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“Oh great,” Tadhg deadpanned “Fatty’s here.” “What did I tell you about calling me fat,” Gerard shot back, not missing a beat. “I’m big-boned, you little shit.”
“I told you not to pierce it, Gerard, but did you listen to me? No. No, of course you didn’t. Instead, you went right ahead and pierced it three more bleeding times!” “I was completing my ladder.” “Your ladder is a liability!”
Patrick growled, strolling in behind them with my brother. “I feel like I know more about the two of your bollocks than I do my own.”
“And you think I have problems,” Tadhg drawled sarcastically. “Tell you what, Joe. I’d rather be a Lynch than a bitch any day.” With that, Tadhg hitched his bag over his shoulder and sauntered out of the common room, flipping the bird as he went.
He didn’t know a damn thing about her love of fashion or her prized collection of stuffed animals. He had zero insight into her obsession with Johnny Depp, nor had he any inclination of the letter she
wrote to Leonardo DiCaprio when she was seven, asking him to visit Ballylaggin.
“What I don’t understand is why you’re not with her already,” Joey finally joined in the conversation by saying in a lazy tone.
“Agreed,” his future brother-in-law offered with a shrug. “From where I’m standing, she’s yours to lose, Gussie.”
“Hand on heart. She was in the same year as Caoimhe Young,”
“Despite my best efforts, I’ve grown regrettably attached to you.” Smirking, he added, “And all of your sixteen other personalities.”
I don’t know how to make it right. With my head bowed, and my shoulders rigid with tension, I stared down at the crumpled letter in my hands
Switchfoot’s “Only Hope” was as accurate as a song could be if I had to explain my feelings for her, but I would never play it for her.
this was so bad. She was too close. I was too fucking broken. “Gerard.” I blew out a pained breath. “Claire.” She pressed a lingering kiss to my cheek. “Hi.” “Hi.”
My body had been taken over by hormones, and I was currently at the mercy of the only boy I had ever loved.
Because I had fucked up. Because I’d tainted her. This beautiful, willful, loyal, and innocent girl. I’d put my hands on her when I had no right to and crossed the point of no return.
Ignoring Johnny’s words of warning, Joey looked to me and repeated, “Who are we fighting, Gussie?”
Opening the petrol cap of Kelleher’s car, he proceeded to dump the sugar inside, one spoon at a time until the bag was empty.
“My da’s going to kill me.” Biting down on his fist to stifle a whimper, Johnny shook his head and walked off in the direction of his car, looking like he was close to passing
out. All six foot five of him. “I’m a bleeding criminal.”
“Seems to me it was the least I could do.” “Oh?” I fell into step beside him. “How’d you figure?” “Aoife,” he explained, shoving his tools back into his schoolbag. “She told me what you did for her.”
He was such a rock to this family after Caoimhe’s passing.”
“Didn’t Lizzie tell you?” “Tell me what?” “We’ve separated.” I gaped at her. “You’ve what?” “Lizzie’s father moved out last Easter.”
“Mark Allen raped his girlfriend. His girlfriend who was my sister. He raped her, and then she killed herself because of it. Because she couldn’t live with what he did. And then he got to walk away and live his life while my sister’s defiled body rots in
the ground.” Tears trickled down her cheeks when she looked up at me. “She’ll never get to grow up. She’ll never turn nineteen. She’ll never get married and have children. She’ll never do any of the things he gets to do, and he never even said sorry!”
She had the horror story versed off by heart, the one that made Caoimhe the victim and him the monster, while all I had was a crumpled-up letter under my mattress and the truth.
“You could have come to me,” Hugh repeated, eyes locked on hers in what felt like a blazing stare-down. “You can always come to me.” He swallowed deeply, Adam’s apple bopping before whispering, “No matter what.”
Mark Allen was definitely guilty of something.
“I’m really sorry for what I’m about to tell you, but I think I just saw your ladder dangling between your legs.” “So?” A familiar chuckle came from the shower area. “You’ve seen my ladder before.” My heart raced harder at that. “Uh, not from that angle, I haven’t.”
“I want you to talk to me about how you’re feeling! I want you to open up to me, dammit!” “I can’t.” Devastation washed over me like a tidal wave. “Why not?” “Because I love you too much!”
“I promise you, from the bottom of my heart, your stepbrother never harmed Caoimhe Young.” My blood ran cold, and my entire body trembled. “Oh, you promise, do you?”
Shannon had been born to be a Kavanagh.
I was aghast I tell you, a-fucking-ghast, to see Jamie Kelleher sitting on my chair at the table.
“I mean it, Gibs. You need to let her go.” “Why?” “Why?” Now, he was the one to eyeball me. “Because you’ve been leading her on for years.” “I haven’t.” “You have, lad.”
“I love your sister,” I enunciated every word, knowing that it might lead me to an ass-kicking, but not caring either way. It was the truth. “I love your sister, Hugh.” “Not the right way,” he replied, reaching for his fork once more. “Not the way she needs you to.”
“You’re one to talk, Mister Seeing One Girl While Pining After Another One Entirely.”
After sixteen years of hanging on a limb, waiting for a boy who was never going to step forward for me, I was doing the right thing for myself and moving on. If it’s so right, then why does it feel so wrong?
“You are so frustrating!” “Me?” His eyes widened in outrage. “You’re the one in the relationship when you’re already in a relationship.” “I am not in a relationship, Gerard.” “Yes, you are,” he roared back at me. “With me!” “We are not together, Gerard.” “Yes, we are!” “I’m not yours.” “Well, I’m yours,” he came right back with. “I’m yours, Claire.”
“Because I’m afraid!” “Of what?” she demanded, pushing at my chest. “Huh?” She pushed me again. “What are you afraid of?”
“You, Claire,” I roared back at her, chest heaving. “I’m afraid of you!”
I was born and there you were, and I had these feelings. And they grew, Claire,” he roared, stalked toward me. “Holy shit did they grow!” Looking more furious than I’d seen him in years, he hooked an arm around my waist and pulled me roughly against him. “Like neon fucking lit-up boomerang feelings that keep coming back no matter how far I push them away!”
Desperately. Voraciously. Adoringly. Our lips collided in a frenzied hunger that had been building up for sixteen years and had finally bubbled over.
“Wow, Ols,” I grinned. “Fancy.” “I’m a barrister,” he explained, dressed in a designer suit, with sunglasses perched on his nose. He even had his hair slicked back like one of those corporate lawyers in the movies. “Like my dad.”
“Fuck knows where I’d be if you hadn’t moved to Ballylaggin.”
The minute Mark landed on Lizzie, she started to scream, and it was the worst, scariest, most feral noise I’d ever heard.
It was so fucking hard to hate her when Lizzie cried like that. When she made those sounds. Because I knew those sounds. Those sounds haunted my nightmares.
“Besides, I have it on good authority that weird is a side effect of epic.” He arched a dark brow. “I thought the phrase was awesome.”
“You’re good with words,” I offered. “When you use them.” “I use them,” he replied. “Not everyone listens.”
stopping to call out, “Get a room,” to the ridiculously attractive couple eating the
faces off each other in the stairwell on my way. “Mind your business,” Aoife called back, not bothering to release her hold on Joey. “As you were, Stud.”
hoping that the wind could somehow get my message to the one person I needed to reach most in the universe. If that’s even where he existed now. Who the fuck knew for sure?
