Binding 13 (Boys of Tommen, #1)

by Chloe Walsh

No one brought up the incident on the pitch that day. It was as if it had never happened. Honestly, if it weren’t for the lingering headache, I would have doubted it happened at all. Days turned into weeks but the silence remained. Nothing was ever said to me. It was never brought up again. I wasn’t a target. And I had peace.

I found myself beginning to look forward to going to school. It was the strangest turnabout of my life, considering for the majority of my life, I had loathed school, but Tommen had become almost like a safe place to be.

I even managed to pass most of my pre-junior cert exams, with the exception of math and business studies. No amount of studying seemed to help with those subjects.

Johnny is going to tutor her. I am calling it!

But I had scored my first A since first year in science, so I took comfort in that.

And she will be tutoring him

I’d never had this level of normality before. I’d never felt safe. But I was starting to. And I had a feeling he had something to do with it. Johnny Kavanagh.

I had seen him plenty of times since that day, having passed him countless times in the hallways between classes and in the lunch hall during break, and while he never approached me, he always smiled at me in passing.

He was in fifth year—something I already knew. He was originally from Dublin—again, no surprises there. He was incredibly popular—okay, so I didn’t know that but it didn’t take a genius to realize that, what with him being surrounded by students all the time. He was a massive hit among the female student body—again, a blind man could figure that out. And contrary to his terrible inaccuracy with the ball and his blatant maiming of me, he was supposed to be very good at rugby.

According to the girls, he was aggressive, intense, and a complete snob, with a body to die for and a horrible attitude. They made him out to be a cocky, rich rugby head who was obsessed with sports, played hard on the pitch, and fucked harder off it. Evidently much older girls were his thing.

How he had stayed with me until my mother came. The way he had touched me with big dirty, gentle hands. How he talked to me like he wanted to hear what I had to say. And then listened to my rambling like it was important to him. I remembered the embarrassing parts, too; the parts that kept me up late into the night with flaming cheeks and a mind full of disconcerting images and fumbling words.

There was an obvious, perfectly logical reason for my reaction toward him. He was beautiful.

Before him, I’d never been interested in the opposite sex. I’d never been interested in anyone. But him? I found myself seeking him out at school just so I could stare. It was creepy and stalkerish on my behalf but I honestly couldn’t help myself.

He seemed to drum to his own beat. He oozed confidence and had a no-fucks-given attitude that was ridiculously addictive. He forged his own path at school, and like most natural-born leaders, everyone else just followed along after him.

Thing was, whenever his eyes locked with mine, I never saw any of that fabricated machismo or his notorious glower.

However, on the rare occasion that I managed to steel myself and meet his stare, I was rewarded with a curious head tilt and a small twitching smile. I wasn’t really sure what to make of any of it, or how to feel.

Also, I wasn’t attached to him. I simply enjoyed admiring him. From a safe distance. When he wasn’t looking. Yeah, that wasn’t unhealthy at all.

Lolol

At BCS, we had a little canteen where people took turns sitting at the small round tables. Here at Tommen, it was a banquet hall with twenty-five-foot tables, hot meals on offer, and enough room to seat the entire school.

“It’ll be great,” Claire encouraged happily. “There’s a tub of Ben and Jerry’s in the freezer and I got the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie on DVD.” Waggling her brows, she added, “Johnny and Orlando, what girl can say no to that?” “Not you,” I laughed. Claire was obsessed with Johnny Depp.

“I love him,” she announced with a dreamy sigh. “I do. It’s real, hard-core love, and one day he’ll come to Ireland, see me, and instantly reciprocate my feelings. And then we’ll run away together and create adorable hybrid pirate babies.”

Me lol

“How’s it going, Claire-Bear?” a deep male voice asked, distracting us both. “Oh, hey, Gerard,” Claire acknowledged in a nonchalant tone as she looked up at the ginormous blond boy standing at the end of our table.

He was tall and tanned, with dirty-blond mussed-up hair, and clearly packing some serious muscle beneath his school uniform. I didn’t blame her for being affected by a boy who looked like that. Most girls would. Just not this girl. “Are you jealous?” Gerard teased, tone highly flirtatious. “You know you’re my number one.” “Spare me.” Claire fake gagged.

He leaned closer and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I always play better when I know you’re watching.”

He turned back to me and smiled again. “I’m Gerard Gibson,” he introduced himself. “But everyone calls me Gibsie.” “I don’t,” Claire tossed out airily.

“Gerard here is friends with my brother, Hugh. You remember Hughie, don’t you, Shan?” I nodded, clearly remembering Claire’s beautiful older brother. With light-blond hair and brown eyes, Hugh Biggs was the male equivalent of his sister, except with abs, masculine features, and the obvious boy parts. Hugh didn’t attend the same primary school as us, but he had always been friendly to me when I went to their house. He was one of the few boys aside from Joey that I didn’t feel on edge around.

“Unfortunately.” “Come on, Claire-Bear,” he teased. “Is that any way to talk about the guy who gave you your first kiss?” “That was the result of an unfortunate game of spin the bottle,” she shot back, cheeks turning pink as she glared up at him. “And I’ve told you a million times to stop calling me that.” “It’s all a show,” Gibsie informed me with a huge grin. “She loves me really.”

Hehe

My entire focus was on the pair of blue eyes that were staring right back at me. Usually, when he caught me staring, I would look away or duck my face, but this time I couldn’t. I felt snared. Completely and utterly ensnared in his gaze.

“I expect to see pom-poms and the words I heart Gibsie in neon letters across your tits next week at the School Boy Shield final,” was all I managed to catch Gibsie saying before he waved us off and jogged away.

“He’s a little strange.” “He’s a whole lot into you,” I stated, grateful for the distraction from my thoughts. “Gerard likes everyone,” she replied with a heavy sigh. “Well, everyone with a vagina.”

Lolololol

“He’s a player. A total fecking player. He rides anything in a skirt,” she added. “They all do.” “They?” “The lads on the rugby team,” she explained. “With the exception of Hugh—and possibly Patrick.” I scrunched my nose up. “Oh.”

“And the only reason Gerard carries on like that with me is because I’m Hughie’s little sister and he knows he can’t have me.”

“What about you?” I asked, tone gentle. “What’s it to you?” Claire chewed on her bottom lip for several seconds before whispering, “Torment.” That was all the clarification I needed to confirm my suspicions. Claire liked Gerard—or Gibsie—or whatever his name was.

“Boys with pretty eyes and big muscles mess everything up for girls,” Claire huffed. “Yep,” I agreed weakly. “They certainly do.” “What are we like?” Claire chuckled half-heartedly. “Both liking the worst possible thing for us.”

Shannon Lynch had eyes the color of midnight blue that wouldn’t stay the fuck out of my head. At least that’s the closest comparison I could find on the countless internet searches I had performed. Color chart searches on the internet were confusing, but not nearly as baffling as my fucked-up brain that, like a broken record, seemed to be stuck on repeat.

My brain’s track of choice: Shannon like the river, with the gorgeous blue eyes, face of an angel, and the troubled past.

I didn’t speak to her, and I didn’t approach when I saw her between classes or in the lunch hall during break. I kept a wide-ass berth of that girl and the complications that seemed to follow her. But as pissed as I was, I still kept an eye out for her in the hallways.

Call it being overly protective of a vulnerable girl or call it something else, but I kept my ears open when it came to Shannon Lynch and shut down any shite that may be an issue, making sure she had a smooth transition into Tommen.

Shannon was liked at Tommen. Teachers liked her. Students liked her. I fucking liked her. That was the problem.

Besides, she had her own little bodyguards in the form of the two blonds that always seemed to be flanking her wherever she went. I recognized the more protective one of the two girls as the sister of Hughie Biggs, our team’s fly half, and one of my closest friends. The other blond was the on-off girlfriend of Pierce O’Neill, another teammate of mine.

Throwing myself into my routine, I attempted to ignore and forget about Shannon, choosing to concentrate on the game and ignore all distractions around me—pussy being the most dangerous kind of distraction. I really fucking tried.

Ahhhhh

Too fucking many of the eejits in my year were talking about her, thinking about her, and plotting about her, and it drove me batshit crazy.

Messing around with younger girls was dangerous. Which is why this particular girl was pissing me off so much. The minute I laid eyes on her, something had hit me hard in the chest. Something unfamiliar and disconcerting.

Over a month had passed and I was still reeling. We were into February and I was still silently obsessing over Shannon like the river.

“Because this is serious.” “I’m listening,” I told him, dragging in a gulp of air and expelling it slowly. “Confess away.” “I have an insane urge to kick you in the balls—” Gibsie puffed out a ragged breath before he finished with, “And break what’s left down there.”

LMAOOOOOOO

“There is no goddamn way any fella in your position”—he pointed a finger at me and then sagged forward, pressing his hands to the back of his head—“with a broken dick should be able to run for this long without dropping dead.”

“My dick’s not broken, asshole,” I growled, looking around to see if anyone heard us. Thankfully, the rest of the team is at the other side of the pitch. “I want a picture of it,” he wheezed. “So I can show Coach and pretend it’s mine. He’ll never make me run again.”

Rugby was my life. This was all I had.

I hadn’t realized Gibsie had followed me up the path until I heard him let out an earsplitting wolf whistle. “You’re looking well, Claire-Bear!”

“What was that?” Claire called back, cupping her ear with her hand. “I can’t hear you.” “Go out with me!” “Get stuffed, Gerard!” “You know you want to,” Gibsie laughed, twiddling his fingers at her in salute. “My little brown-eyed girl.”

LMAOOOOOOOOO

“Don’t do it, Gerard!” Claire’s face turned bright red. “Don’t you dare sing that—” Gibs cut her off with a verse of Van Morrison. “I hate you, Gerard Gibson!” Claire hissed when he was done serenading her like a demented crow. “And I love you, too,” he said, laughing, before turning his attention to me and stifling a groan.

“I swear to god, lad, that girl drives me crazy.” “You’re already crazy,” I reminded him. “You don’t need anyone’s help with that.” “Look at her, Johnny,” he groaned, ignoring my jab. “Look at how beautiful that girl is. Chr...

“But I’ve a feeling that I’m going to marry her.” His comment stopped me in my tracks. “What?” It was too weird. Even for him.