
“Why do you always look so fucking happy,” Lizzie accused then, turning her attention on Gerard. “It’s nauseating.”
“Not half as nauseating as having to look at your sour puss,” Gerard shot back, unwilling to back down or give her a pass. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist with me because you’re having a tiff with lover boy.”
“Hey,” Katie interjected, valiantly stepping in to try to squash their beef before it blew up like it had done a million times before, “let’s be nice today, okay? Sticks and stones, guys.”
“Yeah, because sticks and stones will break my bones and words will make me starve myself to death.” Lizzie narrowed her eyes. “Isn’t that how the saying goes?”
“Huh? What are you talking about?” I argued, brows creased in confusion. “It’s: words will never hurt me.”
Without a word, Katie stood up and walked away from the circle, and then, with a devastated look on his face, Hugh stood up and hurried after her.
“Am I missing something?” I asked, turning to Gerard.
“No fucking clue, Claire-Bear,” he replied with a shrug before retraining his attention on Lizzie. “Jesus, you are mean as hell.”
“No, asshole,” Lizzie snapped back, rising to her feet, “I’m just honest.”
“She’s not a bad person, guys,” Shannon urged from the backseat of Gerard’s Ford Focus. The tents had been packed away, the litter had been collected, and a temporary friendship treaty had been signed before everyone left the beach this morning, all going their separate ways until we reunited next week at school. “Hurt people hurt people,” Shannon continued. “She’s a hurt person. A hurt – but very redeemable – person.”
“Nobody said she was a bad person,” I answered, fiddling with the car stereo. “But she definitely pushes boundaries.”
“I can agree with that,” Shannon offered diplomatically. “But pushing boundaries doesn’t make you bad.”
“I hear what you’re saying, Shan,” Johnny added. “But for me, I find it really hard to tolerate Lizzie’s behavior when I’ve seen how you carry yourself.” Shifting around in the backseat, he draped a protective arm around her shoulder. “You’ve been hurt more than anyone I’ve ever known, and still, you spread kindness. You wouldn’t harm a fly – and certainly not intentionally.”
Shan blushed bright red and ducked her face. “That’s not always true.”
“Yeah, it is,” he countered, tipping her chin up so she looked at him. “Baby, I’ve watched you get stung by a bee and not retaliate.”
“Because we need to save the bees!” Shannon urged.
“There it is,” he replied, and then caught my gaze in the rearview mirror. “My point is real motion.”
“Can we please stop talking about the viper?” Gerard begged from the driver’s seat. “Honestly, lads, I love the three of you, but if ye don’t shut the fuck up about that girl, I’m going to open the door of this car and throw myself out.”
“Then pull the car over first,” Johnny replied. “In fact, do you want to just pull over now and let me drive?”
“Nope, I’m perfectly capable of driving my own car, Jonathan.”
“Gibs, lad, you’ve coasted over the middle line three times already,” Johnny tried to coax. “I really think I should drive.”
“Alright.” Using one hand to steer the car, Gerard reached behind him with his free hand and held his thumb up in challenge. “Fight me for it.”
Johnny laughed. “By thumb wrestling you?”
“Are you scared you’ll lose?”
“Get ready to be a backseat bitch, Gibs.” Assuming position, Johnny linked hands with Gerard and smirked. “One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war.”
“Five, six, seven, eight, I use this hand to masturbate.”
“Gerard,” I yelped at the same time Shannon choked out, “Gibsie!”
“And that’s the end of the thumb war,” Johnny muttered, abruptly dropping Gerard’s hand. He wiped his hand off his shorts and shuddered. “You win.”
“Who’s the backseat bitch now?” Gerard laughed, cranking up the volume of the stereo. The Offspring’s “Original Prankster” blasted from the speakers, causing Gerard to bop his head like a madman, while Johnny and Shan clung to their seats in terror. I wasn’t scared, though. I trusted this boy with my life. Gerard wouldn’t kill me. After all, he’d promised to marry me before we both died.
Thoroughly engrossed in his drum pattern, Gerard slapped his hands against the steering wheel of his Focus, while he sang at the top of his lungs about knocking down walls.
“Lad, shut the fuck up,” Johnny strangled out from the backseat when Gerard slowed at the traffic lights to serenade an elderly lady standing at the zebra crossing.
“You little hooligan,” the old lady shouted back at him, shaking her fist.
“Oh my god,” I laughed, twisting sideways in my seat just as the lights went green and Gerard floored it. “She’s still waddling after us.”
“Maybe she wants me,” he shot back, winking at me.
I waggled my brows. “Maybe she needs to get in line.”
“Gibs, slow the bleeding car down!” Johnny barked as he placed a protective hand over Shan’s middle. “If you kill me, I swear to Christ, I’ll come back and kill you!”
“How can you come back to kill me if you’re already dead?”
“Where there’s a will there’s a relative,” Johnny shot back, draping a protective arm over his girlfriend. “Trust me, Gibs, I’d find a way.”
